I was hoping to get some input on these classes. A buddy and I are considering flying out and taking these two classes:

911 Engine Overhaul Classes - $600
911 Tune-up Classes - $150

http://www.911handbook.com/classes_engine.html

Has anyone taken these classes? Is it worth the time and money? I am considering dropping a 2.7 or 3.2 into my 914 either this winter or next and I would like to be able to do a lot of the work myself, but I have little to no experience with a project of this magnitude.

Any insight would be great.

Thanks!!

You might consider contacting Wayne at Pelican parts. He took the engine rebuild course.

James

I've done the tuneup and transmissions classes.

The Woods shop is about 5 mins from my house, so there are no travel issues for me.

It was over a year a go, so I'll have to dig up my posts to rennlist.

The technical parts of the classes (which is 90% of it) are taught by Woods. I though he was amazing. You don't often meet someone with that much depth on all areas of the car, or has been involved in so many racing teams. He's best known for Pcar stuff Is suppose, but he was on a Ferrari team the year I took the tranny class.

Off the top of my head -- the tuneup class is aimed at 911 owners with some amount of techinical know how. I'm guessing that for a lot of the folks on this board, about half would be new information. (wild guess of course) iirc, it's usually on the saturday following the engine class, so I'd probably stay for it if I flew out for the engine class. Not sure if I'd fly out for it by itself.

The tranny class was excellent. iirc, two days, and we took apart and reassembled 4 trannys. (well almost -- the g50 was sort of a fake reassembly)

I'll dig up my class summaries and post 'em.

James mentioned that Wayne took the class. I believe he posted a review over at Pelican in the tech articles section.

kim.

If you want to do most of your own work you MUST take these classes. Jerry has so many tricks that are not in any book. Plus he will show you many of the "must do" things that are unique the the 911 and the transmissions.

Ken

Wayne posted about the class after he took it. You can find it on the Pelican 911 board.

yes, i took the engine rebuild class, and yes, it's worth the time & money IMO. if you figure a 911 rebuild is $6000 (probably a little on the low side) then a 10% class for insurance is worth it.

in my case, i learned several things that would probably have cost me much more than $600 to learn on my own. and there is nothing like actually -seeing- something done. i don't know that i'd have been willing to rebuild my chain tensioners without having taken the class, but i'll be doing that this weekend.

just MHO.

Thanks for the all the insight!

I have an understanding of what the parts do, but not a clue on tolerances, beyond tune-up numbers.

What should I know before I decide to take this class?

(For instance, I've never built a motor before..)



M

if you don't plan to own or work on an aircooled Porsche flat-6, it's probably an expensive extravagence, although just on entertainment and general information value alone it's probably worth the money if the history of the engine is interesting to you (and BTW - Jerry and Bruce did a lot of work with 914's in the early days - and built a lot of T-IV's including several of Rick Mears' Pike's Peak cars...).

if you plan to rebuild an engine, or speak intelligently with someone who will be doing one at your direction, it's great. if you're a 'checkbook mechanic' type who doesn't want to know anything about internals, you may not get much from the class.

i've been interested in flat-6 things for a long time, so it's a little hard to have a feeling for what prerequisites make sense. having read Frere's "911 Story" might not be a bad idea, having read through Anderson's book could be good, and reading Pelican Wayne's 'rebuild and modify' book is probably good too.

when i took the class, i -thought- i was weeks away from starting the buildup of a 2,7RS-spec engine; i'd bought the core longblock and was ready to begin. (but a couple of life-changing experiences occured and my plans changed...) i think i could do it now, although a refresher would probably be a good idea (much harder now that i'm a continent away ...)

although i'd done a lot of reading and research on 911 engines, i went with an open mind and leaarned that some of the things i thought i knew were wrong - or at least - were no longer true - such is the advancement of technology and technique. at that time, i never imagined i'd be dealing with a MFI engine - and now i'm driving a 911E. ya just never know.

having the factory workshop manuals is good, but some of those have been vastly superceded by 30 years of materials, tools, and techniques development. Wayne's book is actually pretty good.

it -is- a complicated engine, but it is not rocket science. mostly, it's a matter of attention to detail and getting things done in the right sequence, with the right materials.

what should you know -- well - you should know what you expect to get out of the class (i am not being facetious). there are SO many piston / cylinder / rod / head / port / bore / stroke / camshaft / compression / induction / exhaust (etc) combinations and you will not leave the class knowing everything Bruce and Jerry have learned about optimising a setup. but if you have a goal - even a general one - it will help you stay focussed. i went with a list of 30 specific questions. by Friday afternoon all but 4 or 5 had been answered in the course of presenting the material - have a little patience - the material is presented in the order and way it is for a reason - if you try to skip around you'll lose the sense of sequence. i asked my final specific questions during the wrapup Q&A session and went away with a good feeling.

you should have a general idea of how engines work, and the names of the parts and the tools - just so you won't be overwhelmed by the terminology.

that's about the best i can do with such an open-ended question - if you want some more directed information just say what you're looking for ...

I'll add my support to ArtechnikA's.

I took the tranny class. I learned a ton. I was not all that well prepared -- and I learned a ton. And looking back, if I'd read a bit more, I'd have learned a different ton, and been further ahead. The more you can read and dig into ahead of time, the more you will absorb while you are there.

A very large part of the value of these classes is taking it from these guys. They have been involved in a big part of the porsche history that we all wish we knew as we work on our cars. (I am digging -- I've found most of my tuneupclassnotes.... lol)

kim.

Really! That was the response I can use! Thanks so much.

I learn things very quickly from sight, maybe I should buy a clunker cheap motor to practice concepts before, and after.

I am going to be working on my own, I like the thought of building it, I just don't have the background.

MFI is a must


Sounds like a neat idea that didn't really grab me last time.

Thanks.


M

Ah, a geek on a friday night. I found my postings on the BA/Woods tune up class from 18 mths ago, and fixed them up with the comments. Nothing amazing here --- the notes certainly don't convey the rate of information transfer that was occurring.

(Even then "rich from tahoe" was coaching me! :-))

I'll find the tranny class data next.

kim.

Hm. wierd. I expected that to show up inline like a pic.

kim.

Question: How do we find the information for registering for one of these classes?

I have been wanting to take the engine rebuilding class for sometime.

Any infor is greatly appreciated.

Steve Hurt
Shoguneagle

Sorry, the only thing I had to do was read and follow the thread to Bruce Anderson's webb site. Thanks. Next time I will put on my glasses.

Steve Hurt