alpine003

Resurfacing would depend on how much metal you have left to work with.

5CHN3LL

I could probably have some additional material brazed onto the ring and then machine it down to the original tolerances.

DTMiller

You'd be a fool not to.

Kalashnikov

We need input from KK on this issue. What is his crush ring per mile driven ratio? 1/10 or less? Did he notice any performance loss if he failed to proactively replace the ring with a new one in a timely manner? Did he polish it to mirror finish every time he detailed his engine?

FRUNKenstein

Look guys, you can buy a brand new sump plate on Partsgeek for $169 delivered. I'll bet Jason at Warehouse33 can get them for half that. Don't jack around with the drain plug - just do it the Rennlist way and replace the sump plate when you change oil. This way the oil drains out much more quickly and you ensure that you haven't left in there any old oil, sludge or worst yet, metal shavings. It's a best practices thing. By the time you replace or resurface your crush washer every oil change and your stripped out drain plug every couple of oil changes, you may even be money ahead by swapping the sump plate. Plus, the sheen of a virgin sump plate after an oil soaked fingering of the edge crevices (to ensure a tight seal) is much more aesthetically pleasing when you are admiring your 996's business end than the beaten, abused and scarred up sump plate that was broken in by the original owner lo those 16 or so years ago.

Cuda911

Nearly spit out my nightly vodka nightcap on that one.

Charles Navarro

Our drain plugs are billet and made from 6061-T6511, so no powered metal or castings here! :-) We have had very few complaints about drain plug failures, maybe a half dozen a year (with most having been in service for years), and considering we have sold over 50,000 plugs (if not more), that's a very small failure rate. When they do fail, the engines don't leak oil or if they do, it's a minuscule amount and does not result in some sort of catastrophic failure. In most every case, we will replace the drain plug free of charge if it hasn't been over-torqued or shows sign of abuse. It takes a simple phone call or email to get it sorted out, but more often than not, we aren't notified and we see it on the forums first.

As of earlier this year, we switched the anodizers we using as we were having issues which could have led to some of these problems with the plugs. To my knowledge, since the switch over, we haven't had any issues or complains about broken plugs or tight threads (from over anodizing).

From the photo, that is a very old plug - they have been revised several times since the DFI engines came out in 2009 to allow for compatibility with both the M96/M97 and 9A1 (MA1) engines.

If the drain plug has been in service for many years, then it's time to just replace it. They don't last forever and the magnet does get weaker over time with the contstant high temps it sees. This is no different from the factory plastic filter housing bypass springs that get weak and then the filters run in bypass all the time. Some shops change out the housings every few oil changes, and with good reason, or just put a spin on filter adpater on it and be done with it.

That said, call us up and we'll take care of replacing that drain plug or if anyone else has any issues/concerns, just email info@lnengineering.com or call and my team will get it sorted out.

alpine003

^^^^
Great service/honesty/transparency right there.

Flat6 Innovations

I'll add that this component one one of our earliest developments. I did all the testing and installed the first one ever put into service. Every engine we touch gets one, and we have certainly installed at least 1,000 of them over the years.

Of those, I have had one failure. That was after a Jiffy lube did an oil service, so no one knows what they did, or why. I was surprised that they actually drained the oil, and didn't extract it with a pump through the oil filler. That one had been in service since 2008 and it failed in 2013.

Gator996

This is how my LN failure looked.

alpine003

^^^
That looks cast to me. When did you buy it? Any version or number on it?

Gator996

Not sure. It came on the car when I bought it. I may have already thrown it away but I have the receipt in the car file somewhere.

Charles Navarro

Not cast, that's our plug, and probably first gen at that. We were able to duplicate that failure, but only when threaded into a steel plate and torqued to over double the torque spec. We changed the hex back to the smaller stock size years ago as well as changed the depth of the hex to increase the cross section thickness of the plug to make the plug more resilient to repeated over-torquing.

5CHN3LL

Thanks for the comments, Charles. I didn't buy the plug, so I have no expectation that you'd replace it at no charge, but the additional info is appreciated.

Imo000

The only way sump mating surface can get damaged by a reused crush washer/gasket is if it gets put back backwards from the original installation. If you pay attention when reusing it and inspect the poor thing to make sure it’s not too stretched out then you will be fine. Use common sense people.

Porsche techs tell Macster anything just to make him go and as usual, his long winded replies are only partially correct. Just enough to make those that know less than him believe everything that he posts and this is dangerous.