Wesley108

I'm being told that it's virtually 100% guarantee that the SAI system will have to be replaced/fixed on all 993s from 96 on up. That's a 6K to 10K investment.

They said it normally happens around 60-70K miles (but sometimes sooner, sometimes later) and the car I'm looking at has 59K miles.

Am I going to have to - very soon - drop another 10K into this to replace/fix the SAI problem?

Don Plumley

No.

Terry Adams

No. I never had one, even up to my 120K rebuild. Who is the "they" telling you this, and have they read all the RL archives pertaining to this subject?

Bull

BS! The stats here and elsewhere, although not all that scientific, show an occurence between 10% and 15% of the owners experiencing truely clogged SAI ports.

Sounds like someone is trying to sell you a '95 or earlier car.

Wesley108

The person telling me this is someone at Tony Callas' Rennsport that everyone said was the way to go for a PPI.

JasonAndreas

It is a design problem so yes there is virtually 100% certainty that part of the SAI system will have to be replaced and/or fixed. The question is what part? If the one-way check valve doesn't fail or is replaced before it has a chance to then the ports should not clog... but if they are blocked you don't necessarily require a valve job to fix the problem. Following the recommendation from Porsche for oil usage you will still have more than enough oil to clog the SAI ports with perfectly functioning valve guides.

With a Bosch Hammer or Porsche System Tester you can check the passages and get a pretty good idea for how clogged the ports are. And it should be part of the PPI.

nota_troll

Wesley. Sounds like it's a car in Houston. Is it an individual? Just curious.

Wesley108

No, it's in So California.

tbil

I say BS as well. If.... SAI becomes a problem on your car, the solution is the flush which is practically no dollars if you DIY, basically all labor. Never priced it at my local shop here in SD but would guess it to be under $1k.

mborkow

ok, i have a little different opinion. very shortly after i got my 993 i got the deaded CEL light for clogged SAI passages. to remedy it, i ended up getting a valve job: $6k. i was just at my mechanics the other day, and he had another 993 (a MY97 cab) with clogged SAI passages. he said he had never seen them that bad; he had to drill them out. the car you are purchasing *could* be a time bomb...yeah, it does not happen to everyone, but if it happens to you, you will not soon forget it.

mborkow

the "flush" is only thought to work on cars that have partially blocked passages i think. if they are really clogged i do not think that it will work (correct me if i am wrong).

trojanman

I agree with mborkow, and need to reiterate for the 100th time (sorry guys, I've lived it) that clogged SAI passages may only be a symptom of a potential larger problem, worn valve guides.

If your guides are shot, you're looking at $5k plus in repairs, and I believe the consensus here is that sooner or later everyone's OEM guides are gonna go (mine were shot at 39k miles)... that's likely what your mechanic was telling you.

trojanman

Oh yeah, and by the way, a '95 is no more immune to worn valve guides as any other MY.

jimbo3

Clogged SAI is also a result of a bad SAI check valve rather than worn valve guides, especially if oil consumption is relatively low.

98993c2s

We are talking air cooled 911 engines here. They all eventually have worn valve guides.

We don't expect to have such at 60k miles, of course.

SAI problems and worn valve guides are not 100% correlated.

Solving SAI does not necessarily require a top end.

There is only one absolute certainty. If you don't buy a 993, you definitely will never have the 993 SAI problem.