{"id":565,"date":"2026-07-12T22:02:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T05:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/?p=565"},"modified":"2026-07-15T22:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:08:13","slug":"1987-porsche-944-2-5l-na-head-gasket-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/?p=565","title":{"rendered":"1987 Porsche 944 2.5L NA Head Gasket Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Background: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bought this beautiful Porsche 944 on Facebook marketplace dreaming about modifying this car to attend rally cross events. It runs and drives but has several major issues. Biggest one was that engine was overheating, which was solved by replacing water pump and thermostat. Currently there is white smoke coming from the engine bay after running >2min, which is preventing it from passing smog. Based on the research so far, I determined to replace the head gasket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steps: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Jack up the car and support it by ramps and jack stand. \n
      \n
    • Place the wheel stopper on the rear wheels, front and rear, to secure the wheels from spinning by any chance. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • There’s diamond mark in each side of the car noting the jack point. Put the jack the under and jack up one side. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Place the ramp under the wheel, since the car is tilting, place the ramp a little to the outer side so that when the car is lowered, it’s in the center of the ramp. Also make sure the ramp is placed in the center of the ramp in the vertical direction, make sure wheel is on the flat surface of the ramp. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Lower down the jack so that car is steadily placed on the ramp. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • repeat on the other side of the wheel. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Readjust the wheel stopper to make sure it’s tightly inserted to the wheel. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • place jack stand under the car frame for extra safety in case car ramp fail. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • push the car a little to see if the car is safely secured and very stable. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Note: \n
        \n
      • Safety is absolutely crucial, so in this section you can’t be cautious enough. Be careful and patient to follow all the steps above before crawling under the car. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • The reason to use car ramp to mainly support the car is that to drain engine oil, jack stand will be a little in the way. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Remove Battery connection, both positive and negative terminal<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • Remove starter. \n
          \n
        • Remove electrical leads. \n
            \n
          • 8mm nut(may not need to be removed, to be verified)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • 13mm nut<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Remove 2x19mm bolts from front and back of the starter to take it off. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • then the flywheel is exposed. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Remove the intake air housing to have more space to work on. put screws to zipper bag and label. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
          • Remove radiator fan to have more space to work on. \n
              \n
            • 3 bolts on top, 3 bolts on bot. (size? )<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • put screws to zipper bag and label. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
            • Drain Coolant:\n
                \n
              • put catch pan under the radiator screw (lower driver side), slowly remove the screw. Put paper towel or card boards underneath the car, as this procedure could be messy. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • slowly open the coolant resouvair on the top of the engine bay, so that coolant drains faster. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • you can save the coolant for future use by pouring the coolant to empty container with a filter funnel. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
              • should i also remove the 13mm bolt (washer: 8×14 aluminum washer, 14ft-lb) to drain the coolant from engine block? <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                Background: I bought this beautiful Porsche 944 on Facebook marketplace dreaming about modifying this car to attend rally cross events. It runs and drives but has several major issues. Biggest one was that engine was overheating, which was solved by replacing water pump and thermostat. Currently there is white smoke coming from the engine bay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-stuff","category-other-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yingzhangdong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}