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Well, while having a great time at Watkins Glen the motor went boom. I was at the end of my 3rd session rounding a carasel turn at about 5k, hit the gas and the motor went from running to a complete stop in about a second. Then the passenger side tail pipe started smoking/steaming for about 10 minutes. What pisses me off the most is that it happened on friday and i was just getting into this track.
So my guess is i cracked the head, filled a cylinder and a rod might be broke. I have no coolant in the resi, oil pan is still full of oil and has no sign of intermix. They did have to clean up about a 150' of something off the track. The motor stopped so fast it threw the belt.
I also have oil on the engine coming from the top drivers side front. The cam plugs r still in tight so my guess is the rod cracked the block or the head is leaking because its not pouring out.
No gauge lights or alarms preceeded the event and the uaos resi is empty.
Im guessing track service was too much for the 200k mile motor. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks ill have time to drop it and see what really happened. So any other guesses from the peanut gallery.
Only pic that shows anything wrong, oil down the side of thw motor.
Im still waiting in the rear deck and cage to get back from the paint shop and the reman steering rack has been painfully slow in shipping so there still is a bunch more work to be done but this happened today.
Bummer, so sorry. I think engine failure is always in the back of our mind for all of us that track our 996.
Exactly this.. sorry dude.
You are certainly not the first to have the motor let go on a RH turn... many have posted, oil pressure drops in certain RH turns is a characteristic of the ****ty oiling system of the M96.
Oil pressure instability is the number 1 reason people with a lot of experience driving / racing / setting up these cars tell me to move on from the M96, stock, built...whatever for track work - not IMS or bore score or anything else.
If I were to place bets...
1. Skip is right
2. Rod bolt
Hope your path back to the track is not too painful
Bummer! Seems like you’re not overly surprised seeing as you were running a 200k mi. motor at the track. 😉 Good Luck with replacement/rebuild/roller sale whichever you decide to do.
At the end of a session...
Oil temp got it.
What oil were you running?
How long before the even did you change it?
I was running dt40 and it had about 600 miles and 3 de days on it. Watkins is a fast track so 7k was hit a few times going around but i never went past.
The motor was a high milage y2k 3.4 that i brought back from the dead. I never really expected that it would survive forever.
Im sure oil temps and/or the weak head caused a catastrphic issue. The motor has always ate oil buy it was running pretty strong until it wasnt.
So i bought the car as a $4500 roller, fixed it for $150 and drove the **** out of it for 3 years. Im really not upset, but thx for the condulances. This just opens up a bunch of oppertunities. The search for a solution is just starting.
Maybe i can intercept that motor going to Hawaii .
Bummer! Seems like you’re not overly surprised seeing as you were running a 200k mi. motor at the track. 😉 Good Luck with replacement/rebuild/roller sale whichever you decide to do.
Oh im keeping the car, i just spent a boat load on Ohlins.... i guess i could used that money for a motor but im not.
So sorry to hear. Look forward to see what path you take. Every time I drive my 996.2, I think, it could go at any minute, but it runs and handles so good. What fun it has been!
05-15-2021, 12:04 AM
Another one bites the dust.
.
