The joy of vintage supercar shadetree mechanics

So I guess I could have gotten an Austin Healey or something along that line, just one step above a tractor as long as I wanted something in a sports car, but noooo, I had to get into THE most complicated frigging German cars on the planet. The Germans, by the way did discover how to put two pieces of metal together and keep oil in, but they use more different bolt sizes and pieces than anyone would normally think necessary. Here's the car, 1983 928S, fastest car sold in North America that year, 5-sp manual transaxle, a real beast! Rear Weissach axle provides 4-wheel steering in corners by toeing wheels into the curve like a skiier, not for the faint of heart to work on. Mine was all apart on the shelf one day, sheesh, so was the transaxle too





I have learned that you must take a lot of car apart, to work on just about anything on a 928 Porsche V8 or the smaller 944 varieties, of which I have three now. Alternators for instance, a half day of work disassembling everything crammed under a 944 hood just to get in to the alternator, sheesh.

Well I have been wrestling with the 928 which decided to not want to start. Here I am up on a remote ridgetop and I suppose I could roll the darn thing down the hill to a tow truck but generally can figure out what the issues are. I've been through the TTS (thermo time switch) the Temp II Sender, the Cold Start Valve, all the relays, and finally swapped out what gave every impression of being a bad fuel pump. If you get that far you should replace the hard connected filter too. Nothing is easy.

So I have the entire six foot wide formal German shop manual books for the 928, been all through various issues including the transaxle. So I glance at the books and see an image of a fuel pump in one of the wheel wells. I jack the car up to find the logical well based upon what the photo looks like, remove the inner well and yeah there's a lot of stuff in there but no fuel pump. So I go through all 3 other wheel wells and no pump.

Back to the shop manual again, read it carefully now. I find out some versions have two pumps to avoid vapor lock, one of which IS IN THE FUEL TANK, but thank the LORD, mine only has one. I finally find the darn thing in a very cleverly concealed dimple in the fuel tank itself. So now with TWO different size nuts on the fuel pump electrical contacts, I suppose for safety, one phillips head screw, one regular screw, and THREE different box wrench sizes, I get the darn things off and the new ones on. Of course, there is gasoline dripping which is controlled by pinching the line with a visegrip with protective cardboard in the teeth.

So now I sit in the car, wait a moment and turn the switch. I hear a FUEL PUMP whine! I twist the key and she wants to start as the system is now being flooded with fuel and air bubbles are being forced out. Then VARoooooMMMMMM! Man, nothing sounds quite like an all aluminum SOHC fuel injected hemi! Yeah I now Dave Krugler has the DOHC 32-valve V8 version but I think the SOHC 16 sounds wicked through that gutted ANSA exhaust. Oh one other thing, it's faster than Mark Weller's Crossfire, ha ha.

Early 928 cars had a CIS injection system (Constant Injection Spray) and mine being a 1983 S version uses the L-Jetronic with a big spider manifold. It's a 4.7 liter (283 cubes) and believe it or not, has raw aluminum cylinder bores, but the silicon content is so high it's actually a glass lined bore. The beast is running now and I'm really looking forward to breaking a few speed limits again. The 4.7 would make an interesting speedboat motor, hmmmm, naw, that would be insane to add complexity like that to a boat! The Germans are nuts.

No bearing caps here, look closely!


There is a full girdle with 30 bolts holding the crankshaft in this motor.



Ah well, no burns or blood giving today, success!

Regards, time for a beer and some hand soap, not necessarily in that order.

Paul