Well I had already sourced a set of the rare GT cams before the engine decided to make a mess of itself, luckily I was just pulling out of the drive when the incident occurred, one of the cam tensioner pads cracked and distanced itself from the tensioner, jamming the whole mechanism, snapping the chain and sending it through the cam cover. Its not over yet ..... the chain then jammed itself between the cams stripping the cam teeth, at some point the strain on the tensioner broke the mounting point on the heas. Marvellous. The real icing on the cake was the fact that the engine still ran for a while on 4 cylinders, allowing the debris to make its way around the engine.
Evidently this is somewhat common on 944's and 968's, never before heard of on 928's ... some comfort.
Further investigation showed that a recon head was cheaper than having the old one welded, good news just kept on coming in.
Can see below the cracked tensioner pad, broken chain, chipped cam teeth and broken tensioner mounting.
Here is a shot of the more glamorous side of the process of engine removal ;-)
With the engine removed I found some debris in the oil pump, not much but enough to make me split the block and check the oil galleries, luckily all was well and it gave me a chance to check the bearing clearances which were just fine thank you !
I received a re-conditioned head from MotorsportInc, came complete with valves fitted etc ... the GT cams did not come back from Elgin in time for the track day in September so Louie lent me his GT cams (what a guy!) and I will give him the reconditioned cams when they arrive.
The GT cams have really livened up the top end, wish they were cheaper but they were worth it to me. Be interesting to see the new dyno numbers.