Hi, so I'm looking at a beautiful '01 996 TT for possible purchase and I'm trying to make sense of the computer readout. If you know what this means, I'd really appreciate it.

911(996) DME Vehicle data:
Number of ignitions, range 1
53689 1275h
Number of ignitions, range 2
453 1253h

Since i have no contact with the last owner (dealer car), I'm trying to figure out if it's been abused or not. I have maintenance records where a service was done every 15,000 miles (bare minimum I think) . It does have a reconditioned 04 engine that was put in under warantee in 2004, GT2 front end, Roock Racing coilovers and GT2 wheels, Otherwise everything else looks stock. Oh yea, since the leather seats look brand new, I'm assuming it had aftermarket seats along the the aftermarket seat belt on the car.

So my concern is was this a track car....I'm thinking probably not, it looks pretty clean, but was it abused. Also, I have it in another shop I trust doing a PPI on it now.

Thanks in advance!!!

 

A track car does not equal a dirty trashed car, but this one does appear to be one. I tracked the crap out of my GT3 and she was in pristine condition when I sold it.

With that said, it looks like the previous owner like to bang off the rev limiter (range 1) quite a bit and at some point had a mechanical over-rev aka the missed shift (range 2). the "h" is the hour of operation that the last occurrence took place. What was the total hours (h) on the car. If these values happened quite some time ago then chances are there was not major damage from the type 2 over-rev.

 

From the mods and seat condition and seat belt condition I'm going to have to go with "track car". No one puts in racing coilovers and makes some of those other mods to perk up the grocery getter's ride for bread and milk runs.

As for abuse? Well, tracking may not constitute abuse (though it depends upon the driver's skill -- cause I've certainly read some comments in posts (here and elsewhere) by people describing -- and sometimes even including track videos-- that show -- their track exploits that makes me cringe ) but it certainly does constitute harsh or severe usage. How harsh or severe of course again depends upon the driver's level of skill.

The impact to the engine and drivetrain can be mitigated to some extent with a much more agressive servicing schedule. That is much more frequent oil/filter services and more frequent vital fluid replacements, etc.

With servicing being done every 15K miles my belief is the car did not receive the frequency of servicing the car should have had assuming of course my belief the mods indicate the car was a track car is correct. Even if the car was not a track car this level of servicing suggests the car was *not* loved all that much.

Check the belly pans for signs of run off gravel, sand, and rubber bits that collect out of the racing line on all tracks. If the belly pans and such are real clean... this can be someone being a bit devious too.

Check the radiator air ducts for same. Are both radiators or A/C condensors the same color? If not the car might have had an off and the owner had to replace one. Sure, one could have developed a leak and been replaced too.

Have the car placed on a wheel alignment machine and have an experienced tech note all the alignment adjustments. If one or more adjustments are at their limit this suggest the car might have been bent at some time -- track incident or even a street incident -- and not repaired properly.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

The most important number is the CURRENT hours on the motor!

If the current hours are 2500, then it has been 1200 hours ago or ~30-40k miles ago. (I figure ~35 mph average speed over the life of a car....)

If the car has 1276 hours, someone was beating on it an hour ago.

And someone hit a type 2 only 22 hours before the last type 1.

IMO, with that over-rev data, PCNA will not honor a warranty claim, for whatever thats worth...


Personally, I'd pass, but I am very picky. Lack of records, someone hacking the car, modding/demodding, limited records, dealer knows nothing... doesnt want to look real hard.

Best of luck

A

 

Agree with Adam. I am the same way. If there are not very detailed records and a complete (or near) history of the car then I don't even give it a chance to go further. Too many out there to NOT be choosy. If you buy based on price thinking you are getting a great deal chances are it will cost you more in the long run.

 

Great thanks for the feedback so far!

Incredible news, the dealer was able to get me in touch with the last owner. He's posted here and done some track days on the board, seh1. He has all of the other receipts that the dealer did not have. Oil changes every year as he did not drive it that much. Also, he's an avid collector and we even had a lot in common in the motorcycling community.

So now, my only concern is the range 2 over rev. Does that indicate just one over rev?

LVDell: The total number of hours is 1284. So does that mean the Range 2 over revs were recent?

Funny though. When I spoke to the service manager, he said that the highest Range is Range 5, so Range 2 is nothing to worry about. ???

Summary of data:
The total hours on the car is: 1284
Number of ignitions, range 1
53689 1275h
Number of ignitions, range 2
453 1253h

Car: 46,000 miles
Under Porsche warranty the engine was replaced with a reconditioned engine by the dealer at 24,000 miles.
Reconditioned engine now has 22,000 miles.
First service done 7,000 miles later.
Second service done 15,000 miles after that.

Modifications:
Roock Racing suspension
GT2 front end
Lightened flywheel and OEC GT2 clutch
GT2 wheels
Rear seats and seatbelts removed
Center console removed (the one under the dash)
Had mirrors with carbon fiber outer shell. Dealer replaced with stock.
Had TechArt pedals or some such. Dealer replaced with stock.
GT2 seats, replaced with the stock leather ones.
Stage 1 boost flash in 2003 .9 to 1.1

 

There is no range 5 on this car. Just range 1 and 2. Seems that he is getting confused with the newer models.

As far as the hours. Hard to tell how many miles ago without knowing what the average speed was. If it was more track then average will be higher.

Did they tell you why the motor was replaced???

Did you get oil change history? Sure hope it wasn't done at just 7K and 15K

 

Sadly, another poorly informed Porsche Service Manager. The 996 has only 2 Over Rev Ranges. The 997 has 6 ranges.

 

My interpretation of the data is:

The car (engine and a good question I think needs a good answer is was this run time cleared/reset when the new engine was installed?) has 1284 hours of run time. The last Range 1 overrev occured at the 1275 hour point, just 9 hours of run time ago. What this could be in miles I cover below.

The Range 1 overrevs I bet occurred during a test drive.

The last Range 2 overrevs occurred at 1253 hours. This is 31 hours of run time ago. This is long enough ago to I believe to have happened on the track.

I just filled up my Turbo a day or so back and for over 200 miles of driving -- 30 mile (one way) work commute and some city driving -- the average speed was 35mph. (Mpg was 18.4mpg <sigh> although I filled up the Boxster last night and its average over 300+ miles of the same kind of driving was under 22mpg.)

Anyhow, 31 hours times 35mph works out to 1085 miles ago. Or 9 hours is 315 miles.

Imho the Range 2 overrevs are just a bit too fresh for my comfort level.

Oh, I noticed the car has 46K miles. With 1284 hours of run time assuming 35mph average speed that works out to 44,940 miles. So it would appear the run time was not cleared/reset when the new engine was installed.

Is the replacement engine still covered by warranty? Nevermind: I note the Stage 1 flash which I think would have to invalidate any engine warranty.

I don't like mod'd cars. And if I liked mod'd cars I don't like tracked cars. And if I liked tracked cars I still wouldn't like this car, cause I don't like cars with Range 2 overrevs.

But give the car a good checkout.

Be sure the A/C is off. Then start the engine from dead cold. Be sure when you go start the engine the CEL comes on but goes off right away as soon as the engine starts.

After cold starting the engine just let the engine idle and verify the engine's quiet, as quiet as what is normal for these engines at cold start anyhow. At cold start these engines can sound a bit ragged.

But my experience is as the engine gains a bit of heat the idle smooths right out and the revs drop.

Continue to let engine idle and warm up and listen intently to the engine, from all sides of the car. Of course you have the engine cover open.

After engine is nearly warmed up, with the A/C off, take a 15 mile test ride and pay close attention to the way the engine runs, sounds, behaves. Note oil pressure at hot idle (close to 2 bar is nice) and at 3K rpms (4 or 4.5 bar is nice). Have driver run the car up through a couple of gears say from 2nd to 3rd shifting at redline. The engine wants to pull smoothly and good from just off idle to redline, twice. Through 2nd and through 3rd.

Back at the starting point again continue to pay close attention to the engine's sounds, if any.

Then in a test *drive* follow the same route and subject the car to the same set of driving situations and see how the engine feels from the driver's seat.

Be sure to keep the A/C off to keep the electric fans off so the engine develops/builds up as much heat as it can. My experience is even with the A/C off these engines are fairly cool running but you still want the engine and engine oil to get as hot as they can.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

Is this car at a very good price? I don'think it could be low enough for me to consider. With all the good cars out there for sale why not keep looking? Sounds like a money pit to me. Be careful these engines are very expensive so what may sound like a bargin will cost you later on.
JMO

 

Honestly, 400 Type 2 overrevs is almost nothing. Let me put this in perspective for you. We are talking about 400 ignitions. 3 ignitions per revolution in the engine means roughly 133 revolutions. Suppose the overrevs happened at 8000 rpm or 133 revolutions per second. Thus, the engine was in T2 zone for one second. I'd bet the engine can take a mechanical overrev for a second.

Type Is are nothing to worry about because the computer shuts off the gas before it can do any harm. No big deal.

However, everyone is probably right that overrevs correlates to how they treated the car in general.

 

Concur with others that given the lifetime of 1284 hours, it puts the last type1 and type 2 overrevs in context.

(turns out 35 mph avg speed is about what you saw...interesting, this holds pretty constant for many DME dumps I've seen...)

Somewhat fresh, the type 2 being the biggest concern at 31 hours ago. Frankly it doesnt matter where it occurred, track or milk run!

(Note to Bryce- there three ignitions per revolution, not 6.. just FYI)

The service manager wants you to buy the car- assume everything he says needs verifying.... The comment that type 5 is nothing to worry about could be an honest error, probably was. Still, wonder what he'd say if you pointed out Type 2s include rpms all the way up to 'grenade rpms'.

I'd suggest you get a compression/leakdown done *IF* everything else checks out and you are included to proceed. You can 'stage' the PPI to do everything else, review the info- and then if you decide to, have them do it. Since it requires access to the spark plugs, you SHOULD go ahead with plugs for the extra $50. Labor wise it can be $400-600.

My car had zero Type2s (still does) and like 12 type1s. (Owner was pretty surprised at that.)

Finally what is a "Stage 1 boost flash"???????? There is no such "item" that we could all say "Oh, yeah, one of those". There are MANY vendors selling programming- none are Porsche. You have unknown programming in the DME. Keep in mind that down the road, this will need to be identified, and if it isn't mainstream, you'll need to pony up $$ to replace. If you have any issues and you have unknown programming, there will always be a question about it.

Even more interesting is how that was done and he still got a replacement motor!!

GL

A

 

Just found the user over on 6speed:

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/a...ic-silver.html

Car has the upsolute flash with the new eng. Bottom of the barrel as far as I am concerned.

The thread above and the other For Sale posts will give you an idea of what it had- and it seems the old owner is happy to discuss as well.

GL

 

I thought it was 2. One ignition for each bank, no?

Or is it 3 ignitions per bank and 6 total for one revolution?

Damn, my brain hurts...............

 

Dell look at this animation. One spark every 120 degrees of rotation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDYHy...eature=related