Restoration of a 1960 Porsche 356 Super 90 sunroof coupe.
Had some decent visible progress, and did some necessary planning. The fuel pump (previously rebuilt by moi), generator stand, intake manifolds, and spark plugs are now installed. I await the J-tubes (aka heat control box) from Stoddard before I can install the air guide (aka flapper boxes) to the exhaust manifold. I am also now …
Today we made several steps forward, and only one minor back! The third piece is back on. And with the heads and rockers already in place, the lower is essentially done. In the what stupid thing did I do this week department. When I got the case back, there was no stud present for the …
In most of the world, a washer is just a means to evenly distribute the load when tightening a bolt. They are pretty generic. On a Porsche, there are a surprising number of washers that have unique part numbers. When elbow deep and you see this in the parts book you often say to yourself …
Cleaned out the third piece of brass bits today. Discovered that the distributor drive gear had jumped enough that the shim had come out of place and was sitting in the bottom of the case. Good that I found that. If it weren’t for dumb luck, I don’t think I would have any with this …
In an installment of learn from my stupid mistakes: As I was preparing to install our heads today, I noticed through the hole where the distributor would go that the gear for the distributor drive appears chewed up. If I stick my finger in there, I find gold colored flakes. Nothing that sticks to …
I suspect this will be the final installment in the trials and tribulations for this head and associated cc’ing, clearance checking, deck height measuring, and compression calculating. Not only am I exhausted from doing this four times, I think we’re at the limit of what can be accomplished with this head. Our deck height is …
Inspecting my heads today I noticed that the valves, which had been stamped long ago, no longer match the number next to the chamber the head. The machinist is telling me they are confident they’re in the right spot. Got me a little worried.
With the heads reworked a second time, I’m back to the single 1.0 mm cylinder base gasket and more measuring for deck height and compression ratio. Compression is low for this big bore kit. Deck height is high at average of 1.91. Looks like we’re back to removing the cylinders to try a different gasket …
Doing things the first time, it’s not always obvious why things are the way they are. When it comes to Porsche engines, there certainly seems a reason for everything. Case and point, the head bolts It would appear at first glance that I can use any of the head bolts in any position to secure …
After a trip through the mail, our heads returned home. They got very similar measurements of the head angles as I did. They also mentioned that my original machinist may have surfaced the head, but did not adjust for decking off the top. Which I believe would explain my issue with getting 1 – 1.5 …
