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When rebuilding any engine, success starts with proper cleaning and preparation before assembly. Our detailed assembly guides for both air-cooled and water-cooled Porsche engines go over critical techniques, but most important is how to properly clean you cylinder bores.
After the honing process, residual honing oil and Nikasil dust remains on the cylinder bores, even with cleaning. Besides using technologies such as ultrasonic cleaning, good old elbow grease is the best way to clean your cylinders. After initial cleaning using hot, soapy water or even brake or carb cleaner, we always recommend using denatured alcohol and Kimwipes to clean the cylinder bores. Kimwipes are a white, lint free towels that are perfect for this. You should keep cleaning until the wipes come out of the bores as white as they go in. After gapping the piston rings and dressing the end gaps, remember these need to also be cleaned just as well as the bores using the same process. Basically every part that goes into the engine needs this much cleaning, so give this step the time it deserves.
When it comes to assembly, we’ve found that when it comes to ring break in that the optimal lubricant is needed to ensure the rings seat quickly, which can be notoriously difficult on engines with Nikasil bores with modern rings. We’ve come up with our own “secret sauce” to properly lubricate the bores and piston rings with the optimal viscosity that also provides corrosion protection, just in case you don’t plan on starting up your engine right away. This assembly lubricant is only for use on engines with Nikasil bores and is only to be applied to the bores, rings, and pistons and is miscible with your break-in oil of choice. If using a high zinc break in oil, we recommend using these oils for the first 20-30 minutes if breaking in new cams, lifters, or rockers before switching to a conventional, non-friction modified oil until the rings are fully seated.
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