rsabeebe

I haven't seen anything specifically on this yet, but have there actually been any failures to the LN Engineering ceramic bearings once upgraded? If there have been a complete lack of failures, is LN saying the bearings have a specific service life or should they have a service life equal to (at least) a clutch? I'm sure LN isn't going to guarantee against failure, but what types of proclamations are they making?

Spokane5150

Sometimes I wonder if the folks that own a 2005-06 are better off since they can actually replace their bearings.

rsabeebe

It's definitely a toss-up. More preferable; the updated bearing or the ability to replace the bearing?

utkinpol

preferable is to have enough money to be able to replace whole car without a need to worry about the price.

ln upgrade is a $3K job, new motor will be probably a $20K job... but 2006+ motors have more internal upgrades other than just better bigger ims bearing. so, go figure. best way is to get a gt3 car obviously, or a 2009+ car with dfi motor.

rsabeebe

maybe to go back to BMW or Audi...

utkinpol

lotuses have strong enough motors, but, unfortunately, if you want a track/race car not many brands offer such a package a 997 tub is. either base C2 or GT3 all those cars are light years ahead of anything else other brands have in stock form, well, may be except most recent carbon edition corvettes and boss 302 mustangs, but, i would not beleive a mustang will survive track abuse for long, meaning brakes, rotors, wheel bearings, axes, gearbox, etc - whole package. if porsches would not be what they are people would not be wasting money on them. unfortunately, there are not very many alternatives out there.

BED997

Not sure I have ever seen anyone here say they purchased the LN and then had an issue, but evidently it happens. From LN:

"2000-2001 and all 2002-2005 models is the most flawed and even with our ceramic bearing, we have had five engine failures total where the single row ceramic bearing was found to have failed (although not conclusively as the cause of the engine failure, given there are dozens of known modes of failure and secondly, these are open bearings susceptible to damage from foreign object debris). Even so, we have over a 99.9% success rate in the 3+ years our bearings have been in service."

What I wonder is - how often do corvette engines fail prematurely, 350Zs, BMWs, other high performance cars?

With the LN Bearing do you go from a 2% chance to .1% chance? From '98 to early ' 05 lets say they made 8k on average 911 "M9X engine"cars a year.( maybe they made a few more than that). That's 1,200+ 911 failures at 2% and 60+ failing at .01%. If there were really 1200 failures there would likely be a recall, so it's probably well below 1% of 911s or less.

Do 1% or less of BMW M3s fail? Z06s? Mustang V8s? Vipers? Who knows.

utkinpol

vettes blow engines often enough. 09+ motors are bit better but nothing is immortal. bmw track cars also blow up just fine.
major difference is the price to replace e46 engine and m96 engine in the 997 car. here we lose a lot. even new vette engine is cheaper.

BED997

I believe I heard a new 'vette engine is 12 grand; I would think a M3 would also be 5 figures to replace. No doubt any repair like that is hard to deal with.

utkinpol

e46 motors get rebuilt for little enough money and imho rarely brake apart in the way that does not allow rebuild... but any track car has a good chance to lose an engine so only part what matters is to expect how much $ it may eventually cost you.
what i like about vettes is the availability of all parts, low cost of all critical consumables and availability of repair shops. imho it is way simpler to support than a p-car. but so far i run my simple c2 and like it a lot.

mgordon18

Hey bed997, your math is off by an order of magnitude. 2% of 8000 is not 1200+. It's actually 120+. In fact, it's 160.

In addition, .1% is 1/1000 cars, or 8 cars in your example. Not 60+.

Just trying to be accurate...

BED997

I was thinking 8 total years of 911 production (98-05), or about 60000 -65000 911 cars with a serviceable bearing M9x engine. If you include the improved bearing years through 08 that is something like 75000 cars. someone might know exactly how many 911s were born with these engines. Even if 1/300had a failure I believe that's 250 cars.

I wonder if 1/300 corvettes, M3s or other high performance cars experience an engine that lets go before, say 100k + miles?.

Spokane5150

Where can I learn more about the GT3 motors and the differences in model year changes and upgrades? Do you remember what additional upgrades were made to the 2006-2008 motors? Is there a technical article written by Porsche that explains the upgrade?

utkinpol

gt3 motors, so callled metzgers, or gt-block motors are real porsche engines used in all series of old air-cooled cars and in 996/997 gt3 cars and are very similar to motors in cup cars.

m96/m97 motors in 996/997 street cars got nothing to do with gt-block motors, it was a low cost crap they came up with to lower production costs when 996 car was created. then now for 997.2 cars they made 9a1 dfi motor which is seemingly is way better than m96 motor. m96 had many revisions and i do not think factory announced anywhere of all internal mods they did to it in those revisions. m97 differs from m96 by displacement (3.8l vs 3.6l) but most internal parts and design is same.

search is your friend, look around, ln web site has some info as well as other resources.

Luxter

It is actually Hans Mezger who spearheads design of those engines.
There is a book "Porsche and me" written by Mezger and available here:

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/...er&ikwsec=Home

"The autobiography of Porsche's most talented engineer. Hans Mezger joined Porsche in 1956 and within a few years was responsible for the design of both the early 1960s F1 engine and subsequently led the design of the six cylinder 911 engine..."

Cheers,
=L=