GT3DE

biggest problem is slower cars getting in the way

On Pole

Blue smoke at start-up sometimes.

911GT3

Things get real small in the rearview when I push the rightmost pedal.



Inall seriousness, the sensor for the front lift had to be replaced at 6,000 and the fuel gauge was replaced at the same time.

Peterfirst

My car GT3RSII, 2010 @ 5100 km. Suddenly the sound of enigne changed did not pull under 4000 rpm. Stopped engine and did not restart anymore. Thought it could be the vario cam and have it now at my Porsche center to have it fixed.
First (not yer confirmed) diagnosis: vario cam failure - don't know yet if bolts got loose or broke.

Overrevs "only" range 2 so repair will be done under warranty.

It was confimred so that this is a "well known" issue with the 3.8 RS.

Also asked them to check clutch and PP. Thinking about now if I also should ask them also regarding the cooling hoses issue ...

Hope to have the car back soon for the next track day.

Oh yes and I am pi??ed off by the drilled rotors. Try to get a set of Brembos slotted but can not get hold of a set

TTurbine

Same thing happend but the car would restart and run fine or a while then will misfire and go to limp mode
1st diagnosis was vario cam

turned out to be a bad flywheel..

CRex

Sounds like your engine has seized and it's the infamous 997.2 GT3 VarioCam problem. The cam "actuators" have these five satellite bolts at their periphery and for the most stupid of reasons they're prone to coming loose on their own. Sounds bat$hit crazy but apparently it happens...

When the bolts loosen and get unseated far out enough they'll make contact with the cam housing. Eventually the contact becomes so bad that the engine grinds to a complete halt. That's your seizure.

At that point there's no solution but an engine swap. Do not accept anything less, whatever your dealer tells you.

Not what Porsche would want you to see, but here's the passenger side intake variocam of a car that exhibited the same fact pattern as yours. All normal one day, engine "stoned" in the middle of highway traffic the next. Irony is this one here seized WHILE the dealer tech was ferrying the car to the customer I know the car's current and past owners and they're not the type that would have caused engine damage out of abuse...

p.s. Ask your dealer what's the code he's seeing in PIWIS--wonder if it's the same side of the engine as pictured??

RAPID

Took my car (RS' 10) to have the lift fixed, it turned out the main processor was broken (dash computer?), at one time mileage was going up on its own while the mechanics was looking at it... It was replaced, everything had to be re-calibrated including fuel gauge etc..Now everything is ok...

SSTHO

Same for me with 7.1 RS and 7.2 Gt3. Everything else was perfect!

Fisher

After living in Deutschland for 2 years, came to the conclusion the local beer is just too damn good! Hangovers play hell with engine assembly on Monday.

CRex

LOL! Next car I buy I'll make sure the engine's assembled on any day other than Monday. Then there's TGIF syndrome and Oktoberfest, so I can only have engines made during the MIDDLE of the week outside of October eh??

Marine Blue

If this is a known issue why wouldn't Porsche just recall all of the cars with this particular configuration and make the correction. It seems like such a simple fix (labor and maybe new bolts/threadlock) compared to the alternative.

NJ-GT

They would have to recall all the 2010-2011 GT3 and GT3 RS 3.8.

It is the most expensive repair from the list of reliability problems.

Other than this failure and some 20 other types, the car is perfection on wheels.

Peterfirst

Hi CRex:

Thank you very much for your information. I had a chance to see the pulled engine. Yes it is the infamous VarioCam problem. And yes the bolts became loose and it looked exactly as in your picture (I should hopefully also get some pictures next week).

The bolts actually came out far enough to have contact with the housing and grinded away some material. The engine did not seize anyhow before I stopped it when coming into the pits (was at the Hockenheimring doing laps).

They have drained the oil at the dealer and also pulled the oil filter. Lots of contamination with metallic particles is visible.

My dealer told me the procedure on how this claim now works.
Engine will be completely dismantled. A quote for the necessary repair work (including all necessary parts to be replaced) will be sent to Porsche AG and they then decide if it will be a repair or replacement engine. This will take one to two weeks. Dealer told me that they have already done similar repair work and that I can be assured that an engine repair will not be a disadvantage compared to an engine swap. I trust them because they are also doing the services at the Germany Porsche Sports Cup and have quite some experience (also I was always quite happy and satisfied with the work they are doing).

Also I can confirm that it is the passenger side intake VarioCam which failed. I was told that this is due to some “problems” during engine manufacturing at the plant and that Porsche does not know how many engines are affected (which makes things even worse).

As said above it happened to my car when I was doing laps at the HHR. All in a sudden the engine noise changed and power was down below 4000 rpm. Sound of the engine below 4000 was similar to sound before over 4000 rpm. My first guess was that something to the VarioCam must have happened without knowing the story behind it. So I limped back to the pits and stopped the engine because it was also making some unusual noises. After that I did not start the engine anymore.

Needless to say that all is under warranty (fortunately I only have overrevs in range 1 and 2).

So I will keep you posted about the development of this.

Oh and by the way I will also have the clutch replaced with the parts from the RS 4.0 even so my clutch is still completely perfect.

Regards from Germany

Peter

hschiff

I just bought a 7.2 gt3. It smokes pretty bad on start up. I am told by the dealer that it is "normal" but I have a 40 year old Ferrari with original unrestored engine that doesn't smoke. Does anyone have a baseline for how much smoke is normal and how much is a problem?

peer

I think this is hard to quantify, sometimes she smokes quite a bit and will basically make a nice cloud and other times nothing at all. I have observed that it generally seems worse if the car has been sitting for awhile and have been told that the flat 6 lends itself to this phenomenon. Have had 3 generations of 911s and the 997.2 gt3 has smoked the most.
Not a great answer but I would be concerned if there was a cloud every single time, especially if it has not been sitting long.