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997 turbo engine re built and more power

Richcruss

Well-known member
Joined
6 Dec 2014
Messages
51
So just taken delivery of a 9e28 with a fully upgraded engine on my 997 Turbo. My car has quite low mileage (48k) but I had it tuned a while back by another company and whilst everything felt good for a while, the clutch started slipping and I contacted Ken at 9e and they fitted an upgraded clutch. A few weeks later I managed to blow a hose off and then the car started misbehaving. Took the car back to Ken and despite finding several other boost leaks including a fault n the cold side of one of the turbos, the car was still not right. Ken felt that despite the car being boost leak free, the car was not running well despite it being tuned - I think he said it felt as though it was holding back all the time. All sorts of diagnosis was done including putting it back to stock etc but the car just wasn't performing.

Weeks passed and I was getting a little frustrated that nothing could be found that was wrong. I suppose it is difficult to find a reason when there were no error codes etc. And then I got a call from Ken saying that they felt the problem was inside the engine because all the tests they had done had eliminated anything external - the number of tests to eliminate stuff was huge - different thing everyday etc.

They suspected something wrong with the inlet side of the engine which was affecting the ignition and therefore power. I know about engines so could understand a lot of the tests that were being done - just wanted to find something.

Had a difficult conversation with Ken about what if we pulled the engine and then it was still the same...I would have paid all that money for nothing, so we reached a deal - difficult for him as well to recommend an engine build when no mechanical obvious signs. Bit the bullet and authorised the engine build.

I was quick shocked at the level of corrosion on the engine when it came out. Less than 50k mileage I thought things would be in beter condition. The turbos were corroded so much that Ken was recommending at least a refresh. Some of the prices from Porsche were crazy - a new Tandem pump was close to £1k alone. A few weeks went by and the heads were tested and nearly all the valves were leaking - the valve guides themselves were causing the leaks. You cannot buy these from Porsche, you have to buy the entire heads which is nearly £3.5k a head. Fortunately Ken was able to get some upgraded versions of the guides themselves - these were fitted and the heads were okay after retesting. At least we found something.

Ken basically had said to me that he wanted to strip the entire engine rather than just the top. His feeling was that there could be a number of issues and it would be stupid not too. So that was what happened. I would have liked to have increased cc but costs were racking up and I was concerned that something else would be found in the bottom of the engine that would be expensive. Finally, the crankshaft itself was checked and it was also just slightly out of balance - this was corrected and balanced.

I liked the way everything was checked and corrected to absolute. It was interesting as well that 9e use their own cam timing tools - they found in the past that using the TDC mark was not 100% accurate - the deviation could be as much as 6% so they have a special locking tool they manufactured that ignores the TDC mark - this means that the camshafts deviations are less than 0.25%. Small stuff, but I guess this is what gives a performance edge when each of these little corrections come together as a whole.

The good thing was that I knew when the engine was rebuilt that it would be upgraded with what 9e does on their high hp engines. Lots of new parts and it was good to be able to pop in and see the differences in parts. Ken does not divulge everything they do in the engine for strength or performance but I was able to see a lot of the components.

So what to do about the turbos. They needed to be ideally refreshed - had a chat with Ken and we agreed a deal on upgrading the car to a 9e28 which includes their gt2rs vtgs. In for a penny in for a pound and it would be a shame to have a great upgraded engine without some real power.

I just couldn't wait to get the car back. Was popping in to see progress and watching photos being posted on their facebook site. Also nervous that the problem would still be there.

Got the good news that everything was fine and the engine was running. Then had to wait a further week whilst the engine was run in (9e insist on doing the first part of the running in of every engine), everything else was checked etc.

Picked up the car a few Saturdays ago and was told to finish off the running in for a further 500 miles non motorway. So frustrating not being able to see how quick the car was but under strict instructions!

Well didn't take me long to do the mileage and early this week after Xmas, took the car in for a post build oil change and finally tuning. Went out with Ken in the car for some testing on boost. Thankfully it was dry but first time the car went on boost I was shocked - the car went sideways...lol...you could imagine after all the work binning the car on the first run. All the tuning was fine, so finally had the license to drive her properly.

What is noticeable about the engine is how quiet it is - all the 997 Turbos I have heard are quite noisy at idle, but this engine is just so quiet that sometimes you wonder if it is actually on.

And the performance, well been out in her today and the car is breathtaking.

I went for the switchable exhaust ken recommended and the car now makes the noise it should but the best thing is it only does it when you want it to. Perfect .

I would highly recommend nine excellence for anything Porsche related as these guys certainly know there business.Thanks guys your time and effort is appreciated .






:thumbs:
 
LOL Welcome to the 9e club!!!...mine is a 996 though !!! Enjoy, just have the faith in what the car can do

You should come to the 911 event on 3rd April if there are spaces left.....then you can see what real anger these cars can produce ??? Pull on boost to the limit!

Regards and HAPPY NEW YEAR
 
Interesting story! Never heard of an engine rebuild for a 997 Turbo at 48k miles.

Please do post a video so we can listen to the engine sound now :thumbs:
 
Cheers guys

I have faith in the car. It's my talent that's dubious
Would love to come to the event. How do I go about that ?

As soon as I get chance I will post a vid of the noise from the capristo system ken installed

Happy new year
Rich
 
Capristo is top notch!

Happy 2016 !
 
Post some pics of the work pls Rich. That engine sounds like a 9e masterpiece. Hopefully Ken will let you to post what the fully component spec is i.e.

- upgraded pistons/cylinders?
- Carrillo rods?
- ported heads/manifolds?
- camshafts ?
- 12 mm head studs with gaskets?
- Custom intake manifold/plenum?
- stainless braided - 4 vacuum lines?
- pinned cams?
- pinned coolant lines?

Sounds bloody fantastic - hopefully see you at VMAX and Elvington - Ken will organise it for you no doubt :thumb:
 
Here's a shot of the built engine

I will need to get ken to comment on the spec
Would love to do a vmax as it's certainly got plenty of pull [/img]
 
You'll run over 200mph :D

To put that into perspective only circa 7-8 cars out of circa 40-50 present manage more than 200 mph at VMAX.

Mid range on the 9e 28 is amazing 50-70mph in 1 sec and 60-130mph mid 6 secs. Very good all rounder.

On the engine build just curious if you could have gone 9e 25 i.e. was the engine upgraded with forged internals. This means at a later date you could go 9e 25 or even 9e 20 without much more outlay. You get used to the extra power very quickly :thumbs:
 
Here are some photos
 

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Glad you are enjoying her Rich :thumb:

The engine is fully built and more than capable of running up to 1000hp if required. We never build an engine without doing our stage 1 engine upgrades as a minimum as it just doesn't make sense.

There are many weaknesses within the engine as soon as you up the power significantly - the main one being the head gaskets - the stock Porsche studs cannot take the pressure and the heads always leak so on this build we use studs which are torqued to 2.5 times the Porsche standard with different gaskets as well. On 1000+ engines we use different ones again with o-rings and so on to cope.

The valve seats have been upgraded - this is an issue with 997 Turbo engines - down to the material used by Porsche.

Obviously things like rods are upgraded, crankshaft balanced to perfection, and significantly as Rich mentioned, we time the engine to precision - always strange looking at the TDC marks and they don't quite align with our method, but if you think about it, lining up two marks is never going to be 100% accurate, which is why we time each engine using our own locking tool - it is typical to see a deviation of 4-6 degrees on these engines - ours are less than 0.25 degrees.

The decision to stick with same cc and vtgs (although different) was just financial in the end. Of course you could bin the VTGs and have more power but that can be something for the future - it just adds substantially to the cost.

We run a custom version of the Capisto exhaust specific to us.

We still have a few 9e28 components to go on which will be done in the next few months.

At the moment, I am sure Rich is just glad to have his car back.

Ken
 
Sounds fantastic - I'd be looking straight through the Xona turbo catalogue :D
 
Clearly Ken can answer the questions more comprehensively than I can. I just can't wait for a dry day to see what we can do
Already speaking with Ken about the next step if you want a car that's engine is built by the best then nine excellence is the number to call. One of the reasons why they win so many awards !
 

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