Dharn55

Costa Mesa R&D, John Edwards. However there are many places doing the head repairs now. In 2008/2009 it was not common.

First you have to see what the problem is, but it is probably a cracked head.

JJ911

Thanks Doug. I really appreciate your help. I'm going to talk to my mechanic to confirm the problem. He's telling me it will cost $1,500 to take apart the engine to sufficiently diagnose the issue so, not sure if that's a fair price. Hope the issue is the same as what your car had and that we can do the same fix. really love this car and want to hold on to it...

groovzilla

great post and glad you were able to repair the head -

*what is your guess on shop time to tear down the engine, R&R head? i'm guessing 15hrs?

RRRUFF

Doug, Thank you for your posts, they are a constant source of tremendous help. I am in the middle of doing the same work on my 2000 Cab with an intermix problem I noticed this past November.

I am planning on calling John Edwards and his crew at Costa Mesa R&D when I get to that point, but I was wondering if anyone has experience with shops in Arizona that can do the head repair (assuming I need it...) along with a valve job.

Schnell Gelb

People ship engine parts to John Edwards from all over. He was sending a block to Australia one time I was there. The guy is a genius. But don't try to interrogate him or impress him with your Internet knowledge.he has no time and less patience with fools. He does not need your business but you probably do need him!
His prices are very reasonable and I have never heard a bad word against his work. I have used him for years with flawless results . He knows evrybody in the machining/engine rebuild business . He even wrote 'the book' on it with Sunnen.

365dan

Doug thank you for your info very helpful. I too had intermix problem after 130k on my 996. Decided to pull engine and was expecting cracked head or d-chunk in cylinder. I got cracked passenger side head with a small fee zero plug blown out. Crack is on upper side. See pic. Do any members know of a machine shop that can do similar repair in SF bay area. I am in San Jose. Thank you for the forum & members

, gave me the courage to jump in head first into the repair.

KNS

^^ Uhh - info on the Daytona covered with junk..?

365dan

Yes, Daytona from Roberts Motors Tennessee. One of the last 2 he sold before Ferrari shut him down. A project for later on. Doner is a 78 L82 vette that I traded a 70 911-T for 18 years ago. Seamed like a good idea at the time.

pete.desio

I'm struggling to get in touch with John, mailbox/email are full and haven't had any luck getting an answer with the number listed on the site. Do you have any other suggestions on where I can get the work done?

Chiamac

I'd try to find some engine builders in your area and then see who they recommend for a machine shop. Although tricky, these types of repair go on all the time for other brands and makes of engines.

alex14002

Hello Friend,

Please tell me how is going the cylinder head after repair.
I have the same crack in cylinder 6 and going to repair it.
Kind Regards,
Alex

Byprodriver

Thank You for searching before posting Alex. I don't think Dharn is on here much anymore but I know his head repair was sucessful. As for Costa Mesa R&D I believe they are still in business but John Edwards died about 4 years ago. The best place to have Porsche head work done is Hoffman Automotive Machine.

Argeo

Is there any preventative stuff to prevent this or just happens for no reason? Cold starts in cold weather places, red lining often, not red lining often, other?

Weazer

Alex14002, I've just recently gone through the cracked cylinder head issue with my 99' C2 Cabriolet, and can confirm Byprodriver's response to you with regard to Hoffman Automotive Machine in Atlanta. Len Hoffman was a pleasure to work with at a highly anxious moment in my Porsche journey. He did a fantastic job at a very reasonable price, and I was super pleased with the result. I was very apprehensive about shipping the head off to Atlanta from New Jersey, but he made it smooth as butter with precise packaging instructions on his web-site, even provided me with the shipping label, just had to drop the box off at UPS! The car now runs as it should, smooth power and rock steady engine temperature, plus I learned a lot about the engine and cooling system which I hope enables me to avoid this issue in the future on both my 996 and Boxster. Argeo, your best preventative is to stay on top of the cooling system! Make sure your coolant reservoir doesn't have a pin-hole leak (that's what happened to me) and closely monitor your coolant level (that's where I dropped the ball), the condition of your hoses, water pump, radiators and coolant itself. Maybe even consider a low-temperature thermostat, although the benefits are debatable. Ultimately, the cracked head experience was a major pain-in-the-a**, but also strangely rewarding because I was able to resurrect the car so cheaply and gave me the feeling of "beating the system" which I dig!

Charles Navarro

These cars are getting old. Expansion tanks and water pumps need to be changed out due to age, as we know that a failure with one of these can cause engine damage. We put a new expansion tank in every car we put an engine as we lost a new engine due to failure of an expansion tank that pressure tested ok. There are lots of plastic components on the engines and on these cars that will not age gracefully and as we identify them, they need to be added to the items we replace as preventative maintenance.

For example, AOS vent tubes and oil fill tubes are cracked on almost every car that comes in and causes a small vacuum leak that leads to enrichment of the engine and can contribute to cylinder scoring. That's just one example.