OCBen

Well, I had resisted changing the oil right after break-in, as I had done with my Boxster and as I had intended to with this p-car, but I decided to hold out until at least one year of ownership. After all, the manual says to change the oil at 20k mile intervals or after two years at the latest. And the dealership recommends 15k miles or 1 yr, whichever comes first. So with only 3380 miles on the clock and having just reached my first year anniversary, I decided to finally change it last weekend.

Bought these plastic ramps at Pep Boys for under $25 on sale and they're good for 8000 lbs, so I thought I'd give them a try. I backed the car up over them after eyeballing the length of the wheelbase to make sure the front wheels were just off the garage floor in order to take advantage of the total drop of the grade. (I suppose I could have used a tape measure but I'm not that ****; besides, I'm pretty good at judging short distances.) As you can see the car is pretty near horizontal, which is what you need for optimum drainage.



The service manual says to remove the oil filler cap when draining the oil, presumably to eliminate any back pressure and allow the oil to flow freely, which makes sense.....if the oil is as thick as molasses! BUT DO NOT DO THIS. I repeat, DO NOT REMOVE THE OIL FILLER CAP.



There's 9 qts of oil in there (on the S) with a significant pressure head to push the oil out freely and forcefully. You DO NOT need to give the oil an assist here. If anything you'd want something to slow the flow, because let me tell ya, IT FLOWS. The thought of inventing a drain plug with a built-in twist valve that lets you regulate the flow crossed my mind, but then I realized that having a bigger funnel was a simpler solution.

Here's a shot showing the drain plug, which takes an 8 mm hex, and the oil filter canister, which takes a special tool for removal (available at your Porsche Parts Dept), shown in the next shot. I was used to seeing the oil filter canister on the left side of the engine on the Boxster, of course those engines are reversed with respect to the 911s.



Here's a shot showing the special socket tool for removing the oil filter canister in place.


Not having a dipstick with which to see the condition of the oil I was shocked to see how dirty the oil was after only 3380 miles of mostly city driving. Here's a comparo shot of the filters. As you can see, the oil was really, really dirty.



When I removed the filter canister I poured out the trapped oil in a small pan so I could examine it to see if I could find fine metal particles indicative of an engine undergoing the break-in process. Sure enough, I saw them. There they were as I shifted the oil back and forth in the plastic pan in direct sunlight. I wasn't sure I'd be able to capture them with my digital camera, but if you look closely you can clearly see them.





In this close up shot you can clearly see the specks. The pics however didn't quite capture the glimmer I saw. They actually look like the metal flakes in metallic paint.



The 997S takes 9 quarts of oil with the filter. So I put in just the first 8 qts initially, realizing that the engine will run just fine a quart low. Contrary to how the electronic oil measurement is described in the manual, when you first turn on the ignition to read oil level, the bars indicate an overflow (i.e. the little bar above the full line is lit), which is really what you would expect since the oil has not circulated through the engine, nor has it filled up the oil filter canister.

When I started the engine there was an immediate display warning from the computer about the oil pressure being dangerously low (okay, maybe it read excessively low or something like that) accompanied by an audible beep about a second in duration. But the pressure built up quickly and the displayed warning disappeared. I lowered the car off the ramps and allowed the engine to run a few seconds longer before shutting off in order to read oil level again. Well, you know what typically happens when you shut your engine off and then try to immediately take a reading, you have to wait about 20 or so minutes to do so. So I cleaned up to kill time and allowed the oil to settle down in the engine and then finally took the reading.

It indicated a bar low, so using the procedure I worked out here and here I put in only a half qt and took another reading. And this time it indicated full. So I left it at that. I haven't driven the car since the day of the oil change and I just now checked the level and it's still indicating full. So even though the manual says 9 qts, only 8-1/2 was all I needed.

If you're a do-it-yourselfer and are looking forward to doing your first oil change, I highly recommend that you change it sooner than I did – at the latest right after break-in. I so regret not having changed it at 2000 miles. I certainly hope allowing the oil to get this dirty will not have detrimental effects on the life of the engine. I have never let any of my cars' oil ever get this dirty. Not having a dipstick for the simple task of examining the condition of the oil is a real PIA with these cars.

rmira

Thanks very much. I just had mine changed at 2700 miles. Your post has taken the mystery out of changing a 997's oil, I believe I will do it myself next time around.

uzj100

Hey, Ben-GREAT write up and photos. Thanks for posting this. After reading your "report" and seeing the pictures of your oil, I'm going to change mine now (at 3.8K) rather than wait until I get to a year of ownership (January). I too wish PAG gave us a dipstick!

icon

nice tutorial ben
great photos!
should have been a teacher.
i just turned 3k and was thinking about doing that as well.
what did you do with the drained oil???
fyi here is a good thread on oil in the cgt forum L I N K
btw you can get wider ramps in steel from autozone.

944kid

Usually you can take the oil to a shop or even Autozone IIRC, and they'll take your oil.

Nice job Ben! Now, to get a 997S to try this myself!


(Okay, this is a satisfying post 1000. A little props to Ben, a little info to Icon. I approve!)

DJ23

Thanks for the tutorial Ben. I'll have to give this a try. By the way I did change my oil after break in and at the begining of the Spring after the winter storage. I try to do it every 2500 miles.

Thanks again.

Jay

sharmat

Nice work Ben.
I had been looking for a DIY 997 oil change for a while and you covered it very well. I did mine as soon as i picked it up as a CPO car with 8K on the clock. The dealer said i was done but i could be sure. I have done all my own oil changes on my previous cars and was pleased that the changing the oil on a 997 is super easy. Why would you pay $200 to do such an easy thing.
Actually i closely observed how the tech at the dealer does it one day while waiting for my car to get other service and i got a good look at the underside and the confidence to do it myself for less than half the cost.

Ben i noticed that your ramps are not wide enough to accommodate the tires...so the inside of the tires are "hanging off". That doesn't sit well with me. There is probably no harm but it doesn't look right to let it do that. I actually i have wooden homemade ramps that used which are also not wide enough so i added a couple of 2X4's stacked up as high as the ramps to make them wide enough so the whole tire sits flush.

Also, you don't necessarily need the porsche tool to get the filter off. You can also use the "strap style" wrench avail. at any auto parts store...i had an old one lying around and it worked well. How much does that tool cost anyway ?

The old oil can also be taken to your town's recycle center if it has one

Again kudos for spending the time to get this useful info out to anyone how is looking for it

Pugnacious

Looks pretty straight forward, thanks for the detailed instruction and great pictures. Did you pre-fill the oil canister with oil before screwing it back in? If not, that may help eliminate the low oil warning.

Not trying to be pugnacious but I find it curious that when it comes to engine break-in many feel the factory is the final authority and their procedure is to be followed to the letter (we are reminded that they engineered and built the car so they should know what is best) but when it comes to the oil change schedule they apparently don’t know what they are talking about.

I try to remain consistent and do not follow either the manufacturers over simplified conservative break-in procedure or their new found extended oil change schedule.

nyca

what size socket does the Porsche removal tool take? I don't like the strap style wrench for a filter that points directly down, because the act of turning it to remove, puts a sideways component of force on the filter while its screwed to the engine (its hard to not "pull" the wrench as you turn it). this kind of removal tool, attached to a ratchet socket, places the turning force correctly.

OCBen

I use a plastic oil drain container for oil changes that has a funnel that you screw onto it. After draining the oil you remove the funnel and screw in the cap that covers the fill hole and prevents the oil from spilling out. At one end of this container is a small drain spout with a cap for emptying. What I do is simply refill the empties with the old oil and put them all in a cardboard box and take them to Kragen's Auto Parts a block away and drop them off there.

Edgy01

Thanks, Ben. Did you notice whether the drain plug is magntized or not? BTW, it is entirely NORMAL for your first oil change to have material in it. Remember, any little bits in there during engine assembly MAY be in there if they didn't change the engine oil just after their bench run ups.

Many years ago when I had a turbo motor rebuilt we put the mandatory 14 quarts (the real dry sump days) in and ran the engine about 10 minutes and then proceeded to DRAIN that out and put in fresh. Now THAT was what I considered to be a waste of fine oil (it wound up in my lawnmotor later) but that was the engine break in method years ago.

Today's synthetic oils are so good that the real reason for changing your oil today is to get rid of any moisture that it may have accumulated over the last oil change interval. I suspect many here who infrequently drive their 997s or drive them short distances THINK that they're not using any oil at all. In fact, as you ultimately do burn SOME oil it is being displaced in kind with water, etc. which is not your friend. The clue that this may be happening to you is if you have felt tempted recently to write into Rennlist about a white sludge on your oil filler caps... :-)

The most fun with oil changes for newbies to the 911 is long gone,--when they didn't know just how much and how fast about 11 quarts of oil comes rushing out of the oil reservoir aft of the RR wheel! ...and the other 3 quarts or so that you have to remember to remove from the central engine drain plug...

OCBen

You're very welcome.

As for the tire not being centered on the ramp, they were when I started up the ramp, but they slipped a little and that's why you see that on this tire it wasn't centered on the ramp. There is no harm at all from having that little portion hanging off. In fact, as you can see in the pic, the tire is not flexing at all due to most of the footprint being on the ramp. I have some smaller solid wooden ramps that I've used for years on my other cars but they're too narrow for the 295s on the S. That's why I went out and bought these.

The strap style wrench will work just fine except that you can't use a torque wrench on it. The oil filter housing is made of a tuff plastic like Bakelite and you can crack them if you use too much torque. The service manual calls for a torque of 19 ft-lbs. Oh, this tool costs something like 6 bucks or so, if I recall correctly.

OCBen

It's made of aluminum, probably 7075-T6 because of its high yield strength.

I know that my Z had a ring magnet in the bottom of the oil pan for collecting such metallic particles. I don't think these aluminum block engines would have a magnet in there somewhere, but I could be wrong.

OCBen

No, that's not necessary. Besides, you might risk spilling the oil if you put too much in as the filter cartridge begins to take up volume. The low oil warning goes away right away, so need to be concerned by it.
You raise an interesting point, Pug. I think with regard to oil changes, the recommended interval may have been driven by marketing's interest in claiming they have produced a "low maintenance" vehicle. As for their recommended break-in procedure, it's obvious to me that keeping the revs below 4200 rpms is essential while the rotating engine components are being "ground" to their true centers during break-in. Here's something I had posted earlier on the subject:

It's generally known that machined components, such as crankshafts and camshafts, though machined to be perfectly balanced, are not in actuality. These rotating components find their true centers during the wear-in (break-in) period. And evidence of this wear-in is seen in the fine metallic particles found in the oil after break-in.

When these components wear themselves into their true centers of balance, the engine performs more efficiently. And with an increase in efficiency, an increase in output power is realized.

Engine components are designed so that they NEVER, EVER touch each other while in operation. They are specifically designed to operate with a nominal gap between ALL components, which gap is filled and occupied by a thin film of oil.

During the wear-in period those components that are not perfectly balanced are bound to violate that gap spacing and touch each other, hence the wear of which we speak. That is why it is critical not to super rev the engine during break-in because the not-yet-perfectly-balanced components will generate excessive centrifugal forces during high revs resulting in excessive wear of the components, resulting in excessive gapping, resulting in loss of power, resulting in premature aging and the problems associated with it.

After the wear-in period, and all the rotating components have found their true centers, there should never, ever be any engine wear (theoretically), since these components will never, ever touch each other (theoretically) due to the protective film of oil separating them.

kauai_diver

Thanks Ben,

I just passed 2000 miles and will probably do my own oil change soon.

One question I have though is do we need to torque the drain plug? I had to do this on my 3-series BMW (well didnt have to but it stated in the service manual)

Also what oil did you add? I plan on using Mobil 1 0-40w here in n. california.

Thanks again!