SealG996

I also really like Jarnos posts on facebook. They seem to show high credibility. i like the way he has made his inhouse sleeves work - acknowledged by JRaby as "the exception that proves the rule". Hartech, LN and Jarno were all far from Australia, as LN recently had the least supply chain issues recently, and offered what gains could come from 3.4 to 3.8. I went with them.

Porschetech3

Yea supply chain issues suck and I think will linger on for some time with Diesel prices $5-$6 bucks a gallon now..

Good choice on the LN Nickies, they are the Creme De La Creme..

hardtailer

Thanks for your reply, zbomb. I'll respond to it via PM.

Atgani

Well, I have to admire your dogged persistence in putting Manthey forward as a candidate for an M96 rebuild in Europe, alas I fear they’d be one of the least well equipped specialist companies to undertake such work.

Both the 996’s in the videos you’ve linked to are Mezger engined variants, and these were indeed Herr Manthey’s stock in trade in the years from 1999-2005, and as I understand it Olaf Manthey raced the 996 Cup cars and developed both them and the roadgoing 996 GT3 as a result of the burgeoning track day scene, at which many individuals choice of weapon was the 996 GT3 in all its guises.
For what it’s worth I owned a Manthey modified Mk 1 996 GT3 between 2011 and 2014, and a very fine car it was too.

However, whilst Manthey developed modifications for both the Mezger engined 996 and 997 cars and briefly dabbled with the Gen 1 987 Cayman too, I’m not aware of him or his company making any inroads into optimising the M96 & M97 engines, nor indeed developing any programs to address their many and varied mechanical weaknesses. Put simply, they were concentrating on building and improving the Mezger engined race cars, and any benefits the Mezger engined roads cars gained were as a result of “drip down” from those race car programs.

Thus the chances of them being in a position to build an optimised M96 with all the original weaknesses addressed in the manner of FSI in the US, or companies such as Hartech or Autofarm in the UK, is highly unlikely, because put bluntly, it’s not and never was their field of expertise.

They also have a reputation for being eye-watering expensive, and if the truth be known, in the UK at least (and I suspect the US) there are several well regarded specialists that will re-build a stock or large capacity Mezger as well as, if not better than anything Manthey could build. And if you want the ultimate German built big capacity Mezger, you’d be better off beating a path to RS Tuning.

https://rs-tuning.jimdo.com/about/

I have no doubt for some (and I suspect the big capacity Mk2 996 GT3 owner featured in one of the videos you’ve linked to, is one of them) the Manthey name has massive kudos attached to it, and they will be willing to pay the premium that’s required to acquire that kudos, but I’d rather visit the likes of Sharkwerks or one of several excellent UK specialists, than beat a path to Manthey’s door.

Judging by Manthey’s UK based dealers, Manthey now seem to be heavily focused on finessing the 991.1/991.2 and 992 chassis platforms for very wealthy clients looking to extract the last ounce of track performance from their cars, rather than re-engineering a 24 year old engine design that had more than its fair share of issues, and which Porsche AG have all but consigned to the history books.

If you’re adamant Manthey would be worthy of consideration when it comes to building an M96 that addresses all the original engine’s weaknesses, do drop them an email :

info@manthey-racing.de

Good luck, and I look forward to hearing their response.

rs10

I know everyone is eager to hear what I heard from Manthey. Without providing further details re. what they can and cannot do, they said that they mostly do GT cars and they don't see that they are the right company for what I am looking for.

Tr4ckD4ys

thanks so much for the follow-up! This is good information for the community!

rs10

On their website, it looks like they may (or may not) work with M96 engines, though they probably haven't done many. I'll try to get in touch to find out. Do you know much about what kind of engines they build? (Street focused?, track focused?, etc., etc.)

Thanks!

rs10

So which is better, iron sleeves or Nikasil? Is there a big difference?

hardtailer

Do you understand (written) German? Then this sheds some light on the differences between the two (with a clear favorite acc. to the author)

http://www.cartronic-motors.com/wp-c...April-2022.pdf

ETA: many claims are made without providing any argument that proves the claim and disproves any other claim.
It tries to sound very scientific IMHO but it is by no means that. Nothing wrong with their imperical proven solutions but it doesn't necessarily mean they have gotten all the cause(s) right.

Tr4ckD4ys

Damn... this is one of the best documents on the M06/M97 I have (started) reading. Luckily I do speak German but this is even more informative than Jake Raby's brief youtube series (although there is obviously many more, deeper materials from his firm than just the youtube presence). Interesting that they recommend 10W-60 and even 20W-50 for M96/M97 engines! They also have a lot of good detail on different aftermarket upgrades to the oil and coolant system, i.e. the Hartech deep sump oil pan (those baffles look quite a bit different from the X51 style, and the aftermarket AOS on there too.).

GC996

Anybody know how to convert it to English for those of us who are technologically challenged?

Tr4ckD4ys

I'm happy to help translate specific questions and portions, however, I am not aware of a tool that easily and accurately translates PDF files. I know google translate does a reasonable job on German-English translations, but I won't lie, this document has a ton of specific and technical language that will trip any auto-translator up. Unless you can get a gofundme together for an educated translator to handle this, the 120+ pages in this document will largely remain of value only to the German-speaking community.

merlot

Can you sum it up for us? Which method do they prefer?

Tr4ckD4ys

The article states that CarTronic has a strong preference to running 10W60 oil in M96/M97 engines (unless daily short-distance, in which case 5W-40 is fine, or constant race use, in which case 20W-50 is fine). With regards to Cylinders, they are claiming their process (same as Hartech UK's process) is the best: Aluminum-based cylinders with a "galvanically" applied surface of NiSic. I believe this is just chemical talk for Nikasil. Also interesting is that they say they won't big-bore these Nikasil cylinders beyond 3.9 Liters, because in their view that requires a strengthening of the walls to be safe (they say 100mm or above requires wall strengthening). "Well balanced M96 engines bored to 3.9L deliver consistently 410 PS."

FYI - There is so much more good information in here on all the different issues with the M96 (not just the scoring but also the oil pressure drop that @zbomb and @Porschetech3 have been observing. There is also a ton of stuff on existing remediation and upgrades that can be done to the engine to mitigate those. In fact, out of the 120+ pages a good 80 talk about all the different issues and potential solutions).

Porschetech3

Yes, there is a big difference..

Aluminum /Nikasil is high tech, low friction, quicker heat transfer, higher cost. ie Creme De La Creme

Ductile Iron is old school dependable , less horsepower , slower heat transfer, less cost..But few can fit it to aluminum M96/7 engines reliably..



Yes, I have seen this with highly technical info even from Porsche themselves, translated to PCNA for technical documents. Seems even PCNA Translators will botch up technical info when the Translators are not as highly trained in engine tech as they are in Languages.. The old saying "it got lost in the translation" is a real thing...