JFP in PA

Buy them by the bagful, they are going to break.

Couple of points: It is very difficult, even with software, to envision what 9 degrees looks like. Second, the deviation is with the engine running, not static, so standing still it can look different than expected. The test you should try is to insert the cam locking tool with the engine locked at TDC, if the tool slides right in, the cams are fine, if it does not go in easily and bolt down without effort, the cam is off:

There are no factory magnetic plugs that I am aware of, but there is a company called "Gold Plugs" (http://www.goldplug.com/) that I've used in the past who will make magnetic plugs for you if you supply an example for them to work off of. I've used many Gold Plugs "off the shelf" items, as well as their custom program, and they make very nice units.

Problem with inspecting your current bearing is that to do it correctly, you need to remove it, and then it should not be reinstalled. You should also note that with all the thousands of properly installed LN bearings, I am not aware of any failing with just splash lubrication. There has also be considerable online dialog by Charles Navarro and Jake Raby about why using an oil feed source that not coming directly off the filter is a bad idea for the ceramic bearings. You might want to drop one of them a email to get the details before spending any more money.

At least the values are steady, which is a good thing. The next question becomes why the car is out of spec. Normal suspects (as mentioned) are the tensioners and chain paddles, including the ones on the short chain between the two cams, which are often the problem on the five chain cars.

JFP - Everything you stated makes perfect sense and is good guidance. I was wondering if you could you say a little more about your quote above. Thanks in advance. Sure, the M96 engine came in two timing chain configurations, the three and five chain. The earlier engines (before 2003), all M96 engines had a five chain layout on the cylinder heads where a chain came up from the IMS shaft to one of the two cams, and then a separate chain ran from one cam to the other: With the small chain running between the two cams, it is actually fairly difficult for these engines to jump cam timing, even under adverse conditions. On the later engine's, the chain between the two cams was eliminated, and the chain coming up from the IMS shaft went around both cams on each cylinder head, reducing the number of chains from five to three. The three chain design, while simpler and making more room for the VarioCam+ hardware, was more prone to jumping time (usually on one cam) under adverse conditions because the mechanical link between the cams was now missing.

Warmer lubricants will always drain quicker, but I don't think there is any definitive evidence that they drain more completely, although it would intuitively seem like they should. I wouldn't be overly concerned as when the car is in a shop on a lift, no special efforts are made; the oil stops flowing out, it is done. One word of universal caution on draining gear oils from transmissions and the like: Always remove the fill plug before removing the drain plugs. That way, you never find yourself staring at an empty gear box with no way to refill it.

OK, the spec for that car is +/- 6 degrees, so the deviation value does indicate that you are somewhat out of spec. If the engine had jumped time, it would be well more than 8-9 degrees out, so I do not think that is your issue, especially as yours is a five chain motor. I am also not aware of the Durametric software not being able to correctly read these values, but having said that, I need to ask what version of the software are you using? It is entirely possible that this level of deviation is the result of wear on the VarioCam components (tensioners, chain paddles, etc.). Before you start pulling cam covers off, you need to understand that doing so requires cam retaining tools as the cover is one half of the cam journals holding the cams in place. I think you need to have the cam system examined by a shop with both the equipment and knowledge required to properly access the situation. You are probably in the market for some replacement components and a retiming for the cams.

An 05 Turbo would have the Mezger engine in it, which is completely different from M96/97 design engine that suffered from the IMS issues. The 996 turbo did have its own problems with pressed and glued coolant hose connectors that failed often enough that some tracks now require that you demonstrate you have taken steps to mechanically lock the connectors in place before letting you out on the track surface.

If you are using a quality full synthetic oil, you don't need any additives.

No, we do not use jack stands under the plastic panels, that would damage the cover panels. I prefer to use the rear suspension pickup points for the jack stands.

SilverTT, there is absolutely no question that the most economical way to get a Metzer is by getting a 996 TT. The Metzger is a wonderful engine and time may show that it was Porsche's best. On the other hand technology moves on and there is a growing group who believe the 991 version of the 9A1 is fully up to snuff. The GT3 version is winning hearts and souls by the minute. The advantage of the dry sump system in the older cars was that it insured a constant oil supply under high lateral G's. It of course required the use of a separate oil tank which takes up space and adds additional plumbing to a car that has more than its fair share. It is entirely possible to design a block and sump to prevent oil starvation under any circumstance which is exactly what Porsche has said it has done. Which means there is absolutely no advantage in having a dry sump. I for one will be quite happy not to have to pull two drain plugs every time I change the oil. This years racing season will pretty much determine the viability and reliability of the new 9A1. Porsche is back in the field and staking its honor on it! As we mostly work on our lifts, jacking up the car is not a common event; but when we do need to, we put aftermarket jacking pads into the car's jack point bayonet fittings, and then lift each side with a floor jack, then set the car on jack stands with hockey pucks on the top to prevent marring anything. Jack point bayonet fittings?? Not sure what you mean. I can jack 1/2 the car easily by using the rear jack pad (with the centering hole) Then I stick an Esco jack stand under the front jack pad. I can't put one at the rear because the floor jack is there. I place the front Jack stand on the other side. Now the front of the car is up. I jack the rear from a center point (the 997 has a pad just for this) and place both rear stands. The back goes up real easy because it is being counter balanced by the part of the car hanging out in front of the front jack stands. The Esco stands are the best I have ever seen. They are big and stable with a large foot print and the top has a very nice round rubber pad which had to be made just for 911s. Pelican has them I believe.Sorry about the spelling. Mezger it is. JFP, wasn't the Mezger a hybrid engine using the aircooled split case block with water cooled cylinders and heads?? The engine with air cooled cylinders and water cooled heads you are referring to was most famous for its appearance in the legendary 959 street cars. As Loren mentioned, Hans was involved in just about every Porsche Motorsports effort during his tenure with Porsche, including the air cooled 12 cylinder cars, the F1 program, and the still born Indy car. There is even a book and DVD out about his years at Porsche and covers many of the projects: The jack pad I was referring to with the bayonet mount looks like this: And it fits in here: That is a funky picture. I can't quite get the orientation. The good thing is that there are alternative jack points on the 991. How many are there? I can use the floor jack with them and place the Escos at the usual positions?The picture I saw was a similar shot but with the oil pan/sump cover removed. This sump extension is just to give you more oil capacity? I have not seen the spec. Do you happen to know how much oil the Turbo holds? I've only seen one spec sheet, which said, " Replace engine oil, 7.4L for oil change, 10.4L for engine rebuild/new engine." There are four "designated jacking points", two (one on each side) just behind the front wheels, and two (one on each side) ahead of the rear wheels. The plate shown twists into these mounts so that it provides a large flat surface for the jack to mate with and have great stability. The jack stands them selves can be positioned in a number of places where there is sufficient structure. As I mentioned, as we generally have the cars on a lift, we use the plates as pickup points for the lift, which works excellently and never marks the car in anyway. The sump extension is supposed to add about 1 1/2 quart or so to the total capacity without causing ground clearance issues. There are several similar for the M96/97 engines.

And just as a by-the-by, this is a photo of the Mantis sump extension that shows the inside of a stock sump cover from the 9A1: And here is a shot looking up at the same sump cover on a 9A1 from below:

SilverTT, there is absolutely no question that the most economical way to get a Metzer is by getting a 996 TT. The Metzger is a wonderful engine and time may show that it was Porsche's best. On the other hand technology moves on and there is a growing group who believe the 991 version of the 9A1 is fully up to snuff. The GT3 version is winning hearts and souls by the minute. The advantage of the dry sump system in the older cars was that it insured a constant oil supply under high lateral G's. It of course required the use of a separate oil tank which takes up space and adds additional plumbing to a car that has more than its fair share. It is entirely possible to design a block and sump to prevent oil starvation under any circumstance which is exactly what Porsche has said it has done. Which means there is absolutely no advantage in having a dry sump. I for one will be quite happy not to have to pull two drain plugs every time I change the oil. This years racing season will pretty much determine the viability and reliability of the new 9A1. Porsche is back in the field and staking its honor on it! As we mostly work on our lifts, jacking up the car is not a common event; but when we do need to, we put aftermarket jacking pads into the car's jack point bayonet fittings, and then lift each side with a floor jack, then set the car on jack stands with hockey pucks on the top to prevent marring anything. Jack point bayonet fittings?? Not sure what you mean. I can jack 1/2 the car easily by using the rear jack pad (with the centering hole) Then I stick an Esco jack stand under the front jack pad. I can't put one at the rear because the floor jack is there. I place the front Jack stand on the other side. Now the front of the car is up. I jack the rear from a center point (the 997 has a pad just for this) and place both rear stands. The back goes up real easy because it is being counter balanced by the part of the car hanging out in front of the front jack stands. The Esco stands are the best I have ever seen. They are big and stable with a large foot print and the top has a very nice round rubber pad which had to be made just for 911s. Pelican has them I believe. Sorry about the spelling. Mezger it is. JFP, wasn't the Mezger a hybrid engine using the aircooled split case block with water cooled cylinders and heads?? The engine with air cooled cylinders and water cooled heads you are referring to was most famous for its appearance in the legendary 959 street cars. As Loren mentioned, Hans was involved in just about every Porsche Motorsports effort during his tenure with Porsche, including the air cooled 12 cylinder cars, the F1 program, and the still born Indy car. There is even a book and DVD out about his years at Porsche and covers many of the projects: The jack pad I was referring to with the bayonet mount looks like this: And it fits in here:

A total "flush" of the system requires disconnecting the low pressure return line under the car, and then adding fluid in the engine bay while turning the steering back and forth with the car idling until clean fluid comes out. It is a two person job, and you need to be careful not to let the pump run dry during the process as they do not like that, and the pump is expensive. There are aftermarket firms that make quick disconnect fittings with filters and magnets to cut into that line that will make future service a much easier affair: An easier, and perhaps more practical approach would be to simply siphon off all the fluid you can get out of the reservoir and pump, refill the system, then drive the car a short distance and repeat the process. Unless the existing fluid is really in bad shape, this is probably all you need to do. As part of our normal annual service protocol, we drain and refill the power steering reservoir on all the cars we service. While not replacing all the fluid, or flushing out all the debris, it does continuously replace most of the old and dirty fluid in the system on a regular basis, at very little cost. JFP... When you disconnect the return line, you mean disconnect the return line at the steering rack? If so for clarification for anyone doing that, it's the larger diameter pipe of the two pipes. When you bleed/flush the system does the engine to be running? I have an electric power steering pump, it made a terrible groaning noise, turns out that I had some debris in the system so I'm replacing the pump. Since I don't know if there's some contamination in the steering rack I'm going to flush the system with cheap P/S fluid, then fill with the Pentosin. My local Car-Quest auto parts house carries the CHF 111S for about $25.00 a can. And I'm going to add the P/S inline filter as well... Yes, the return line at the rack. I would not be running anything but the correct fluid in the car, even to clean it out. There are a myriad of flexible seals in this system, and the use of an incompatible fluid could lead to swelling or other problems. The system does not hold that much fluid, so it simply is not worth the risk......

Son of a gun!! I found a picture of the engine with the oil pan off. The oil pan is the tank! There are two baffles on either side of the oil pick up which is dead center pointing to the front. The return is on the right side. The crank case is entirely walled off. As far as I can tell there is absolutely no direct communication between the crankcase and the oil tank. The crank case must empty into the return. The baffles keep the oil from sloshing around. I believe (but am not absolutely sure) that under operation there is no air at all in the tank. The return is very large and I would bet there is a fairly large cavity above it that must contain several liters of oil. They must get the oil level up there because there is no way they are getting it in a horizontal tank that can't be more than 3 inches thick. Got a link to that picture?

The CH 11 S was the original fluid, later discontinued, but now available again.

The correct fluid for the car is Pentosin CH11 S, available on line and from many retail auto parts outlets as well.

A total "flush" of the system requires disconnecting the low pressure return line under the car, and then adding fluid in the engine bay while turning the steering back and forth with the car idling until clean fluid comes out. It is a two person job, and you need to be careful not to let the pump run dry during the process as they do not like that, and the pump is expensive. There are aftermarket firms that make quick disconnect fittings with filters and magnets to cut into that line that will make future service a much easier affair: An easier, and perhaps more practical approach would be to simply siphon off all the fluid you can get out of the reservoir and pump, refill the system, then drive the car a short distance and repeat the process. Unless the existing fluid is really in bad shape, this is probably all you need to do. As part of our normal annual service protocol, we drain and refill the power steering reservoir on all the cars we service. While not replacing all the fluid, or flushing out all the debris, it does continuously replace most of the old and dirty fluid in the system on a regular basis, at very little cost.

Before I would be unbolting anything, I would be doing some of the suggested diagnostics to see if the sensors are working correctly; if you swap the cats and it was one of the sensors, you will be no better off than you are right now, but a lot more dirty and tired. And if you swap out all the sensors, and it was the cats, you would be in the same position, but out a lot of money unnecessarily. Silver_TT is spot on about the old cats, they should have no moving parts and make no sound when you shake them.

Not to throw gas on the fire, but the Mezger engine, while a mechanical marvel and piece of engineering art work, is a dated design and very costly and time consuming to produce. At the end of the day, Porsche needed to go DFI to continue the performance evolution on the Turbos, which would have meant a costly redesign of an already expensive old design. So instead, they went with a modified 9A1 production engine instead. How well that decision will play out, only history will tell. I remain circumspect about the loss of the dry sump system. Besides providing better oil control under high G loads, dry sump systems do a far superior job of deaerating the oil before returning it to the engine, helping to cool the oil, as well as eliminating any chance of crank shaft windage from oil sloshing about in the sump. Granted, there are other ways of helping to control windage, but dry sumps eliminate it, which is why they are common on many types of race engines. Until I have a chance to see what else they have done internally to the 9A1 to control the problems that a dry sump would have eliminated, I will continue to question the logic of going this route. It really seems like the wrong direction.

SilverTT, there is absolutely no question that the most economical way to get a Metzer is by getting a 996 TT. The Metzger is a wonderful engine and time may show that it was Porsche's best. On the other hand technology moves on and there is a growing group who believe the 991 version of the 9A1 is fully up to snuff. The GT3 version is winning hearts and souls by the minute. The advantage of the dry sump system in the older cars was that it insured a constant oil supply under high lateral G's. It of course required the use of a separate oil tank which takes up space and adds additional plumbing to a car that has more than its fair share. It is entirely possible to design a block and sump to prevent oil starvation under any circumstance which is exactly what Porsche has said it has done. Which means there is absolutely no advantage in having a dry sump. I for one will be quite happy not to have to pull two drain plugs every time I change the oil. This years racing season will pretty much determine the viability and reliability of the new 9A1. Porsche is back in the field and staking its honor on it! As we mostly work on our lifts, jacking up the car is not a common event; but when we do need to, we put aftermarket jacking pads into the car's jack point bayonet fittings, and then lift each side with a floor jack, then set the car on jack stands with hockey pucks on the top to prevent marring anything.

The hose connection at the rail is a push on, single use barbed fitting that requires cutting and shortening the line to reuse it. Often, there simply is not enough line to accommodate this. So it looks like you need to go under the car.

The cross over line from rail to rail should not be disconnected as it is a single use item. If you look at this diagram: You want to disconnect line #8 either at the rail or beneath the car.

Do as search here for a contributor that goes by the name of "Porschelibrarian", he often has access to this kind of thing.