If you do not have access to imap_* and do not want to use 
?$message = chunk_split( base64_encode($message) );?
because you want to be able to read the ?source? of your mails, you might want to try this:
(any suggestions very welcome!)
function qp_enc($input = "quoted-printable encoding test string", $line_max = 76) {
    $hex = array('0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','A','B','C','D','E','F');
    $lines = preg_split("/(?:\r\n|\r|\n)/", $input);
    $eol = "\r\n";
    $escape = "=";
    $output = "";
    while( list(, $line) = each($lines) ) {
        //$line = rtrim($line); // remove trailing white space -> no =20\r\n necessary
        $linlen = strlen($line);
        $newline = "";
        for($i = 0; $i < $linlen; $i++) {
            $c = substr($line, $i, 1);
            $dec = ord($c);
            if ( ($dec == 32) && ($i == ($linlen - 1)) ) { // convert space at eol only
                $c = "=20"; 
            } elseif ( ($dec == 61) || ($dec < 32 ) || ($dec > 126) ) { // always encode "\t", which is *not* required
                $h2 = floor($dec/16); $h1 = floor($dec%16); 
                $c = $escape.$hex["$h2"].$hex["$h1"]; 
            }
            if ( (strlen($newline) + strlen($c)) >= $line_max ) { // CRLF is not counted
                $output .= $newline.$escape.$eol; // soft line break; " =\r\n" is okay
                $newline = "";
            }
            $newline .= $c;
        } // end of for
        $output .= $newline.$eol;
    }
    return trim($output);
}
$eight_bit = "\xA7 \xC4 \xD6 \xDC \xE4 \xF6 \xFC \xDF         =          xxx             yyy       zzz          \r\n"
            ." \xA7      \r \xC4 \n \xD6 \x09    "; 
print $eight_bit."\r\n---------------\r\n";
$encoded = qp_enc($eight_bit); 
print $encoded;