As I posted previously I am a new owner.
Quick backgroung on the car. 1977 Euro. 3.0 Carrera. The engine appears to have been rebuilt 18 months ago from what I can deciffer from the receipts. ($8500 parts & labor)As far as I can tell there is less than 3000 miles on the motor, old owner said the odometer stopped working recenly. I have no reason not to believe him as he was upfront on everything and has only put 15,000 miles on the car sine 1987. He was not mechanically inclined and had a bigger check book than mechanical apptitude.

I did not have a PPI done. The car has run flawlessly every time I have driven it.
I would estimate that I have driven a total of 250-300 miles. I havent shifted above 5000 rpm at any time, I usualy shift in the
3500-4000 rpm range.

Last night after coming thru a VERY nice section of curves, I came to a stop sign,
at which point a cloud of oil smoke that would rival a 63 Chevy came past my window.
I checked the gauges, oil level midpoint,
pressure 15 at idle, temp on 80 and heard no obscene noises. Just as I was going to shut down the smoke went away. I pulled away from the stop & checked the mirror, there was no evidence of smoking and the oil pressure climbed relative to the rpm.

I drove home (approx. 5 miles) and the
same scenerio happened when I stopped.
I summized that there must be an oil leak
from the tank or somewhere were the oil
surges forward when you stop.

Today I looked under the car and there is are no sign of an oil leak. Another theory I had is that the oil level is to high. I started the car the warm it up, and while it was running on fast idle there was the smell of oil burning, I looked under the car and couldnt realy see anything, but there was a
slight bit coming out of the exhaust.
I didnt let the car run any longer,
there was still no disconcerning clunks or anything. I went inside to mope.

Anyone have any encouraging news before I have this flatbedded and call to have my home equity line extended?

Regards,
Rich
sig

 

Not guarantying this, but my thought would be that when driving through the curvey stuff you got the engine a little warmer than usual causing the oil to expand and the level to go up. When that happened and you stopped the oil was sucked into the intake via the breather hose and the large cloud of smoke. Maybe the residual oil ran together over night and was waiting ot be burned off this am. It happens often that people new to the 911 get too much oil in and then end up sucking it through the exhaust. When I check my oil I try to have the engine a tad hotter than normal so the level is the highest it will ever be and then never fill it to much more than 1/2-2/3 of the way between the two marks on the stick. Go out, pull you air filter and look in the box to see if there is any oil residue. That should be a pretty good indication. It'll probably burn off pretty quickly. Another thing, rev that thing up. They were designed and engineered to be driven. If your 3.0 is anything like my '88 3.2 then you are missing a ton of the fun. If I never shifted higher than 5K I'd be missing all of the fun. Remember, Porsche has alway run endurance races to ensure that their cars could handle years and miles of service. You won't break it, go on, have some fun!

 

The smoke produced on braking may very well be from oil that is splahing over to the breather hoses. You can check that by looking inside those hoses for evidence of oil. Also check inside the airbox where the breather hose enters.

If you get the same smoke on deacceleration (no braking)that is a different story and that should be checked out by your mechanic.

 

Just to reiterate what wiser posters have already suggested:

Never rely on the dash gauge for a reliable oil reading. Get the engine plenty warm (180-190 F) and check the dipstick while the car is idling on a level surface. Fill to a point midway between the two marks.

In typical driving, try to keep the revs below 4000 until the car has warmed up to operating temperature (again, 180-190 F). Then don't be afraid of shifting close to your car's redline, if you're driving spiritedly. You've got a lot of torque and power up close to 6000 rpms. When you're driving for the thrill of it, use the whole powerband. If you occasionally bump the rev limiter, then you know you're driving the car the way its engineers intended.

Final piece of advice: track the thing. I promise you, you have no idea of just how much fun that car can be (and also of where its performance limits actually lie) until you've had an instructor show you what the car can do on a track. With a few events under your belt, you'll also be amazed at what you're capable of as a driver.

The 911 is a car that contains many genuinely eye-opening moments for the owner. Some of the best ones can only come on a track, where you can learn to drift the thing at triple digits, using the throttle to manage oversteer (in a procedure that is both heart-stopping, entirely counter-intuitive, and positively awesome to experience), and slap the pansy-*** backsides of all sorts of performance cars with larger displacement and bigger pricetags.

It's an awful lot of fun.

 

When I first bought my SC one of the first things I did was change the oil in preparation for a track day. dutifully topping off the tank at hot idle per the owners manual. Half way thru the first run group of the day smoke started billowing from every imaginable spot on the car including but not limited to heater ducts in the cockpit, exhaust pipe, engine lid (you get the idea)

Diagnosis by the resident gurus? overfill.

It took years to clean the oil from the breathers, air box etc.

 

Ok heres the deal.
I stated the car when I got home from work.
It smoked a bit while sitting and warming up,
and then not as much after a couple of minutes. This is a good thing! I took her out for 15 minutes being gentle, (i am still
a nervous wreck thinking that major internal damage is immpending)I got her warmed up to 80. I am going to assume that its celcius.
Who has the conversion, I was out the day we were going over it.

I came home and checked the oil level,
it was about 3/8" over the top mark.
No problem, I will just drain a little from the oil tank, I dont think I have to go into details but lets just say I got the plug out of the bottom of my oil way to small catch pan just in time for it not to overflow.

I figured this would be as good a time as any to change the oil, so a trip to the local Pep Boys yeilded a case of 10w-40 Quaker State and a Puralator filter. The inept counter guy had no clue as to what a crush gasket for the drain plug was, so a little prayer will have to do. I guess I will be doing another oil change sooner than later if it starts to leak.

I added 10 quarts and took her out to warm her up. This time she smoked for the usual
braking and also a little occasionally on deceleration. After warm up I ended up adding another 1 1/2 quarts.

A trip onto the highway and a bunch of 5000 rpm shifts hoping that it would "BLOW OUT",
didnt yield any major results, when I got home I pulled the air cleaner and there were signs of oil in there. The breather hose has a screen of some sort, that is also a little wet.I still am not completly comfortable with this situation. But just as before there are no disconcerning growls, grinds or other noises and the oil pressure is around
30 at 3000 rpm.

I am sorry that this is so long winded,
I just figured that with the whole scenario it might be easier to diagnos. Also its like therapy, God only knows I cant tell the wife
how nervous I am about this, especially if it involves dollar signs.

Regards,
Rich

 

Yep, I would say definitely overfill. I check my oil when the car is really hot. I'll either take it out and get it warmed up and then really run it through the gears at redline a few times to make sure it's good and hot, or if I had to sit in traffic that'll do it. Then check the oil. That way you know you aren't checking it when the oil has the chance to heat up another 30 degrees and really expand so that what was full at one temp is now overfull at the new higher temp.
80 degrees C is 176F. Easiest way to estimate the change is double the degrees C and then add 32, it's actually F = C x 1.8 + 32.
I'll bet that Pep Boys actually did have the washers. I used to manage a "Discount Auto Parts" in Florida and we sold them (not sure about Porsche sizes). Most auto parts store that sell drain plugs have some of those gaskets separately in assorted sizes. Check in the "Motormite" or "Oil-Tite" section of the store. I seem to remember a 14mm and 18mm size, but again, can't say for sure and don't know what the Porsche sizes are. Ewww, "quakersludge" was the old nickname for quaker state. I think I've heard that they reduced the parafin content in their oil, but avoid it just the same.
If you are looking for something you can do to ease your nerves some you could do a compression test and then depending upon the results do a leakdown.

 

Having overfilled my oil tank when I first got my 81 SC, not being familiar with heating the oil first, and topping off the oil level to the top mark of the dipstick, I can empathize with you - I felt like I was being followed around by the Exxon Valdez. As far as oil filters go, the P people I know strongly recommend the OEM/Mahle oil filters. Considering the volume of oil we load into these machines, for a couple bucks more I'm told there is a substantial difference in quality.

 

The Mahle or Porsche oil filters have a relief valve built into them that the others don't. If you have the Up-Fixin' series, you can follow the oil filter discussions over time, and I believe there was a good summary/survey article in Pano in the past year or two. Mahle or Porsche oil filters cost around $5-$7, and given that oil is the life blood of our air cooled engines, I wouldn't scrimp there.