michaellitt

Had my car towed to the dealership on Friday - trying to diagnose what went wrong:

- It became difficult to shift in and out of gears
- started to hear a whistling sound when car was neutral and idle as well as in gear under slight load
- felt some "gritiness" + vibration when clutch fully pressed with motor running
- turned it off - could not restart. Starter motor spins and is not engaging anything.

Does this sound like the pressure plate/flywheel combo?

Something else?

Texas RS

Yes, that is one of the symptoms.

I know of three more on 3.8RS and one GT3 here in TX, all track driven cars.

ShakeNBake

That whistling noise is the pressure plate destroying your bell housing (machining a nice groove in it).

michaellitt

Just heard back from the dealer - you are absolutely correct. Looks like sustained damage will result in a new transmission (warranty) along with the upgraded PP, clutch plate, etc.

For reference, I was at 18,000 kms (11,000 miles) when failure occurred.

ShakeNBake

Welcome to the club. The 4.0 unit is better, but still fragile for aggressive use. Make sure they inspect the diff while they are in there. And while the engine is out consider pinning coolant lines and installing metal oil fittings.

http://sharkwerks.com/porsche/techni...urbo-cars.html

michaellitt

Have asked them to torque/set the variocam bolts and pin the coolant lines. What are the known issues with diff and oil fittings? Search didn't reveal much.

Spyerx

Diff: He's referring to OEM/stock diff wearing out after minimal track use. This is super common. For example, my "high" mile RS diff was fine as it had hardly any track use, I put about 15 days on it and it was done, and I'm not fast or pushing the car even 80%. It's not a terribly expensive fix since your engine is already out. Options are rebuild the diff with Guard or Porsche motorsport parts, or install a full motorsport or guard diff. All are good options. I went with a Guard diff. Given you are getting a new tranny, unsure if that comes with the diff or not... if you get a new diff you'll be OK for a little bit.

Oil fittings: the link is actually for Sharkwerks part. These are coolant lines, but they run to the oil cooler and pass coolant through the heat exchanger to cool the oil. These 2 plastic elbows wear out and crack, leaking coolant - it's not the same catastrophic failure as blowing a line - but to fix later requires an engine drop. This is 100% worth doing now while you are pinning/welding the coolant lines.

FWIW, I put the 4.0 clutch, pp, bearing, flywheel and other parts in my RS when I had the pipes fixed and I love the feel of it, even though my stock clutch grabbed fine, the action on it was getting off, feels like a new car now.

sechsgang

FWIW, I have a 996 Cup Clutch assembly in my car and its literally phenomenal...and strong as all get out provided you aren't commuting in 10 miles of traffic a day...

Cbwell

Was this also a known issue on the 3.6RS as well? After I bought mine I was able to get the service records from the dealer and it had a clutch and tranny replaced under warranty. The dealer said a piece of clutch plate broke off and got into the tranny necessitating replacement of both. This was at 7,200 miles.

manuxc

997 . 1 RS, 60.000 kms, 100% track using ...
no sound or vibration before, shifting became very hard, strang "knock" from gearbox, and suddenly no transmission anymore ...
Disc's rivets have lost their heads !!

Last clutch/PP/fork had been changed at 50.000 kms before ...

will try a 7.25 2 disc metallic Tilton :-)