[Crumpler]

What’s the worst most nauseating 928 experience that you have had?

I ‘ll go first?, it will be fun.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings in terms of my stupidity, but today it’s getting a compression tester adapter stuck in the fucking head.
The son of a bitch has no ears to work with, just threads into the compression tester line.
Before I went ape shit on it and destroyed the threads on the adapter I put some JB weld on a spark plug and threaded that into the adapter.
I’m going to ruminate and pucker overnight and see if I can unfuck myself tomorrow when it’s set.
I don’t try to be an idiot, it just happens.
Somebody take my tools away from me before it’s too late.

[maddog2020]

Mine was hearing my Greg brown hydraulic release bearing over extend, and the motor screeches to a halt as the thrust bearing eats itself in a nano second.

[ChrisZ]

Mine was a loud BANG while driving which was one of the springs that hold the parking brake shoes broke and the brake ate itself from the inside.....

Replaced cables, springs, pads, the cam assembly, rotor, the whole nine yards.

[worf]

What’s the worst most nauseating 928 experience that you have had?

6mm washer dropped down the injector hole into cylinder #4 on a 22k-mile 5-speed GTS.

[Stepson]

The Stepson (84 Euro S) was leaking oil from the cam covers. I left the engine in the car and pulled both cam covers. The bolts for the cam covers all went into a big pile in the center of a table. Don't ask me why I did that. It was an insane moment, I guess and not the way I would do that.. Anyway, upon putting the cam covers back on, I seemed to be 1 bolt short. Looked all over, couldn't find the damn bolt. Oh well, I had a few extra bolts at my disposal. Everything is back together and I start the engine. Ohhhhh, It sounded SO good. Taking it out for a shakedown drive and I back out of BradW's shop and up the hill to the street. Everything is hunky dorey and I put it into gear and accelerate.
It is at that exact moment that the "lost" cam cover bolt resurfaces inside the cam cover, wedges itself between the cam and the cam cover wall and blows a large hole in the top of the cam cover. The force that pushed the bolt though the cam cover, onto the ground, and killed the engine. Upon hearing the "explosion" and the engine dying, I just coasted back down the driveway and right back into the BradW's shop.
A small confession: I said bad words. :)
BradW has my blown up cam cover hanging on his wall of shame even now.

[h2pmr]

after getting the SE all finished, taking it to a 928 specialist to get the 4 wheel alignment done -which was about a 2 hour drive away.
after 1 hours driving a loud bang from the rear and having no drive so stuck on hard shoulder of motorway until the specialist came and recovered vehicle.
P/S driveshaft flange bolts to diff not as tight as they should have been, i blame the torque wrench....

[linderpat]

wow. reading these, I'm knocking on wood!

[9zwei8]

This is a great thread.. I was thinking about one called 'maim', where you either injured your self our injured your shark. My Story was back in August, where I assembled all the parts to do a brake rotor upgrade. I got jealous after looking at MRMERLIN's Z Coat Zimmerman upgrade, I decided to pull the trigger to finally rid myself of the annoying slight pedal thump. Sunday morning early, my wife was not downstairs yet, so I figured I would tackle the job. I had a little struggle getting the piston back far enough and then finally everything went together. I was rolling the tire over when I realized I did not check if the rotor spun freely. Odd, I thought, as it wouldn't move. Put the tire down. Left hand at 12 o'clock right hand at 4 o'clock and I exerted way too much force. The rotor spun free immediately. I could not get my left hand clear and the cooling fin grabbed my pinky and slammed it in to the caliper. Slammed to hard that it amputated it at the base of the nail. F-ing ouch. I am all back together with full use and mobility, although the finger is slightly shorter. Thanks to Majestic Moose and Zirconecene for helping wrap up a few miscellaneous things up while I was out of commission.

[Daniel5691]

There was that one time I accidentally put a slightly excessive amount of wax on the paint in one area,
about the size of a penny,
and that little area was slightly more shiny than the rest of the car. UGGGHH!!!!!

[worf]

The instant a 928 eats a body part, I’m done. Clients will need to collect their 928s in boxes and on a flatbed.

Blood, sweat and tears I will donate. Fingers, parts thereof and/or less redundant body parts… nope.

[Geza-aka-Zombo]

When trying to get the hatch release mechanism to unlatch the hatch, I decided to buy an new hatch lock pawl. Of course, I bought the wrong one (not for an alarm) and proceeded to assemble it incorrectly into the lock assembly. Even though I knew something wasn't right, I installed it back into the hatch and closed it. Can't get the hatch open! Key doesn't work, mechanism doesn't work, nothing. After a bit of searching, I spent an hour or 2 crunched up in the back of the hatch trying to drill the shit out of the pawl. Finally got it destroyed enough that I was able to open the hatch. Got the right pawl, installed it correctly, and adjusted the mechanism properly - now she works great!

[Addlight]

Last summer I installed new brushes in my driver window motor to try and fix a nonop. I had the door panel off. Stupidly, I left the battery connected, so once I got everything all back together and plugged it back in, I discovered the problem was not the bushing but that the switch in the center console was sticking and the thermal resistor had been shutting off as it kept trying to close.

Anyway, I plugged the motor back in and the regulator started lifting the window with my ring finger between the arms. They were like scissors and got my finger before i could pull it out. I tried to reach the switch, but it was stuck and the scissors kept closing. I could see where my finger went in between the arms, but not what was happening on the the back side and the pain was excruciating. Worse was realizing I would lose half my index finger from a truly dumb mistake. The arms stopped moving, the part of my finger I could see was pulsing and purple.

Fortunately, my son was helping me and managed to disconnect the battery. My finger was crushed but not severed. However, I couldn't get it out of the regulator. So, I had to sit still while my son undid all the 10mm bolts to disconnect the regulator from the panel and the motor from the regulator so it would release my finger.

The thermal switch had cut off again, but this time it saved my finger. It was sliced so I could see a chunk of white bone but also not broken. In fact, in the two hours it took for urgent care to look at it, it started feeling fairly normal again. A few stitches and my finger now is permanently slightly crooked, but that was a really low price to pay for my stupidity.

The next day, my son and I got the window buttoned up. I sanded down the sticking corner of the window switch, and it's worked perfectly ever since.

On a side note, I had a tungsten wedding ring and they could not cut it off at the urgent care, so I had to keep my finger on ice all night so as not to have it swell so much that the ring cut off circulation. After a couple weeks, the swelling had gone down to where I could slide my ring off. I now have a silicone one, because I never know when I will do something incredibly dumb again. Probably tomorrow.

[tungsten]

Losing a head bolt down the oil return passage, which turned a heavy intake refresh/head gasket project into a complete tear down. During which I lost control of the #3 piston during removal, leading to its rod screw sliding against the cylinder wall and the piston clanking on the concrete garage floor.

I’m not really cut out for this stuff. I understand every last step of the WSM and the theory, but the actual doing, well, we’re 7 years and counting.

Of course for all the bellyaching about disintegrating HGs, mine were as clean as the day is long. 928 ownership is not for the anxious.

[milrad]

Most nauseating? Two that come to mind as a tie and a third:

1. During my first TB/WP/MM job gone horribly wrong, I stripped one of the cheese head cam cover bolts...well more than one, but this one was at the far back of the driver's side head, with no access to get any extraction tools on it at all. I finally just said "F it, motor's coming out." First motor I've ever pulled from a car of any sort.

1. Once the motor was out, I started messing around under the cowl and decided to check out the blower fan and motor. As I dug in, I found the mouse nest from hell, complete with a number of neat little mummified mouse carcasses. I have pictures, but I'll spare you. I'm not sure what was more nauseating, the dead mice, or the memory of the previous fall when I first got the car and cranked on the HVAC fan, getting a face full of "crud" from the center vents. I instantly knew what the "crud" really was.

3. Snapping off a rusted water pump bolt flush (motor still in the car) was not a good feeling either.

[Crumpler]

Thank you gentlemen for playing.
My misery loves company.

Not to be sadist, but yes I too have noticed that fingers have a lot of nerve endings ;)

I also don’t get a lot of compassion when I come in from the garage holding something to keep blood from escaping, if you know what I mean.

“Why would you drill through your finger?!”
Is a phrase that I remember, from my betrothed.

[JBRob007]

Once I traded a damn-near-perfect 84 Euro for a far-from-acceptable 81 Euro... It still hurts to this day.

[tungsten]

Once I traded a damn-near-perfect 84 Euro for a far-from-acceptable 81 Euro... It still hurts to this day.

Something has always bugged me about that guy. Sorry you got the short end on that one.

[Polecat702]

A few years back, we had just returned from 3rd Coast the previous week. Took the shark outta the garage, washed and waxed it, had reservations for supper at the Bootlegger. Backed it out of the driveway, and the Tranny took a shit in front of the house. No go anywhere. The 89 is year specific and it took almost a year to source another 89 transmission.

Back then I had my lift, and doing the swap was fairly easy with the help from all my pals on this forum and the other one on the dark side.

As a side note, could never get even a ballpark figure from Doc Brown, for a rebuild. I don't like not knowing what something will cost me, even a wild guess is better. But the tranny I got from Sara at LA Dismantlers hasn't failed me yet. I'd still like Greg to rebuild my original. It's on the back burner.

[Herr-Kuhn]

Mine was hearing my Greg brown hydraulic release bearing over extend, and the motor screeches to a halt as the thrust bearing eats itself in a nano second.

Was this the clutch that (B)utt-(C)rack was harping about using in Tuomo's car? He was adamant that all Tuomo needed was that, E85, and a stand alone ECU. I had heard some rumblings about the clutch issue you had and how it somehow tore up your engine inside. Was this a result of that over-extending and getting stuck in that "out" position for a period of time, or did it literally tear itself up on just an extension cycle due to over extension? Hard to believe that could happen so rapidly. One would think it would take an enormous amount of force to eat the thrust bearing that rapidly. Do you have any further information on this failure? I'm curious to see the fallout.

[maddog2020]

Mine was hearing my Greg brown hydraulic release bearing over extend, and the motor screeches to a halt as the thrust bearing eats itself in a nano second.

Was this the clutch that (B)utt-(C)rack was harping about using in Tuomo's car? He was adamant that all Tuomo needed was that, E85, and a stand alone ECU. I had heard some rumblings about the clutch issue you had and how it somehow tore up your engine inside. Was this a result of that over-extending and getting stuck in that "out" position for a period of time, or did it literally tear itself up on just an extension cycle due to over extension? Hard to believe that could happen so rapidly. One would think it would take an enormous amount of force to eat the thrust bearing that rapidly. Do you have any further information on this failure? I'm curious to see the fallout.

GB quit taking my calls during the installation. I'm guessing it was because he got into a tussle with Roger on a motor mount thread. I got a voicemail from Mary telling me to not call anymore. So I was on my own. I was adjusting the idle, and had pressed the clutch a couple of times to rev the motor to make sure it had enough timing to keep it from dying. During the idle timing adjustment, the motor started to labor, and then it screeched to a halt , and would not turn over again. I thought it was something I had done with the timeing so I chased all kinds of things thinking it was a ignition timing issue. I couldn't crank it over by hand, so I took off the lower bellhousing the piston for the tilton release bearing was canted and had over extended. Still couldn't crank it over by hand so I pulled the motor. Tore the motor down, and found a crapload of metal shavings in the pan. Filter was full of metal, and the overpressure piston was jammed and full of metal. Block was ok, but crank was torn up on the thrust bearing surface and the 3/7 was roasted as well. Crank has been repaired, but the 3&7 Ti rods were roasted and beyond repair. I'm about 2 weeks out from the new Ti rods being delivered.

Tilton would not provide support because you know who isn't an authorized Tilton dealer, and so since they had no record, I was SOL. After this debacle I purchased a new RB from tilton, and in their instructions they tell you NOT to do specifically what GB instructions stated to do.

I'm not going to pursue anything because it will cost me more to go after him than it takes to fix the motor. He is showing his true colors on RL and driving business away on his own.

[Herr-Kuhn]

That's a bad situation for all. I keep hearing from people how hard it is to build one of these engines. In my book it's all the same: Swept Volume*Number of Cylinders*RPM*Volumetric Efficiency*Manifold Pressure...the rest is just pertinent details for that specific hardware. If the machine work is right, anybody with decent skills can assemble one of these M28s, even the 32V versions. Any time someone is pushing that they are the only game in town I tend to shy away. We proved time and time again that many after-market parts prove of no value on these engines. On the flip side I don't like the aftermarket mounts either...they don't sit the engine at the proper height and that makes fitting my hardware difficult. You should probably set that up so that it's not possible for that slave to over-stroke. Maybe limiting the travel or changing to a smaller volume master, etc. It's just fluid displacement at that point.

We had an Omni GLH with the 2.5 liter Caravan turbo engine in it on the dyno. It's not even a crossflow head...just a basic OHC late 80s Chrysler engine fed with a GT3582 turbo on 35 psig manifold pressure, 9:1 compression. It laid down 530 WHP on 114 Sunoco leaded race gas. I think the most impressive part is seeing just how much power an old skool engine setup properly can make. In Butt Crack's defense, it was on Megasquirt.

[Herr-Kuhn]

I re-read your description and it does sound like it just held itself out. Given that the pressure plate has that much force you probably need to be mindful of how long you hold the clutch down say at the traffic lights, etc. I try to let mine idle in neutral at the lights to avoid all that thrust loading of the bearing when the clutch is in. I think in your case it is more about the fact that it locked itself out, but I am going on the assumption that that pressure plate is much stronger than even a modified Spec unit. You may not "feel" that in the clutch pedal, but it's there nonetheless when you pull it out and then it's being tugged on the thrust bearing.

[worf]

After this debacle I purchased a new RB from tilton, and in their instructions they tell you NOT to do specifically what GB instructions stated to do.

Details?

[maddog2020]

his instructions to bleed will cause problems with the adjustment, and the kit did include a stop under the pedal but the clutch mast volume was all wrong, and even with the stop it over extended. I've got a local tilton resource to help dial it in correctly.

[worf]

Thanks

[Herr-Kuhn]

I figured the fluid displacement was something to be looked at after what you said. On Tuomo's car we had to hold the boost down to keep from slipping the clutch. On 24 psig turned loose on race gas, I had one hit at over 800 ft-lbs and that was on the stock internals save for the pistons being dished to lower the CR to 8.7:1. Even the Spec Stage 5 clutch could not hold that torque until the clutch was real warm. The stage 5 disc was just brutal on the street so we went back to stage 3. We opted to hold the torque down under 700 ft-lbs and then run the engine speed higher to make the power. Nothing wrong with that because we lightened the daylights out of the rod and piston...it REALLY loved to rev and the sound was incredible. It seems like 16-18 psig with 7,000 RPM usable is a real sweet spot now assuming you have the camshafts to support the engine speed. That car was a solid 800 RWHP on a 18 psig flat boost curve. On my 1981 turbo car I am just keeping the stock twin disc and will keep the car around 400 RWHP. That stock twin disc is really easy to modulate.

Can you put up some images of the damage to the crank and rods? I'm assuming it totally ate the thrust bearing out and then the rods also touched somewhere in there.

[maddog2020]

I'll have to see what I can dig up. A soon as I got it apart I snapped some pics but I can't find the one of the thrust bearing. I've cleaned a ton of stuff off my phone recently (ran out of space) and may have deleted it. I wasn't really planning on posting anything about it online because I know how those things go.

I've learned a long time ago when you push the limits and go where few others have gone, shit happens, and it sucks but you just have to move on past it. You just have to understand you can only trust custom stuff that vendors make so far. I trusted Devek and see where that got me. Same for Carl. It was only a matter of time before I got bit by GB. It's cost me every step of the way more than the original purchase price. But I've learned a ton and have one of the most unique 928's on the road and it is almost done and exactly the way I always wanted it.

A good example is that during the repair process it was found that the crank journals on the stroker cranks are soft, so I had the crank nitrided and micro polished on the counterweights to minimize aeration of the oil. I only found this out after 20 years and 2 builds with the same crank.

[WyattsRide]

There was that one time I accidentally put a slightly excessive amount of wax on the paint in one area,
about the size of a penny,
and that little area was slightly more shiny than the rest of the car. UGGGHH!!!!!

This made me laugh, probably more than it should have. Thanks Daniel!

[Herr-Kuhn]

I hear you on how those sorts of threads go. You should try being the punching bag for the entire state of Wisconsin for about 3 or 4 years. Let me also not leave my friends in San Diego out of the mix. As you may imagine, I have made lots of friends at corporate too . Yeah, pushing the limits and things happen. The part that amazed me most about this 928 community is the volume of "experts" who have never actually put a car together or finished a high performance build....yet they know "everything".

[SeanR]

Coulda been a trainwreck had I not insisted.

image.png

[worf]

Coulda been a trainwreck had I not insisted.

Yup. And why I never change motor mounts without also installing a new fuel return line (unless it’s already been done.)

[Stepson]

Before I had the Stepson, my son and I were working on our first 1984 S2 5 speed. This was in the days before I knew of Rennlist/Pelican/Open Road/928OC or anything resembling these things. AFAIK, I was the ONLY person in world working on a 928 anywhere in the world at that time. Among other things, my son wanted to change the paint color and we were dutifully sanding and smoothing to allow for the color change. We were also working on various things to get the car more roadworthy. During the course of starting and restarting the car, the fuel tank was beginning to empty. I didn't want the lack of fuel to be an issue, so I told my son to drive the car up the street to a gas station for fuel. We had some body panels off the car including the metal cowling cover below the windshield. As he started down the driveway, he stopped and said there was too much dust on the windshield to see properly, so I used a water hose to spray off the windshield. As the engine died, and as I looked into the passenger footwell a "cartoonish" wisp of smoke emanated from the LH as the water ran directly from the windshield into the top of the LH computer. New words were created as I verbally expressed my excitement about this latest development.

[maddog2020]

Before I had the Stepson, my son and I were working on our first 1984 S2 5 speed. This was in the days before I knew of Rennlist/Pelican/Open Road/928OC or anything resembling these things. AFAIK, I was the ONLY person in world working on a 928 anywhere in the world at that time. Among other things, my son wanted to change the paint color and we were dutifully sanding and smoothing to allow for the color change. We were also working on various things to get the car more roadworthy. During the course of starting and restarting the car, the fuel tank was beginning to empty. I didn't want the lack of fuel to be an issue, so I told my son to drive the car up the street to a gas station for fuel. We had some body panels off the car including the metal cowling cover below the windshield. As he started down the driveway, he stopped and said there was too much dust on the windshield to see properly, so I used a water hose to spray off the windshield. As the engine died, and as I looked into the passenger footwell a "cartoonish" wisp of smoke emanated from the LH as the water ran directly from the windshield into the top of the LH computer. New words were created as I verbally expressed my excitement about this latest development.

And DK becomes the OG "Sparky"

[maddog2020]

I hear you on how those sorts of threads go. You should try being the punching bag for the entire state of Wisconsin for about 3 or 4 years. Let me also not leave my friends in San Diego out of the mix. As you may imagine, I have made lots of friends at corporate too . Yeah, pushing the limits and things happen. The part that amazed me most about this 928 community is the volume of "experts" who have never actually put a car together or finished a high performance build....yet they know "everything".

10X. Another reason for not posting a big to do is that you end up getting goaded into doing free consulting, for the train wreck designer, and all the while they are building the case that you messed up while they are trying to protect their reputation. And at the same time you have 20-30 "internet engineer's" chiming in with their worthless opinions. I have better things to do with my time.

[SeanR]

Before I had the Stepson, my son and I were working on our first 1984 S2 5 speed. This was in the days before I knew of Rennlist/Pelican/Open Road/928OC or anything resembling these things. AFAIK, I was the ONLY person in world working on a 928 anywhere in the world at that time. Among other things, my son wanted to change the paint color and we were dutifully sanding and smoothing to allow for the color change. We were also working on various things to get the car more roadworthy. During the course of starting and restarting the car, the fuel tank was beginning to empty. I didn't want the lack of fuel to be an issue, so I told my son to drive the car up the street to a gas station for fuel. We had some body panels off the car including the metal cowling cover below the windshield. As he started down the driveway, he stopped and said there was too much dust on the windshield to see properly, so I used a water hose to spray off the windshield. As the engine died, and as I looked into the passenger footwell a "cartoonish" wisp of smoke emanated from the LH as the water ran directly from the windshield into the top of the LH computer. New words were created as I verbally expressed my excitement about this latest development.

Dude, you have never shared that one with us before. That's awesome, in a bad way, but awesome.

[Hey_Allen]

Part of my reason for moving over here was the other site's oh so opinionated and sarcastic populous.

My project started off as a cheap car fix, before I realized just how proud Porsche and the various vendors are of the CIS parts.
Around that time, I coincidentally had a complete LS1 fall in my lap due to a neighbor scraping out a firebird that was rather ironically a fire damage loss.
The engine being in hand started me down the path of a swap, eventually settling in the XSchop design, now being produced by Texas performance concepts, mostly because I could buy a la carte, and that the only truly custom parts aren't wear items in that design.

I caught some grief, and a bit of "it'll never happen", and that was the end of updating on that site.


All that said: read, research, and have fun!

[Herr-Kuhn]

Part of my reason for moving over here was the other site's oh so opinionated and sarcastic populous.

What do you mean, I always found the other forum filled with great people who are full of solidly based engineering findings who know more about the 928 than anybody else on the planet.

[worf]

LoL. This kettle is starting to resemble the pot.

[Stepson]

Dude, you have never shared that one with us before. That's awesome, in a bad way, but awesome.

Oh Hell, we haven't even scratched the surface on the stories and saga involving that car.

[Crumpler]

Hurrying through self inspection for track event the next day.
Trying to check torque on everything.
UCA bushing hardware seemed a little loose.
Called it “UCA to frame rail” and torqued it to 103 foot pounds.
Snapped the threaded bolt right off.

Sitting there speechless.
Upon review, UCA to frame rail is m14 on the inside of the engine bay. What ever holds bushing is M12, using standard TQ spec probably 63 foot pounds.
Bear in mind this track event is the debut of the supercharger and 2 years in the making.
928 international is called at lunch, Mark overnights the rebuilt UCA, some how it gets to me by 9:30 am!
I’m humping through the install, split my head open, get it done by eleven. Grab my helmet, drive to track, get there in time.
By now I’m spent, it’s 100 degrees.
I get out there and have my best track day ever.
I’m passing everything, lapping people, it was freaking nuts.
Either it was the supercharger or the group was weak or both.