Wolfpack987

While I've only been registered on this site for 12 months, I've lurked here and there for a while, and have been a Porsche Cayman owner for the last 8 years. And sadly, 5 weeks ago while on track, my engine died. I'm still trying to figure out my next move - rebuild/sell/etc. I'd love to have everyone's opinion on what happened and/or what I should do. Here's some car background information and a summary of what happened, including a video of the fateful last lap.

Vehicle background: 2006 Cayman S with 117,052 miles. Suspension overhaul performed roughly 15,000 miles ago with Ohlins R&T coilovers, Ground Control front camber plates, new OEM front LCAs, new rear OEM upper strut mounts. Installed (last week) Elephant Racing adjustable rear toe control arms. FVD Motorsports deep oil sump with X51 baffles installed 1 year ago. New front caliper piston seals installed 2 weeks ago. Original clutch. Tires on track were Nitto NT05s (with 4 previous track days on them).

Driver background: Been attending HPDEs for over 10 years. First with a GSR, followed by an S2000, briefly a supercharged BRZ and currently the Cayman. Having owned Honda products for over 25 yrs combined, perhaps my merciless approach to take advantage of the full rpm band has backfired on me. Recently I've been running in PCA White Group solo and have been working on my threshold & trail braking, as well as heel toe. On track I'm usually going at around 9/10ths. (though of note I hadn't been to CMP in 10 years so when car died I was still getting reacquainted).

So what happened was... in the 3rd session, right after I lifted for Turn 14 (final turn of the track) the engine shut of and CEL came on. I heard nothing beforehand through my helmet to give me any sort of warning. Nor did any warning/idiot lights pop up on the dashboard beforehand to warn me of impeding disaster. I was able to roll the car back to the paddock and during that time tried to restart the engine, to no avail. See below for the video. Of note, I think the engine starts to sound "different" around the 1:19, and more clearly at the 1:30 points in the video. Failure occurs roughly at 1:40.


As stated above, I could not get the engine to restart while rolling back in the paddock. Additionally, since the engine shut off abruptly while on track, the coolant temps starting going sky high. Never fully in the red, but the needle stayed all the way at the top of the dial for a good while until the engine bay cooling fan could evacuate enough heat. In the meantime, while the engine cooled off I read the error code, P0301. This code states that a cylinder 1 misfire occurred. Okay I thought, not too bad. I hadn't heard any horrible sounds from the engine right before it shut off. There was no smoke from the exhaust. No fluids leaking from underneath the car. The digital display also indicated that I still had a full sump of oil. My initial thoughts were that one of my coil packs had failed. However my view of things got worse when I was able to restart the engine, which I was able to do about 30-45 minutes later. It took some coaxing, but when it finally started up it was not firing on all cylinders. And then after a few seconds the console display stated "Low Oil Pressure". Oh ****, that...that is very bad. I was able to get an on-site mechanic to come over and take a look at the car, mostly in hopes that he could manually verify what my oil pressure situation was. While waiting for him I removed the engine cover. When he arrived, we started up the car again and it sounded the same as before, bad and not running on all cylinders. Then after a few seconds a new metallic banging sound started (sounded like a socket attachment being shook inside a tin can). When that happened we immediately shut down the engine and he stated in his professional opinion that I had a serious internal engine problem (no kidding...). I had already assumed my weekend was over, and at this point I just packed it all up and planned to investigate things further myself at home.

I used a strainer and coffee filters when I drained the oil, and found a lot of copper metal flakes. I also took a sample and sent it out to Blackstone. Finally I dropped the oil sump. Below is a photo of the metal flakes in oil, the Blackstone report, and photos of the oil sump.







I feel confident here in stating that my engine is toast. The questions are: what caused this? & what to do next?

I think that the majority of internal damage happened to cylinder #1. Was the failure caused by oil starvation? Given the conditions I find that difficult to happen without mechanical failure (oil pump?). Or maybe a connecting rod bolt stretched and affected the oil flow locally. I haven't done any further engine diagnosis, since what I've done so far is sufficient to determine the engine is a lost cause. Some (similarly) mechanically inclined friends want me to drop the engine and "dig in". Tempting to do (though note I've never dropped an engine before), however I'm not sure how much of a mess I want to make in my garage (lol).

I'm not sure what my car would fetch at the moment as a roller, but it's probably less than I'd be satisfied with. The most straight forward option is to source a used engine, either on eBay or a from a wrecked car (via insurance auction) and have that installed. But if I installed another OEM stock engine, I'd be afraid of suffering more engine trouble on track (fool me once...). If I merely had another used engine installed, I would probably sell the car after that. Another option is to install a built engine with higher quality parts that won't fail on track. Sadly I don't have the funds for something like that. Finally, there is the zany option of swapping in another engine: LS V8, Audi V8, Japanese V6, etc. But none of those seem easy (relatively speaking) to perform and aren't inexpensive options either (upfront, or in the form of destroying car's value).

What do you guys think?

Charles Navarro

Sorry that you had an engine failure. I presume that you were running Mobil 1 0w40, correct? UOA doesn't say.

Sadly, I've seen this time and time again. The FVD pan does not provide adequate oil control for the track if you run anything other than an N-spec tire.

Bottom end will be toast. You'll need another crankshaft and carrier, however depending on how long it was run after it failed will determine how damaged the engine block is. Typically when it loses a rod bearing, the rod will break and take out a cylinder. Most customers choose to buy a used engine and start their build from that point. We've done this for plenty of Spec Cayman guys that have popped their stock engines.

jscott82

Sorry this happened to you...
This engine has issues with sustained Gs in right hand corners. CMP is my home track and turn 12 is a Cayman killer. Graph below is oil pressure. I have tons of logged laps (on the old less grippy surface) that look like this.

Good junkyard engines can be had for 8k. If it were me, and it was me 2 years ago, grab a good junkyard engine. Change all the fluids (run a great oil) and update all the plastics while you have it on the stand and run it until this one breaks too. Some of the SPC guys like to rebuild every 2 years.

Best
jeff

DesmoSD

I remember you from the FT86 forum. Sorry to hear that you car died at the track. By continuously trying to start the engine, you created more damage. I say have it rebuilt. Try checking LA Dismantler. They might have a bottom end.

https://www.ladismantler.com/

tommietnk

Not to hijack the thread, but do these issues happen with the 981 engines?

jscott82

No, the 987.2 and later DFI motors are pretty bulletproof.

Racer Boy

To me it sounded like it was making a bit of a racket before it let go, so I'm guessing it's a rod bearing. It's probably a cumulative thing of you revving the whee out of it so often under oil starvation conditions.

Sorry, that sucks. I was going to buy a 987.1 until I read that the engines had all of the same ticking timebomb issues as my 986 Boxster. That led me to spend the extra $10K and buy a 987.2. Reading that the 987.2 engines are so bulletproof was worth it, since I intend to track the car.

NAMR6MT

Regarding your "what to do next" question....If you really love your car and have the time and money (lots of time and money unfortunately), contact F6I for a new powerplant. Given your suspension setup, the car most likely drives like a dream and is worthy of a thoroughbred engine. Otherwise, sell it as a roller and recoup some monies.


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ICNU

Man that really sucks! I noticed that your aluminum and silicon values suddenly shot up high back on your 6/14/2019 oil sample evaluation. Those two values suddenly climbing are good indications of a potential bore scoring incident already occurring prior to that oil change. Good luck with whatever you decide to do

Wolfpack987

Thanks Charles. Yeah I was running 0w40 Mobil1. I also didn't think the NT05 tires were extreme enough to cause issues. In fact there was a stock 2008 Cayman there running even stickier NT01s and he seemed to be fine (knock on wood).

Jeff, I thought LEFT hang turns were the ones to look out for with a 987.1?! That graph is horrifying. I'm not sure I'd want to go that route with a rebuild either. I'm not talented enough to perform an engine swap myself. If I have an unmodified used engine installed I would probably just sell the car since I couldn't trust it on track again.

I do love this car, but wonder if I should move on and sample something else from the sports car pool.

Hmmm, that's possible. What is indicative of bore scoring? I did feel like oil smoke on start up was a little more pronounced in the last 6-12 months of ownership.

ICNU

The pistons are ally of course and their skirt coating contains the silicon, so seeing these two values suddenly shoot up in the oil analysis when those values were normal previously can be an indication that you had at least one piston that was making contact with the cylinder walls. This can also result in more oil burning between changes or smoke on start up if bad enough. It would be interesting to see what your plugs look like and if you can detect any excessive oil on any of the cylinders?

Charles Navarro

This engine was hurting for quite some time leading up to the failure. This is another instance where Blackstone's commentary and user averages can lull owners into a false sense of security. You can indeed see the engine had bore scoring going on even in the previous UOA, but more concerning to me was the increased copper, tin, and lead in the earlier samples. This engine was dying a slow death. I call it Chinese water torture. The FVD pan just slowed the progression of the failure that was already taking place.

Sadly, anyone who is tracking these cars with a stock sump or even with an added X51 baffle with any tire stickier than a Porsche N-spec tire, especially if running M1 0w40, is already on their way to suffering an engine failure like what happened to you.

Wolfpack987

Thanks for the detailed info. Takes away a little bit of the sting from thinking it was a sudden on track failure.

jscott82

Again not to hijack.. But Charles what's wrong with Mobile 1?

Your guys at Built Racing are awesome and have been a real help, they recommended XP9 and I have been using it, but never really understood why. I think they mentioned something about antifoaming.

A432

Don't feel bad about switching, it's pretty common for people to like a car and not want to deep dive the history of a given model.

Imho the history is there for the M97 in the box/cay though.....I've lost track of how many I've seen fail at the track....some built and multiple times.....

I've also yet to see a 9A1 fail at the track...of course there are a couple you can find on the web as you can with any engine, but in general they've been extremely reliable.

So you don't have to leave the Cayman, just get an '09+ 9A1 engined model....I'd budget out a junkyard M97 vs selling as a roller and sell it for the best outcome....then get a 9A1 engined one if you miss it.