Cuda911

Ah, OK, thanks Jake. No worries. I'll buy you a beer.

I'll shoot you an email regarding the blown motor.

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Just got home from this month's PCA board meeting. A super long one, half by the outgoing 2014 board members, half by the incoming 2015 board members.

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Tomorrow I'll get the car towed home from the shop where it's at now, and hang onto it until the replacement motor shows up. A different shop will be doing the replacement for me.

I hope to attend the open heart surgery, and get to the bottom of this motor failure. It will be one more piece of data for the 996 community to chew over.

If you look at the chunk that got blown out, it has odd markings on it. Someone early in the thread said they thought it was from something that was threaded. When I was out at the side of the road waiting for the tow truck, I was studying it, and just couldn't figure out why it had that pattern. Now, of course, it's obvious that the markings are from the chain slapping it.

I plan to tear down enough of the motor to at least find out what failed... is it really a rod bolt that was thrown by the chain, etc.

Seems to me that the chain had to have lost tension. But, what if the bolt piece gout under the chain, lifting it in this precise area. That would certainly cause the chain to hit the case wall and make this pattern.

Note the pattern on the chunk:
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Macster

My first and only UOA of my Boxster's oil turned up 7% water content.

The engine didn't have any antifreeze compounds in the oil. The water was there due to the cold temperatures -- I bought the car in January of 2002 and the UOA was done sometime in March -- and even though I did some long drives. The cold just keeps these engines from getting warm enough to boil the water out of the oil.

It was this UOA that convinced me to change the oil in the Boxster every 5K miles rather than the 15K miles the manual called for.

So here is is almost 13 years later and the engine now has over 287K miles on it and that 7% water apparently didn't do any harm, but I have to wonder what the outcome would have been had I followed that 15K mile oil change interval given how the engine collected water.

pfbz

Glad you found a new engine!

The original engine held up for 120K miles & 11 years of high performance use, and after catastrophic failure of the engine (one of 8,279 failure modes?) you sourced a quality replacement engine for ~$10K in a few days.

Still have tons of faith in the value these cars...

chsu74

I replaced plastic chain guides in my M96 motor when R&Ring it at 100K miles. They were worn.

The 3.4L ran 5 chains vs 3 chains in the 3.6L. Maybe the plastic chain guides suffered a failure?

prosled8

This story shakes my faith... When a well maintained car goes down being used as intended at 120k, that is pretty poor. Having to buy another flawed engine for $10k to get your $20k car running or sell it as a $5k roller. Those being the least painful routes???

As a shopper, that kind of repair changes my perspective a little. Could I swallow such a repair, I suppose, I sure wouldn't want to though. The right thing to do is a Raby rebuild but that again changes the investment in the car, making a 997.2 an attractive option.

So is it still an attractive car at $30-35k or, well into 996TT territory if your C4S goes down? Maybe lessen the risk and buy a warranty, probably not an option for higher mile cars but probably less than half the cost of this used motor experience? Just rambling now, considering my options as a 996 buyer...



OP
Anyway, good to hear a resolution has been found, stinks it is going to cost you so dearly but maybe it will be a bit of a rebirth too. Hope you get back to enjoying the car soon.

fillzplace

After 100k miles I would expect that they were worn 😉, but could they have gone another 50-100k miles? I'm almost at 100k in my '04 C4S and am contemplating if I should get them changed.

As for the marks on the piece that broke off, I wonder if that was from the rod bolt when it fell into the chain and then spun around on the chain and slammed into the engine housing causing it to break off. After all, the force required to break that housing would likely leave a mark...just saying.

alpine003

Exactly. We're not comparing apples to apples here with Hondas. How many other exotic Marques go past 100k let alone even remotely close to it?

I'm glad all the pansies on here don't own Ferrari's.

Imo000

The voltures are circling.

Cuda should put the old engine up for sale and let the highest price buy it.

sanyata

Yea but they are usually looking at hybrids or electric motors....

thebowl

Depends entirely on how you define "value". If you are referring to the market value of this model, it is what it is, and it ain't particularly high, in absolute terms. If you are a seller, that's bad but, if you are a buyer, it's good.

If you are referring to the (necessarily subjective) quality and quantity of the driving experience that can be purchased per dollar, then I agree with you that the car is basically a steal these days. And I say that as someone who is giving out 3.6 pistons as Christmas gifts this year. They make nice ashtrays.

Ben Z

I love my Porsche, but it's not a rare classic. I have a different perspective on what I would do in this situation.

The only reason I would put a used motor (even with an LN bearing) into my car would be if I could then turn right around and re-sell it for less of a hit than if I sold it as a roller. For example, by putting a $13K engine ($10K plus $3K labor to install it), then selling the car for $20K would leave me $7K, which is $2K more than I could get for it as a roller. So I would do it.

But if I planned on keeping the car I would want that used engine torn down and remanufactured, replacing any worn components (or those known to fail prematurely) with better-engineered aftermarket parts, to minimize the chances of having another blown engine on my hands. And I would not do that on a 996 with 120K on the chassis worth $20K, unless I had good reason to speculate it would someday appreciate the way the air-cooled cars have done. And I don't see that happening any time soon, if ever.

alpine003

And clocks for the non-smoker...

mcbit

...bur that could double as an ashtray.

KNS

The difference being that Porsche markets their 911s as the "Everyday Porsche". Home Depot runs, pick up the kids at school, etc - I remember the commercials. Not exactly the same as a Ferrari.

Imo000

My paperweight in my office is a piston from a 3.5L Nissan.