I'm not sure what that means. I'd suggest STFU and enjoy your car. This incessant attempt to justify your position is getting old.

But this would require actual research.

 

Silver platter service to justify not spending money on preventative maintenance is so much easier than doing actual homework. Then he can afford more mods, spray paint, crayons and stickers to make his 99 even kewler!

 

My '99 is so bullet-proof, I keep dozens of five hundred dollar bills rolled up inside the intermediate shaft.

 

C’mon man that’s not it at all. I’m concerned about my engine just like everyone else. Why can we just keep it cool. Of course I am hoping my engine doesnt break. But I admit right now it very well may.
I will look up my engine number today after
work. I’ll put it up here.
Where is it? I’ll do some google research as well.
right now he right great that’s all I can tell you.

 

"He right great"
What the heck does that even mean?

 

Maybe "she runs great" was his intention? Posts look they typed on a small phone with fat fingers.

 

Engine number is on the drivers side right next to the oil sump plate

 

Yeah, not sure why air-cooled comes out as superior or more desirable. They need head work and rebuilds as scheduled maintenance items. Not saying they aren't good cars, I've gotten to drive a few detailing clients of mine but they aren't bulletproof. I look at it like your car may be in good shape but plan for worst-case scenario.

 

Dude can't even take the time to "proof read"...
Just kidding, I'm bad too!

 

Jake told me this story in 102 hands-on class and I took notes. I just looked back to see what I wrote. He told me that it's year 2000 cars to look out for, due to the fire. He said the telltale is a blue stripe on the engine block. The issue was Porsche had to go back and use engine blocks that had previously failed quality control - and they tried to fix them. The blue stripe is the old indicator that it had failed quality control. This is why those engines had unique issues to other M96's.


Also in my notes - if you guys think this is interesting - he told me if you see a magenta stripe on a M97 it means it's a rare M97 with a Mk2 M96 IMSB, not the larger M97 IMSB.

 

The reason: innovation
The casualty: mistakes

Using a yin and yang example:

Yin is stable, consistent, rule-abiding production of all the traits that make a 911 so great, unchanged, and if followed forever, would result in a disastrous car that is ‘perfect’ for what it is, that a select few people would buy, but terrible by modern standard, resulting in Porsche going out of business. That’s a run-on sentence. So is the next one.

Yang is ever-changing, adopting new techniques, experimentation, pushing the envelop, adhering to new regulations, changing 80% of the parts every new generation, failing, making mistakes, fixing those mistakes the following year, making the car faster, stronger, better, more technologically advanced, safer, shaving weight because it’s too heavy now, cutting some corners because it costs too damn much now, and then trying to sell it to more and more people to make a profit based on the Yin reputation from prior.

Do either one to extreme and you die. Get the balance between the two wrong, and you might just barely survive. Strike a great balance between the two, and you excel. And it’s really, really hard.

 

I have a MY'99 that had at least 1 engine failure prior to my ownership. Upon my purchase it had 2 LNE IMSB Retrofit stickers in the doorjamb area (drivers side). My initial thought was "oh cool, the IMSB has been replaced twice" - it was a relatively high mileage car, so it seemed to make sense. Upon further resar.ch I found that the car has a replacement engine in it - an M96-04xxxxxx. Meaning that at least the original engine blew up - not sure why, but the fact that it had 2 LNE Retrofit stickers leads me to the following scenario: Original engine IMSB failure (perhaps stage 3 or 4) but not total engine destruction. Unscrupulous shop replaced bearing without pre-qualifying the engine (first IMSR sticker), and the engine self destructed sometime later. The previous owner then sourced a "used" engine (perhaps through the shop that did the previous work) and had them replace the IMSB before installing the engine (just to be safe). After driving the car for 10k mi. or so, I got a CEL and it turned out that the cam deviations were out of spec. I decided to do a bunch of work myself which included engine/tranny out - cam chains, tensioner pads, water pump, clutch, oil pump key, AOS, IMS Solution, etc. Overall, everything went well (besides overdoing the cam cover sealant a bit and having to re-do it). Unfortunately, after driving it for around a year and a half (about 10k miles) the slight ticking that it had always displayed when hot started to get worse. By this point, almost 4 years into ownership (and fearing what I now know) it became pretty clear I was developing a bore scoring issue. After all the work I had done (and the $ I had spent) in addition to my love for the car I decided that a FSI rebuild was in order. I couldn't be happier with the FSI engine. My point is, while the '99 my be a "great year" and generally better than some others, it's no "magic bullet". Do your diligence, and live with the outcome - it's a 20 year old car & there are no guarantees. Good luck

 

I bought a low mile '99 C2 Cabriolet just off lease. A couple of years later I had a catastrophic motor failure. It was the intermix issue, motor oil and coolant mix from a cracked cylinder head. This was somewhat of a common problem then and it happened to me. I worked hard with my local P dealer who I got to go to bat for me and ended up with a new factory reman motor goodwilled at no cost. I did pay for the R&R labor and fluids. Even though I do all my own work we bought a Boxster from the same dealership and I know several people that work there.

 

That is offered in 996. Its called GT3 and Turbo.

 

Downside with the 1999 is that:
- coolant expansion tank cost $600
- Chain guides are a PITA to replace (IMS guides requies splitting the engine, thousands of $$$)

Good thing with 1999:
- From what I recall less chance of D-chunk
- IMSB is apparently more robust
- No can bus so LS swap is easier

After reading 100000 posts about this it seems like frequent oil changes is the #1 factor of engine life (somehow this affect chain guide as well). And don't put on slicks and try to reach 2g for extended period of time with stock oil cooling system.