Hi Werner. 60 is on the 95th percentile of what information I am receiving. Ivan's engine has outlasted almost all others (for usage) in the sample. I speculate that is because its used almost 100% on the track, trailer-ed there, with more than annual oil changes. I think a big dose of lucky too. Many E are failing after 20+ hours on the track. F seem a bit more robust (maybe 30-40), G unknown as yet. A few pages back I take some time to speculate on this. I dot think we are anywhere near Mezger levels of reliability on track yet (100h+).

 

With all the negativity in this thread, I thought I'd share something positive - my 2015 GT3 has over 13,500 miles with zero issues. Love the car! And I love driving it as evidence by the mileage!

Best of luck to the select few with issues.

 

Thanks, Macca. I might have to backtrack this thread to read the relevant section. It would be interesting to know definitively how representative your sample is of the total, as it's generally the failed engines that tend to get reported here. Surely Porsche has superior data points. Could Porsche have greater confidence in the engine from their data given the iterative improvements they've seem to have settled on? Or more likely, real world, limited track usage is a manageable risk, money-wise. Probably something in between?

Really appreciate the sleuthing here. For now, it's a wait-and-see to learn if the recent upgrades are enough to bump the average "track life expectancy" up to the 100 hour standard, if there is such a thing.

 

Same here. No issues. It's a bit of the 80/20 rule -- the 20% earns 80% of the attention.

 

So after three weeks I have my car back. It is a 2014 and now on it's 3rd engine. A G6 series (G60006) engine installed some time between the end of April and 18th May.

It went in because it was drinking oil, anything between 0.7L and almost 1L per 1000km. At the time the car had done about 5000km of spirited road use.

Porsche have driven 1024km on the car since I handed it over. Conducting tests and oil changes following a software update.

Following their 1000km road test they measured the consumption at 0.45L per 1000km; which is and I quote now within specification. (Still seems high to me and nobody seemed convinced)

The car has now done 6000km on the G6 (38k in total) and I was told that I should expect similar consumption for the next 4000km.

Some points to note;

My situation was described as very serious. I assume because it is a G6 engine.

I could not get a clear answer around the software update, other than some mention of changes to the display? Could it be that the new oil system (the RS system doesn't match the GT3 display calibration).

Oil pressures are early and elevated over the previous E series engines, as before. However the pressure increases further beyond 8000rpm and now goes beyond the 5.0bar rating of the gauge.

Everybody seemed very keen not to refer to this as a warranty issue, very little explanation and to top everything off, I had to pay for the fuel for the 1000km test.

I'll let you all draw your own conclusions, but I suspect that once you get to a G6 series engine, the Porsche piggy bank closes very quickly and firmly.

 

I agree, I wish it wasn't so negative. In fact I used to think like yourself, until I hit 22,000 miles and then reality struck.

It is a 80/20 situation; with the 20% being people who have entered into the milage danger zone.

 

Two questions: Would it be beneficial to not rev the GT3 engine beyond RS levels of 8,700rpm? And is there really any performance benefit to go beyond that? I still think it was strictly a top rpm lubrication (or lack thereof) issue, and that's why Porsche lowered it on the RS, but could be wrong. We'll find out soon enough if the latest changes (DLC cams included) eliminated the issue. Curious which redline the 2017 GT3 will show up with if it retains the 3.8. If 4.0, it obviously won't be higher than the RS.

 

Thanks for this. very interesting indeed. So your E replacement engine took you through to 32,000km. I assume this was mostly daily type driving and not on track. Your new G6 engine has now run 6000km and has been consuming oil. I agree even the Techs 450ml per 1000km is way too high for a street driven GT3/RS. Most of us with G engines are experiencing very little engine oil useage on the road, but there have been reports of at least two (one RS and one GT3) that have consumed "excessive" oil from new so its not unheard of.

It seems Porsche are very reluctant to rebuild your engine (one assumes maybe piston rings are to blame) under warranty and have instead insisted that the oil usage falls within the "acceptable range" (often printed in the handbook as their "get out of jail card". I have been in this position with another brand car I bought new and after legal remedy the dealer had to replace the car with "new for new" but it was an expensive and painful process.

The software update is interesting especially in relation to the oil pressure analogue dial reading. Very odd indeed. I wonder if its in any way related to why your engine is burning so much oil. Maybe you should go to the track for a day and see how much oil it burns there - it may well fall outside the acceptable range and allow you better chance at remedy. As the dealer to top the oil off, take a reading with the PWSIS console and make the oil cap and sump plug so you cannot be accused of tampering. If you are using 450ml of oil in 1000km road driving I will guess you will use at least that much in a single day on the track.

maybe you just got a bad replacement engine. I agree that they must be concerned given this is one of the first G6 engines they built and installed in a customer car, but I think it unlikely the oil consumption is related to the modified cams.

I hope this does work out ok for you. Please keep us informed and updated to what happens as your feedback and experience is very valuable to this community Michael.

 

I entirely agree with you, although there seem exceptions to the rule. For example you made it to 32+k km./22K miles Thats pretty high for our sample set. Ivan did around 60 track days on his engine. Thats high for a tracked engine.

 

Its a good question: would lowering the redline help with pushing the timing of this finger follower event further out?

The answer in my mind is "possibly, but the issue remains and the whole oint of this redesigened valvetrain was to allow the 9A1 GT3 engines to reve out beyond the Mezger predessorors (i.e. above 8600 rpm) reliably through their lightweight roller rocker style valve train.

If your redesigned heads dont give you the benefit for which they were designed then you may as well just drop a base Carrera 3.8L 9A1 engine in there (like the GT4) with a X55 powerkit upgrade and some ECU tweaks.

I personally believe that dropping the GT3RS redline moments before launch was a precaution (unproven at the time). I dont think this turned out to be the issue in the end. However PAG have played conservatively with the 4.0L engine in the 911R and GT3RS as the pistons have greater mass and keeping the piston speeds down below 8750 rpm means they are not exceeding the forces on the wrist pins any further than the design of the GT3 at 9000 even though they claim to have a stronger crank (and one assumes bearings) to handle everything at the bottom end.

I think the max rpm has little to do with this specific issue. For the 4.0L it may have more to do with durability of rids and fasteners at elevated speeds with larger piston crown mass/weight.

Just my laymans point of view but Im sure someone will help if Im off track here..

 

Well said.

Also I think it's a nonsense to buy a street legal car for that kind of money and be happy that after one year it was able to do a WHOLE 13500 miles with no engine fault.

BTW, I once owned 997 Carrera. Maybe that's when I learned the fact Porsche doesn't care much about cars that are already out of production. Some who still believe fairy tales might want to google IMS/RMS.

 

Higher pressure doesn't mean more flow. In fluid dynamics you can see how vortexes build, hampering throughput, around the tiniest unevenness in the pipes. Consider page 10 here:
http://www.efm.leeds.ac.uk/CIVE/CIVE2400/pipe_flow2.pdf

That messes up piping design as your expected easier flow when making it wider doesn't happen, and it is very hard to diagnose.

Those throughput problems will then build higher than expected pressure in front of them. That might explain some of the high-pressure at high rpm + high consumption.

It would be interesting to collect pressure @ high rpm data, combined with outside temp, engine temp and oil used.

I think it would be very hard to predict whether thinner oil or thicker oil makes this worse or better, as there is no transparency and no way to see or measure anything for us. Personally, I would wiggle the oil if I would see very high pressure, i.e. change to thinner if thicker was used and vice versa.

Is it at least documented where exactly oil pressure is measured for the driver display?

 

That's still WAY too high to be acceptable, especially on a "high-performance" $150k car.

Wow, the ***** on that service manager to submit this bill after having their way with your car for 1000kms and returning it to you still gulping oil like a drunkard. You are a patient man.

 

Totally unacceptable to me, 1000km and you had to pay for the fuel. No way.

 

Well said as always, Macca. Just one little reminder that the difference between the 3.8L and the 4.0L is not that the pistons have more mass (they are about the same, AFAIK) but they have to travel further with each revolution. The 4.0L crank has a longer throw (stroke) and that's why the lower redline is used to guaranty the same piston speeds (and same forces, given about same mass pistons) as the 3.8L...