^ I never knew my coolant fitting blew til I got meatballed. Mike

 

I'm glad they are taking some action, it may cost a few of us a little $ to comply but it is a potential benefit to the whole run group if a line does fail.

Although the letter says 996, the body of the email says 996 & 997.

 

Personal Responsibility

Whatever the perceived risk is by the individual, each individual assumes that risk when they sign up for the DE or enter the paddock. Would I be pissed if another car on track dropped coolant or oil and I crashed? Absolutely! But I knew that was a possibility going in.

If you are not a GT1 derived motor driving individual, and you see on the roster that there are GT1 derived motors in your run group, then you are repsonsible, and as an adult can make the diecision to aprticipate in the event or not.

But (!), unless I am inspecting each car myself (can't, nor am I qualified) , or asking the tech inpspectors to redo the pre-tech inspction, then I have to assume that the sanctioning body has a robust tech inspection program that woud identify and cull out any car not meeting spec.

If you are unwilling to assume that risk, keep to street driving and street insurance, or, investoigate the options for track insurance.

IMO, the OVR rule is overdone. Is something better than nothing? Not in this case IMO.

• How about 996s and IMS explosions - any 996 rule requiring a replaced IMS and bearing before they can run?
• How about letting students run on anything but street tires?

There is silly stuff everywhere. Exercise some critial thought and decided for yourself what you are willing to tolerate.

 

I'm not a DIY guy. What is the estimated cost of switching to water wetter and then back each season.

 

I would call your local dealer or indy to ask. WW is cheap, factory coolant is not. Some do it manually, some use a special machine. Lots of variables.

 

My first GT3 met its untimely demise when a Turbo, well ahead of me, blew his coolant fitting in the middle of the the straightaway. When I initiated my right turn at the kink (end of the straight about 140 mph), the back end came around violently and I bounced off the wall, practically ripping the front of the car off. Luckily that was the only contact; the car came to a stop 10 seconds later in the infield. The front was gone, but both doors opened and closed perfectly!

The turbo driver felt terrible; I actually felt bad for him as it I would have a hard time dealing with the guilt if I were in his race shoes. Later that day he asked if he could take a picture of the carnage that was my car and I went from feeling bad for him to wanting to give him a punch up the bracket. (It probably wasn't that unreasonable a request, but I was a little sensitive at the time.)

The track shut down for about an hour to clean the 1/4 mile of coolant, all of my fluids, and about a thousand little GT3 parts. Even then, the next few sessions had a speed limit down the straight.

Luckily, I had great insurance that covered DE days (stress the *had*). It was a battle with the insurance company, but I actually came out ahead.

I would really like to see Porsche step up to the plate and help absorb some or all of the cost to address this issue in 996 cars. I'm not sure what it would take (open to ideas), but I would gladly contribute in anyway I could towards achieving that goal.

 

I think one could argue taking personal responsibility means having a known issue fixed before potentially subjecting others (99.99% of which don't have a clue about the risk of a blown coolant pipe on a GT3) to harm.

 

Agree 110%. I wanted to clarify that I don’t think the hosting club can be held responsible, especially if the issues isn’t a supported or recognized issue by PCNA.

 

Not to minimize the concern about the subject fittings, but it's interesting just how many other opportunities there might be for coolant to spew from a GT3, or for that matter, any car. Rear-engined water-cooled cars might be most at risk because of the distance that the coolant has to travel and the many connections that are needed. I just removed the coolant piping from a GT3 last night. Check out how much there is -- and this doesn't include the engine (and all of the offending fittings and hoses that are the subject here), and it doesn't include the three radiators (or five if you include the engine and transmission heat exchangers). In fact, this giant hydra-like manifold of pipes and hoses starts forward of the transmission. There's five gallons of coolant onboard these cars, and it's easy to see why so much is needed -- the pipes and hoses alone probably hold two gallons.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/


•If a safety-related defect exists in a motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment, the manufacturer must provide a remedy at no cost to the owner. Your complaint is the first step in the process.
•We do not have to receive a specific number of complaints before we look into a problem. We gather all available information on a problem. Your complaint is important to us.


Everyone with this failure on the road should contact NHTSA. They will track the incidences and force Porsche to make a no-cost fix if it is appropriate in their estimation. Sad that it takes this but this is a case where our tax dollars can work for us.

 

It is worth a try but I believe most of the failures reported on Rennlist have been on track. Once you say "race track" I figure the federal government will exclude those failures from the data base that matters.

 

Another good point. This is a complicated plumbing system which increases the risk of fluid leakage.

Sad thing is Porsche AG is too busy counting your money while making less reliable components. I assume they save a lot of money on manufacturing by attaching pipes with adhesive rather than machining the pipe sections from the main metal components.

 

Considering PAG's enthusiastic support and encouragement of PCA's DE events, I think anyone who has had one of these failures, on or off track, should log it in to the DOT system and let DOT sort it out with PAG.

 

I don't believe Water Wetter is really the answer to this problem on the track. In the June 2011 Excellence (Tech Forum) they addressed whether Water Wetter provides an acceptable solution to the coolant fittings issue. They cite a technical paper published by Red Line (makers of Water Wetter) which concluded that a surface covered with plain water or a 3 percent Water Wetter solution will reduce friction relative to dry pavement by 50 percent. With a 50/50 mix of antifreeze and water the friction is reduced by another 5-15 percent.

So yes, Water Wetter is not as slippery as anitfreeze, but it's a marginal improvement and if coolant is dumped where tires are being worked near their limit the car is still going off.

From the track management's standpoint, I have heard that they prefer Water Wetter because they can clean it up faster than an antifreeze dump.

 

Real world- water wetter plus water over coolant any day on track. Mike