My LS Porsche 911 Was About To BLOW UP So I Attempted A RISKY DIY Engine Fix! 

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What’s funny is I’m not a Porsche enthusiast nor an LS swap enthusiast but I’m digging this build. Really appreciate the way Alex explains things along the way and keeps an upbeat attitude!

Hey guys I wasn't clear about what I thought the issues could be with the factory Porsche oil pressure sensor. What I meant was that they failed often and this was the original sensor. Considering the hacked-up wiring I thought there was a gauge reading issue. I said translation issues and that wasn't really the right term and didn't make a lot of sense. Thanks for watching!

FYI the torque+angle method is ONLY FOR NEW BOLTS. This is why "rebuilt" LS engines seem to spin bearings more often than they should, tq+angle with used bolts overtightens them quite a bit. You can verify this by marking a factory bolt, loosening, then tq+angle and see it go 45-90deg past the old mark. I use 65lbs for inner main bolts, 55lbs for outer main, 18lbs for sides, 51lbs for gen4 rods and 45lbs for gen3 rods. Also when upgrading to ARP rod bolts, you must either use the same torque spec OR have the rod resized. Increased torque WILL decrease clearances on the top/bottom by making it oval.

The whiteboard easter egg was a nice touch. Loving this particular build!

Good thing about this channel is Alex gets it done in one video, not stringing viewer out for weeks with multiple videos on the same job.

Alex, I have the utmost respect for the way you are so transparent about everything you do and show your thought process as you go along. Fantastic video as always.

Would love to see you take this to a track and see how it does now that it shouldn’t blow up like Hoovies.

More Porsche LS please sir…. Love this car!!!

Alex you a mechanical font of knowledge, “torque to angle bolts”???? What?? Amazing!!!!

This guy may be the most knowledgeable and experienced high-end mechanic on RU-vid. He's really great to watch!

Alex is one of the best RU-vidrs when it comes to clearly explaining the problem, the probable cause, and the recommended fix... and then doing an excellent repair! The big plus with an LSC video is that Alex is so personable and has a great sense of humor-- entertainment with your education! Hey Alex... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!

For polishing the crank like you did, use a flexible ruler next time. It's wider so you can wrap it around the sandpaper completely giving you more consistent pressure across the surface since it's wider than a shoe string.

Alex, if you don’t already have one in the shop, I highly suggest having an eye wash station. Engine oil, or any other automotive fluid can be extremely dangerous for your eyes. You may not notice immediately but can develop infection later on.

Kudos to the camera man/woman for all of the standing around and commitment to a quality, enthusiastic video!

I found this channel randomly when you had first got the space van. And then had to binge a lot of your older videos. I like the fact that there’s no BS no drama and really informative. Definitely one of my favourite channels. Thank you Alex you do great work.

Saw your Easter egg on the whiteboard! Good job changing the bearings prior to failure and upgrading the baffling in the pan!

Love the dry erase board!

This was one of the best videos yet. I was of building my first performance SBC in 1975. I was able to find a 1970 LT1 that I pulled out of a '70 Corvette. I'm surprised at how I knew the steps along the way before you got there. I also remember all the little tricks we would do because we didn't have many of the things that are available today. Here's a shout-out to Errol Meadows who lived in Everett, Washington. I'm sure he is long gone by now, but he was an incredibly creative builder. He showed me a set of solid silver rod and main bearings he built for a 1965, 375 HP, Rochester FI motor. He had machined a mold for pouring the melted silver dollars. It was a very interesting process, to say the least. He built a lot of drag and sprint motors. That was a time where all the best builders were innovators. I did a lot of head work for him. I came up with a real breakthrough in SBC performance heads for him. I'm running out of time to tell 'the rest of the story.' (There's a reference for some old-timers!) Great job on the videos, with this one in particular.

Rolling bearing technique is genius !!

When polishing on the crank with sandpaper, it is best to have the oil holes straight down and when cleaning it, put the spray nozzle tube of the brake cleaner can high up inside the crank to insure no grit is left inside. It doesn't take much to ruin a new bearing.

It’s so obvious how much effort you put into these videos. You n Max are killing it with the editing.

Great catch on the rod bearings, simple cheap fix, well done.

40:32 that vrp supercharger looking fine 🥰

I usually skip to the end on videos like this. But this series has me watching the whole thing.

I read your Porsche to do list. I love how informative your videos are! Now that I have an LS engine in my Yukon xl, I believe this is good stuff to know for any future repairs.

Great video, love the whiteboard. Gotta say that your channel is my favorite of all auto youtubers. Great job delivering super informative and entertaining content. You have earned your success and hope it keeps growing.

This is becoming to be one of my favorite channels due to the knowledge and information. We just need daily uploads.

Your doing a great job at getting number 1 done on the Porsche To Do List. Gave me a good laugh. Wonder how many people noticed it.

theres a lot of spots an ls can bleed off oil pressure, lower pressure at idle is the first sign. Look up diagram of oil passages on an ls, pick up tube oring hardens and squares off with age, the dumbell plug at the back of the engine with two orings does the same thing, and the plate that holds the camshaft in also is a critical part of sealing the pressurized oil passages. That plate has a large sealing area that flattens out and hardens with age. Those things plus engine tolerances contribute to oil pressure variations

Not a huge surprise that an LS swapp into a 911 (or any modified from stock) without baffles put in the oil pan had spun rod bearings. With the increased acceleration the oil will be pushed to the back of the oil pan. Add to it a persistent overheat situation and it was amazing the rod journal's weren't toast. Dodged a huge bullet. Hmmm.... maybe name the car Kugel ausweichen (German for dodge bullet).

U need to remove the barbell from thw oil bypass and replace it with aftermarket metal one will increase you oil flow by ALOT

I'm sorry I had to bring up the oil pan issue, but you did find a whole bunch of hidden damage... Glad you were able to make a significant improvement in oil pressure with those very necessary mods!

It’s really great how this repair was explained in complete tear down and rebuild. Awesome Job!!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

I'd take it easy until you get through those two oil changes with filters too. My lingering concern would be where else those shavings got pumped? Cam bearings? Rocker arms? Lifters? So IMO yup, I'd take it easy until the metal shavings found in the oil go away. Might even take three oil changes. Three? Yup. Far less expensive than replacing the engine 🙂

You needed to check the clearance on the rod bearings with the arp bolts if thats what you planned to run. Checking them with the two different fasteners could yield a difference in clearance on its own.

You’re the best Alex. Oh and by the way, my LS powered 280k mile 2002 Silverado stock never torn down 5.3 vortec idles at around 30psi hot idle, 40 cold idle, 50-60psi highway cruising My other LS powered vehicle is a 2002 Corvette Z06 with 51k miles- hot idle is around 35-40psi, cold idle around 50-55psi, highway cruising it stays between 50-60psi, but it will peg the oil pressure gauge when you step on it no doubt. Never opened stock 5.7 LS6 motor. Basically an LS1 like your Porsche with different heads/valvetrain/intake as you already know. You are absolutely right though about the variation in oil pressures between “good running LS motors” some of my buddies have super low oil pressure and have no issues, some have higher pressure like my cars. I’m not sure why that is to be honest. I have noticed it though in the LS world, oil pressures are anywhere from 5psi hot idle to 40psi hot idle 🤷🏽‍♂️

Just finished watching this playlist and can’t wait for an update on the Porsche.

I used an improved racing baffle to cure oil starvation on a LS1 powered sedan (track days.) Looks great, should do the trick!

Nice to do list lol!!! Love watching your videos. Especially the transam ones as I just bought a 4th gen firebird

I love the LS swap and all the mods that were done to this car. But that motor won't last if it doesn't have good oil pressure!

The work that went into building that exhaust really paid off, looks and sounds great.

I’ve done that rolling the bearings in before. That works well most of the time.

Yes Alex - we saw your whiteboard! No Alex - most of us will never take apart the bottom end of an engine! But we are happy to see that what you did appears to be a success! Is it snowing there?? You may get some this week ❄️❄️❄️🇺🇸

Very cool and informative. I’ve done this before on various engines and one thing I would do was loosen all the mains so the crank can settle just a little bit. Makes the top bearings easier to spin out. Super glad your crank was fine! I love that LS Porsche.

I enjoy your videos and have seen you build many engines here, but for some reason, this episode for me was the best. I guess you can always tear everything down and use new parts. This was about being smart, putting in the work and getting great results. Great job.

Love this car. Awesome content on channel. I dig the quick and dirty repair on the bearings too. After seeing your oil pressure after the repair, I'd bet those cam bearings are wiped too. Would love to see you tear that thing down and get it built back right before giving it tune and ripping on it.

a few years back I tired this on a 2004 grand caravan didn’t work out cuz I didn’t know you had to measure and use different bearings and the people that had videos up at the time where questionable seeing you do it gives me confidence lol

"Tears of Oil" Sounds like a love story about a mechanic...

Very satisfying episode, Alex! So happy to see the bearings were able to be serviced before catastrophe ensued! About the whiteboard list at 26:43. I did items 2-4 but "fix everything" seems like an awfully big job.

Alex, it’s incredible how simple you make this look … it looks so easy the way you work yourself through these intricate processes! I for sure learned a lot from this video and I love how you explain every step you are going to do! Loved the video all the way 👍👏🏻👏🏻😀

Despite the engine problems that exhaust sounds wicked!!!

The little doors on the baffle in the oil pan are cool.

I know I'm super late to this video but, WOW, does that exhaust ever sound incredible. I can see why this swap can be desirable now. Never thought an LS would sound so good in a Porsche.

White board in the back with the to-do list is a must!

I look forward to these videos all week! Have a great weekend LSC team!

Love this car and the LS power plant. Want to see the finished tuned version, should sound even more incredible. Need to build a custom air intake that utilizes the side air ducts on the body.

Long time subscriber, love the way you explain why and what your doing. Currently have an LS demonstrating the same issues. Love the channel!

I'm here just because of the "to-do list"! 😂✌️ Great video, man! Keep up the good work! Cheers from Brazil! 🇧🇷

Following item 4…I am commenting because this is a great lesson to change bearings in a LS swapped Porsche.

That hadn't occurred to me until I saw the engine. Facing the wrong way, the LS oil pan is now closer to an old Chrysler layout, where the lowest part of the sump is in the front to make room for the rear mounted steering parts. Under hard acceleration, the Mopars would oil starve which made them timebombs at the drag strip. This Porsche probably has this problem, even worse since it might be quicker than those old Chryslers. Old gearheads have said that you can add baffles but the problem never really goes away because physics.

This build has been a blast to watch, love your content and all your projects! Been watching your channel for a few months now, wish I would have found it sooner, my new favorite!

Really surprised to see you using the ARP bolts without resizing the rods. I've seen several new builds spin rod bearings because guys skipped out on that step. Obviously resizing isn't practical for an in chassis refresh so would have been better to stick with stock bolts. Love the build though!

Doing the new bearing swap saved the Ls1 from certain premature death,good recovery.

Well as an engineer I’ve learnt something new and @ 55 & that’s amazing . Your presentation is crystal clear too even for us brits 😂. I have little knowledge of LS’s but much experience on air cooled G ‘s 964’s & 993’s. The car you bought for 27k ( 21k in English money) is amazing value and if it were stock or near stock would easily double as the number of units from production is much less now . I look forward to seeing more of your projects

Love this car…hope to see much more content on the 911 LS

Let's start an LS pressure thread. List your type of LS, mileage and oil pressure. Thanks!

Alex, Another great video. Hey, change out your exhaust mounting bolts to M8 X 1.25 studs. Then you can keep the oil pan bolted and make the exhaust even easier to remove.

Another killer job. You and your team are fantastic. Thanks for the fun white board message.

I don't own a 911 or an LS and I still watched this entire video. Great content thanks

Cylinder detonation (pinging) can cause rod bearings to fail prematurely as well. Might be hard to hear knocking and pinging under load with the engine in the back like that. Doubt this thing was tuned properly when they put it together

I wish my girlfriend loved me as much as Alex loves Mercedes sunroof grease.

What happened to this build? No next video?

You’re killing it, Alex! I love this build- a GM V8 in a German icon sports car. Thank you for the hours and hours of top-notch entertainment.

I love how you can pull the pan easily. My Chevelle , not so much.

What are you guys working on this week?

Yes reading the whiteboard. Nicely done.

What a save 😅 Great timing for the disassembly

It’s like your dad is doing some work in the garage and he’s showing you a little bit of his knowledge while doing so best dad mechanic on youtube.

Liked the To Do List..... My days of working on cars is long passed but did enjoy the video.

I last did any serious work on car engines 45 years ago when I was young - nothing as fancy as your 'stable', just VW air-cooled Beetles and vans :-) Watching your videos has brought back the enormous pleasure and satisfaction of working through issues and making them better. Thank you!

Alex, Awesome job with the rod bearings. Thank you for all the work you put into producing & editing your videos. Some of your fixes, as on the rod bearings, are showing that there is always more than one way to skin a tedious job! Keep up the best car channel on RU-vid! Joe

1. Fix everything 2. Already have been subscribed 3. Liked the video 4. And now commented... 😂 Another great video! Love all the content but digging the Porsche content so far

My favorite car RU-vid channel! So frequent uploads and just pure car joy! Thanks for the amazing entertainment, Alex!

You can show me the oil pressure spring in that pump with as many as two to three 5 mm washers. You can also use that device that squares oil into the bottom of the engine and make sure it's got the Shroud on it but take that off and not the dimple of the top of it down a little bit and that will increase your pressure by about 7 to 10 lbs. Anything much further than that would require either disassembly of the pump to make sure you make some clearances in it or using a higher pressure or higher volume oil pump. The other problem you may be running into is a problem with the oil pressure screen, but you're pulling oil pressure from a different part so that shouldn't be an issue, but that would also have warned you about metal in the oil much earlier. By using the original equipment oil pressure sending unit point. I have built a few of these engines, I do like their design, the problem I have with them is the dod system which you obviously shouldn't have on that particular example. Displacement On Demand is an insanely stupid thing to do to a V8 engine. There's no reason why you can't have that thing rather than shutting off four cylinders, just running lean when torque isn't needed. You can lean an engine quite a bit without causing any damage whatsoever, that was has been proven since World War II when Charles Lindbergh showed the US Army Air corps how to double the length of their sorties with their P38. Think about it, what would you do to double your gas mileage period when you're just trying to get from point A to point B at normal Cruise speed? As long as you're there, put ARP Hardware bonnet. I've never been a fan of torque to yield bolts. They are capable of being reused but the entire concept of intentionally causing a portion of the Metallurgy to fail, doesn't sit well with me. Just a suggestion, when you refill the oil quantity. Put in 5 quarts of oil, a quart of transmission fluid in about 6 oz of fr3. You can put the entire bottle of fr3 in it but you'll have to reduce some of the transmission fluid. Fr3 is a great additive and will help protect a lot of those surfaces and you might even want to wait until at least a little bit of a break-in time for those bearings. All of the seals in the engine will light the transmission fluid and it will not be a problem whatsoever. If you are nervous about that, then use some transmission fluid in it for about a week before you do an oil change or better yet some Marvel Mystery Oil about a week before you do an oil change, it will help keep the engine clean and it is especially helpful with keeping the lifters completely clear of problems. 15 ft lbs on the at least you understand that sometimes when they say you have to replace a bolt, if it's for the purpose of sealing can I guess you can seal it. I actually had somebody argue with me on that point the first time I rebuilt one of these. I would use one more 2000 grit on that. Or even a finer grit. The higher the Polish the less horsepower loss. Not sure whether you noticed or not but the original baffle, in that oil pan would work great and a drag strip while that oil pan is turned backwards. And if it were up to me I would put those two bolts on the back of that oil pan like they're supposed to be. I'm not sure why somebody thought it was okay to emit those two bolts. But they really should be there. But you really want all the bolts to be there even though it's a cast pan and maybe it won't be a problem. But what if it is a problem. One really good video. I just bought my first Chevrolet ever, it does have an LS in it but it also has the dod system in it. I still want to hunt down every engineer that ever thought that this was a good idea and force them to marry a really bad ex-wife. I still think it should be putting out better oil pressure at that higher Rev when warm. I'm not a fan of the standard STP oil filter, a K&N 2011 actually works quite well on those engines. What you did is a perfect example of how to replace your Rod caps. And even most of your mains.

Thank you for the very clutch video on a very boring Saturday morning. Alex saves us again

Ha! I read the board. That was funny. Really good information for an old school Chevrolet guy dipping my toe into LS world.

Found your channel over the gtr video so now I’m watching all of your older videos and enjoying the content

It looks from the gauge you showed us that the pressure relief is opening and closing very quickly. It is very simple to check the correct spring is fitted to the pressure relief and oil bypass checks. Also to check those springs are not squashed nor broken. I've gotta add that I dont have knowledge of LS architecture!

I never did engine work but always wished I had. I enjoy your knowledge and skill.

.... merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily - hope the crank don't tank. 😁 Rolling bearings - love it, great tip. White boards rock too. 👍

Should also check the volume of oil in it. Its super common to "pump the pan dry" when guys throw a high volume pump on. The oil drains too slowly back down to the pan and the pickup is often starved. To combat that issues instead of fancy baffles that won't correct the issue, simply run 2 more qts of oil. I did back to back runs at the track (1/4 mile) with 5.5qts and 7.7 qts. Same exact MPH and ET. Only the oil pressure didn't drop in my logs with the 2qts "over full" run. (fbody oil pan) 8 second car 1.3x 60' with the front wheels up. There is also an orange and a blue o-ring on the pickup. You may have the wrong one installed. that one looked really loose.

Good to see the old techniques still being used, I've spent hours layed on concrete garage floors cleaning crank journals that way! Our father was never pleased to find his boot laces missing😂

i REALLY enjoy the technical detail your experience as a mechanic really shines in your content.

I don’t know anything about engine but watching these episodes is like watching a discovery channel about the wild

If it’s toast build a 5.3 with a whipple. That exhaust note plus some blower whine would be magical 🤩

great save Alex, I wish Hoovie knew about this issue a couple years back with Apollo 911.

(copy but please read) .... after watching the other 66% of the video lol Im very happy that u successfully did an "In frame" on your Carrera LS! U taught us something new along the way. That was alot of work.. your focus was great and u did and Excellent Job. Truly happy for u that your engine didnt have major damage at the crank. DO NOT .. DO NOT .. DO NOT !! Allow OJ, or yourself to over rev this engine. I felt like he was trying to break it actually and im almost certain that This is prolly what caused your bearing and oil pressure issue.. as well as maybe the earlier overheating. You must remember.. these domestic V8's can not usually rev up that high like the original Porsche flat 6. I know u wud love em to but they just cant, unless youve built them todo so. This is one draw back to swapping for domestic v8s.. they have torque, but they dont rev like the original flat 6.. which has low torque and must rev to get into power. Trust me.. i have the same car 🙂

Love the channel it's like a great mix of old school power block with fresh modern content.

Yes I read the instructions on the white board behind you. Love your channel.