snaphappy

To me, Flat6 and LN are like doctors that know how to treat and diagnose cancer. They get yelled at by people who are very afraid they have cancer. Which is understandable really. It’s a scary topic. But doctors get paid and cancer treatment is very expensive. So there’s nothing wrong with these guys making a lot of money. The more money they make indicates how good they are at their jobs.

But Jake is awesome because he’s telling you how to self-diagnose your own cancer. You don’t have to make an appointment, take tests, and wait for the results. You can diagnose this very scary situation yourself all thanks to Jake’s videos.

Flat6 Innovations

As we've stated over and over:
The GT2/GT3/ 996/997TT all have factory Nikisil plated bores- not Lokasil. This issue does not occur with Nikisil.
Nikisil bores must be honed with diamonds- that's how hard they are. This is your difference, the plating is so hard (and n other cylinders are plated!) that it overcomes all the environmental issues, mechanical issues, and everything else. The Nikisil is resilient to anything you can throw at it.

As Baz mentions, RA of the bores with Nikisil plating is another key. You can't judge the bore just by the plating that is done, coarse or fine makes a big difference, and one must learn this with empirical data. We can use the cylinder surface finishes from Mahle and others as a starting point, but at the end of the day the RA must be chosen based on the rings, and applications. For a race engine we use a more coarse finish, as we don't care about longevity, but we want the cylinders to break in fast. That's just one example.

At the end of the day it takes trial and error to finds the sweet spot. Thats what Charles and I started shooting for in 1999. Along the way I took some chances, and learned a lot. I'm sure Baz has done the same thing. When you buy an engine from someone like my company, or Baz's company you are buying what we know- not your particular engine. The purchase you are making has bought a huge chunk of our lives, which I consider priceless. You haven't just bought an engine. If I ever have a purchaser that doesn't;t understand it this way, I send him to someone else.

Khloesdad

Thank you Jake.

Flat6 Innovations

This is a great analogy..

That said, yes... I even tell you where to buy the 40.00 bore scope to do this at home, not needing to pay a shop 5-800.00 to do it.

You think the owners are pissed at me for exposing all this stuff? You should see the emails and tickets we get when a shop loses a good paying job because we told the guy how to do it at home for less than 100 bucks. I had one of those on Friday, and I fielded that call myself. Let's just say the person on the other end of the phone now probably has PTSD after the things I told him.

No good deed goes unpunished today. Everyone gets pissed off by anything, and no one can be pleased. What I do to help the owners hurts the shops, what I do to help the shops hurts the owners. Guess who get nothing from any of it? Yeah, we may get some engine jobs, but we were going to get those anyway. No one shares the expenses of these videos, and that's why I did the "Focus on M9X Engine Assembly" 15 hour video series too be sold, hoping that it makes enough to keep the video account budget breaking even. If it doesn't, we won't do any more free videos. It has one chance.

Fahrer

From this video, we learned that both cars have about 40K miles. One has piston slap and high oil consumption. On has an after market supercharger. Both showed a bit of smoke on startup. Neither were reported to be tracked. Both have bore scoring. The engines can be rebuilt.

This does not help very much. So, how were the cars driven during break in and during warm up? What are the other factors that enable the majority of 997.1 engines to reach high mileage without these problems? This is what many of us would like to know. By the way, I would expect the 997.1 to have more cars with problems as my understanding is that these models saw higher production and sales levels versus the 997.2 models.

Originally we "knew" all engines with an IMS were doomed. Now we know this is not true.

So again, what is the reason that most of these cars never have this problem. Also, if the car has no symptoms and performs well but actually has bore scoring at 150-200K miles, who cares?
Why are so many of these cars problem free at higher mileage?

rodH

this is a great question. We heard that the cars were “well maintained” and were even using mobil 1 oil. These things always get tricky because many people never say they do anything wrong to deserve such a problem. I use to work at a bike shop when going to college. We had several people come in that had even catastrophic failures (frames breaking, etc) and when you ask the owner what they were doing and the answer was ALWAYS, “JRA”. See “JRA” refers to, “I was Just Riding Along and my frame broke in half”. After a while it almost becomes comical as nearly every problem we would see, that would be the excuse. It got so bad that we wouldn’t even hear the story but when the customer left we would always ask the guy who was doing the write up, “let me guess, another JRA?”

at any rate, It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall and know exactly how “well maintained” these cars are (or all of the bore scoring cars). What oil they using? Did they constantly check oil levels? Intervals for oil change? Warm up procedures? Who changed the oil? ( self, jiffy lube, billy bob or a dealer? And which oil was ACTUALLY used) Were there any other issues with the car? What fuels were being used? Etc...To me I’d rather have a car that was honestly taken care of very carefully but has been tracked, instead of a little old lady that never revs the car and takes it to jiffy lube for oil changes and knows nothing regarding how to warm up the car, etc. I will be honest, when learning that one of the cars was supercharged, I kind of almost throw that sample as not relating to the NA cars.

I know it is impossible for Jake or anyone else to get the 100% truth, so I don’t blame them, they are reporting what the consumer tells them.

Steph1

Most likely, a great number of owners that haven't recently have a PPI or bore scoping done, might very well be driving around with scored cylinders and not know it because there are no signs.

I think the owner of the silver car is crazier than I am cause there's no way in hell that I would have an engine rebuilt when the car has no symptoms and can very well go for years and years before it becomes apparent or starts to show the symptoms. Once the symptoms are there, and only then, there's a decision to make. Otherwise, just drive the thing for crying out loud.

As for those asking for advise on how to avoid/prevent bore scoring..... You do realize that you are asking a guy that makes a living on rebuilding these engines, to tell you how to not bring him business.... Right???? I'd like to know too, but it wouldn't be a smart business move to disclose that info. It's just logics.

I am one of the strong believers that these videos are more to scare you than teach you, but then again, it is a business and he just displays good business sense.

If I was in business, I'd want a partner with his sense of business..... But I would charge less to get all or most of the business and build the reputation of a savior and only go-to shop. And I wouldn't disclose my secrets either.

​​​​So if you don't want to be frustrated by a politician answer, do yourself a favor and just don't ask.

Flat6 Innovations

With our level of focus we will never be able to build engines for even 1% of the M9X vehicles produced. If I could tell 90% of the owners of these cars how to avoid bore scoring, I absolutely would. We have nothing to gain from more business, and I refuse to increase our quantity, at the sake of quality. At the present my first availability for a completion of an engine is March of 2021.. Not 2020! I am now simply sending out canned replies with the contact info of all the others that build these engines, until we are caught up more.

The fact is, that most damage that leads to bore scoring with these engines has already been done. No one gave the owners of these cars any break in regimen, and the first oil service the car had typically happened at 10K miles, or maybe more. People owned the cars believing they had done everything right, because all the service directives, and scheduling was done predictively. Most of the openers that call here with this issue think that following the sticker in their engine bay that tells them what oil to use, and then changing that oil annually is fine. They believe that they have done what they were supposed to do.. They also think that starting the car up on a cold morning, and allowing it to warm up for minutes at a time was a good thing, because that's what they were told in earlier days.

The term "well maintained" is just as broad as the term "rebuilt". When I further inquire with owners about what service they actually did to the car, I quickly correct them, and tell them that service is not what I would define as "well maintained". The problem is, they did what they were told, and they simply cannot believe that their engine has a problem because it "runs fine".

In short, none of us know, what we don't know. We constantly look for connections between failures, and try to connect the dots. It doesn't;t take long to put the notes together, and create the correlations, when this is all we do.

In short, I can't tell you how to avoid the instance, because of all the variables that play into it. Most of these variables already occurred earlier in the engine's life. Mechanical issues are irreversible, you can change oils, stick in additives, and etc. At the end of the day, the wear can't ever be reversed, and intervention will be required at some point.

This week I am working on another method of identifying bore scoring that is underway that doesn't include a bore scope inspection, unless the simple test I am working on shows the need to do so.You don't even have to open the engine bay to do this test. If the engine fails, then you bore scope the cylinders.

Put simply, at the present time we do not know how to avoid bore scoring for an engine that has been around all these years. That's right, we don't know.
With the IMS issues it was simple, make a better part, develop a procedure to swap out the bearing, patent protect it, and train people the right way to do it. That was easy.

Engines are like humans, they start to die the day they take their first breath. The only guarantee with an engine is the fact that it will wear out, if it doesn't blow up first.

larrysb

I guess the moral of the story is don't waste your money on a Porsche, since it is a crappy car with an engine that won't make it without a $30k rebuild in its future.

HenryPcar

Thumbs up !!!!! Nobody can definitively say why some cars develop bore scoring, and some cars that were utterly abused do not.
FSI, as the most respected Porsche engine rebuilder to make that statement is admirable. I tip my hat to those that call "a spade a spade".

linderpat

If all you are reading is this thread and those like it, that is certainly the message, at least as to 996/997 variants of the 911. The Audi R8 is starting to look better in my view!

Flat6 Innovations

Guys,
These are great cars all the way around.. If you end up with scoured bores, it is an opportunity to make the car something that it never was before. That is, IF you LOVE the car. Bore scoring is the best failure you can have, at least the collateral damage is limited, and the car can be driven while it exhibits symptoms. The guy with the 997TT that snapped a timing chain this weekend at 30K miles didn't have that luxury. You can buy two M9X engines from me for the cost that one racked up due to the failure.

A lot of the cars will not have bore scoring, others will. There's no rhyme or reason for it at this point, and all we can do is speculate. I can only hope that in another decade or so that we can learn more, and tell everyone what they want to hear.

I am only showing you what I see. I didn't create these two cases, and didn't plan for them to come to me at the same time. It just happened that way. I will continue to report what I see, and help owners find simple ways to see if they have these issues occurring.

Steph1

Good on you to understand that it is human nature to second think someone's intention when money is involved.

​​​​​Sometimes the message is delivered awkwardly, but I am certain that people only mean to voice that doubt, rather than bring it to a personal level.

Personally, as you suggest, scoring could very well have appeared in the first few years of ownership. One more reason why, unless the symptoms are very apparent, I wouldn't touch it based on the fact that my 12 year old car could very well have been running on scored cylinders for a decade.... Why is it suddenly an urgency. I am lucky that it is not my case (at least not yet). But if it is found at one point that my engine has scored cylinders (while bore scoped by a potential buyer) , I certainly won't rush for a solution if I have no symptoms.

With this said, a simple question that I haven't seen answered... On the silver car with no symptoms... Was there any sign of metal or anything in the oil filter that would give a hint of something going on???

Own Goal

FWIW I'll just throw out variances in manufacturing. Variance in failure with same use parameters would seem to indicate. The more difficult to produce uniformly a complex part, then random quality happens. Could be as simple as unknown inclusions in the aluminum used. I spent my working life in a different industry. We processed flat glass into architectural products. Back in the 1980's there began random failures for no apparent reason of tempered / heat treated items. One of the manufactures of raw glass had nickel sulfide particles in the sand used. No way to separate it, no way to identify it. The only method to make sure a critical item didn't have it was heat soak testing which resulted in a failure test of defective parts. So if a failure in service had to be prevented you had to use a supplier with a heat soak oven and test gear. There is a European test standard but when I sold out a few years ago no US standard yet existed. It was also an additional cost. All this to say stuff like this is out there. No one is cutting corners or doesn't care. Too many unknown variables in the product before you start applying use factors.
As for saying these guys with companies repairing these problems are doing it to scare folks, I don't buy that one either. They can only learn by the examples they lay hands on and repair or test. A forum like this is a two way deal. Feed back and failure from cars they never see add to their data also.

bgoetz

In all fairness this isn’t much different, sure you could prevent failure, but the solution was to replace the IMS. The same could be said for bore scoring, your solution is to “replace” the cylinder lining.

Even if you are using a bit of “fear” in your marketing approach I don’t hold that against you at all. In fact quite the opposite, I think it is great business. Your success brings financial success to those who work for you and others you do business with. Additionally, you are obviously very good at what you do and care very much about the service you provide, providing a very high quality product. Business is full of these marketing approaches, many times for products that don’t meet consumer expectations. To many it is good business that results in higher share prices.

Overall, I think what you are doing is a really good thing. What does bother me somewhat is those who loose perspective on the fact that this is a luxury item that can be fixed. These people let the potential for an issue ruin their enjoyment of ownership, essentially ruining the car far before a mechanical issue has a chance. To compare not worrying about bore scoring to whistling past the grave yard as I read earlier is a total loss of perspective. One it puts a material thing in the same realm as your health and two I for one enjoy my life and some of the wonderful things it has to offer without dwelling on the ultimate end point and would hope most others do as well.

With such a far reaching message you of all people have the ability to curve this perspective, helping some of these types of people find more enjoyment around ownership and grow the enthusiasm for these cars. I will say that one of your last posts was very much in this direction was very refreshing and hope you help provide more of this type of message while continuing to provide good information and a great service.

On a business note, if you are booked over a year out and if you suspect the market will only continue to grow, I personally would look into how you can meet that demand. The increased volume could help leverage efficiencies and lower costs, further helping you grow your business. I know you will disagree, as I have read your response to similar suggestions, but it would certainly be an opportunity to make your services obtainable to a wider market of owners and help create more good jobs.

Then again there is the uniqueness and “prestige” brought by the fact that not everyone can afford/wait for a FS build as well as your ability to really control quality, so I suppose there is a balance. But man 1.5yr backlog seems like a missed opportunity to me. Just my $.02