Watching a 911 Carrera 4S Die During a Track Lap Is a Poetic Swan Song

By Tony Markovich - March 22, 2016

dead_jim

Moment of silence for the fallen lady, please.

Thank you.

At 166,000 miles and more track runs than the owner could count, this Porsche 911 Carrera 4S had a hell of a run. That’s why the video below of the 996 losing steam in the middle of some track laps is sad, but extremely fitting. As the title of jyoteen’s forum post says, “she died doing what she loved most.”

For those ready to crack a joke about reliability, jyoteen makes it firmly known that this baby has been a workhorse. With plenty of preventative maintenance, the car has been tracking all of its life. “It’s amazingly built,” jyoteen said. “By far, the best car I’ve owned.”

The first guess at the issue at the time of posting (pre-dropping the engine) was a head gasket, and the plan is to keep the car and get an engine to swap back into it.

2506384701_d84250ff86_o

Here’s the full post, with the video below that:

“Well, when say Rest in Peace, hopefully, it’s temporary awaiting a new heart. (sorry, typo on the video. Should say ‘2016’)

I don’t know what it could be but at 166k miles and a frequent duty cycle of the track, I’m not all that surprised, but then again, I didn’t really in some way expect it right then and there either.

Specifics:

I didn’t hear the engine noise right in the middle of the turn during maintainence throttle, but at instead at the acceleration point in the exit of the turn. I lost acceleration of course, then I saw the blinking CEL, and when you hear my comment, I turned the car off and coasted to the paddock.

White smoke is coming out of the bank 1 cylinders (driver’s side as the exhaust crosses over to the right) in the paddock. You can smell the oil. And it bled coolant out of the right side near the exhaust too.

I haven’t had the engine dropped yet but any guesses? First guess is head gasket….but I kind of probably think it’s either cylinder wall. Not sure about IMS as it has right at 60k miles on LN Engineering bearing which I had installed (o.e. bearing was ok back then…it was precautionary).

I’m not going to curse Porsche because this car was on the track at Laguna Seca at 1000 miles on the odometer when new and it has given me 13 years of pleasure and counting and lord only knows how many track days.

It’s cost a small fortune that I refuse to tally up in preventative maintanence. Probably has a small new car’s cost of oil changes alone, let alone coolant flushes, brake fluid flushes.

Everything else in the car works too. It’s amazingly built. By far, the best car I’ve owned. Since it’s pretty much worthless, the only course, I think is to proceed looking for a heart donor.

Maybe 997.1 X51 engine but that can get spend, I presume.”