Kalashnikov

Damn man, that just sucks.

Too bad you called your insurance and made the post on the forum.

My contingency plan if something like this happened to the 996 was to burn the car in the desert and bury it in the hole I dug up earlier, then call in the insurance and report it stolen.

Cuda911

Correct!!! IMS chain. Prize awarded.

I didn't re-read my post above (for some reason, all the pages on RL are loading super slow), so if I said it was one of the other chains that was in error.

JD Arthur, it's my understanding that if the chain tensioners or rails break, that can cause the chain to skip. However, it's also my understanding that there is usually some advance warning as they fail (rattle sound upon engine start-up, etc.).

996pp

That really sucks!!! Sorry to hear that bud. If youre thinkg about a used engine try LA Dismanteler. Todd is not the most pleasent guy to deal with but he always has his hands on a engine.

sds911

Very sorry for your loss. So does this go down as an IMS failure or chain tensioner failure (or is it too soon to know for sure)? I think this is everyone's nightmare....

You may want to contact Porsche North America or maybe through Hoehn Porsche to see if there is any assistance (financially or on a remanufactured engine) that they may offer, even if it is a long shot.

DrScientist

have not much useful to add here, other than ramen prices today.
$0.99 a package in the store in my building.
ridiculous nyc prices.

Flat6 Innovations

I trade all the time, its in my blood and I would consider the right 914 :-)

I have a very good idea as to what caused this, and the collateral damage that exists. Thats all I'll say, else it'll just turn into another fear mongering event in the eyes of everyone else. It may not be a total loss, I have saved a dozen engines with a similar demise this year.

Our repair times, and reconstruction times are vastly different things. An in-depth repair can turn around in 30-60 days at max, a reconstruction is what takes 13 months. Shoot me an email to jake@jakeraby.com as I am instructing my M96- 102 Engine Rebuild School the remainder of this week and I won't be available any other way.

Here's a pic that will look familiar to you… Yes, been there, done that and its generally not the chain thats the primary failure. In this instance a rod bolt fell out and was picked up by the timing chain, which then shot it through the case. All these failures have primary, secondary and sometime tertiary chains of events. Then comes the collateral damage. Yes, I can repair that block.

kon5t

Someone mentioned you were writing a book about these engines and failure modes, how is that coming?

Flat6 Innovations

I have been working on it for 5 years. The M96 Definitive Guide. It goes to the publisher the end of this month.


BUT I removed all failure information, with the exception of the 4 stages of IMSB failure. The other 26 modes worth of information went in the garbage.

kon5t

well that is a shame, any way I can persuade you to put them back in?

Make sure you announce when the book is out!

kromdom

Being this close to the ocean, how about this option But on a serious note, really wishing you the best

Flat6 Innovations

Not a chance in hell! Talk to your peers about that one, they are the ones that call the truth "fear mongering". The best way to make everyone happy was to toss the info. This one decision has held the book up for about a year.

All your Porsche parts sources will have them. I will not allow Amazon or etc to have the book for at least the first year, or maybe longer. I want our industry to benefit from this book as a whole, I don't give a damn about Amazon!

I also do not plan to sell them direct, and don't plan to sign any. This book is about the information, and nothing else. I even contemplated using an alias as the author just to avoid all the hype associated with writing a book.

Macster

Well, that eliminates that option.

aclark133

Not a 996 owner.. But this is an interesting story. Just be careful about the crowd sourcing, because there was a recent thread on that and the poster took a beating

Macster

Now that you have a price from a company willing to buy the car from you as is where is, look around for an auto auction facility. Look for one under the name Adesa.

There are a number of these facilities around the country. They move a lot of cars. A few years ago the one in Tracy CA moved over 90K cars in one year and handled/processed 130K cars (and trucks, vans, RVs, motorcycles, boats, golf carts, etc.).

The reason I mention an auto auction is visit the facility and speak with the manager and see if you can auction the car off.

After my 2008 Cayman S received its salvage title and a price from OK Foreign I arranged to put the car up for auction in one of the weekly salvage car auctions.

The manager gave the car top billing on the auction floor. Put it in a prominent location and put up some signs detailing the circumstances of the car and what happened.

At the auction the car sold for several thousand dollars more than the insurance's value of the car, which happened to match the amount OK Foreign offered me for the car.

Oh, I had the right to refuse to sell the car if the price wasn't to my liking. I decided even if it wasn't quite as high as I could have gotten from OK Foreign I would sell just to avoid the cost of flat bedding the car somewhere and storing it until I could arrange with OK Foreign to sell it the car. IOWs, I took a shot with the car.

Well, the car sold for $20,700 vs. the $17,300 even though the bidding started out pretty slow and I was resigned to having to take the car back as the price was no where near what I had hoped it would be. But the auctioneer worked his magic and bam!

Afterwards I offered to pay the seller's fee but the manager refused to take my money.

If you go this route be sure you have a clear title cause there is not much time after the sale that the seller has to supply the buyer with the title to the car. I was told by the manager he had 30 days. If the title wasn't in the buyer's hands by then the buyer could return the car and ask for reimbursement for any "improvements" or "repairs" it had to the car in the meantime.

If the cam chain broke the engine will have suffered collateral damage. While I guess based on other posts the busted case half can be replaced with no apparent problems/issues the engine will have to be stripped down and gone through. This will be expensive. But probably less expensive than a factory sourced engine. The shop/person who does this has to have the highest recommendation as a botched job will have the engine sick or worst on the side of the road with its oil running out. Again.

JD ARTHUR

Jake I think a second edition called the "MISSING 24" would be a great source of info and really appreciated to the majority of real enthusiasts. There will always be those who just deal with emotions that will hate it but so what. The losers are the folks you wrote all the info for in the first place and the garbage can just doesn't seem right to me. I realize its your decision and its your right to make it but I just wanted to throw my two cents in anyway.