Porsche 365 B engine overhaul

Even though we have been busy with Ferrari repairs and the posts showcase this work, we are always digging into other classic and sports cars.

A guy bought a Porsche 356B T-6 from a private party and never had any luck making it run well. He took it to a number of different shops to remedy poor running and a host of other issues and out of pure luck the owner found us (isn't he lucky) I reluctantly took the project on as I have a soft spot in my heart for these Porsches.

When it came in, the engine ran very poorly and is seemed as though it had no compression, even the 6 volt starter with ancient battery and starter cables whirled the engine over as though there were no spark plugs installed. There were a number of other issues like terrible brakes, horrible wiring harness and a transmission that didn't shift, but I will focus this post on the engine.

The owner told me that the most recent shop performed a valve job but with the major oil leaks and strange noises Karl decided to pull the engine and set it up on the test stand.
Once running on the stand we thought that we may have to pull the heads and after a leak down test it became horribly obvious.

To start with the cylinder head castings were mis-matched and there were no two valves that matched. Not one valve was sealing properly and the guides and seats were shot. The last shop thought that a valve job was hand lapping valves without checking any other details including rinsing out the excessive amount of gritty valve lapping paste from the heads! What a mess.

Generally, a Porsche engine of this type burn a valve or a piston and you can repair it without "splitting the case" but with all of the valve lapping paste we had to dig further and we are glad we did. The oil pump was horrible and the crankshaft that was already at the 3rd under-size was down into the soft steel.

We searched high and low to find a good used front timing cover, crank and a matched pair of 912 heads to go with new 86mm pistons and sleeves from Shasta Design. We also lightened the flywheel and opened it up to accept a 200mm clutch. The engine runs like a champ and with the overhauled transmission and new wiring harness the owner should have a trouble free season of driving.