ZombiePorsche44

At our PCA Performance Driving School last weekend I was witness to the fraility if the wasser cooled 996's when a 2003 996 Turbo hit a standard soft orange plastic cone on the track at about 60mph that literally tore the aluminum corner of one of his front radiators off slathering the track with antifreeze and almost costing him a motor.

Two weeks earlier I hit a 5lb rock that rolled off a hill at about the same speed and all it did to my 993 was crack my lower front bumper cover.

996's are better than 993's.......NOT!

ZP44

texas911

Modern cars are designed to absorb as much energy as it can during a crash by sacrificing itself. Thus is makes it seem fragile, but its actually designed that way.

ZombiePorsche44

I'd buy that arguement if he crashed, but all he did was clip a cone...nothing should be that fragile IMHO!

ZP44/Joel

TRINITONY

beers4all

All we're missing here is a link on the 996 forum!

RallyJon

Watching 996 Cup races the same thing would happen all the time. Slightest bumper tap and a front radiator would go. You'd think they'd protect them better.

Marv

Hard to pass judgement based on that one incident. You have no idea exactly what happened nor do you know if there was preexisting damage (to the car, not the cone ).

Ray S

Sounds like a unlucky hit to me. I've never had any problems hitting the occasional cone in my car.

I'd put far more "weight" behind the stoutness of Porsche's 996 design after seeing hundreds of 996's mix it up in Grand Am Cup and ALMS racing. I've seen plenty of those cars take some pretty good hits and continue on racing.

However, I doubt your interested in facts as the point of this thread seems to be to create additional 993/996 conflict.

jimq

Better yet the 996TT forum

Arena993

Butter please.

Martin S.

The 996 Turbo has the same engine case that you do...it just has different heads with water passages. Like it or not, the water cooled heads do a pretty good job keeping the engine cool. The question is, what medium transfers away the most heat per unit of measure, water or oil and air as we have on our 996 cars? I suspect it may be water.

I suspect the radiator system is the frail part, not the motor.

I would never buy a 996 standard car with a throw away motor and tranny...I'll keep my old technology 993 motor, thank you. I did add a second radiator to keep things cool....

Now let's just sit back and relax...let the games begin

Mark in Baltimore

Let the holy war beginnnnnnnnnn!!!

993inNC

Uh.....Huh right next to ya brother, who's bringin' the beer? This should get good

Boeing 717

Whats a 996??? Did i miss somethin??

JERRY

milrad

Not to add a log to the fire, but....

I've seen nearly the same thing happen to a 996TT an an autocross at the E-Center in Salt Lake City. He got out of shape and mowed down about four of the short cones. Coolant everywhere and they had to come get his car with a flat bed. As I recall, he had just recently obtained the car.