Schpee007

Starting a new thread as an offshoot from this thread: https://rennlist.com/forums/997-foru...s-problem.html

I want to gather some facts about 997s living and being driven in cold climates. I'll start and once I've got a good data set do the crunching to see if it tells us anything.

Model Year: 2009
Model: C2S
Mileage: 28,100
Owner History: 2nd (bought car in Texas 12/13 with 24,300 on the clock)
Location: Denver, CO
Garaged?: Yes. Detached. Not heated.
Oil Change Interval: Factory Recommended (annually thus far)
Winter Driving and Routine?: Yes. Drive it until the oil temp has at least come off 150. Was usually 175ish by the time I turned off the car.
Any Engine Issues: None to date

Hopefully the data will provide some insight on best practices to keep our beauties going for lots and lots of miles year round.

jhbrennan

Don't forget the 997's in Europe - I'm sure there are cold weather drivers in Germany...I bet Porsche even did some cold weather testing at one point in the engine's development.

Cloudspin

Ya think?

Smitten

..

Bruce In Philly

I don't know what you are going to collect without a long-term data collection and then comparing profiles..... My 2000 Boxster S with 197K miles and now 2009 C2S with 64K miles are all year drivers. I put snow tires on them in the winter. Let's see if I can draw any conclusions about the effect of cold, snow, salt on them.... Boxster was parked OUTSIDE for most of its life... check out pictures of it at around 150K miles here.... tell me if age and winter use is bad on cosmetics: https://plus.google.com/photos/10133...99272667615009

1 - I rotted out the aluminum heat shields on my Boxster
2 - Two engine failures due to unknown reasons... cold operation or just bad engine design???
3 - I broke exhaust bolts at around 62K miles on my C2S putting on the Sharkwerks x-pipe

Hmmm... Honestly, 1 & 3 above are the only things I may attribute to cold/snow/salt driving and I really think only 1 is relevant. Even there these heat shields are known to rot out anyway so maybe I just accelerated it. Sorry, can't remember the mileage but it was after about 4 years of ownership.

IF improper cold operation, over-revving a cold engine, is a real issue..... who will admit to it? Everyone thinks what they do is OK otherwise they wouldn't do it.

I like this idea, but I don't think you will get relevant data.... let's see if this thread grows.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Schpee007

Bruce,

You make good points. Getting good data will be tricky. But I figured why not give it a go, right? My hope is enough rennlisters will provide the same data fields I did that I can make some correlations, particularly around oil change intervals, mileage and engine issues. There's a secret sauce out there somewhere to drive these cars all year round in a cold climate and have the engines last, which to me means well past 100,000 miles. Let's get some data gather and find out what it is.

Cheers!

utkinpol

My car has 67k miles, first owner drove it year round, i drive it year round. It runs.

Flat6 Innovations

Not every engine will have an issue with cold weather operation.. The iron clad coating of the forged pistons and it's failure is the first contributing factor. This can be attributed to the application of the coating during the piston manufacturing processes.

I see the issues from Canadian cars most, and its not limited to 996 and 997 engines, because Cayenne engines do the same thing. In fact, the only engines that we don't see this from are Boxsters that had cast pistons, not forged. This is due to expansion rates between forged pistons and cast pistons and the fact that the bore sizes were not adjusted between the two.

Its not limited to Porsche engines, either. We are currently developing a regimen to address the same issues in Mercedes engines, especially AMG. Smart engines are also seeing similar issues.

I see the engines and I get the calls... I take the words out of owners mouths when they state what their initial symptoms are/ were. It starts with a tick thats blamed on a lifter, till the lifters are addressed and the tick remains the same, then the engine starts to eat oil, and then someone finally decides to loo at the cylinders. But, just looking at the cylinders through the spark plug holes isn't good enough, as the wear starts at the bottom of the bore, often below where the piston crown resides at BDC. This means the inspector must enter the back side of the cylinder by sneaking a scope into the cylinders with the oil sump removed and the piston at TDC.

This year has been the worst and for the first time we saw these failures occurring in our area, because even here at my shop is got down to zero for several days with highs in the 20s. Thats not normal at all here, and it hadn't been that cold since 1962.

Ironically, the initial development work that was done on this topic was due to requests from dealerships in Canada. The fact is we don't see the longitudinal scoring and cylinder deficiencies from these engines that have not been exposed to extreme cold. The worst engine I have seen to date was a 3.6 that was shipped in from Russia, it had huge lines top to bottom on every cylinder, and its extreme low mileage of 12K made things worse. A newer engine with a lesser worn bore and tighter running clearance is much more susceptible to this particular issue than one thats seen normal wear.

Expect to see an article on this in a major publication soon. I have tons of data from this that were gathered over the past winter just outside of Chicago. When comparing operating clearances at temperatures from -20 to +50F its easy to see what happens, and thats what we had to know before we could create a solution.

Again, this won't happen to everyone and there are a lot of variables that have to align for it to occur.

utkinpol

So, is it due to reduced viscosity of 0-40 oil or just a thing that does not really have any adjustable parameters? I mean, what realistically can be done to possibly reduce chances of that kind of damage, except of moving down to FL?

Flat6 Innovations

While I have a severe dislike for Mobil 1, and wish I could pin the issues on that alone, thats not the case here.

The cylinder and piston running clearances are simply too tight on some engines when cold started in extreme cold conditions. That is all. Its a matter of expansion and contraction, and the fact that the piston goes through a period of accelerated expansion well before the cylinder (thats surrounded by cold coolant) is able to begin the expansion process.

The piston soaks heat up like mad, and its alloy allows for expansion that is less than favorable. No lubricant will make up for that, but an improper viscosity grade could add fuel to the fire.

When thousandths of an inch are used for these clearances, every little thing counts.

The issue is not cold weather driving, the issue is cold weather start ups. Starting the car in a warm garage is the key and a block heater would dramatically help with this. The issue is there's no optimum place to fit one to the M96/97 engine.

Schpee007

Jake,

Thanks for the contributions to this thread. I look forward to that article when it comes out. Will you kindly come back to this thread and let us know where to find it once published?

Cheers,

Pete

utkinpol

Fun, fun. And all that is typical for m96/97 design specifically? Gt3 mezger motors do not suffer from that?
Is it addressed in some way with pistons and nicasil cylinders you put after rebuild or is it all same?
Honestly i do not think m96 design is that bad. I know plenty of people with rs america and 993 cars and they too rebuild engines and those rebuilds cost quite a lot as well. Nothing is immortal and it is ok. But it is good to know what to avoid specifically and this info is helpful. Thanks for making this public.
I like this generation of cars, i chose 997 over 993 when i wanted to buy and i think i will stick to it for quite long time. It sux factory does not support us but as long as people like you exist it makes whole journey much simpler. Thanks for that.

gpjli2

WARNING: DO NOT START CAR IN COLD gmafb

Jake951

The stresses of cold-weather starting affect all cars. The question is whether Porsche is any worse than other makes.

josephmonaco924

If you are worried about the cold move to Florida and get a dog. Just kidding but is this really something to worry about. Drive and enjoy.