Originally Posted by slicer

I'm glad you read the LN Engineering info. I have accomplished what I had hoped to with my original post. You and others now know a little more about the engine and it's weaknesses. I spent the day on the track with M3's on coilovers and r-compounds; none of which had any problems. I was on street tires.

I had the oil changed 5k miles ago in March along with a new clutch, LN Engineering IMS bearing upgrade, and cam cover seals. No metal observed in the filter.

Originally Posted by wyo

+ 1 on the sorry!! What your post has shown for me is to avoid car with a history of track use and also just for me No Track use. If others are into it great most know the expenses that come with the track.
I know that DE days and Track time are a blast but it comes with risk of extra wear and tear and on rare occasions a catastrophic engine failure. Not Just 996 but any car that is driven hard is at risk of this. that why racing teams always travel with a spare engine.
I have a friend that blew up his low mileage Audi TT on the track - threw a serpentine belt overheated then a catastrophic engine failure

Originally Posted by Emmanuel

I hate to revive this thread but could not resist. I been reading this with interest, it seems you guys are running around in circle. The truth is and I am relatively new to the Porsche world although I had my 2006 997 for over 4 years without any problem other than a blown oil pressure sensor. But I am not new to the car and vintage car world having owned many exotics and muscle cars some of them wet sump and other dry sump.
Truth is:

Porsche was broke in the late 90s' and it needed to improve margins in order to survive. The 993 their flagship was rapidly becoming obsolete and too costly to build. So they decided to design the new 996 with about the same mechanicals as the newly released Boxter their entry level car (A modern 914 iteration). Truth is, most Porsche owners do not track their cars so the new much cheapened design would be fine for 99% of owners. In order not to scare their customers too much they would call their wet sump design "Integrated Dry Sump" which is complete BS, it's just a basic wet sump. There is one caveat however, the architecture of the boxer engine itself, in a vertical in-line design or an almost vertical V design, because oil just has to go down to return to the sump, wet sump works relatively well but on a flat design, you need to push the oil back to the sump and gravity wont do it, especially under high Gs in a track situation. Dry sump is by far the best design for racing cars or Motorcycles because one is assured of a constant supply of oil in any condition but it is quite expensive often requiring 2, 3 or even 4 pumps to operate properly, many hoses and an oil tank. It also provides superior cooling and can be easily outfitted with oil coolers.
So Porsche cheapened the car, built it more efficiently and became very profitable again. Actually, under most situation the M96 motor is more reliable and cheaper to maintain than the old air cooled one. No more oil leaks, plugged air exhaust ports etc. A few car were blowing up and those were fixed under warranty at the beginning but Porsche was still making tons of money, they built and sold more cars than ever before. Performance was increased, the new car was faster, had better handling than the 993.
For the Turbo and the GT series, they realized they could not use the M96 engine reliably so they used a water cooled design which can be traced to the GT1 and ultimately to the old traditional air cooled motor. But this engine is complicated, expensive, somewhat antiquated in its architecture with many parts and would not be readily feasible for a bread and butter daily drive car.
In this case I think Slicer is probably right that the M96 engine is probably not the best choice for a track car, at least in stock form. Although, in this case the engine had been "Mickey Moused" by a previous owner. Had the motor been stock with a proper oil pick-up, it may have been fine at least for a while.

My two cents!