Craig T.

I just bought this 28K mile 2008 997.1TT. I'm registered for a DE at Laguna Seca this Friday. The coolant lines have NOT yet been pinned or welded.

Considering the mileage and age, how many of you would be concerned with doing the track day with unpinned coolant lines?

How many do track days with lines that have not been welded or pinned?

AudiOn19s

I'd be pretty darn concerned. I'm a regular track guy and have seen way too many fitting failures first hand, some resulting in innocent drivers having heavily damaged cars. My wife had a track day scheduled recently in the turbo that she ended up doing in the GT3 because the turbo isn't welded yet.

I had a fitting failure on the GT3 when it was 7 years old with 29k miles on it.

If nothing else at least get all of the coolant out of the system and run water only in the car for the event. It won't help those around you if you have an issue but it'll clean up quickly without the track being shut down for a long period to clean up coolant.

AlexluvsTTs

The risk is probably quite low given the mileage on your car. Mine developed a leak over the winter while in storage. My TT had about 95K Kms when it started leaking.

However, I believe most tracks won't allow a 997.1TT with unpinned coolant lines so you may want to check to see if they have that policy in place at Laguna Seca.

nzskater

Every single 996/997 GT car I know the owner of has had a coolant line failure, including myself. If you plan on keeping the car, get it done soon rather than later.

Mine also had all three plastic elbows leaking to some degree, worth replacing while you're there.

Craig T.

I'm going to run the Laguna Seca event Friday, but watch the temp closely…and my mirror for white smoke. On Monday I'll take it in and get them welded.

I assume leaving the sport mode off and running 7/10 to keep the temp down will help limit the risk.

CincyScott

My car at 27k miles had no leaks or signs of imminent failure before they were pinned anyway.

Mid-ohio has now put a pin/weld edict in place for all water-cooled Mezger flavors. I'm not positive if a water only coolant is allowed there as a bypass to the rule.