21st Century Outlaw 997 Project

[Darren C]

I've posted a few pics of my daily driver 997 Outlaw project in General Chat.

Over to you guys, would you like me to post progress from time to time? Comments please

[Nige]

Oooo, been checking in from time to time on your Twitter feed.

[Bootsy]

I’d start a project thread as I’m sure they’ll be plenty of interest

[911hillclimber]

Good move to this section imho!
Looking forward to the rest of this story.

[Bootsy]

Shall I just move this thread to the Resto section so all can enjoy?

[hot66]

Yes

[911hillclimber]

Why not?
Thought it was moved here because of the water cooling aspect. Air or water means nothing to me or some others too as many have both from what I have read on DDK.

[Darren C]

Ok, if everyones happy with the thread being here, I’ll start at the beginning.

About a year ago at the NEC Resto Show I attended with fellow 914 DDK’rs & watched the cars go through the auction. A very high spec (extended leather, sports int, sunroof, sports wheels, park sensors, SAT NAV, switchable suspension etc, etc) silver 997 Carrera S 3.8 caught my eye & I had a look over it. Sure enough like all auction cars it had had a hard life so I let it be. The car failed to reach its reserve and we all moved on. I wasn’t in the market for one anyway having just got my 67 912 from California it was more wishful thinking than serious.
Move on a week and I was looking through ebay (as you do) and there was the 997 for sale. The seller described the car in 3 sentences & used photo’s of it at NEC complete with Auction stickers in the window! At first I thought it was a scam, but it was cheap…….
Anyhow I looked up the auction results and it transpired the car was sold by agreement below reserve at £14K. Obviously there was a tale to tell.
I did a little digging/cyberstalking on the ebay seller and concluded it was a genuine ad so gave him a call to check it out. He seemed desperate to sell so arranged a viewing.

At the time my daily driver was a late Audi A4 2.0 Sport Avant B8. I’d bought this from a Roadside Albanian Car Wash at 180K miles, NO paperwork and no English for £3K (Yes I know! I can’t help myself) Anyhow I’d done the clutch, belts, brakes, fitted a brand new full red leather S4 interior I got from the former East Germany (ask no questions) & the compulsory genuine 19” S5 Rotor wheels (used). All in all the car stood me in for about £5K but looked pretty.

I drove up to Gloucestershire to see the 997. It was ABSOLUTELY filthy dirty & looked a mess. It wasn’t particularly clean at NEC, but the seller was a bit of a part time motor trader from home and obviously not into presentation. I really wasn’t impressed, but having travelled, I thought I’d take a good look.
Keen to offer a “test drive”, well very pushy for me to drive it actually, which was bizarre, he turned the key & started it up.
OMG!
RATTLE!
CLATTER!
SMOKE
It sounded god awful..”Turn it off!, Turn it off!” I shouted.
“It’s ok, just needs to get oil to the tappets, they all do this when cold” was the reply “Jump in we’ll go for a drive”
Well; I wasn’t sure if this chap was blagging it or just a complete twonk.
He was almost aggressive insistent that I went for a drive as passenger (me having put him out & all by travelling 2 hours to look at the car)
“Stereo’s good” he said turning it up full volume to drown the mechanical disaster
“Blower Fan works too” turning that on to full, as we coughed, smoked & rattled up the road.
You get the idea
Anyway we got back to his and I politely said NO, which seemed to anger him.
“There’s nothing wrong with this, it just needs using, drove to Manchester & back last week in it, all fine. Don’t you want it? Make me an offer.
“Sorry no”
“What about the Audi? Are you part ex-ing it?” Pointing over to my car.
“Sorry no”
“Well thanks for wasting my time!” he replied.
I got in my car started it up and was about to leave, when he came over and knocked on my drivers window. Oh, what now with this fella, I thought….
“Would you swap the Audi for it?”
“Sorry no”
And I left for the 2 hour drive home.

Now, you know how it is when you have time to think… I stopped at Newbury services for a comfort break & coffee. A high spec 997 Carrera S with a fooked engine & god knows what else in exchange for a 180K miles Albanian car wash Audi rolled in glitter?
Hmmm,
I called him back from the services and after having to falsely apologise to him “Are you serious?”
“Yes”
“Ok, I’ll turn around and come back up to you now”
My reasoning was that if I were in a position to buy a nice 997, it’s a ticking time bomb with IMS, liner wear & all those horrors, plus if you pay top money for one that’s been “done” you can never be sure of the quality of work or what has been replaced or not. So why not buy one that someone is desperate to off load, pay little and by the time you’ve invested in it; you know what you have and still haven’t stepped over the cars market value (with a bit of luck and if you are able to do the work yourself of course)
Well I did the deed and gingerly coaxed the 997 over 100 miles home in 6th gear not going over 3000 rpm.

Tomorrow I would start to find out what I'd gotten into

[Bootsy]

Good stuff

[KS]

Love a good story. I'll just go and put the kettle on (no pun intended)...

[defianty]

Great start, looking forward to the next instalment.

[hot66]

thats more like it

[Darren C]

After a sleepless night, where you have plenty of time to dwell on the negative of “what have I done” I got up a dawn and drew the curtains to check that it hadn’t all been a bad dream.
Nope.
There was a 997 sat on my drive where the Audi resided.

Strong cup of tea in hand I walked around the car.
Hmmm, what’s that leaking on my block paved drive?
Coolant……nice!
Hmmm, Coolant on the drive under the front too
Hmmm, Left hand side exhaust tip dripping oil on the floor. Right hand exhaust as sooty as a sooty thing at the convention of sootfest

On the bright side none of the tyres had deflated overnight.

I phone my mate Mark who runs a garage and asked if he had some free ramp time, curious to what next bonkers project I’d bought he said bring it over this morning, we can get it up in the air and have a look.
After topping up water & oil I drove it the 5 miles to his gaff.

Upon arrival I was greeted with…

“Turn it off! Turn it off! For fu*k sake turn it off”

How we laughed…
Anyways, up in the air it was apparent that someone had had a good look around before us, which wasn’t surprising. Heat shields missing, bolts finger tight, coil packs barely held in with half the screws. Etc etc.

So out with plug 6

Totally smashed on the end, all 4 conductors missing, shrapnel damage & oil soaked
Plug 5 same but with 1 of 4 conductors left
Plug 4 intact, oily but peppered.
1 to 3 were sooty & looking sorry for themselves.

Next, drain the oil…….Glitter tastic!

Followed by Borescope…Hmmm, not very pretty at all.

While all this was going on the coolant system was slowly draining from the waterpump pulley and weeping on all four front radiator hose joints. I popped the drive belt off the water pump and sure enough it was absolutely fooked, with what felt like ½” lateral play in the shaft! This is just pure neglect as it would have been leaking & requiring topping up daily for a good while to get so worn.
The pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together… looked like water pump wear was the initial cause of the mess I had before me. (Some even say replace water pumps every 5 years!)
Basically in 996 & 997 the water circulates around 1, 2, 3 cylinders first, then over to 4, 5 & 6. This means 4, 5 & 6 get secondhand coolant pre heated by 1-3. With a leaking water pump and low coolant the first symptom is overheat on 4, 5 & 6 resulting in liner wear & subsequent mechanical failure of the liner coating.

The “Clatter” noise is a combination of piston slap, and when it got bad enough (as with mine) the piston can cant in the cylinder and tap the underside of the head. That’s the grimace sound in the Clatter Orchestra.
Total engine rebuild (as suspected) was now beyond doubt.

Knowing I needed to have liner inserts I called Hartec for a price.

“They’re two types sir. What’s your Reg or better still do you have the engine number?”
I rattle off both
“Er…..is that a silver 997?”
“Yes why?”
“Er, some real dodgy geezer drove it up to us last week all the way from Gloucester! Are you sitting down?”
“Go on”
“We looked at it and quoted him £28K to sort all the issues out”

[Tosh]

Loving this already.
How could you NOT tell this tale in all it’s detail?

[Mike]

Great stuff, hopefully the pictures will start coming shortly............