Almost always Auto on track, 17K miles total, probably about 3K on track and the rest is driving to track on a highway and a very little commuting, E engine, no issues ever.

Some cars that blew up were not tracked much or at all, and it's impossible to spend any meaningful time near read line on public roads without going to jail or dying. So it's not high-revs that's killing these engines.

I cannot tell if this wear is from stress or abrasion, but typically in machines, lower speed causes abrasion wear (easier to break oil film at lower speed) and higher speed causes stress wear (forces are square of speed). This does look more like abrasion to me, but it can be that stress first breaks the coating and then the rest is done by abrasion - who knows.

I know of at least two other F-engine cars that track more than I do and drive as hard.

I'll report when mine blows up.

By the way, shifting manually, unless you are short-shifting really low, may be worse for the engine because

1) automatic will never bounce against the red line, and the engine spends milliseconds there per shift, and it does not redline in all gears either. When shifting manually, just one delayed shift with bounce of the red line can cause more time at peak revs than hundreds of automatic shifts.

2) when downshifting, automatic seems to figure out the latest moment it can downshift, sometimes even after turn entry, thus keeping engine at lower revs. When shifting manually, drivers tend to try to get done with downshifting earlier, thus resulting in higher revs.

But that's a moot point.

 

Yup. Auto. 9k rpm every time.

 

I could be really wrong here, so any input/correction is welcome. Cyl 6 is on the outside of cars traveling counterclockwise. Which is the case at Daytona for the most part of the combined bank/inner loop. I would expect oil to be pushed in that direction even with a dry sump system. Seems to be counterintuitive to have an oiling issue that way. Yet of those that have reported engine problems cyls 5&6 seem to be the problematic ones. Any reason for that? Design issue?

This is why I posted earlier to see if we could get data on which cars reporting issues are tracked clockwise v. Counter and which cylinders are coming up short. Maybe this could shed light on our problem. Maybe we can get enough data to eliminate this variable out of the mix or maybe it does show some correlation.

 

Some really well thought out points here Max. I tend to agree with your POV on all points. Thanks for your post...

 

Dry sump oiling solves the pressure issue on the low end, it would be a distribution issue up top if that were an issue but it seems the race cars have disproven that theory.

 

That together with post below buries my theory. Seems to be very hard to find a pattern of usage that creates these issues.
Just comes down to luck I guess.

 

No, it comes down to it shouldn't happen. Period.

 

The OP's GT3 engine may not be track durable (and that's still an open question until the cause of the issue is determined).

The unfortunate incident that happened to the OP does not, in and of itself, make the 991.1 GT3 not track durable.

 

True^ similar to the coolant hoses with earlier models. Fact is that it happens.
I have high expectations on gen 2 991gt3. I think it will be very reliable.

Once again hope OP gets his gt3 sooner rather than later.

 

posted in wrong thread. sorry. deleted.

 

The coolant hoses were a know problem with a known cost for a known permanent solution. They have had a few years to fix this new GT3 since 2013 and may have a few more years left to keep at it -- hope they get there before they switch to turbos and hybrids.

I'm watching and I too have hopes, but they're not there yet. With every new solution iteration that fails, the latest Mezger GT3/RS go higher in price as folks that may want to upgrade to a newer GT are reluctant to venture beyond 997.2. This trend will become even more pronounced as the 991's go out of warranty.

 

Honestly this is very disconcerting..

 

Agreed. Almost all of my track time has been Sebring which is clockwise. The only CC circuit my car was on was Daytona and for only a few laps before the check engine light lit up. The believe (no data) the damage started before the error warning system caught it at Daytona. I could be wrong of course.

I thought it was just my imagination but i felt like Daytona didn't generate the high lateral Gs. Yes the banking creates a constant push to the wall that you counter with some steering but that is small and most of the force is down into the pavement. At least that's the way it felt to me. I checked the G meter and Daytona only generated 1.3-1.36 peak Gs, albeit for a sustained period. I see much higher peak readings from Sebring of 1.49-1.52. Agree Sebring is probably shorter duration but those Daytona numbers don't seem that high for oil starvation.

Wish I knew what caused this. Hopefully Porsche knows...

 

Talked to PCNA this morning. They are going to repair the car and put a new engine in it. We're still working through a few details, but I wanted to share the general news that they are accepting ownership of the issue.

 

Glad to hear that everything worked out for you and hopefully you will be able to get back on track in no time