So as I look for my own 996, I decided to help a friend of mine change the oil on his 2003 C4S with about 76k miles.The car has been well maintained and purchased from a decent indy Porsche shop / dealer. Had all the usual suspects done, like IMS, RMS, AOS. I thought it would be a great opportunity to cut apart the filter and inspect cylinder #6 as I just got one of the Amazon bore scopes few members referenced I thought it would also be a great opportunity to at least pull out the #6 plug and take a look. After driving the car for about 1700 miles, I only noticed 2 lines of oil burn on the electronic gauge so nothing out of the ordinary. The oil looked good as well and it was changed right at about 5000 miles. He wanted to use Mobile1 so we went with that a new filter + plug washer. Upon cutting the filter open it was very clean. A few tiny plasticky specs but nothing that had us worried. Didn't see metal flakes at all.

Since cylinder 6 is the most accessible we pulled that plug. There was a little bit of oil on the metal gasket which we cleaned out. The plug was not fouled at all. Here is a not too great video of what we saw:
Yes, I'm very aware that this is not the ideal way to perform the test but we didn't have the time to drop the oil sump. It looks like there might be some early scoring happening. The interesting part is the thicker black score/scratch that you can see. There is no noticeable soot on the exhaust and no ticking either.

Thoughts? I think drive it and perscribe to Jake's 6 minute rule. The car does see some track time occasionally FWIW.

 

Yep, I spy the syndrome.

 

I believe that early scoring normally starts down low, so what you're seeing is later scoring.
But Jake could better answer that.

 

Looks like Stage 3, to me.
4 reports since Friday, 3 with conclusive photos... One was a 2009, another a 2013.. 1X 996, and 1X 997..

 

Was oil saved for a UOA? Based on the video should a heavier oil be used going forward to help prolong engine life?

 

Feel like we should all just assumed our bores are scored at this point lol.

 

It's a Nikasil plot.

 

Good question - we still have the oil so it can be sent out for UOA. I'm not sure what we'd want to look for there since the pictures tell the story already. The other question is what I'm thinking about. What's next? The car is running fine with no major oil consumption. Seems like getting an engine built by Jake is a 12+ month wait to even get into the queue unless we find another builder. I'm sure there are other builder options just need to narrow them down.

A) Do we continue to drive and potentially switch do a different oil? Perhaps add something like Ceratec that some have used to slow down the process? Obviously it's not a fix but it may slow down the progression?
B) Stop driving now and plan a rebuild
C) Keep driving and worry about it later

As motoo344 jokingly mentioned, it almost seems like we can all assume most people either have scoring or just haven't checked yet because no symptoms are showing, as in this case. Especially if you're in a climate that sees cold. Seems like warmer climates don't deal with this issue but there is no way of proving that. If that's the case, engine building sounds like a pretty good gig these days, if you know what you're doing!

 

i think getting a UOA is a smart move, especially if you plan on continued driving. At least you will be able to tell if metals continue to show up at higher levels as the car gets driven more. As for moving away from Mobil1 i will defer to more knowledgeable forum members, but i suspect the answer is yes. Good luck

 

Thanks Optionman1 - that's a great point. I'm wondering if the oil change interval should be increased to say every 3k miles to have a better sample rate than every 5k miles. Would love to hear about oil too. DT40 seems to be a popular choice but would it still apply at this point?