almsdriver

Hi all,
Looking for advice on cracked cylinder heads in my 997.1 GT3. Dropped my car off at the shop, and long story short, shop is telling me I have two cracked cylinder heads.

I had to replace a rattling muffler, and thats when we discovered a milkshake in my left bank. They removed the engine and told me I need two new cylinder heads. I don't track my car, just a few DE events and have no over revs in range 2-6. 25 over-revs in range 1 - just FYI, so fairly easy on the car here.

Car has extended power train warranty, which will cover Cylinder Heads only if caused due to failure of an internal lubricated part. Shop claims it happened due to a water pump that exploded and warranty argues that water pump is not an internal lubricated part (surprise surprise). Warranty does cover the replacement of the water pump itself however.

Looks like I'm paying $500 for pressure testing cylinder heads and cracks are not found visibly. Apparently both cracks are internal and as a result both heads fail an air pressure test.

I'm not an expert and don't mean to contradict myself here, but I wonder if water pump played a role here.

The purpose of my post is just to see on how common the issue is. I did some research and it appears that cracked cylinder heads are fairly isolated? Anybody else with cracked cylinder heads? Similar symptoms?

Any ideas, useful tips or suggestions? Any info is greatly appreciated.

Ur20v

Pressure check only way to confirm if the heads are at fault/cracked.

Failures have occurred but not common. Cylinder liners/water jackets another problem area that can cause this.

Water pump failure (mechanical or thrown belt) can over heat the engine and cause head to fail.

Good luck.

a_Y

maybe a better option is to send it to sharkwerks and just do a 3.9 and get everything sorted once and for all....

tcsracing1

Did the car overheat at anytime before finding this?

coryf

The oil cooler on the top of the engine is a more common failure an will cause oil an water to mix.

Jamie_GT3

I have two 3.6L's ready to be built into 4.0-4.2L monsters!

What Jay said, pressure test is only way to tell if heads are OK, should have been something you could see from the cockpit to cause them both to crack...

almsdriver

Thanks for all replies, I asked shop to double check for the above.

3.9L would be nice if I had to go deeper into the engine and had the budget for it. Actually considering to sell soon, hard to keep up with all these expensive repairs. Someone will gain on my loss, that's for sure. Feel free to contact me if someone looking for a GT3 997.1. I'm not advertising, yet.

PM sent on engines. Thanks again, all

C4S993

Just for shiz&grins; what would a sharky upgrade run$ ? And will it idle by itself or do you have to ride the pedal ? I assume emission States would be a problem if the car is for DD.

almsdriver

3.9L upgrade would run anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 depending on what you need done, mileage, etc. Keep in mind I'd have to ship the car, motor, etc and ship it back.

I'm not sure about idling?