Finally signed up and oh bought a new car :)

Hey guys, it's been a while but works been crazy busy. Recent split with the GF and moving back home ment that it was only right to buy a new car though, so not all bad!!

Picked her up on Thursday and haven't stopped smiling since!!

Will post more over the weekend but a few pics to start with...

1990 944 Turbo S, 144k on the clock but shes been "slightly" modified and the only unchanged part is the bottom end of the engine.







She needs a little TLC inside but the clock works!! Hope to be a bit more active now that I have a car that works

Looks very nice and in a good colour
Looka like the prev owner has spent a few quid on it aswell

Crikey! That looks like it has had some serious money spent. Even the expansion tank looks brand new. Very nice indeed.

Very very nice! I'm jealous

would be better in yellow and was under my bonnet

That wasn't the 400+ bhp seiously modded Turbio that was on pistonheads was it? They had spent a fortune on that car and it is seriously fast. Nice buy something I would do had I the cash.

It's the very one The guy who rebuilt it has done an awesome job!! Just a few little niggles to sort out but after 2 hours today I fixed the cd changer, arm rest insert swapped for a new one and narrowed the non working passenger window to two wires. She smokes a bit every now and again so am keeping an eye on that but I have a matching turbo (race balanced) ready to go on if its the seal... Still getting used to driving her though so it's probably me doing something wrong.

Wow nice one matey I was reading the spec on that car when it came on pistonheads and the owner really spent money on it didn't skimp on anything so in my mind you got a bargain. As you said a little tidying up to make it mint again and you have one bloody awesome toy to play with. How I envy you I can't even get my 924S to run half the time lol.

She's definitely running through the "new owner test" with me !!!

The sunroof is leaking so fingers crossed tomorrow it won’t rain all day and ill check/fix the seal.
She’s still idling rough(7-800 rmp) at first (ok after about 1 min but still doesn’t like reverse) but I’m hoping it’s down to the cold plugs and that she’s tuned for the modified head (which is not currently on).

The battery also seems to not be recharging so well (13v back but I’m certain when I picked her up it was closer to 14v).

The fans have stopped working unless on setting 4, looking into this though it could be fuse/relay fault but will try the contacts route first (did just cut out dead though after working fine...).

Have had to top her up with quite a lot of oil also although not been on boost today so the oil light didn't come on... looking more and more like the turbo seal is gone... Would you go through 1litre+ of oil in 250 miles if it was a turbo seal? (Does that much oil "leak" through? Currently using Mobile 1 15w 50, should I be using different?). shes got
"Oil filter is Lindsey Racing billet type with 8 micron filter cartridge. Additional oil filter in turbocharger circuit. Additional remote oil filter kit (KISS) using 13 row motec oil cooler in series with standard 951 oil radiator. Additional oil breather system includes remote and vented catch tank / oil separator mounted in N/S front wing. Vapour purge system has been deleted."
Fitted there is a pipe coiming down and tucked into the wing which im assuming is connected to the oil catch tank, is this something that I need to drain (if full could this be causing the smoking?)..




It’s down 15 psi across all four cylinders which the previous owner said was probably due to the bottom end and the rings (as are 144k originals) could these be causing the loss of oil? He said he would fix in a year or two if he was keeping though but I’m not 100%... Smoke is better if I let her heat up before going near boost but still occasionally once stopped / low pressure she’ll smoke (big time)! Just trying to work out what could be the issue... If it is the turbo though it’s a good excuse to put the modified head on her also, was kind of hoping to get used to her first though before doing a large swap out...

What do you think it “should” cost to swap the turbo, head and fix the bottom end (new rings etc) even a rough figure would be good. Is the turbo swap easy enough? I’m scared to break things but am ok mechanically. Is it just a case of draining everything, remove intakes, turbo, put in new and replace intake and fluids? It’s a matching turbo just race balanced to 0.4g so would anything else need changing? (Sorry messed about with my 924 and 944 lux) but most if not all of this car is new to me so after any advice / pointers.

Haha on the plus side, had a guy in his “Jag” flashing me all the way across the tops, when I stopped to see what the matter was he ran up saying that there were flames coming out of my exhaust and ”it looked horrible”, I had to say that “it can happen” before going on my merry way.
Planning on a new air & oil filter, checking the plugs etc etc but just wondering how I can test to see where I’m losing oil / if a more drastic fix is needed. I am trying to bring myself up to speed but if anyone could help that would be awesome!

P.S. All of the creators notes can be found under the History table here http://www.cannell.co.uk/Updates%20%20and%20%20Mods.htm
And a lot of pic here from original to finished... http://www.cannell.co.uk/944%20Turbo.htm

Bejesus .... it sure looks the biz but some of the stuff you describe is scaring me a bit. Why would someone spend that amount of time and money and put it all on top of a 140k bottom end? Younger engines than that come up on a fairly regular basis and it would have a been a cheap fix (compared to the rest of it). I would be getting it down to am independent turbo specialist pretty quickly.

I think you need to think very carefully about the order you do things! It would be too easy to let the costs get out of hand by just swapping the bits you have.

Keep us informed and good luck

Hey guys, right a bit further forward...
Had all manner of tubing off today and no oil in sight, no play in the turbo (which was fitted more recently than first thought) so that kind of means it's only one thing causing the occasional smoking... the bottom end / rings... Kind of good to know the most probable cause... yet also not too great...
So assuming the worst and that it’s the rings that need sorting does anyone know if it would be worth swapping the turbo and head at the same time? (Am getting quotes through but to be honest if I had someone with a bit more knowledge than me I would look to do it myself... maybe I should anyway?). I believe you can pull everything from below so swapping the head and turbo would be additional work so will have to see what it will cost and weigh things up.
PompeySteve, the car was bought with 77k on the clock she was then modified. She’s up to 144k now with the difference being covered between 2000-2011 so I guess it’s not too bad. The turbo is quite new (2005 ish) leaving the bottom end / rings the only 144k item. No oil near the turbo, smokes a lot after running down a big hill and at low pressure... Plus she’s down 15 psi across all 4 cylinders so I’m thinking its the rings... Does this fit ? Anyone think it could be something else?

All’s not too bad even if it is, if I can find all of the data for dis-assembly and re-assembly I may do it myself, would be a bit lazy (and expensive) to let someone else do all the work but need further info before feeling confident to do myself... Anyone bored, near Halifax and fancy helping out? Well worth a shot!

Looks great, only place it can be leaking oil from what you say is through in the chamber if the turbo is clean.
As everything comes out from underneath shouldn't be to hard, but its everything else that has to come off that will be the time consuming bit, gearbox/torque tube, belts etc will all have to come off

If you can rule out the turbo then it either the rings or valve stem oil seals in the head. Certainly burning during lift off is normal on high mileage engines. If it was me (and the budget allows) then I would have the head looked at while you have got everything apart. It really would be a bugger to put it all back together to find the valve stems were the cause (all for a 50p bit of rubber!). Also the valve seats could be re-seated to improve compression. Most modern cylinder heads can be refurbed for £300 - £500. The bottom end is more difficult to predict - as Paul says - there's a lot to take off before you get to it.

Hola, aye I'm thinking that it would make sense to rule everything out in one go. Although the head was off during the rebuild but this was about 70k miles ago now. I do have a spare uprated head that came with the car (and which the car is setup for) this is a stage IV CTM reworked head with...

" The head will be stripped and cleaned, crack tested etc. New valve guides will be fitted, along with bigger inlet valves. The inlet ports are being taken right out and polished. Five angle valve seats are being cut. The exhaust ports will remain pretty much standard (retaining the ceramic liner) with just minor smoothing and possibly replacing the sodium filled exhaust valves. Test fitting of a 944 2.7 inlet valve in to the turbo head is a success. This valve is 3mm bigger (48mm). This, in conjunction with the Lindsey Racing Titanium valve retainers should remove a considerable amount of weight from the valve gear, giving much greater air flow and allowing a higher rev limit. UPDATE: std valve+retainer = 132.65g, 48mm inlet valve +LR titanium retainer = 129.35g, a weight saving of 3.3g per inlet valve assembly."

This is just sat here waiting to be installed I also have a brandnew K26 special turbo that has been balanced, although currently fitted is " a LR Super 75 Turbo, retaining water cooling and with a #8 hotside. This is a Garret T04E turbine with 67mm compressor and will flow 1,088 cfm (standard turbo/250 uses KKK K26/8 which flows about 367 cfm) at 1 bar boost." so as the turbo seems to be fine no point swapping this out.

I've also been looking at the LR dry sump systems http://www.lindseyracing.com/LR/Parts/LRDSUMP.html but as I'm not particularly rich (by any means!) this will have to come further down the line... maybe after a lottery win...

It's just as has been said, lots of parts to come off and who knows what will be found. The smoking is currently occasional though so I should have enough time to save up for the work that is required before things get much worse...