924Board.org

[Mattmac]

Hey everyone. 924s n00b here. Picked up a 87 924s today off of one of my wife's family members who has owned it since it was new and recently spent waaay too much to fix it after running something over and damaging the oil pan. The dealership he took it to replaced the oil pan and a bunch of other things, told the original owner that it had no oil pressure and they would most likely have to dive into the motor to find the problem.
Upon picking up the vehicle I noticed that it did in fact have oil pressure once started (sitting around 4 to 5 bar) but did not want to idle. It also stank and was pushing a lot of white smoke out of the exhaust. I also noticed it didn't really like going into second gear but once moving didn't drive too bad.

Basically I'm looking for a little advice from some more experienced 924s owners. Is it worth diving into a rebuild and potentially a cracked block?(burning coolant?) or should I do a straight swap? I have found some 944 parts cars for cheap that appear to have good engines and transmissions.

Thanks in advance for any help. And sorry if most of this has been him over in any other thread.

[Grenadiers]

Well, you could pull the motor and tear it apart. It's quite fun, the tearing apart part. Sounds like coolant is drowning the spark plugs at idle, pull those first. Then, you could do a compression test to eliminate the head gasket. After, drain the oil for a coolant in oil test. Coolant in oil will ruin the bearings, hence, low oil pressure.
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'83 944 Track car.
'88 924S Track car.
'89 944 Turbo
2004 Winnebago Vectra monster RV
2012 Jeep Wrangler
2014 Kia Soul
2001 Ford F350 powerstroke

[fiat22turbo]

The old "Devil you know" conundrum.

If you're planning on flipping the car, then an engine swap could be cheaper and faster, try to stick to similar years so that you have fewer differences to deal with.

You may still end up with a bad motor that needs to be repaired.

The smart salesperson would do belts, gaskets, seals, rod bearings and clutch before putting the engine in the car. It certainly helps with resale value as those are expected repairs to make when buying a used 924S/944 and the prices reflect this.

If you want to keep the car and you have the time and patience, then you can likely repair the engine that is in the car currently and perform the other necessary common repairs.

The engines are pretty robust and can take a lot of abuse and the cars are pretty damned fun once sorted. Its a personal choice if its worth it to you to pursue further.
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Stefan
1979 924 Carrera GTS (clone-ish)
1988 944 Turbo S (Silver Rose)

[Mattmac]

thanks for the advice! ill probably dive into the current engine and see if i can get this baby runnung