When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Were your 8500 track miles all accumulated on a single engine? If so, you got about 100 track hours out of your engine, which is longer than most of the folks reporting the worn follower problem. It's too bad we'll probably never know the source of the problem with your engine. It would be nice to know what wears out soonest on these engines, apart from the followers.
Yes, all of the track mileage was on a single engine. And yes you are right, at an average of 90 mph, I got almost 100 hours out of the engine.
Wow! 61 track days is a record on an E engine from the data we have! Well done. Interesting you are one of the few here that has 85% of their miles on the track and 15% on the road. Im guessing on average a GT3 used on track has more like 75% on road and 25% on track. You must live close to your track or trailer it there?
Can you tell us a little more about your oil change regime? Also do you use SportAuto on the track or paddles? If paddles where typically do you change (i.e. 8500 or 8800 etc).
.......
.......
.......
P.S. Ivan, could you do me a favour and photograph the consignment number sticker form the crate the G engine comes in. There is one one each side of crate - on one side it will give the engine serial number and date the engine was built, the other has shipping and stores info and the part number. You can see examples of both on this board from my previous posts (or I can post again). This may allow us through PET to determine what likelihood the engine has of having the DLC cams installed etc...
Tnx
Macca - I always trailer my GT3 to the track. That accounts for the low road mileage. Nothing local about the 16 tracks that I have driven. They range from Calabogie in Canada (between Montreal and Toronto) to Sebring in Florida.
Following the Porsche recommended Race Circuits maintenance cycle, I change oil every 3,000 track miles or less. The "or less" occurs because I always change the oil in early November regardless of mileage because the car is mostly in hibernation mode for the winter.
On the track I use SportAuto. I let the Auto handle 100% of the upshifts because it handles those just fine and I don't need to use any brain cycles worrying about the redline. So I am always revving it to the max, many thousands of times.
On some tracks and some turns, maybe 5% of the time, I still use SportAuto but paddle shift the downshifts. I do this because if I control the timing and gear number of downshifts, I can keep the car more settled through the turn.
I will definitely photograph the stickers on both sides of the crate when the engine comes in.
Its interesting that the highest track mileage "non issue" cars on here that I know of off hand (OrthoJoe, Manifold, yourself etc) all seem to have 5000+ track miles but few road miles (i.e. they are used primarily for the track and the tracks are not a great distance from where the cars are housed).
It lends some credence to the notion that the wear in the valvetrain at mid rpms is possibly the area of primary concern to exaggerated wear. To counter that argument however I have reported to me cars with street only mileage (DD etc) that have run 20-30,000 miles before the issue has a risen.
.......
.......
Macca - back in late June, while you were travelling in the US, I think, rosenbergendo started a thread ("Confusing info from Lemans and Goodwood") where he said that he talked directly to AP at Goodwood, and AP said that the oiling issue happens more at low revs and city driving. AP told rosenbergendo to drive the **** out of the car and then he would not have the problem.
I took note in that thread that the break-in procedure described in the US Owner's Manual (i.e., keep it below 4,200 RPM for the first 2,000 miles) was quite contrary to what AP recommended.
As a corollary to this, perhaps the US break-in procedure has contributed to the E engine problem?
When I asked about break-in when I picked up my GT3 for a European Delivery, I was bluntly advised that Rule Number One was, "Don't baby the engine." The engineer advising this said that the 4,200 RPM limit was a bad joke.
So for my own GT3, I drove it normal/hard, including on the Autobahn, for the first 1,000 miles. After that, 95% of the time the car has been driven hard on a track. As I mentioned in an above post, I have banged it up against the redline thousands of times.
So an interesting question is for those high mileage "non issue" cars, were they babied in accordance with the US break-in procedure, or were they driven normal/hard like mine. I bet they were all the latter. Perhaps Orthojoe, Manifold, and Trackcar can chime in on their break-in?
And on the other side of the coin, Macca, aren't there a large number of cars on your spreadsheet with very low mileage that had the lifter wear problem? And surely those cars were lugged around at low RPMs the whole time?
If cars that were driven hard from the start are doing better than cars that followed the recommended breakin procedures, why would this occur? Is it better oiling at high rpm, or something metallurgy related?
Yes, all of the track mileage was on a single engine. And yes you are right, at an average of 90 mph, I got almost 100 hours out of the engine.
Just for reference, Porsche recommended OH Time on the Race Engine and transmission in my 993 GT2 Race Car (Turbocharged, air cooled) was for 30 Track hours. Engine finally failed (Con Rod Bearing failure followed by Piston Failure) during a PCA race at Watkins Glen at 50 Hours. $75K Porsche MS Engine
OH, $25K Tranny OH. OUCH!!!
Look at your vin number is is with the last 6 digits where you will see a e,f,or g
My 2014 heads just went and the gt3,has been in the shop for 5 weeks
Look at your vin number is is with the last 6 digits where you will see a e,f,or g
My 2014 heads just went and the gt3,has been in the shop for 5 weeks
If you get the chance, it would great if you could find out the part numbers of the new camshaft and valve levers they will be installing to see if they line up with the recent upgraded parts my GT3 is getting as part of its engine rebuild.
OK Macca - Here is a copy of the Manufacturing Order and the Motor Assembly instructions for my replacement engine as you requested.
As best I can tell, we have the following info:
Manufacturing Date: 19.05.2016
Part Number: 9A1.100.975.EX
Serial Number: MA175 *G60086*
What can you tell about this engine? Does it have the new camshaft with DLC coating?
I am confused about the serial number. In your recent posts you referred to serial numbers in the "mid 5000's", and said that you think that the new camshaft parts started appearing in serial number 05734. My serial number is 60086, not 05xxx. What's going on here?
Unfortunately I cant give you an exclusive answer on this.
In 2014 when our E engines were replaced under the "stop sale" recall they were replaced with engines having the designation "E1". By way of example, our original engine may have been E01023 but the replacement engines we received were E11920.
The first digit after the letter I am certain refers to a revision number.
The latest online PET shows the latest replacement engine SKU as 9A1 100 975 DX. This was infact what was shipped to myself and a friend here who had the replacement to G done in Feb 2016. The date on those engines was mid Dec 2015 production (see below).
However as an earlier poster noted in July, Michael above in April and yourself the latest replacement engine part number is now 9A1 100 975 EX.
The DLC cam shafts are listed on the aforementioned PET as a MA176 (RS part number) from serial G05373 (see below). There is no corresponding part listed at that time on that PET for the MA175 engine, however we know for fact they are now installing the same part number DLC coam lobe coated camshafts into GT3 MA175 engines as part of a "warranty retrofit kit" as evidenced prior by Chris' photos and reporting from July on his GT3 which received a top end rebuild only.
Feedback from a number of RS owners who have received cars and reported their engine serial numbers against their build dates suggest that cars with serials before 0573 were built up until some time in later part of June before later serial cars rolled off the production line in July.
So where does this leave us? In the land of pure speculation unfortunately. based on the evidence at hand I would suggest there has been a revision of the G engine since many of us received ours in Feb. This revision may refer simply to a fresh batch of engines that was produced in early 2016. The factory may have elected to use the "G6" serial prefix as the rolling serial number table was already occupied for RS production. By this I mean that the original batch of G replacement engines in stores (of which myself and a number of others have received units) was produced whilst the GT3 G cars were still in production (I believe the last cars were build around mid Dec 2015) and thus could legitimately be given a sequential serial number. However later when a new batch were required the prefix was added to denote these were build outside of the RS G engine serial ranges etc. These were given a part number ending in EX (replacement engines have prior had BX, DX etc nomlature).
The other theory is that the "G6" denotes a revision with these newly produced engines and the EX defines them as a specific replacement engine part. What the changes are is hard to say. Cghris noted his heads had a revised part number that differed from current production RS heads and G series GT3 heads so that may be one clue. It could also refer to the inclusion of the DLC cams. However michael has posted that his engine was G60006 and was installed late April which would indicate the engine was likely manufactured early in April as best case scenario - and we understand from the evidence we have at hand that the DLC cams did not appear on RS engines until July. Infact Levd states that the cams in his top end rebuild E engine were non DLC coated and these parts were ordered back in June I believe (he is based in Europe so close to PAG stores).
The evidence as presented in my best opinion would suggest that you have a G series engine build some time between mid Dec 2015 and late March 2016 as part of a batch of replacement engines for MA175 GT3 which was given a unique serial prefix and replacement part number that denoted its production outside of the standard vehicle "production run" (which had ceased) similar infact to the 784 replacement "E1" engines build in May 2014 for the recall cars. Its my opinion that these engines are unlikely to contain the DLC coated cams which appear to have become production ready from early July 2016 when the 911R started production. Your new G engine however Im sure includes all the other latest updates (and perhaps more) inherent in MA175 & 176 G engines to date.
This is just my theory. To find out for definite your tech would need to remove the cam covers on one bank of cylinders before installing the engine (a job that would be relatively easy with the engine prior to installation).
I hope that helps although I understand its of no particular comfort and as I say I may well be wrong.
This is a story unfolding in real time where we are having to reverse engineer the story, so as time goes on in this thread we will uncover everything that has happened prior Im sure...
Ive attached some information below to support statements above including the documentation on my own G "crate engine" and a picture of the serial on Chris DLC Cam that was fitted as part of a top end rebuild last month to his GT3...
It would be really helpful if Ivan can get one valve cover removed to confirm DLC coating on the cams. If an engine manufactured this far back has the new parts, that might lend some credibility to the notion that Porsche believes enough in this fix to go back and redo the top ends of spare engines. The absence of such DLC might also lend credibility to the notion that Porsche is still evaluating the latest fixes, and they are not confident enough to redo existing spare engines.
It would be really helpful if Ivan can get one valve cover removed to confirm DLC coating on the cams. If an engine manufactured this far back has the new parts, that might lend some credibility to the notion that Porsche believes enough in this fix to go back and redo the top ends of spare engines. The absence of such DLC might also lend credibility to the notion that Porsche is still evaluating the latest fixes, and they are not confident enough to redo existing spare engines.
It is a data point.
Rob I agree this would be a very valuable data point, however it comes at a cost of labour no doubt payable by Ivan so it is his choice if he elects to confirm this and we wont hold it against him if he chooses not to...
P.S. Its my believe on prior PAG behavior with regards to this issue that they will elect a specific point in time to address the update of components ion the engines and as illogical as it may seem they are unlikely to go back to stores and change components on already built replacement engines. As evidence I refer to the overall development of "fixes" for this situation which suggest as late as July this year PAG were installing the older camshafts into top end rebuild cars like Levd and others and no effort was made to remedy the situation (parts were ordered prior to DLC cam release but not fitted until after the new cam was made available). Looking at this pragmatically I my view is PAG are not prepared to go to the expense of addressing engines in production or stores until they need remedy, in part because i suspect until the new component is run up on customer cars for extended duration and loads and until it has "proven" to be a fail safe remedy for the issue, it is infact just one change in a long line of revisions for which in the future there may be an improved version available. As crazy as this seems from a business and engineering perspective the logic is sound. It is for this very reason I have NO faith currently that soon to be production built 991.2 GT3 engine (3.8 or 4.0L it doesn't matter) will incorporate any significant changes in design over the DLC cams and finger followers that are the subject of this debate.
Im prepared to wager that short of a valve train redesign APs launch statements for the 991.2 GT3 in March 2017 at Geneva will say something such as this:
"The new 991 GT3 benefits from a number of significant mechanical improvements for performance and durability over the first generation model, which include redesigned cam shafts and followers, improved oiling, redesigned heads and revisions within the ECU".
The statement holds true when you refer to the 991.1 GT3 engine as installed in the 2013 launched car, but every one of the revisions he elludes to I believe will already have been incorporated into subsequent F, then G RS, G GT3 and 911R engines. This in reality nothing will be "new" although no doubt the press will be uneducated to this and report only the headlines which the general un educated car buying masses will interpret to significant beneficial red design.
If Im wrong beer on me next time Im in USA. Given the lengthy development process we have witnessed to date I am fairly confident other than a few minor component revisions and ECU software changes that the 991.2 GT3 engine is already signed off and in in the bag and the car is in effect only weeks away for final sign off pending a few minor tweaks to suspension, spring rates and etc. The 991.2 GT3 I wager will have the same revisions as these latest MA175 retrofit engine kits (cam towers, camshafts, finger rockers), the uprated oil pump, filter and ECU parameters of the already productionized G series engine - essentially all the changes you currently see in the 911R and July onward 991.,1 GT3RS engines...
08-21-2016, 03:14 AM
