Porsche Boxster 986 - engine swap project
Discussion
Escy said:
Awesome car 
It's a bit of a giggle as cars go but after 16 years of ownership it's 20 a day habit is wearing thinEscy said:
The pump is for the oil drain on the turbo. I remember from my days with 200SX's, a (temporary) cure for a turbo with leaking seals was a one way valve added to the PCV hose from the cam cover to the inlet pipe (post MAF sensor, pre turbo). This increased the vacuum in the crankcase. Perhaps something you could look into?
Done all that but it only works for a whileHave two new turbos so may fit those next but I'm sure that cure will be temporary too
shalmaneser said:
Is that a lesser spotted adjustable spanner/molegrip? I didn't know they existed, what a great tool!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-Locking-Adj-Wrenc...
I've got some fancy hose clamps, made by Murray. They have dual beads inside which improve the seal and create a high pressure zone. The ribbed bit allows them to expand and contract with thermal cycling. I've seen they are used in top level motorsport like the WRC so I guess they are actually decent.
Edited by Escy on Wednesday 26th July 22:57
I bought some decent EGT sensors as the ones I was using previously were proving to be crap.
When I removed the old ones my arse dropped out. The tip was missing. It took me about 2 hours to get the courage to remove the exhaust to see if the turbo was damaged. Luckily it wasn't, no signs it had passed through. I removed the whole exhaust, couldn't find it (thought it may have come apart when I removed it) so put it all back together and hoped for the best. It was fine.
When I bought the Quaife the guy I got it off had some Pagid RS4-2 pads he'd taken off his Cayman as he found them noisy and they were annoying him. They had only done a couple thousand miles, hardly worn. They are £400 new and I paid £50, I know second hand brake pads is a bit of a scrooge move but I thought they are worth a try at that money. They are silent on my car and bite really hard once warmed up. Pleased with them.
While doing the brake pads I noticed there was signs of the tyre rubbing the arch liner so I raised the front coilovers slightly.
The car is running perfectly, everything is sorted and ready for another trip to the dyno, trying to get time off work to take it back.
This update brings it up to Saturday the 5th of August. The next update is a big one.
When I removed the old ones my arse dropped out. The tip was missing. It took me about 2 hours to get the courage to remove the exhaust to see if the turbo was damaged. Luckily it wasn't, no signs it had passed through. I removed the whole exhaust, couldn't find it (thought it may have come apart when I removed it) so put it all back together and hoped for the best. It was fine.
When I bought the Quaife the guy I got it off had some Pagid RS4-2 pads he'd taken off his Cayman as he found them noisy and they were annoying him. They had only done a couple thousand miles, hardly worn. They are £400 new and I paid £50, I know second hand brake pads is a bit of a scrooge move but I thought they are worth a try at that money. They are silent on my car and bite really hard once warmed up. Pleased with them.
While doing the brake pads I noticed there was signs of the tyre rubbing the arch liner so I raised the front coilovers slightly.
The car is running perfectly, everything is sorted and ready for another trip to the dyno, trying to get time off work to take it back.
This update brings it up to Saturday the 5th of August. The next update is a big one.
Edited by Escy on Tuesday 8th August 23:06
The last update was up to Saturday the 5th of August, this one will cover Sunday the 6th and it’s a day that’ll haunt me forever.
As the car was now running spot on I wanted to drive it as much as possible before I go back to the dyno as a lack of testing was my downfall last time. I log each drive on my laptop and use the autotune feature to adjust the fuel table, it makes lots of small adjustments but it’s getting better and better each time.
I took it out in the morning for a little run to the local tip, 10 minutes each way and I told my daughter, Sofia (4) I’d take her to my sister’s house in it when I got back. As soon as I got back she was excited and climbing over me while I was trying to put her seat in. She insisted on sitting in it even though I needed to go inside and have a shower. I was surprised how excited she was to go in it. That said, she’s put some graft in on the build so it's only fair.
I’d just gone in for a shower when Vivi, my wife calls me out. A bloke who works at a car sales place near my house is outside, he’s seen me driving past and he knew there was some turbo action going on with it so hunted me down to see if I wanted to sell it. I told him it’s not yet but I will need to sell it at some point next year as I’ll be buying a house. I showed him around the car and he was impressed. He asked what sort of money it’d be, I said around 20k. Rather than run for the hills he said let him know when I want to sell. What the value would be is up for debate but I was expecting it to make around 600bhp (I’d previously said a bit less so I didn’t look a mug if it came up short!) so I’d like to think around the 18k mark. Vivi was listening to the conversation as she was keeping an eye on Sofia who was still in the car, strapped in and refusing to get out. Vivi was really happy, it backs up what i'd been telling her regarding the potential value.
I’m on a high after that, a quick shower later and we set off to my sister’s house. I’m travelling down the A470 heading towards Cardiff, in 5th gear coasting around 55mph, have been driving for around 15 minutes, gently put my foot down a little (so the engine was under load) and suddenly hear a pppffttt noise and the engine starts to die, I drop into 3rd to try and keep it alive. Look in the mirror and see some blue smoke, put my foot down again and more blue smoke, my mind goes back to the missing piece of EGT sensor, perhaps it was lodged somewhere and has just gone through the turbo? I’m on a main road with no hard shoulder so don’t want to risk stopping if I don’t have to as it’s dangerous, especially with Sofia in the car. As I’m just letting it coast down the road with the hazard lights on. I hear beeping behind, it’s a bloke on a 125 bike, and I hear him shout FIRE.
I slam on the brakes, as I stop I see a flame lick up outside the driver’s window. I panic, lunge over to release Sofia’s seatbelt before removing mine and mine jams so I’ve got to lean back, release it, then do her belt. I open my door, grab her and lift her over me, go to put her outside but I had the presence of mind to check over my shoulder first so I didn’t put her in front of a lorry or something.
Thankfully all the traffic had seen what was happening and both lanes had stopped. I get out, lift her up and run around to the side of the road and put her over the fence (luckily there was a path there). She’s in shock, she doesn’t know what’s going on but I guess she can see I’m panicking. I tell her “stay there, I’ll be back now”, I run back to the car to get the fire extinguishers, I’ve left the door open. Instead I see her teddy in the middle of the seats so grab that, then notice my laptop on the floor so grab that also. I close the driver’s door this time without thinking and go give her the teddy and put the laptop on the floor. The bloke on the bike that had warned me has stopped and got his helmet off at that point and another car has also stopped and the people have got out. I ask someone to call 999 and I go back for my fire extinguishers. I think it was probably only 15 seconds from when I originally stopped to this point but it feels like a lifetime.
I open the driver’s door and kneel down to get the fire extinguisher that’s behind the seat, before I can realise I’ve just breathed in a lung full of thick fumes that are heading out of the now open door. I fumble about and grab it anyway. I lie down at the side of the car and spray towards the fire I can see. About 7 seconds later I realise those small fire extinguishers are no use as it’s already run out. I grab the other one anyway as I’m not going to watch my car burn down without doing all I can. Another 7 seconds later and that one’s spent also. I ask the people in the car that stopped if they have an extinguisher, they don’t. I look at the traffic that’s stopped about 100 yards behind, hoping there might be a saviour running down the road with a 20L extinguisher under each arm, obviously not. At this point I know I’m done, nothing I can do. It’s probably around 2 minutes since I first stopped the car.
I hop over the fence and pick up Sofia, she’s crying although not proper crying. The bike rider informs me the fire brigade are on their way. The car isn’t insured for fire (more on that later), as I’m stood there watching the car smouldering away it runs through my mind about popping the boot and bonnet, I could have the ECU out in 5 seconds and the headlights out in a minute (there is a release tool that just pops them out). Together they are worth around £1000. I didn’t think it was much of a risk (and it turned out not to be) but I thought better of it, I didn’t want to leave Sofia again as she was a bit distressed and seeing her dad run towards a car on fire wasn’t going to help that. Nobody had approached us so I’d be leaving her on her own and also there were loads of people out of their cars looking on so I’d look reckless going back. The other thought was opening the boot might accelerate the progress of the fire. If I was on my tod I’d have gone back and saved as much as possible.
At that point I just slowly watch it going up, recording and taking photos sporadically. Some cars suddenly decide its ok to drive past like nothing is happening. I know the value of all the parts on the car so I’m slowly adding up losses hoping the fire brigade will hurry up and I’ll be able to save something. The Police arrive after 10 minutes, the Fire Brigade after 15 minutes. I don’t want to be critical but I feel a bit let down by the time they took, the fire station is just over a mile away on the same road. They went the wrong way twice and the guy on the bike had to ring them again. If they’d turned up when the Police did they’d have had a better chance to put it out before the fuel tank went up. They did seem to get it under control but then they ran out of water which was frustrating to see. A second fire engine turned up but was apparently empty and left again. Strange. To be fair, a Boxster/Cayman engine fire must be one of the toughest to deal with, no easy way to get the engine cover off, no air vents at the rear of the like most mid-engine cars so all you’ve got is the side vents to spray through.
Anyway, about 40 minutes later the Policeman decides he may as well take us home which was nice of him, I’d already told him it wasn’t insured for fire so I guess he wanted to put me out of my misery since no firefighting was happening anymore. The petrol tank had caught fire by this point and there is probably no point even trying to put it out, I don’t know if the other fire engine returned and they did put it out or if they just let it burn itself out. The Policeman also gave me a bottle of water as I had a savage cough from the fumes I’d inhaled while getting the extinguishers. The ride in the Police car certainly cheered up Sofia and that’s what she was telling everyone about later on.
About the insurance, the reason it’s 3rd party only is because I have a trade policy with is basically worthless (low indemnity, high excess), I have no intention of ever making a claim on it which is ok as my other cars are cheap. I put the Porsche on it as it’s easy but my intention was to always get a proper policy with an agreed value but this year the project seems to have hit the buffers a bit, with things like the turbo needing a rebuild, taking off the gearbox to fix an oil leak, having to get a new wastegate and needing to re-jig the exhaust to suit the car has hardly seen the road. I seem to drive it a couple of miles and discover something that needs to be done and it’s back off the road for a couple of weeks. As it still wasn’t finished, coupled with the fact I’ve spanked my budget a while back means I’ve have had to start putting things on a credit card just to keep the project progressing which is why I hadn’t yet sorted out proper insurance.
I don’t need anyone to tell me how stupid that was, I’m beating myself up about it. I was fully immersed in the project for the best part of 2 years, it seemed to occupy my thoughts most of the time, at the start of a week I’d be buying things I needed for the jobs I’d be planning on the weekend. I’ve put a massive amount of hours in and never even got to see what it was like finished which is quite hard to take. It feels like someone close to me has died, I’ve hardly been able to eat since it happened and I’m struggling to sleep but I know the main thing is Sofia and I are both fine but I’m still devastated by it.
I feel really bad for Vivi, she’s put up with being a garage widow for the last 2 years and I’d sold the project to her as an investment, I’d be able to use it for a year and sell it for a profit which was going to be our deposit for a house. The figures were looking good, even with the set-backs like the Porsche engine having a cracked cylinder head and being worth half I’d expected, the turbo re-build, wasted time on the dyno, another wastegate, etc I was sitting at £11,500 which included the cost of the final mapping session. Not bad money for a (expected) 550-600bhp Porsche but It’s a lot of money to see go up in smoke. I was keeping the figures to myself as it’d obviously make selling it harder but feel I may as well share now.
As for the cause of the fire, I suspect it was the oil line for the turbo feed as the oil pressure had dropped. I'll update again with what happens with the salvage.
Here is a video of my nightmare. You can see what's left of it at the end of the video.
https://youtu.be/i7aKdVp-wCI
As the car was now running spot on I wanted to drive it as much as possible before I go back to the dyno as a lack of testing was my downfall last time. I log each drive on my laptop and use the autotune feature to adjust the fuel table, it makes lots of small adjustments but it’s getting better and better each time.
I took it out in the morning for a little run to the local tip, 10 minutes each way and I told my daughter, Sofia (4) I’d take her to my sister’s house in it when I got back. As soon as I got back she was excited and climbing over me while I was trying to put her seat in. She insisted on sitting in it even though I needed to go inside and have a shower. I was surprised how excited she was to go in it. That said, she’s put some graft in on the build so it's only fair.
I’d just gone in for a shower when Vivi, my wife calls me out. A bloke who works at a car sales place near my house is outside, he’s seen me driving past and he knew there was some turbo action going on with it so hunted me down to see if I wanted to sell it. I told him it’s not yet but I will need to sell it at some point next year as I’ll be buying a house. I showed him around the car and he was impressed. He asked what sort of money it’d be, I said around 20k. Rather than run for the hills he said let him know when I want to sell. What the value would be is up for debate but I was expecting it to make around 600bhp (I’d previously said a bit less so I didn’t look a mug if it came up short!) so I’d like to think around the 18k mark. Vivi was listening to the conversation as she was keeping an eye on Sofia who was still in the car, strapped in and refusing to get out. Vivi was really happy, it backs up what i'd been telling her regarding the potential value.
I’m on a high after that, a quick shower later and we set off to my sister’s house. I’m travelling down the A470 heading towards Cardiff, in 5th gear coasting around 55mph, have been driving for around 15 minutes, gently put my foot down a little (so the engine was under load) and suddenly hear a pppffttt noise and the engine starts to die, I drop into 3rd to try and keep it alive. Look in the mirror and see some blue smoke, put my foot down again and more blue smoke, my mind goes back to the missing piece of EGT sensor, perhaps it was lodged somewhere and has just gone through the turbo? I’m on a main road with no hard shoulder so don’t want to risk stopping if I don’t have to as it’s dangerous, especially with Sofia in the car. As I’m just letting it coast down the road with the hazard lights on. I hear beeping behind, it’s a bloke on a 125 bike, and I hear him shout FIRE.
I slam on the brakes, as I stop I see a flame lick up outside the driver’s window. I panic, lunge over to release Sofia’s seatbelt before removing mine and mine jams so I’ve got to lean back, release it, then do her belt. I open my door, grab her and lift her over me, go to put her outside but I had the presence of mind to check over my shoulder first so I didn’t put her in front of a lorry or something.
Thankfully all the traffic had seen what was happening and both lanes had stopped. I get out, lift her up and run around to the side of the road and put her over the fence (luckily there was a path there). She’s in shock, she doesn’t know what’s going on but I guess she can see I’m panicking. I tell her “stay there, I’ll be back now”, I run back to the car to get the fire extinguishers, I’ve left the door open. Instead I see her teddy in the middle of the seats so grab that, then notice my laptop on the floor so grab that also. I close the driver’s door this time without thinking and go give her the teddy and put the laptop on the floor. The bloke on the bike that had warned me has stopped and got his helmet off at that point and another car has also stopped and the people have got out. I ask someone to call 999 and I go back for my fire extinguishers. I think it was probably only 15 seconds from when I originally stopped to this point but it feels like a lifetime.
I open the driver’s door and kneel down to get the fire extinguisher that’s behind the seat, before I can realise I’ve just breathed in a lung full of thick fumes that are heading out of the now open door. I fumble about and grab it anyway. I lie down at the side of the car and spray towards the fire I can see. About 7 seconds later I realise those small fire extinguishers are no use as it’s already run out. I grab the other one anyway as I’m not going to watch my car burn down without doing all I can. Another 7 seconds later and that one’s spent also. I ask the people in the car that stopped if they have an extinguisher, they don’t. I look at the traffic that’s stopped about 100 yards behind, hoping there might be a saviour running down the road with a 20L extinguisher under each arm, obviously not. At this point I know I’m done, nothing I can do. It’s probably around 2 minutes since I first stopped the car.
I hop over the fence and pick up Sofia, she’s crying although not proper crying. The bike rider informs me the fire brigade are on their way. The car isn’t insured for fire (more on that later), as I’m stood there watching the car smouldering away it runs through my mind about popping the boot and bonnet, I could have the ECU out in 5 seconds and the headlights out in a minute (there is a release tool that just pops them out). Together they are worth around £1000. I didn’t think it was much of a risk (and it turned out not to be) but I thought better of it, I didn’t want to leave Sofia again as she was a bit distressed and seeing her dad run towards a car on fire wasn’t going to help that. Nobody had approached us so I’d be leaving her on her own and also there were loads of people out of their cars looking on so I’d look reckless going back. The other thought was opening the boot might accelerate the progress of the fire. If I was on my tod I’d have gone back and saved as much as possible.
At that point I just slowly watch it going up, recording and taking photos sporadically. Some cars suddenly decide its ok to drive past like nothing is happening. I know the value of all the parts on the car so I’m slowly adding up losses hoping the fire brigade will hurry up and I’ll be able to save something. The Police arrive after 10 minutes, the Fire Brigade after 15 minutes. I don’t want to be critical but I feel a bit let down by the time they took, the fire station is just over a mile away on the same road. They went the wrong way twice and the guy on the bike had to ring them again. If they’d turned up when the Police did they’d have had a better chance to put it out before the fuel tank went up. They did seem to get it under control but then they ran out of water which was frustrating to see. A second fire engine turned up but was apparently empty and left again. Strange. To be fair, a Boxster/Cayman engine fire must be one of the toughest to deal with, no easy way to get the engine cover off, no air vents at the rear of the like most mid-engine cars so all you’ve got is the side vents to spray through.
Anyway, about 40 minutes later the Policeman decides he may as well take us home which was nice of him, I’d already told him it wasn’t insured for fire so I guess he wanted to put me out of my misery since no firefighting was happening anymore. The petrol tank had caught fire by this point and there is probably no point even trying to put it out, I don’t know if the other fire engine returned and they did put it out or if they just let it burn itself out. The Policeman also gave me a bottle of water as I had a savage cough from the fumes I’d inhaled while getting the extinguishers. The ride in the Police car certainly cheered up Sofia and that’s what she was telling everyone about later on.
About the insurance, the reason it’s 3rd party only is because I have a trade policy with is basically worthless (low indemnity, high excess), I have no intention of ever making a claim on it which is ok as my other cars are cheap. I put the Porsche on it as it’s easy but my intention was to always get a proper policy with an agreed value but this year the project seems to have hit the buffers a bit, with things like the turbo needing a rebuild, taking off the gearbox to fix an oil leak, having to get a new wastegate and needing to re-jig the exhaust to suit the car has hardly seen the road. I seem to drive it a couple of miles and discover something that needs to be done and it’s back off the road for a couple of weeks. As it still wasn’t finished, coupled with the fact I’ve spanked my budget a while back means I’ve have had to start putting things on a credit card just to keep the project progressing which is why I hadn’t yet sorted out proper insurance.
I don’t need anyone to tell me how stupid that was, I’m beating myself up about it. I was fully immersed in the project for the best part of 2 years, it seemed to occupy my thoughts most of the time, at the start of a week I’d be buying things I needed for the jobs I’d be planning on the weekend. I’ve put a massive amount of hours in and never even got to see what it was like finished which is quite hard to take. It feels like someone close to me has died, I’ve hardly been able to eat since it happened and I’m struggling to sleep but I know the main thing is Sofia and I are both fine but I’m still devastated by it.
I feel really bad for Vivi, she’s put up with being a garage widow for the last 2 years and I’d sold the project to her as an investment, I’d be able to use it for a year and sell it for a profit which was going to be our deposit for a house. The figures were looking good, even with the set-backs like the Porsche engine having a cracked cylinder head and being worth half I’d expected, the turbo re-build, wasted time on the dyno, another wastegate, etc I was sitting at £11,500 which included the cost of the final mapping session. Not bad money for a (expected) 550-600bhp Porsche but It’s a lot of money to see go up in smoke. I was keeping the figures to myself as it’d obviously make selling it harder but feel I may as well share now.
As for the cause of the fire, I suspect it was the oil line for the turbo feed as the oil pressure had dropped. I'll update again with what happens with the salvage.
Here is a video of my nightmare. You can see what's left of it at the end of the video.
https://youtu.be/i7aKdVp-wCI
ks - gutted for you...........
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