Chris Picklo

I have met yet another person who has had an engine failure in their Boxster S. I know of plenty of people who have 986's that have lasted them some time without problems, but the ones that I've seen with trouble (like mine) were the ones that were tracked.

Do you think this is because of the lack of a true drysump? Was this MADE to be a street car? Let's hope not....

Doug&Julie

Well the factory has never supported racing Boxsters at ANY level. I thought that was because they're pushing (so to speak) the 911 as their racer, but maybe they know something...?

Turboflyer

Interesting, what was the cause of the failure. If it was from oil starvation due to pick up cavitation then maybe the pan design is inadequate. I can not believe porsche would create such a faulty design. With almost 10 quarts in the system that would be a very unsual cause of the failure. Is there anyway to track the actual cause of the failure (s).

Sean

If you read the fine print, Porsche is no longer intending any of its street cars for track use (at least according to the lawyers). People have even been denied warranty coverage on failed ceramic brakes due to use at the track.

Vampyre

Why is Porsche taking this stance on racing? There whole design is based on racing

FROM TRACK TO ROAD CAR that is what Porsche does.

Paghmani

I recall european car 1998 introduction of 996 that it has a the oil tank bellow the engine as opposed to the side dry sump? Doesn't boxter follow in this format thus elimating the theory of dry sump failure? Another words if the oil tank is bellow the engine lack of oil in engine at fast corners cannot be the colprut of damaged engine? Sorry if im wrong still learning just reasoning based on my 911 and m3 experience. Also isn't there multiple oil pumps and filters and a brain that monitor oil comsumption? If its a genious machine i highly doubt porsche would be negligent in this design and have such faults as to cause cars to fail in race. My personal feeling is either something gave in your car errrr.. possibly oil pump. valve retainer, chain guides? These are long shot possiblities and i could be wrong. Good luck.

Vampyre

I agree with Paghmani

Alan Herod

One of the benefits of a dry sump is to collect the oil after it returns from the oil cooler and allow the oil to settle and the bubbles to rise out of the oil. The dry sump is generally tall and skinny with the pickup at the bottom where as a conventional engine sump is typically wide and flat. During hard cornering it is more likely that the oil starvation will occur with a conventional sump, so some add an accu-sump which is a small pressure charged sump which will provide oil in case of starvation. Another benefit of the 'old fashioned' dry sump is windage. The crank spins around in the sump in close proximity to the oil, whipping it into a froth, and creating more aero drag on the crank shaft. To solve this many racers add a windage tray which is really only a band-aid for lack of a dry sump. Why would you not mass produce a car with a dry sump -- cost - complexity - assembly time.

Paghmani

I found the eurocar 2/2/98 issue. Here is what it mentions. It still has a dry-sump tank, but no longer kept in a seperate oil tank, rather underneat the crank chamber. Here is quote.

Oil Circulates through an integrated dry sump. The oil supply of 10.25 liters is no longer kept in a seperate oil tank, but rather in an almost fully enclosed reservoir beneat the crank chamber in the engine block. Essentially a bored and stroked version of the quad-cammed, 24 valve boxter motor, the 996 mill features Porsche's VarioCam system on the valvetrain and the addition of a newly developed intake. The 3.387cc six-pot motor is capped with a variable pipe connecting the two plenum banks.

This is for the 98 911(996) engine and should be similar to boxter minus the oil quantity if im not mistaken and engine size some 200cc?

Alan Herod

makes sense, eleminates some of the external complexity.

Pwilliams

From what I have read, most of the failures were the earlier motors due to casting problems with liners and the cast in water and oil lines. Porsche has quit installing sleeves and has improved the casting of the integral lines from what I have read. This had been a problem for both the 996 and 986. Additionally, most occurences were with low mileage. I have been told that the problem for the most part went away after 2001.