Matt's Safari 911 Needs a Rebuild - What's Wrong (And How Much to Fix It)

Just 600 miles of driving after getting my Safari Build back from Leh Keen, I started getting a heavy amount of oil smoke from the exhaust, and the engine began to burn twice as much oil as designed. I took the car to TLG Auto in North Hollywood, CA, where air-cooled expert Marco Gerace disassembled the entire motor and diagnosed the issue. We visit Marco to see exactly what went wrong, and find out what it's going to cost to get it back together and good as new.

Got a Porsche in Los Angeles? TLG offers expert independent service, upgrades, and repair!

Title Photo: Kevin McCauley for Road & Track

[gregschlegel]

Matt: how much is this gonna cost?
Mechanic: 18 to 20
Matt: whoa! Whoa!
Mechanic: Yea, Porsche makes good motors. Good cars.***While he is smiling and chuckling to himself. Laughing all the way to the bank***

[HondaCL]

"The Smoking Tire for sure" -Marco with the jokes

[keewatin]

Hey Matt, I love it when you keep interrupting expert guests. Please keep doing that. It’s not annoying at all.

[Seabass]

When I was in tech school we learned that if you need to mark pistons, you do it on the inside of the skirt somewhere because marks on the surface of the piston will lead to hot spots that cause pre-det. Someone else commented something similar below. BUT, I haven't owned a porsche shop for the last 40 years, I'm not trying to pretend I know more than this dude. Just weird to see someone mark a piston like that, I'd be curious to hear an explanation

[thebladespawn]

I didn't know vsauce worked on porsches

[illegalmachine]

It's weird watching Matt do the kind of content that is popular, but that he's resisted all these years.

[MrEli]

Everytime I think I want an old 911, I watch a video like this and am reminded that a major service is a MAJOR service. Like a Ferrari, the ability to buy one and the ability to buy one and maintain one are two different things.

[QuickF]

$18k and you're only good for another 60k miles? Is this a joke?

[WelcomeToTheMadness]

When the bill is $18, 000-$20, 000 for a refresh. My question is, what would the parts cost be for someone doing this themselves?

[torch]

Matt has built a ridiculously expensive, small travel Baja bug

[Dave_Allison]

Sorry to hear that you need the rebuild, but it sounds like Marco is doing the right stuff. 964 grind is nice and reliable and will give you a bit more power up top. Hope the car is back on the road for spring!

[jct]

Matt - 18-20k is a lot for a 3.2 top-end rebuild. If you're a member of Porsche Club of America (PCA) talk to some guys in the club ...at least give Magnus Walker a call! My PCA chapter always steered me in the right direction. We had a guy who had is 3.2 completely rebuilt for less.

[enriquealvarez]

Might as well fully rebuild it. Seems like a waste of time to pull the motor and not rebuild it completely

[Vonstroke]

That surely has to be the price for a full engine rebuild.

[meteormedia]

That can't be right.
You can buy a fully refurbished crate engine 3.2 for 12k here in Germany. Theres no way a top-end only overhaul should be that expensive. Parts can't be that expensive to get in the US...

[tjprovo]

Finally Matt has started out his video with an ad that is related to his channel, and one that is worthwhile. Good job Matt 👍

[bunzinod]

Why doesn't marco have his own channel guy is super smart

[JFabric]

I’ve never seen a mechanic be so cool about a rebuild. It’s always the same story, “While your hear, do it all” but he was very open to explaining everything which is really cool.

[alexanderbarr]

18k is an inflated price and no you are not supposed to strike the piston with anything because that area will now be a hot spot and may cause detonation. Anything with an edge in your combustion chamber will attract a hot spot. The fact he done that makes me question his entire operation.

[tjabaley]

Great look at the guts of this machine! Thanks a lot for such a candid video Matt.