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huh? If you're referring to my interview/quote on the Jay Leno video for how / why we did a 4.1 on MY/OUR shop car then perhaps you missed the point of what I said. I unashamedly said one of the ways to do weird things to an already excellent engine is to push the envelope and see what fails and why. One can always learn from it if and part & parcel is taking apart the engine and looking at wear/failures etc.. as long as it's your OWN car. We don't R&D on customer cars We've build lot of these GT3 engines but only after we've completed R&D for a _number_ of years/revisions on our own car(s). In fact many of these failures/weaknesses that we saw from pushing these engines then showed up in TSB's from Porsche and their 4.0 RS. We shared a lot of these I believe in the Panorama article... same with the coolant pipe issue(s). I could go and post dozens of pictures of improperly welded coolant pipes which wouldn't really server any purpose other than to say that to do use that method _is_ more tricky to do correctly and not always the best way to fix a problem like this. As long as it's welded properly/correctly by a very meticulous/expert welder then go ahead and do it that way. Whatever floats your boat and as long as the pipes don't come out and spew coolant over your rear tires on a track....
Seems like you missed the part out about it being our own car and specific to pushing limits and R&D but maybe I misunderstood your intent. It took us 3.5 years of testing/R&D before we were ready to build one outside of our own. Manufacturers also push engines to gauge wear & tear and test weaknesses/fixes. One of the things we later found out after pointing out the coolant pipe failure (in 2006 originally) was the other two (on a gt3) or three (on a Turbo) plastic oil cooler pipes (heat exchanger) crack over time. Either way none of this info we shared at the time was meant to be for debate - fix that other problem whichever way your installer feels more comfortable with and as long as it's done right you're set. And it does/will absolutely happen not just at the track but sitting in traffic on a hot day... seen a good few turbos show up on a flatbed that way.
I still have yet to see a case where a properly pinned, or properly welded fitting failed. I'm not talking about "this shop said they've seen a few." Personally, I've seen untreated fittings fail spectacularly. I have personally never seen either a pinned or welded fitting fail.
Much respect to any shop willing invest in engines to R&D until the point of actual failure. That is higher level stuff. To insinuate that this is a bad thing, then get pedantic when called out, is so not cool.
TL;DR:
1) Welding is arguably the best way to do it, but you need to be positive you have a very skilled welder doing the work
2) Pinning is 99% as good as welding for the majority of people/use cases, and has a more forgiving margin of error for the work
For those that want welded fittings.. Spend the $225 for brand new 6061 CNC'd fittings that can be welded.!!!
Does any vendor supply upgraded fittings for the two curved fittings? According to the NHTSA investigation, the curved pipe one on the water neck shown in the photo below has the highest failure rate by a wide margin of all the glued coolant fittings on the 996TT due to its location in a very high heat area of the engine bay.
The worst culprit:
A properly repaired water neck (welding of original fitting):
Does any vendor supply upgraded fittings for the two curved fittings? According to the NHTSA investigation, the curved pipe one on the water neck shown in the photo below has the highest failure rate by a wide margin of all the glued coolant fittings on the 996TT due to its location in a very high heat area of the engine bay.
The worst culprit:
A properly repaired water neck (welding of original fitting):
Nicely done. Here's some not so nicely done as I was saying use the right method done properly but it's certainly easier to mess up doing the welding method which is why we see stuff like this...
And just when you thought coolant couldn't leak from anywhere else don't forget these on the 997 series....
Or of course a porous head which we've seen quite a few times (just a factory defect).
Nicely done. Here's some not so nicely done as I was saying use the right method done properly but it's certainly easier to mess up doing the welding method which is why we see stuff like this...
And just when you thought coolant couldn't leak from anywhere else don't forget these on the 997 series....
Or of course a porous head which we've seen quite a few times (just a factory defect).
Coolant for everyone;P
Wow. Leaking from a porous casting is pathetic. Porsche should warranty that.
This is a 'winter special'. He admittedly said that he is slow right now but that will change in about a month. I don't think $4,900 is all that bad for the normal price. But I was surprised when he said he would drop it by $1,000 for the next few weeks. I've seen nothing but good reviews about this place. The other place (that wanted to charge $8-9K) definitely had a few bad reviews.
And it is a tip / cab to boot, but he said it didn't matter that much.
I do plan on keeping it until I am no longer able to drive .. lol
I'd do it with new fittings and pressure test while off then.
This work isn't getting any cheaper and you'll have one less thing to strand your enjoyment on a hot summer day. Breakdowns are rarely convenient and I believe shops charge more for cars coming in on a flatbed
Heck, if they're slow, and your car has not been detailed underneath, have them do that for an additional few hundo while it's all out.
02-07-2020 | 12:59 PM
