I am not surprised at that...that seems like a "wear part" and they should make them replacable somehow... I have no doubt that mine look the same or worse since I have nearly 109k miles... For me the chain guides (all of them) are my biggest concern, followed only slightly by the little oil leaks that I keep chasing...

on the cam soilenoid assy, do you see any way or reason that oil would seep THRU the solenoid? (coming out of the wire seal) I know on one of the cam guides there is an O ring under it and not on the other... but what path would oil take... just curious...and do you plan to take apart that assy to replace any o rings or seals inside of it?
Thanks for more awesome pics!

 

Those guides are replaceable with the engine in the car. It's basically the same process as required to replace the variocam mechanism. I'm not sure it'd be much fun, but it's probably something to think about if you ever need to have a cam cover resealed or removed for any reason.

I'm not sure about that. I haven't examined the assembly in much detail but I imagine disassembly of the solenoid would be destructive. I'll take a look.

No problem!

 

really, that might be worth doing on my car as a winter project next year.... thanks I will look into it

 

Awesome Doug.... hopefully it was just a head gasket.

 

Doug,
Great write-up! I'm interested to see what you find.


Andreas

 

After cleaning and stripping the 1-3 bank head, I believe I've found the problem.

There is a crack in the head rooted very near the stem of one of the #1 cylinder exhaust valves (the valve is the one closest to cylinder #2). The crack runs from the valve guide, under the spring seat, across the head and down the spark plug well to almost the first step.

The attached pics (massaged a little for contrast and shadows) show the crack. I sprayed the head down with a dye penetrant crack check kit and although the can of developer I had on the shelf was out of gas, the red dye still helps expose the crack.

So, for your entertainment, this is the guy who killed my M96:

 

Oh my!

What's your next move?


Andreas

 

****! That is so small!! You are a good detective to find that.

 

So, after all the very precise pics and description of your engine teardown, what is your next step Doug?Is there a fix or replacement , or are you talking new/reman engine at this point? Does Jake have a solution for your engine crack in your head, or can it be replaced?

 

is there a magnaflux variant that works on alloy? would seem like a good idea to have everything done.

 

Good find Doug.... thanks for the updates!

 

Doug - Good to see you found the problem. There is a series of videos on rebuilding a Boxster engine on Youtube and Truvideo that show alot of details on the rebuilding of a M96 engine. The problem was also a cracked head. Here is a link that shows the head leaking

http://www.truveo.com/Porsche-Boxste...3/id/279963674

I thought I remembered that he had his head "fixed" rather than replaced, but I can't find that video.

I have a couple of questions for you.

1. Did the leak show up on either a compression test or a leak down test? Did you perform both?

2. I know you had coolant in the oil, but did you also have oil in the coolant? I was told that oil in the coolant is more common as the oil is under higher pressure when the engine is running. Although when the engine is turned off, the coolant is still hot/presurized so then it is under higher pressure. In my car I had a significant amount of coolant in the oil, and the coolant level was low (this is how the problem first became apparent as is usually the case), but there was alot of oil in the coolant, to the point that it is thicker than mayonaise.

I finally got my oil cooler off this week and am planning on pressure testing it this weekend. Maybe (but not very likely) I wll be one of the few that actually has a bad oil cooler. More likely a problem similar to yours. In draining the coolant it took hours just to let it flow out of the engine as it was not hot, and the coolant/oil mixture was so thick, almost like pudding. This mix needs to be flushed out of the entire system, engine, lines, radiators, etc. and is supposed to be very hard to do. You may want to look at PhillipJ's posts post on Renntech.org on his upgrade from a 3.4 to a 3.6 after the intermix problem on his engine. He ended up replacing the radiators with new ones.

I guess the best news is that it is not either a cracked liner or a porous block. Liners can be replaced, but it is expensive, and porous blocks can be impossible to find or fix.

I would hope that a cracked head like this could be found on either a compression test, or more likely a leakdown test. If this is the case maybe I can do less than a complete teardown of my engine as cylinder heads can be replaced.

By the way, in taking the AC compressor off my 2000 C4, a non-Turbo, is does have a fuel cooler attached to the rear of the compressor. I will post a picture of the cooler which I am told only comes on some non-turbo cars (and the part number on the unit does not come up on any PET program, either mine or Sunsets).

Looking forward to your answers and further posts for some guidance on my repair.

 

this is great news!!
however, do you stop, or keep looking......... naturally you will take both heads in for service and/or replacement

 

Told ya so....
Your welcome :-)

This is a common issue with the 3.4 engines that we see. This is also common on the 3.2, since they share the same root head castings and essentially a 3.4 is nothing more than a bigger bored 3.2

There is no repair for it, the crack is at a point where the port, water jacket and an oil passage all come very close to intersecting. This head is now a door stop.
The issues also occur most often on cylinders 1 and 6 and more often on the outboard exhaust valve.

This is actually a best case scenario, heads are abundant and fairly cheap compared to the cost of a crankcase, etc, etc..

These kinds of issues are my specialty... Looks like its time to go bigger, a 3.6 would be so nice and when applied to the 3.4 heads its a torque monster and I'll take that any day over HP!

 

Jake, heads are interchangeable on either banks? what do they run $$$ nowadays? That 3.6 with 3.4 heads sounds interesting.... info?