JFP in PA

Correct, remove the #5 bolts, and no, the diagonal control arms do not need support. I think the Bentley reference you noted is for removing the transverse control arm.

You need to rotate the banana shaped plate without removing it by removing the end bolts, but leaving the center bolt in place, but not tight: And, no, you do not need to remove the #5 bolts unless you are removing the entire bar.

Try pulling the serpentine belt and briefly run the car (remember, without the belt, you have no cooling system), and see if the noise goes away. If it does, shut the car off and start turning each of the driven systems to listen/feel for which one is causing the problem.

There are aftermarket forced oiling systems, but with the exception of the non ball bearing LN IMS Solution system (which is only for serviceable single row bearing engine's), I am not a big fan of them for a couple of reasons. While the marketer's of these oiling systems like to say they spray "filtered, cool oil" into the bearing, in reality they source the oil feed from one of the hottest and dirtiest parts of the engine to feed the bearing. Secondly, as you cannot remove your bearing and put a plug behind it in the shaft housing, you are relying on the OEM inner bearing seal to keep the oil from flooding the shaft, and the reason all the OEM IMS bearings have problems in the first place is that the seals start to leak and wash the grease out of the bearing, so the rear seal is going to leak oil into the shaft, which is not good. Third, there has been considerable debate about getting "too much" oil into the bearing, which can also cause problems. LN engineering and Jake Raby did their homework on the their replacement ceramic hybrid bearings, and stayed away from forced oil feeds (even though they own the rights to one of the slickest forced oil feed designs), preferring to use an open rear bearing design that is splash lubricated by the engine rotation. And with nearly 18,000 of them installed this way, it seems to be working just fine. While there has been considerable debate about "garage queens" suffering more problems than daily drivers, I'm not completely convinced that is a major contributing factor in premature IMS failures.

The last design IMS, which it sounds like you have in this case, is reasonably sturdy, but not totally immune to failure. General reports seem to indicate that this design is more prone to fail on a car that is heavily tracked than on the street, while earlier versions could fail at any time. Silver_TT noted one approach that has seen considerable success, pulling the rear seal off the OEM bearing so it can get splash lubrication (which all LN bearings except the Solution use). We have several customers running this way without any issues.

You can test components by a process of elimination; try moving the suspect coils to other cylinders, and then see if the misfire goes with them or stays in the original locations. You can also do the same thing with the plugs as a separate test. Normally, if a plug is consistently misfiring, it should look pretty bad compared to a plug that is firing normally.

OK, you have a misfire on cylinders 3 and 6; possibly plugs or coil packs. What about the "fault on the fuel system" and O2 sensor codes you mentioned?

It would be helpful to know the year of the car, and see a list of all the actual codes it is throwing.

If they will replace the headers under warranty, that would be your cheapest and easiest option. If the cracks have to be welded, you will need to pull the headers, strip the coating off to find all the cracks (there are probably more if you already have found some), get them welded, then have the headers recoated. This is going to take both time and money, and the car will be laid up for some time. Hey JFP, I'm waiting on a response back from the GMS to see if they will honor a replacement. I'm quite doubtful, however it is wishful thinking. I did find a shop in the area willing to pull the headers, grind the coating off, weld the crack(s), and mount the headers for about $150. This plan does not consist of re-coating the headers. Is this an okay plan? How about wrapping the headers with heat-wrap rather than re-coating them for a quicker solution and an alternative? I have run the car about 3500 Miles so far with the Check Engine light on as it originally came on during a road trip down and up the coast. Could I cause any damage if I keep running the car like this (other than a performance lag) for another 1,000 or 2,000 KM ? Any input on whether or not I should have the cats sawed off and replaced by an extension tube? Thanks! If they cracked once, they will most likely crack again, and probably already have but not shown through the coating yet. Spot fixing the existing cracks, with or without using an extra wrap, will probably only prolong the inevitable; which is more cracking. We have customers that have been running stainless steel headers for several years, with no indication of any cracking, so I am not convinced of the quality of the headers you already have. The decision about removing or not removing the cats is totally up to you; cats really do not pull down the performance of the engine all that much, and having an emissions compliant car makes it more saleable to a larger audience.

If they will replace the headers under warranty, that would be your cheapest and easiest option. If the cracks have to be welded, you will need to pull the headers, strip the coating off to find all the cracks (there are probably more if you already have found some), get them welded, then have the headers recoated. This is going to take both time and money, and the car will be laid up for some time.

I'd give Jake Raby a buzz over on his forum; if memory serves, he prefers a non Porsche replacement lifter over the OEM units.

Another alternative is to install one of the Guardian alert systems to warn you if it starts to go south.

I would have to say that someone at sometime replaced the bolts; all the factory bolts I have seen are triple squares

The car seems to be showing signs of something being wrong with the alarm/immobilizer system and how it is communicating with both the remotes and the chip in the keys. I would suggest getting the car scanned with a Porsche specific scan tool to see if the system is both functioning and correctly coded to keys and remote. I would also remove the internal fuse in the alarm/immobilizer unit and check it is not blown.

Disconnecting the battery will clear the DME of most codes (but not all as some require special steps), as well as all accumulated operational parameter data (PID's), both of which are a wealth of information for a diagnostic tech to access in determining all of the problems or issues are effecting the car's performance. But once the battery is disconnected, all that accumulated information is lost forever, which is why we always caution against taking that step, at least until the recorded data is captured by a Porsche specific scan tool. And while some codes will retrigger immediately, others take time and some miles before they reappear. All too often, we get cars into the shop where the owners have made incorrect assumption's about what is causing a given problem, then swapped out often expensive parts, only to find the problem persists. And when we get the car, all the data is gone due to a battery disconnection dump, and we are left scratching our heads as to what is actually wrong with the car. As we then have to keep and run the car for a bit to obtain more information, it tends to both raise the cost of the repair as well as keeping the car longer than we normally would need.

Suggestion number one: Never disconnect the battery "to clear codes" until they have been read by a Porsche specific scan tool. The DME collects and stores data that can often be very helpful in guiding you to the correct solution to your problems. When you dump all that data by disconnecting the battery, you are flying totally blind............

I think you will find that Wix, for some reason, reports Beta values differently on their synthetic media filters, a point which has been endlessly debated on the BIOTOG website.

I understand the Napa Gold filter is made by Wix -try the 51042. There are two, the 51042 has treated media, the 51042XP is a full synthetic media supported by a wire cage and offers finer filtration pores and a larger debris holding rating than the 51042.

The Mobil filter is a pretty good filter. Our personal favorites are the Wix/Napa Gold 51042XP, which you can usually get for less money as well. I think Amazon carries them, as well as many auto parts outlets. If you go to this site (http://www.wixfilters.com/WhereToBuy.aspx?ZipCode=) and enter your postal code, they will give you info on who sells Wix in your area.

Did some more snooping on my system (Pro version), it can read and clear roll over system related codes on a 996, but it cannot see real time information about the system and it cannot activate the system. I did not find any support for the roll over system on the 997 cars.

OK, been doing some more searching, found mention on Durametric' site that as of version 6.0.1.0, they added "Litronic headlight control (HBA), Roll-over protection, Park assist, and Targa control modules", but they do not stipulate if it is in both the "Pro" and "Enthusiast" versions (not all functions in the Pro system are in the Enthusiast version).

I have a real Durametric, just arrived today from the factory.I wondering why it can't read the rollover module? I read some where that the module is disabled from the factory, then enabled at the dealership when the car arrives there. I wonder if they forgot to enable? I'm not positive, but the roll over protection system may be a PIWIS only activation. While Durametric can do a lot, it is not capable of everything the PIWIS does. What I can tell you is that the literature say that is should be tested every two years, and describes how to do that, but only with a PIWIS system. I did find a tech bulletin on how to turn the system transport lock off, but it also only describes using the older PST II : http://bethnrayndogs.com/car_docs/Porsche/porsche/Porsche_Tech/Porsche_TECHNICAL_BOOKS/Tech_Bulletins/911Grp6_6-98.pdf

If you are interested, you can ship your unit to Gbox, and (for a fee) they will go through it end to end, and install the LSD for you. They are not cheap, but you could not ask for better craftsmanship, plus they have any part you might need on the shelf. We have sent them gear boxes in all kinds of conditions, and were always pleased with their services. Just a thought.................... ;)

Side carrier bearings, some shims, ring gear bolts, Loctite, etc.; all of which an installer should have on hand. As they will be taking the gearbox apart to do this, you should have them inspect all the bearings and the syncro's on every gear and consider getting one of GBox's second gear detent up grade kits (http://www.gboxweb.com/detent.html), a billet retainer plate (http://www.gboxweb.com/retainer1.html) .

You have two potential pathways here. The cooling system has been opened, so it could be just an air pocket. Or it could be more serious, such as a cracked head. These engine's never blow head gaskets. If the car was in my shop, we would top up the coolant tank to the correct level and then pull a vacuum on the cooling system with the Uview tool. If there is air in the system, it will "burp" out under vacuum and the tank level would drop. If there does not seem to be any air coming out, I would hold a 25-26" level of vacuum for about half and hour to see if it starts to drop, indicating that air is entering the system somewhere inside the system. If there are signs of dropping vacuum, I would next pull the plugs, looking for obvious signs of one or more cylinders with "steam cleaned" plugs. If any are found, I would then do a leak down on those cylinders as confirmation before pulling the engine to disassemble it.