Challenge Boxster?

I can see the issue. 

One one hand you have a daily driver that is a bit rough, but in working order.  Purchase price was reasonable at the time but not within Challenge range.  On the other hand you have a cosmetically sound body and suspension but an engine that will never run again.  Assuming you took the good engine from the running car and moved it to the cosmetically sound car, the "effective value" increases for one and decreases for the other.  By how much is the real question.  You also have to consider the actual current value of the running car since it had been driven and time has passed which should further decrease the residual value.  It would stand to reason the original daily driver could easily be valued at $1600 if it did not have a working engine because you have set the precedent with the recent purchase.  Also, the the daily driver is 2 years older, has fewer options and is higher mileage technically making it's value even lower.

I'm not the expert, but it would be much easier IMHO to value the '99 at $1600 then the '01 if both didn't have working engines.  I know that sounds like a bunch of funny business paperwork wise but seems like a workable solution to me.  Said another way, if you were reversing the scenario, then you would get considerable push back from the rules committee.  So, it makes sense to me and everybody wins but I'm not the guy in charge.  Regardless, please carry on.  I'd really like to see the Audi swap! 

I hope you get it sorted and running with the Audi v8 for the Challenge too. I hope it sounds like the Spyker's that were running with us in the European LeMans Series in the mid 2000's.

In reply to Samebutdifferent :

However the accounting comes out, I'm sure it will be controversial. That is not going to be a big concern for me. I'll use this thread to keep the whole process transparent and not worry so much about it until the swapped car takes shape. For now, no detailed spreadsheet to stress over. The facts will all be here to enumerate later. With accounting and statistics, "The numbers don't lie.", but they can be arranged to say whatever you'd like.

two things:

1.  it's a base car with automatic.   you're not a threat, to the establishment or anyone else.   build it, bring it, get the T-shirt.

2.  in 20 years of challenges, i've never heard of anyone getting protested.  and i'd be willing to bet the number of budgets that got rejected is less than one per year.

Figures lie and liars figure...

However, IMHO, you are staying true to the intent of the rules if not the letter.  You are swapping what is arguably a lower cost car assuming the engine swap so family first, challenge second...??? 

Will anyone care?  Time will tell.  

Put a Subaru engine in it?

AngryCorvair said:

two things:

1.  it's a base car with automatic.   you're not a threat, to the establishment or anyone else.   build it, bring it, get the T-shirt. ...

My base will be lighter and more powerful than an S and I will crush you with my superior German engineered automatic gear shifting technology. That is not a threat.

A tiny bit of movement and progress today. I didn't really get the garage cleared out, but I packed most of the loose VW stuff into the GTI and made enough space in the middle to fit the '01 in. I wanted to pull the wheels and drop the oil pan today, but had too many other things to attend to. Tomorrow I'll get a good start on dropping the engine, but will probably spend a little time looking into the cause of the engine failure before it comes out.

Tonight at work, I'm looking over my old notes and schematics, adapting the engine to the '99 Tiptronic car. Actual in-car work on the '99 probably won't happen until the end of the month, but the engine is in the garage ready to clean up and start some prep work on.

When I get tired of staring at schematics, there's a couple inspiring Boxster builds I'm looking over to get more ideas for the Challenge build.

In reply to AAZCD :

Got any Boxster 6MT shifters with cables that you'd care to sell?  that's one of the things I *think* i need for my project.   Probably could use any cable-actuated 6MT shifter as long as reverse is up and left.

After seeing the metallic debris in the oil filter, I guessed that it was not worth repairing the engine. I removed the sump today. Looks like it just needs a valve reattached and a piston glued back together. The rest ain't too bad.

In reply to AAZCD :

JB weld should fix that right up.

Not to bore you with details, but I've been busy with a lot of other stuff and didn't want to have  things torn apart until I have time to make major progress. Tomorrow I travel for about a week. When I get home, projects start.

First project: Put a working Porsche engine in the '01 and trade for my daughter's daily driver '99. I have a 2.5L engine that will work for that after I swap over the intake, throttle, and fuel injection parts. Slight downgrade from the 2.7L but fine for this purpose. I can always upgrade the engine later if desired.

Second project: Remove the engine and designate the 1999 as the Challenge car. Tom Suddard approved my idea of trading chassis as long as I keep it all clearly documented in the build book. Engine swap: physically mount the Audi V8 in the car, adapt the harness, fuel lines, cooling, exhaust, and cables. The transmission will bolt right up to the engine, but I may have to add a spacer or trade to a different torque converter. I'll see when I get there.

TBD: How much "Challenge" do I want to put in this car. I have plenty of regular drivers to choose from daily, so although I plan to keep it 'Oklahoma' street legal, I am thinking of really taking out as much weight and unneeded accessory as possible. Power steering? AC? Windows? Top? Carpet? Leather dash? Lots of stuff can come out of these cars to be sold or traded. The more I learn about the rules, the more potential I see to build the car. ...but before I get too excited about all that, I have to make a running, drivable car.

Slight off-topic - I offered my 1999 manual car (that I love) to my daughter and had her try it out. She used to daily drive a manual 2000 Beetle, but this was different. With a short shifter and very hard clutch, she had a terrible time. After about a half hour we were both out of nerves and about to cry. That idea is out.

Great news from Tom. 

This may be a bit out of the ordinary but certainly is in the spirit of the challenge.  

Watching with great interest.

Ok... I'm back at it now, home from travels and doing the simple engine swap in the '01. I've said before that when I am working on a car with no time-pressure, it's relaxing for me. I listen to good music, or an audiobook and wander around the vehicle like a grazing sheep; chomping on what tastes good at the moment and not worrying about the whole meadow.

I started last night. I have a couple books and a factory shop manual. I have taken engines out of Boxsters 5 or 6 times now and know the basics of the job well. I still like to go to the Pelican Parts Tech Articles and make myself a checklist on a clipboard to guide myself through the job. I took care of the items that require power, then disconnected the battery. I'll top it up with a 2A charger while I work on the car. Everything open and removed to access the engine. Serpentine belt removed, throttle body and tubing off, PS reservoir off, wire harness disconnected in the trunk and pushed into the engine compartment, ...simple, little tasks.

I like to relax and wander, but I also need to move this car along and get to my real Challenge build. This is a nice warm-up, but really nobody cares much about the '01 now - the '99 is the true project. I have a plan: Today have the engine removed. Tomorrow have the replacement engine prepped and ready to install. Next day install the engine. Next (Monday? I've been off work too long and lost track of the days...) work on the final details and checks, insure the car if it looks good and get out on the road. Finished. Swap cars with youngest AAZCD daughter and start on the Challenge build. That's the plan and the pace. Easy for an old man with a sore back to get a little ahead, or push a little to the next day as needed. Hot humid days and a small, window air conditioner in the garage. The mornings and late night are my time. Motrin and Coffee are my friends.

I haven't looked it up. It's plain enough to see when you do the job. I'm pretty sure that the torque converter is held to the flexplate with 6 bolts that take an H7 wrench, three pairs of two. To separate the engine from the transmission you have to unbolt the flexplate from the TC: Remove the starter, then turn the crank until you see bolts through the hole that the starter snout sat in. Block the crank, remove 2 bolts, turn 120 degrees and repeat twice.

Pic: Intake crosstube

There was piston ring material in the intake along with battered, crushed aluminum chunks. Valves and debris in the sump as seen earlier.

The engine and transmission are out now. Lowered on jacks, set on cardboard, and slid out from under the car. Engine and transmission together. That was this morning. They are still together. There's a slight problem. Really just a delay while I contemplate. The crank will only turn about 15 degrees. No bolts can be accessed through the hole.

I expect that there are large pieces of piston, rod, and fractured cylinder wall preventing rotation. I tried a few big tools on the crank and it ain't gonna go. The engine is mostly scrap, but the transmission stays with the car. I'm spending the afternoon doing some kitchen demolition (Our former kitchen is going to be the new living room) while I contemplate my options. I think I'm going to pull the heads off and get a look at the internal carnage, then unbolt or break things until the crank can be turned 360.

Pull trans off engine and converter, then unbolt converter from flexplate?  That’s how i do seized engines

In reply to Patrick :

Pulling the transmission off was good as a step forward. Good and made me smile, but it doesn't improve access to the bolts that hold the TC on. What it did accomplish was making the engine a lot easier to work on.

The bolts that hold the converter on are still about 15 degrees away from being accessible. Unless (until?) I bust up the case of the engine, the only way to get a wrench on them is through the starter hole.

The cool thing that happened was that my kitchen demolition yielded a nice sheet of 1960s Formica from the old countertop. With the Formica on the garage floor, I slid the engine (on cardboard) on top of it. Now I can spin the engine around like a break-dancer on the floor, while I pull parts off to put on the replacement engine.

I quit early today, while I was still feeling good. Most of the intake, injection, wire harness, and vacuum system is free from the engine and I only have a few more wires to disconnect. Tomorrow when I get all that 'good stuff' clear of the engine, I'll tear the block down 'till the crank is free. I really enjoy taking things apart that I don't have to put back together, so i don't mind the delay in getting the replacement engine in.

This morning I didn't worry about progress and just started taking things apart. The rest of the topside accessories came off easily and went in the old kiddie pool for a wash. I don't want chunks of aluminum from the intake getting ingested into the replacement engine and it was all a greasy mess.

With all the accessories off the top of the engine, I looked in the hole for the oil filler tube and saw the broken end of the #2 rod, bent and jamming against the block.

I tried pushing it out of the way as I rotated the crank, but it was jammed in both directions. There was still plenty of fun stuff to disassemble, so I got back to it. I was thinking of pulling both heads off to see how bad the damage was and how much was salvable. Looking in the ports, all the valves look good except for one exhaust valve. The even side head and case is probably trashed, but everything on 1,3,5 might still be good. I started pulling the odd side off. Cams and valve train all looked good and clean. I was about to remove the head bolts, then paused. I'm developing a huge pile of parts and really don't have a good space for them at the moment. Best not to make the pile larger until I am better organized.

Back to the Torque Converter... okay, the #2 rod, the carrier around it, and most likely the crankshaft are scrap metal. I decided to put a pipe on my big wrench and try turning the crank pulley until something broke free. It finally yielded with the crunching sound of cast aluminum breaking away. Two bolts lined up in the starter hole. They came out easily. Back on with the wrench and pipe, a little more crunching and two more bolts came into view. I removed those and turned again. This time it jammed hard. I pushed harder. I felt a slight yield - it was the crank bolt starting to turn. Afraid I was about to break it, I stopped and looked back in the oil filler hole to see if there was a jam I could displace.

I saw a rod bolt perfectly in position to remove. I took out both bolts through the filler hole and fished out the cap. Rocking the crank, the broken rod fell free and the crank turned easily against smooth compression in the remaining cylinders.

Boom, done. Flexplate and converter are ready to install on the other engine. With the view clear now, I took a look at the IMS bearing, feeling pretty sure that it was the culprit. Nope. with the cover removed, the bearing looked clean and intact. No noticable play and it turned smoothly. It looks like an original NSK dual row bearing which is what I've found in the other two '01 Boxsters that I pulled bearings from.

So, what caused the #2 rod failure? I don't know, but I will do a further tear-down of the engine after I get this car back together and sorted out. Probably some more progress tonight on the task of prepping the replacement engine.

In reply to AAZCD :

Dude, epic!!

I started setting up the 2.5L engine to go in the '01. I may have explained earlier that it was in a 2000 Boxster S and poorly installed there. Someone had jammed a 2000 model throttle body in the '97 intake, the vacuum lines were all wrong, AOS was bad and leaking oil from the hoses, and the water pump it came with was 90% destroyed.

I fixed the AOS, vacuum lines, and water pump, then found I had a leak in the coolant tank. I didn't care much for the engine and figured I'd run it at the track at Hallett until I killed it. Instead I kept getting flagged off the track for dumping coolant or exiting because it was starting to overheat. After leaving the track, the car still made the 90 mile drive home without any problems. Two track days pretty much wasted. I offered the engine to a friend for free, but never worked out the logistics to get it to him. It has sat outside, covered for about two years. Putting it in this car could be a mistake, but I figure at this point I have little to lose other than my time and if nothing else, the engine ran well on the street and took plenty of abuse without grenading. It 'ran when parked'. If I end up using this car in the Challenge (back-up car) with the 2.5L engine, I'd realistically put the FMV at or below $500.

My point? I am not doing maintenance to this engine before putting it in. Normally I would replace the cam chain tensioner pads, IMS bearing, timing chain tensioners, and hoses (water pump and AOS are still fairly recent). Not going to do it. I have flushed the coolant passages as much as they can be flushed and that's it. If it works out, super. If it fails, I'll get a used 2.7L or 3.2 to put in and do right. I even may revert to the plan of using this as the Challenge car and put the V8 in and leave the '99 alone.

Well... that almost worked. With the wires and tubing all transferred and secured in place, I went to tighten down the intakes. Oops... the bolts almost aligned. Restated: The bolts did NOT align. I had held up a 2.7L intake to the 2.5L engine before I started any of this. Same bolt pattern, very similar external size... I thought would fit.

The 2.7L intake will go on tomorrow. I just had to make a template, tap out the steel spacers, and drill some new holes for them. Plenty of clearance and enough mounting surface for the larger ports. If I was really serious about this, I'd Dremel the ports on the head. I didn't realize how big a difference in size there was until now.

I’d heard the differences between the 986.1 and 986.2 intakes accounted for most of the power gains and that they would not interchange.  You thought about adapter plates?  

Do you have a reaaonably priced 00-01 3.2 3 chain core from any of your projects?

Great job getting that thing apart!  

In reply to AnthonyGS :

Adapter plates would be good, but that much fabrication wasn't needed. Two of the holes lined up well and the rest were off by only a few millimeters. My re-drilled holes are all still within the reinforced part of the plastic and the 2,7L intake is installed on the 2.5 engine now.

I don't have any 3.2L 'parts' engines. David might still have one: 720-645-4071 or porsche986parts@gmail.com