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This is the story of my Amazon Green 1993 5-speed, GTS. It's currently at Precision Motorwerks, getting a complete engine rebuild. I'm starting this thread to share the process of bringing this car back to life.
When I bought my GTS in 2005, I knew it would be a project - the car ran rough, wouldn't pass DEQ, was missing the PSD pump, had an S4 rear bumper, leaked oil and had electrical problems. I fixed a number of problems and eventually got the car reliable enough that I could drive it almost anywhere. I also liked to track the car, especially at the Spokane Raceway with the PacNW 928 group. I would drive to Spokane on a Friday, run on the track all day Saturday, then drive back to Portland Saturday night. Never had a problem.
About 4 years ago, I stopped doing track days. Unfortunately, it meant I didn’t drive the GTS as much, and the times I did drive it were shorter and less intense. I continued to do regular maintenance, but it's amazing how quickly troubles started showing up.
In the fall of 2017, I did an oil and coolant change, along with installing some Greg Brown hoses. When I test drove the car, I saw smoke coming from the back. I assumed the new oil cooler hoses might be loose, allowing oil to drip onto the exhaust. When I checked, the oil cooler hoses were fine, but I found PS fluid leaking from the hoses at the steering rack. When I got this fixed, the engine would turn over, but wouldn’t start. Over the winter I worked on the starting problem, and dealt with a fuel leak and electrical gremlins as well. Finally after replacing a bad MAF last spring, the engine started up, ran for about thirty seconds, and then locked up. I found cylinder 2 full of water, and knew I had a head gasket problem.
I made a terrible mistake in not catching the head gasket problem earlier. The thing is, I knew about the problems with coolant in 928 blocks/heads, and changed coolant religiously every two years. I thought this would keep me safe, but obviously that wasn’t the case.
After exploring my options, I sent the car to Greg Brown in LA where work on the engine is progressing nicely.
I've always enjoyed seeing pictures of work on other people's cars, so I'm going to use this thread to show pictures of the work on my car..
The first problem Greg found was a crack in the wall of cylinder 2, caused by hydro-lock. Greg was able to save the block by finding Alusil sleeves sized for 928 cylinders. The same repair is done on Mercedes engines, and Greg's machinist is very familiar with the procedure. After grinding down the cylinder wall, the sleeve is turned on a lathe to the correct size, cooled in liquid nitrogen, then inserted into the heated block. As you can see,the block looks as good as new. The crack in cylinder 2 Alusil cylinder sleeve Repaired cylinder - 2nd from right. Notice the line between the sleeve and the block Under side of cylinder 2. Sleeve is thinner at bottom.
I had always planned to replace the R1 rods with R2 versions, but Greg argued for replacement of the pistons as well. The piston in cylinder 2 was toast, and the rest were close to the wear limit. So i took a big gulp and said yes. New oversize piston, matched with pins to minimize weight variation. Final balancing done by removing material New R2 rods ready to match up with pistons Pistons and rods ready to install. All balanced within a gram of each other
Tom, thanks for making these posts, even though you can't just take pics on the workbench and post! I'm sure the effort will be appreciated by others too!
How many miles on your GTS? Hard to imagine now to find a GTS that is a project car even at a reasonable price! Nice story. Don't hesitate to post pics of the car too. :-)
That is looking great! I would have Greg stick in a set of windage trays while the engine is apart because you do occasionally track the car. They look pretty cool in a 928 block if I say so myself
Tom, I am glad to see you are making good progress on the car and i am happy to see it on the road to recovery. It's gonna be fantastic and you are so lucky for GB to be sending you such detailed updates! I cant wait to see it when it comes back to Portland!
06-22-2019, 03:44 AM
GTS Resurrection
