Hey guys whats up? I'm new to this forum but I've been at some other Porsche Forums online lately trying to diagnose my car. I am 16 and I live in Georgia. I was lucky enough to be able to get a 1988 Porsche 944 na (My dream Car) for my first car. I worked hard to get the money. But i have a problem now. I bought the car back in November and when I bought it, it was in terrific shape except it had a very small oil leak coming from the rear head. The car would blow white smoke from the tail pipe for 10-15 seconds when it was started up but we figured that it was just the oil burning off that had dripped down. I had taken my godfather to look at it, seeing as he has worked on his own cars for 30 years and we came to the conclusion that something hadn't been torqued down tight enough when the car had some head work done to it a while before. Well, I bought the car, planning on having a mechanic look at it the next weekend. I drove it about 25 miles home and the next week about 15-20 miles. On a drive out to the convenient store that Thursday, something terrible happend. I got about a half mile from home, and the car started billowing smoke from under the hood and the emergency light and brake came on. I coasted it home. When I examined the engine compartment, there was oil splattered everywhere and there was no oil left in the car (it was all in the engine compartment.) At that time I had no clue what was wrong, only what had happend.
When I turn the car on now, it starts, but there is a loud tapping noise coming from the engine (possibly a valve?) I, not knowing much about cars, went to my godfather and he said he thought that it was a blown head gasket because it wasnt tight enough. Well now I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. If the head gasket blew, there would more than likely be coolant blown everywhere and not oil. It's still a possibility, but since that requires so much labor to even check, I can't do too much about it at the moment. Several other people on other forums have offered several ideas to what may have happend. I've had responses ranging from a cracked head cylinder, to OPRV, to the little plate next to the fire wall at the end of the camshaft coming loose. I am not an expert with cars, seeing as I'm only 16, but I understand that if it were a cracked head, there had to have been either no oil whatsoever or very little oil in the engine when whatever happened, happened. When I popped the hood though, there was a significant amount of oil puddled up in the engine compartment.
A few weeks ago, I decided to buy some oil and run it through the car to see if I could determine where exactly the oil was coming from. Well, I put almost a whole quart in and turned the car on and right back off because the sound it made was metal-to-metal grinding. I left for five minutes and came back to find that the entire quart of oil had leaked onto the ground. This time though, it was coming from the front of the engine and leaking mostly on the water pump and down. I am so confused as to what any of this is.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm desperate to find out what i can do to check my car more. I cant even figure out what the problem is until i get the leak fixed because obviously the engine isnt holding any oil. All right, well feel free to reply or email me at offblack07@wmconnect.com if you have any clues or suggestions. Thanks so much people.

Zach

 

http://www.arnnworx.com/PorscheWebPa...y_clean-up.htm

About half way down the page there, he talks about an oil leak coming from behind the water pump. That is exactly what is wrong with my car.. i dunno exactly where he found it from...

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you haven't figured it out by now, you are going to have to start looking for a new engine. If you ran your engine with basically no oil, and then put some in and it had a metal to metal grinding noise, you have some serious internal damage, and will most likely have damage the crank and possibly scored your cylinders. I would try to track down a decent used engine that you can do a leakdown test on, and get that installed. Its not going to be cheap, no matter how you approach it. Sorry.

Regards,