Nice Work Rick.

Just dry fired it to make sure everything was connected correctly. It sounds awesome without exhaust! Pegged my 150 psi gauge. that's a good sign. I still have the Bar sender connected to a US spec VDO gauge. Still need to replace the sender but it is as it was with the old engine. All looks good. No leaks that I've seen yet. Now I can finish it up.

I still need to fix the exhaust, install the axles, and fill and bleed the cooling system. The test drive will be tomorrow.

Test drive tommorrow? Hey......you have patched the alien back together to invade far away places once again! AWESOME! Glad to hear it. I want a ride when I come up into your neighborhood in June for Grandmas marathon.

Bill

Hiya Rick...

Hi Mike! How ya healing up? Sandy is purchasing her one way ticket to Denver to meet me for the caravan to the Atomic Ramble. I wanted her to wait until I knew the engine was going to run before she purchased her ticket. See ya in a couple or 3 weeks!

Fractures are healing fine, but my teeth are killin me. Long story... Looking forward to seeing you guys.

Can we get a quick teaser photo of the engine in the car

My Camera grew legs and walked off. I just bought a new one so no pics yet. It looks the same only clean.

I didn't use the red cam housings as the early motors had a removable lifter bore and they were stuck in my heads. The late heads allow the cams to slide out easily. On the early heads the lifter bores need to be removed to pull the cams. So, the euro cams with their original housing are back on the motor for now.

I did build some trick throttle linkage though. Now I will be able to use full throttle!

BTW: Special thanks goes out to chappy for the last minute parts stash! Thanks buddy!

SWEET!

I can't wait to see pics! Great job (again) Rick!

Throttle linkage pics. See the tube with bearings inside on the back of the engine.

The cable pulls a cam that pushes a linkage that pulls a cable. The linkage rod has sperical bearings.

OK, It's running. I need to put the timing light on it. I drove it out of the garage onto the driveway. It's ready to run to the exhaust shop. I had to cut the lead pipes off the twin muffler setup because I changed to later style exhaust manifolds. They were a little different and the exhaust wouldn't bolt up anymore.

Here's what's left:

Tune in the CIS

Replace the cap

Time it.

Fix the exhaust

Install the 180 lb rear springs.

Finish and install my 1" 4130 sway bar project

Repair some body damage and paint...

Not sure I'll have time for the paint work before the Atomic Ramble. The painting is last. I may get to it, I may not..

Oh ya, I left chappy a rumbling voice mail when I lit it up!

Seeing the Alien again is one of the BIG reasons I'm considering making the drive to AR.

...and there was much rejoicing...

[quote name='McMark' date='May 12 2007, 10:23 PM' post='899938']



You know if there were any way I could make both events I'd be there.

I'm at least flying the WCR link in support. I really hope you can make the trip Mark.

BTW all, I wrecked my lower back bending over the flare working on the car. I can hardly walk today much less drive the car. just a short term thing.

Up date for anyone interested. I have a fried relay board that is keeping me from tuning the car. It failed at the fuel pump relay that also powers my AAV and WUR.

This was a contributing factor (not the whole reason) I missed the Atomic Ramble. I've had limited time to work on the car now. My work schedule and my electrical issues now caused me to miss the WCR.

I figured I would do a wire around the relay board thing to at least try to tune out some of the other things until I have time to get a replacement board.

edit: I just can back from a 60 mile drive. It's amazing what a Bosch relay from the local FLAPS and a foot of wire can cure. The fuel pump is now working off the relay and AAV and WUR now have power. I'm confident I will have a base line for a tune up this week. The throttle cable is sticking a little yet but when it's not the idle is now steady and smooth. No pulsing or gas fumes beltching out the exhaust. I still need to recheck the timing, reset the air screw, then hook up an O2 sensor and adjust the CIS sensor plate.

I now have my sights set on the RRC.

Keep it up Rick, you will get er done. Sorry to hear you missed the AR. Hope to see you out and about soon.

Hey Rick, hope all is well. Any thing new to report on the Alien? Also, did you make or buy your engine to transimission adapter? As much as I keep telling myself no, no, no..., I'm starting to think this might be a project I would like to take on, including trying to get the engine to run on 48IDA webers. Might be the Thanks.

I've been working out of town for a couple of months only coming home on weekends. A couple of weeks ago I spent about 15 minutes working on the car. After a test drive the engine developed a noise that I thought was a lifter. No big deal, I have some spares and it's not that bad of a fix. I got home yeasterday late. I thought I would steal a few minutes to go out to the garage to start the Alien and move it out in the driveway to shoot a quick photo for Howard on this 914 day. The lifter noise wasn't too bad a couple of weeks ago so I figures it wouldn't hurt to back it out of the garage for a simple picture. I started the engine and it had something break in what sounded like the valves. I think it dropped a seat. I was violent enough to kill the engine! I was standing there staring in disbelief when I heard the sound of water trickling into the oil pan.

The only way I could feel sicker right now is iffin I was bigger....

Sorry to hear that.

! Don't give up!

Major bummer! Sorry to hear this. Stick with it.

Rick, that sucks! I am sorry to hear about that. You are right, it does not sound good. You were my inspiration to get my car done and do it right. My engine wont be ready till fall sometime and that is only if I can come up with the money to pay for it. I will have to be satisfied with just getting the body and paint all done and then put the car all back together without the engine till I can afford to get it done. Hopefully it picks up at the port soon.

Must be a Government plot to cover up Alien existence.
Hang in there Ric I believe.

Aw man, so sorry!

jeez Rick, that sucks.

Don't know if it helps, but at least you will know you are not alone:

This kid up in Boulder that I know thru a mutual friend just built a full custom stroked turbo motor for his Volvo (I don't know why either ), bolted it all in, and it lasted about 10 minutes before it siezed. Without understanding all the external oiling crap on that engine, the short version I got is that he ran the oil backwards against some sort of one-way pressure driven valve. The engine showed plenty of oil pressure because the pump was pushing a brick wall, but not a drop actually circulated. Smoked the custom crank, pistons, etc.

I had a 408" stroked 351 Windsor that I custom built last 5 minutes and chew up the distributor gear while running all the muck thru the crank and rod bearings. After new bearings and a 10/10 grind on the crank, it made it 7 minutes before the same thing. Turns out that previously the block had worn where the distributor gear rode, so the cam/dist gears never meshed right and would never match. I sold all the custom stuff I had for it and took about a $2500 loss to stick the stock 351w back in and say "F" it. It was only about the 400th stroked Windsor I had built for the race shop I worked at the time and of all of them to have an issue it was mine

So I've been there, done that. Hard to not just and say F to the whole thing I suspect, but best I can say is hang in there. I think you have a pretty cool car so tear it down, curse a LOT (I find it helps) and then piece it back together.

Sorry Rick! Man that thing just eat's it's share of motors doesn't it.

You still have the other spare engine over in the corner dont you? Get that exhaust mani. stud out and bingo back in business.

Not that easy. My euro block was bad so I used the spare block for this engine. If I didn't crack the US block I my still be able to repair it this year. If I did.....

I'm starting to feel sick again.

You are still our leader.......................leader!

SOunds like we're both having fun

My motor bit it in the 914, so I bought a 96 Mazda, and now the water pump died.




b

Holy crap britt, you have a knack for grenading type 4s... How do you do it?

Sorry to hear this,
Is this any help ?
racerbvd-member- http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showuser=226
super trader Byron has five engines 600.00 each;

I don't know what happened inside my engine yet. Still working out of town and haven't had time to pull it.

But I located a parts engine tonight. I'm not sure it's a usable core yet. I have a friend with a engine he purchased several years ago from Renegade Hybrids. I think it's an 83 but I don't remember. He told me it sat so long in the shop it's stuck now and he can't turn it over.

So it's mine if I come and get it. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I'm thinkin I hope it at least has a good 4.7 block. It was an auto car... maybe thrust issues... I'll know more tomorrow. (block # at least)
Thanks for the lead Jeff! I may need some options.

Rick,
We have never met, but we both have used Brad M for work on our cars, and i have followed this link with interest. There looks to be a donor car available here in Chicago if interested - only $900.
http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/car/387510802.html

Damn Rick, sorry to here about your motor.





The free engine gave up the ghost so what happen. PM me, I have another 1.8 in the garage, I haven't gone thru it yet, but if you are looking for a motor let me know.

Ok back to Rick's engine. I might know of a 928 engine here in Indiana. I will find out the details, but I think the price is right, FREE, well cost of shipping. I know it is a good running motor. I rode in the car 2 days before it was totaled by a drunk driver. Hit very hard in the passenger side door and rear. My friend is not sure what he is going to do with the car just yet.

Time for an update:

My engine dropped a valve, cracked the block, bent a rod, punched a hole in my euro "S" head and pretty much destroyed itself.

I had the head repaired. Over the holiday weekend I worked on the Alien Autotopsy. Here's a couple of photos.

Started with two on the opporating table.. ended with one on the gurney..

WOW!

Hey Rick,

Have you turned everything over to see if anything hits? Best of luck, and hope you can still get it out on the roads before the ice and snow start piling up.

We need another update...

Bill

Not yet, I still haven't installed the cams.

Some more back ground info on the extent of the damage. My heads were shaved 1mm. My compression is now someplace around 11:1 Because of the shaved heads I am using a 1.4mm Porsche thick head gasket. The factory normal is 1mm. The thicker gasket still doesn't re-align the cams correctly. I have to run offset cam gear keys. At this point I'm not sure what keys I need to use. The keys I have are Mercedes keys. They are not correct for my cam slot and need to be custom ground to fit. So... stay tuned.

I've followed some of the bad luck, so best of luck this time!

Are the head cores hard to find? Is there a specific reason why you didn't just get two cores with less mat'l removed for the rebuild opposed to fixing the one that was damaged? I am thinking you could find a set with less removed and then the thicker gasket would put it back near stock location for the cam timing issue...

Additionally, what is the affect of not having the offset keys? Are the cams retarded or advanced? With stock cams and 11:1, if it is slightly retarded you might just run it that way (retarded less than 6deg) cuz that will bleed off some cylinder pressure, and with stock cams, maybe pick up some top end power. We all know the teener doesn't need the low end power I have a rather wicked race cam in mine, so retarding actually hurt my power because I bled off too much pressure, but small cams I have found like a little retarding if you want to slightly increase top end.

You may have covered the reason already, but I am too lazy to read all of it

This has been a long saga this summer. The trouble started before the last rebuild. I had a head gasket failure and a broken spring. This caused seat damage in one cumbustion chamber. I had the head repaired and cut. When I assembled the engine I may have had one cam advanced causing a valve collision or I could have just had a valve stem break, or I could have damaged a ring during install... Who can really know.

Anywho.. I brought my heads in to a head specialty shop to have them evaluated. The head guy told me it would cost a minimum of $ 900.00 plus parts to repair the damaged head. When I asked him how much these heads were cut he didn't know... He didn't even really know how to check them. I told him to box them up and I would come get them.

Now, an uncut 928 head is 24mm measured off a boss on either end of the head. Mine were in the neighborhood of 23.4 to 23.6mm. (one was cut like a wedge...could have been like that before the rebuild) That is in spec as you can use a 1.4mm gasket opposed to a 1.0mm gasket to bring the specs close to stock.

I figured I'd get a unmolested set. These are not easy to find or cheap when you do. I sourced a set of heads from a very reputable 928 source. They hit my AMEX for (are you sitting down) $ 1000.00. I brought these heads into my local Chevy guy machine shop with all the 928 head info I could gather. They measured the replacement heads and discovered they were at 23mm, needed intake guides and a couple of valves, and a resurface. I shipped them back for a refund and had my heads fixed. My heads are now 23mm, (at where the replacement heads measured)

BTW: For the guys that don't know, My engine is a euro spec "S" engine. It's factory rated at 300hp. Stock compression is 10:1 the cams are "S" cams, the throttle body is way larger that US spec engines as well as the inside diameter of the intake runners, the intake and exhaust ports are larger, the combustion chambers are smaller and the valves are bigger. The heads and intake are very desirable in 928 circles.

It cost me $ 770.00 including the welding repair of a very bad hole punched through the intake seat by the exhaust valve stem, new intake guides and 5 valves. The work looks great!

BTW: The complete gasket plus the added cost for the thick head set, rod bearings, Loctite case sealant and stuff were over $ 800.00.. This is not a Chevy kids.

Damn straight aint no chebby for them bucks.

OUCH Rick... :insertmoneyflyingoutofthewalletsmilie:

For future reference (hope this is nt needed)
944 heads fit too. and they have even better porting.

Them Porsche V-8's sure are sexy compared to American Iron.

Keep it coming together Rick, you have a one a million car for sure.

So cutting the heads causes chain slack which the tensioner takes up either retarding or advancing cams. Does one cam retard and one advance, or do they both advance? If they both move the same direction, how much (how many degrees)? If you advance or retard 4deg, assuming you don't lose too much valve clearance of course, won't make a huge difference with a mild cam that a factory would produce.

Also, were the other five valves bent? If you only have a single valve that had an issue (like snapping off ) then probably a valve failure v. contact with the piston. If it interfered enough to break it off, you would probably see bent valves elsewhere too. If the others needed replaced just due to guide problems and therefore stem damage, probably not an interference issue.

Lastly, have you looked into custom copper head gaskets? I have no clue as to availability for a Porsche, but for the 'merican V8 stuff, you can get them in a wide variety of thicknesses. We ran some .100" thick ones for a guy that bought used NASCAR heads with 38cc chambers to get the compression back down a little. They can be tough to get to seal, but I just put a very thin layer of hi-temp RTV around the water ports whenever I used them and got lucky every time.