Phoenix from the flames - Porsche Boxster with an Audi 2.7T

[Escy]

For anyone that's not aware of my previous Boxster the build thread is here - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

To re-cap it went from this...




To this...



The car was still due to be mapped and I didn't have a proper insurance policy on it so it was a big financial loss. The reaction on the forums has been overwhelming and a gofundme page was set up to try and get the project going again. A massive thank you to everyone that donated.

I started off getting another Audi A6 2.7t donor car.


This weekend I picked up another Boxster. It's a 2.7, has done 98k with full service history, 4 previous owners, the last one for 8 years. It's a decent spec, has the factory sat nav (with a phone!), hardtop, litronic headlights and sports exhaust. It's crazy how much some of those parts sell for and I'll have to sell them to make the project viable.





Hopefully the mileage is a good omen.


It's not all good news, the car was cheap for a reason. It was sitting for the best part of a year due to an immobiliser fault. The previous owner took it to a garage that didn't know what they were doing, there was a bag in the boot, they'd changed the ignition barrel, ECU, alarm/body module, key and starter motor. The starter motor rang some alarm bells. The car was doing a few funny things, one of which was the release buttons for the boot and bonnet didn't work (which is why the bonnet is not closed properly in the photos). I had a look and the part number on the replacement alarm/body module was wrong which explained why functions weren't working. I swapped that over and the engine ECU and it started up on the 2nd key i'd been given, so much for an immobiliser problem, that starter motor must have been the last thing the garage replaced.

After they got it running for the first time in nearly a year it sounded bad, it has a tapping sound and the car is burning loads of oil. I've had a little look at it since collecting the car, cylinder 2 has a misfire, the car is burning loads of oil and it's down on compression on that cylinder. I think it's a seized lifter. I'll strip it down when I get a chance.

Here is a video of the noise.
https://youtu.be/aF-zkizY-O8

I got it brought back (he had to turn it around the other way due to too much weight at the back)


There won't be much progress for a while. Firstly I need to strip the A6 and get rid of the shell, then i'll get the Boxster in the garage and see if I can sort out the engine noise.

I'm back in the game

[Escy]

They are worth more as a complete running engine. I sold the engine as parts on the old Boxster and it took ages to shift bits. There isn't much of a DIY culture with Porsche's when it comes to engines so there is a small market.

It depends on the damage when I open it up, i'm hoping for just a siezed lifter. If the camshaft lobe is worn the whole cylinder head is scrap. I bought the car with the assumption the engine is scrap so if I can repair it, it'll be a big bonus for my budget. A used 2.7 engine is around £1800 on ebay.

[Escy]

It depends on how I go about it. If I copy how it was before it won't take long as everything I fabricated is salvageable. The problem is I need quite a few expensive parts. One thing I learnt about the last build was cheap aftermarket parts are rubbish and decent aftermarket parts are very expensive. The middle ground is probably cheaper Chinese parts re-branded.

The other option is, as the replacement Boxster is a 2.7 with a 5 speed, I can bolt the engine straight up to the gearbox. I can then see what would need doing for clearance. If it's reasonable I'd be tempted to fit a standard 2.7t engine and get it running on the Audi ECU. You can get 350bhp on standard turbos. The turbos can be upgraded at a later date. With this route, all the parts will be factory Porsche or Audi so hopefully no issues.

Basically I don't know yet.

[Escy]

Thanks everyone.

Robmarriott said:

Think I actually prefer the new colour choice!

I wouldn't have chosen red but now i've got it, I quite like it, think I prefer it to the ocean blue the old car was. You don't see that many in red.

superkarl said:

A great deal more can be had from the 2.7tt in standard format by using KO4 turbos and beyond that hybrid turbos utilising wheels and housings from the rest of the VAG range. 400-1000hp is achievable in the standard format.
I guess the benefit of your first build was packaging.
Fitting two turbos which are outside the V certainly doesn't make things easier.

I dare you to try and convert the engine to run with turbos inside the V

In the Boxster engine compartment with the Audi V6 there is loads of space at the sides of the engine but no space above it. There are pros and cons to both single turbo and twin turbos. Keeping twin turbos means everything is as designed by Audi which should make it reliable and it'll just work as it should straight away. That said it's all so tightly packaged that it's a nightmare to work on, even with the engine out of the car. It's also harder to design and fabricate all the pipe work for twin turbos as the original Audi stuff won't fit.

hman said:

what is the second exhaust for?

It's a screamer pipe for the external wastegate. They are typically fed back into the exhaust after the turbo.

HybridAero said:

Awesome to hear and phenomenal response via GoFundMe.

I know it's a sore subject but did you find out what caused the fire?

The gofundme has been fantastic, everyone has been very generous and it's much appreciated. I'm not 100% sure on the cause of the fire, it's hard to say with total certainty as it was carnage afterwards but I think it was the turbo oil feed which failed where it was crimped, leaked onto the exhaust and caught fire. I think this because...

1. When I went to put the fire out initially, the exhaust wrap was on fire, it's not flammable so that means it was either soaked in fuel or oil.
2. The ECU log showed the oil pressure dropped, the fuel pressure was the same. The initial smoke from the back of the car when I was driving was blue, I thought the turbo had blown at first. This points to an oil leak.
3. The point where it looked like the fire had started was at the top of the engine at the back, above the gearbox. That's where my oil feed was for the turbo was.
4. The banjo bolt holding the oil pipe to the engine is still tight.

[Escy]

After that experience, I don't think a plumbed in fire extinguisher is overkill on any modified car. Especially a Boxster or Cayman where the engine bay is difficult to access. It's something I'll be fitting to this car.

[Escy]

Robmarriott said:

I may be able to help you with that if the timing is right, I have one in a car which I don't think I'll be needing and it's never been used. 2.25 litre though, the minimum size the MSA required when building the car, you might want to go bigger?

Sounds good, i'd be interested.

ikarl said:

Genuinely excited for this!

Quick question.... how easy/difficult would the project be to just swap in the 2.7tt engine without massively modifying/tuning it? i.e. Just the basics to make it a viable daily car?

This is probably the way i'll go this time around. I've had the engine running on the standard management in the old Boxster previously.

[Escy]

Thank you for the offer, I've sent you an email.

[Escy]

My cousin has already told me it's "fire engine red"

[Escy]

Things are moving forward, i've stripped off all the parts I needed from the Audi and sold a load of bits. I needed to get rid of the shell so I can get the Porsche in the garage.

I usually use a company with a hiab to lift shells off my drive but they were messing me about so I had to use someone else and it was going to be a drag it out job. This was a challenge. I bought some skates that you sit the wheels on to move cars about with, I don't have any wheels for it as I sold them but I've got a really sturdy pallet that's pretty wide so I put this on the skates and dropped the shell onto it. The front end I sat on my engine hoist. We then winched it up the driveway.

This didn't go smoothly, 2 wheels snapped on each of the skates under the pallet, these are apparently good for 450kg each but I guess you need a perfectly smooth floor. We just dragged it on the pallet from that point as there was not much choice. Once the shell was clear of the drive a wheel broke on my engine hoist. Luckily by that point he was able to reverse up and just winched it straight onto the truck.

Here are the casualties. That's the second wheel that's broken on the hoist but I do badly abuse it so it's fair enough. Those skates on the other hand I don't think are up to much. Another Chinese ebay special.



The guy that collected it had a decent recovery truck, only a few years old so I was surprised he's willing to drag scrap onto it. I don't think I would.




I've finally got the Porsche in the garage which is a relief as there is a fault on the central locking, it locks and then immediately unlocks so it's just been sat on the drive unlocked (which is why the bonnet isn't fully closed in the photo). I've ordered a diagnostic cable which should read the alarm module so I can diagnose the fault. The plan now is to see if I can fix the tapping on the Porsche engine. If I do repair it i'd like to MOT it and run it daily for a few weeks before starting on the engine conversion.

[Escy]

Most central locking issues tend to be the drivers side locking motor. I've taken that out, opened it up, checked it for dry solder joints, cleaned the micro switches, etc. Can't find anything wrong. I noticed the passenger side sounded funny, took that one apart and there was a load of dust inside from one of the motors. I thought i'd found the problem. I swapped the electrical section from the one in the Audi over. It works fine but still locks then unlocks. Decided to put the Porsche one back in with the motors from the Audi one fitted to it. Works fine, the problem is still there. The car locks and unlocks 2 seconds later and the alarm beeps twice so it knows there is a problem. The window drop function is fine, the interior lights come on when you open either door, or boot.

[Escy]

Thanks for the replies. The bonnet was only open in the photo as I disconnected the battery. The bonnet and boot open fine, both off the key and inside the car. The interior lights for the bonnet and boot are also lighting up when opened.

[Escy]

Thanks Rob. I checked under the passenger seat, luckily it's all dry under there. I think the door lock actuators are functioning as they should but I won't be surprised if once I do get some diagnostics on it one of them will turn out to be faulty.

[Escy]

I started working on the Boxster, trying to sort out the engine noise which I thought was a duff hydraulic lifter. It's the first time i've worked on a flat 6 engine inside a Boxster, I didn't enjoy it at all there's not much space. I bought a (st ebay) kit with all the timing tools for the M96 engine, the tool to lock the crankshaft only fitted with the handle removed and the tool to set the cam positions doesn't even fit inside a Boxster engine compartment. That made the job harder than it should be.



I took the exhaust manifold off to give myself better access. I knew this was a risky move, the bolts snap easily, I was careful, working them back and fore with loads of WD40, I still managed to snap two. I drilled one out and used a pretty handy tool that's grips like a drill chuck on the other. I couldn't get my drill in on the one that I drilled out so needed to use an extension that wobbled all over the place. I've included a photo of me drilling it out as considering i'm on my back with swarf dropping all over me and the drill extension was shaking all over the place it was a minor miracle I managed to get it bang in the middle of the bolt.





You can see all the oil on the cylinder 2 exhaust port, I think it's probably got stuck pistons rings from where it was sitting for a year, i've seen people use various potions to try and free them up but on a flat engine it's not going to work. I carried on with the lifters. I did find one that wasn't holding oil pressure like the others, I could easily compress it so I changed it, put it all back together but the noise remains. So it was a waste of time (and it took me a long time). If it was a normal engine i'd have pulled the cylinder head and sump off and got the piston out but to go that on a Porsche engine you need to split the crankcase.



I'm putting the Porsche on the back burner for a while, a Celica 190 (2ZZ-GE engine) came up for sale locally at a price I couldn't ignore. I'm going to break it for parts and stick the engine in a MR2. I'll start a new build thread for that. I've built a few in the past and I think they are fantastic. I actually have more enthusiasm to build an MR2 2ZZ than I do for the Porsche at the moment. That's a bit of worry to be honest.

I had to make space for the Celica which means moving the Porsche to the back of the car port. That's easier said than done with all the engines and gearboxes i've got taking up all my space. I managed to scratch the Porsche during the process, even though I was only pushing it. That's left me frustrated.

[Escy]

I finished the MR2 2ZZ swap and now that's my daily driver.


The plan was to start on the Boxster once the MR2 was done but I got side tracked by another Audi A6 2.7t that came up locally for a bargain price. I decided to buy it and break it for parts as there was a few things I needed. It had a re-map and dyno print out for 290bhp, it went well. It had done 125k miles, the same as the silver A6 i'd bought, I decided going to use this engine as the code is AJK which is the same as the one I used in the last Boxster so the wiring has all been worked out. It had been worked on by some right animals in the past, everything seemed to have half the amount of bolts fitted, headlights cabled tied in, water hose kinked so bad the oil cooler wouldn't have been doing anything, etc. I removed the engine in the garage and then dragged it outside to with my black MR2 (now sold) to get the rest of the parts off I wanted (it had a nice set of Recaro's).





So now it's time to start on the new Boxster build.

[Escy]

I've been thinking it over and i've decided on the plan of attack for this car. Although pretty much everything related to the engine conversion on the car that caught fire is salvageable, I can't afford to replace all the parts that got destroyed at the moment. I'm going to mothball the bits I have got and look to build another Boxster again in the future (once i've got a house sorted).

The plan this time is to use a completely standard 2.7t engine. I'll use the standard turbos, injectors, downpipes, etc. This should be good for around 350bhp with a re-map, not amazing but enough to be fun and not far behind the Cayman GT4 (380bhp) .In the future, a set of injectors and bigger (K04) turbos would see it make 450bhp so it's got some potential.

I'll use the Boxster 5 speed gearbox. I'll know from offering up the standard engine on the last car that the turbos will foul the body so i'll have to cut and weld where required. I've not made a decision yet on if i'll use intercoolers like the Audi did or if i'll go for air to water charge cooling (it was expensive last time and a lot of work), I could even opt for just running water/meth injection.

The benefits of keeping it all OEM is it should be reliable. The downside is the 2.7t is a total pig to work on, you can see how tightly packed everything is. Everything is caked in oil, every 2.7t i've seen has been the same.



Pulling the original engine out of the Boxster.






The gearbox in the background is a Cayman S 6 speed, that's what I had in the last car. You can see there is a big difference in size.

[Escy]

ikarl said:

Escy, I'm one of the many that donated in the hope to see this projected reborn.....

If it were my choice in the first place, this is exactly what I wanted you to do!

Please take a million pics of everything and what you need to cut etc. as this genuinely excites me. I'd much prefer to see this as it's within the reach of mere mortals like myself

Good luck!

Thank you. I'm going to try and keep it all simple this time, I just want it in an running and not have to mess about with constant niggles like the last car.

ZX10R NIN said:

Keep up the good work.

Thanks

shalmaneser said:

Very wise keeping it fairly OEM initially. The silliness can come later once everything is bolted down and bedded in!

Could you use one of the side intakes on the Boxster to run a side mount intercooler? Air to air is always going to be the simplest and cheapest option here I'd have thought? If you do end up having problems with heat soak water injection seems like a reasonable thing to do down the line.

Good luck with the build - very much enjoyed the MR2 one and the previous (ill-fated) Boxster too!

A pair of intercoolers behind the side intakes is probably the easiest and cheapest way if space allows. The side intakes are pretty small and at 90 degrees to the body so they aren't ideal. I've got a couple of other ideas also.

MX6 said:

I was following the previous ill-fated Boxster thread, good to see that you're getting back into the swap action with this one. Seems sensible to keep things relatively simple initially just to get it up and running quicker...

This time around things should be much faster. Famous last words but i'd like it done in time for the summer.

Bright Halo said:

This is really good to see.
You are a guy of determination who doesn’t let setbacks even serious ones stop you.
Looking forward to this.

After the fire I did consider packing in cars all together and get myself some golf clubs or something! It was the reaction on the forums and the gofundme campaign that got me back on the horse.

[Escy]

As has been mentioned by others, it's a space vs time vs money thing.

If i've not got any other plans i'll spend a while breaking a car but the blue A6 was bought on a Wednesday, I stripped most of it that weekend and finished the rest off during the evenings and the scrap man collected it the following Saturday so I had it just over a week. That's because I wanted it gone so I could start on the Boxster.

I take the things off I know will sell for decent money and any other bits I get asked for while I have the car but I don't want a garage full of crap i'll struggle to sell (i'm also guilty of getting lazy, take parts off that are low value and never get around to advertising them).

Audi's are hard to judge, some things go for strong money and other things you can't give away. I advertised the auto gearbox from the silver A6 on ebay for £50, it was listed for months and months with no interest whatsoever. In the end I flagged down a passing rag and bone man and got him to take it away. The manual gearbox from the blue A6 sold for £400 within a couple of days.

[Escy]

I took some reference photos before I started removing parts. There are wires and pipes everywhere.







I put the 5 speed gearbox on the engine ready to offer it up to the Boxster. I fitted one of the downpipes (one that snapped at the flexi joint) to see if it'll interfere with the body. I'll have to make my own downpipes, the catalytic converters would be coming out past the rear bumper.

[Escy]

I got myself sidetracked again with a Mini.




I started offering up the engine to the Boxster but have not got very far as it's started snowing. Having a car port isn't much fun.

[Escy]

It's a 2010 Cooper, I bought it locally. I was told the engine was knocking but it turned out it was actually just a bit low on oil so just sounded rough and it was running on 3 cylinders. The headgasket had actually gone. I bought a replacement engine before I bought picked up the car. The engines for these seem to go for over a grand, I got lucky as someone had broken a Mini not far away from me and he wanted collection only for the engine. He'd been messed about on ebay previously, it was up for £650, I offered £400 and he accepted it. I've since sold the one needing the head gasket for spares for £250 so it ended up costing me £150 for the engine, happy with that.

I was going to sell it but the wife has taken a shine to it. She's going to have it, i'm going to sell my MR2 and use the Golf she was using as my daily.