JFP in PA

Because of the way fluids travel along various things under these cars, including the under tray, it is almost impossible to say where the leak is without putting the car up in the air and pulling the trays off for a good look.

Just be sure the gauge is calibrated in inches of water, not mercury (Hg).

Get the car scanned by someone knowledgeable with either the Durametric system, a PST II, or PIWIS system; not only to read the codes, but to activate the VarioCam units, and to check the actual cam angles while you are doing it. A smooth idle and strong revving is not particularly meaningful. Once you have run these test, you will know if the system is actually functioning correctly. If it is, you may have more wiring damage elsewhere in the harness.

I know they are on the fragile side. Have you ever sent out an ATF sample for testing? UOA labs typically do it, and sometimes the results can be a little scary.............. :eek:

I would not be overly concerned about not running the break-in oil first, as I mentioned, that is more for severe cases where the noise may also be related to varnish or crud build up due to slack maintenance. Don't be annoyed at how sensitive the car it to oils, be annoyed with the oil companies for making significant changes to oil formulations without telling anyone, and marketing departments for creating long change interval fibs. And if you collected oil samples for analysis between oil changes from your prior cars, you would have found that the oils were beat long before 15K, and in many cases beat or approaching it at 6-7K miles. Just like "lifetime" coolants, 12-15K oil changes are marketing myth; all automotive fluids have a limited life expextancy, some more than others. You are going to get 5-6K out of your oil, 4-5 years out of your coolant, and 2 years out of your brake fluid. And don't even get me started on Tiptronic or power steering fluid change intervals............ JFP - would you point me in the direction of the Tiptronic discussion? Very simple: Because of the design of the Tip, it is impossible to either totally drain the unit without removing it from the car and disassembling it, or to power flush it with a machine. As the result, you can only drain about 4.8 qts of fluid out of it, or roughly half of its total capacity. That means if you follow Porsche's maintenance schedule for it, after 90K miles, you are still going to leave roughly one half of the dirty old fluid in it. Having opened up Tips for service long before 90K, we often found fluid that was already ink black and sometimes smelling pretty bad as well, along with clutch dust debris in the pan. While many have adhered to the factory recommendations and not had problems, continuing to run the trans with this crud in it strikes me as a bad idea, particularly when you realize the money involved in replacing a Tiptronic, so we started experimenting with shortening the fluid change cycles (fluid is cheap, Tip repairs or replacements are not). For daily drivers that accumulate high annual mileage, we drain and replace the fluid and filter very 25-30K miles. On some severe use cases, we shorten the fluid change cycle to once every year. On occasional use cars that see very low annual mileage (we have a customer with a 2001 Boxster that only has 7,000 total miles on it), we do a fluid service every fourth year. Using this approach, you are regularly refreshing at least half the fluid in the trans, as well as draining off the accumulated crud the collects in the system. To help keep costs under control, we schedule the fluid changes when the cars are in for normal engine oil change service (the car is already up in the air, and it only takes a moment or two to pull the drain plug on the Tip while you are at it) so the additional time is reduced to a minimum level. Has it made a difference? We think so. With the total numbers of Tiptronic cars rather low compared to the manual trans cars, the data looks compelling. We used to be changing out Tip valve bodies and solenoid plates more frequently than we do now, and we also noted that the fluid and filters for regularly serviced cars look one Hell of a lot better than they used to at 90K.

I would not be overly concerned about not running the break-in oil first, as I mentioned, that is more for severe cases where the noise may also be related to varnish or crud build up due to slack maintenance. Don't be annoyed at how sensitive the car it to oils, be annoyed with the oil companies for making significant changes to oil formulations without telling anyone, and the oil and OEM marketing departments for creating long change interval fibs. And if you collected oil samples for analysis between oil changes from your prior cars, you would have found that the oils were beat long before 15K, and in many cases beat or approaching it at 6-7K miles. Just like "lifetime" coolants, 12-15K oil changes are marketing myth; all automotive fluids have a limited life expectancy, some more than others. You are going to get 5-6K out of your oil, 4-5 years out of your coolant, and 2 years out of your brake fluid. And don't even get me started on Tiptronic or power steering fluid change intervals............

And the moral of the story is that you should have purchased the MAF from Sunset............ :oops:

I have only about 1000 miles on it since the switch to DT40, so this isn't an entirely informed point of view. Switching does seem to have helped. I haven't had the rattle appear again. And car sat for a week through the recent "Hercules" snow storm and subsequent polar vortex temperature dips. When I started it up this morning, it ran fine, no rattle. Whether DT40 mitigates the cold start rattle or not (I am reading that it does), I am a believer in it now. The car runs and "feels" soo much smoother. I have actually never truly felt a significant difference by switching oil brands and forumlas in all the vehicles I have owned over the years. But I can feel the positive difference with DT40. Did you run the JG "breakin oil" thru it first like flat 6 recommends or just switch directly to the DT40? curious what folks think about that requirement? Running the break in oil first both cleans out any residual of the old oil, and exposes the engine to a lubricant with both very high ZDDP levels (well beyond even the DT40) and high detergency additives (also common in break-in oils), so the engine would be both cleaned out and well lubricated before going to the DT40. While this is an optimal sequence, it is both expensive and time consuming (the break-in oil is only run for a short period), and is typically reserved for engine's with signs of build up issues (ticking lifters, strong start up noise, etc.). Usually, just a full drain and refill with the DT40 can work wonders all by itself on an engine that is other wise fine.

It sounds like you have a bad motor or transmission mount. Not uncommon.

What you are describing is very similar to a leak down test, which would be what most competent shops would do next, as well as checking the codes. A leak down provides a direct reading of the percentage loss of seal for the cylinder; anything much more than about 10% would mean dropping the engine for a further look. You could also bore scope the cylinder at the same time, again looking for anything out of the ordinary.

It totally depends upon how much oil has gotten into the intake. We have pulled the throttle body off a car that was still smoking intermittently more than 1,000 mile after someone had replaced the AOS and dropped a bore scope down the runners, when we showed the owner what was still in there, he had us pull the intake and clean it. Not all blown AOS lead to severe oiling of the intake; it depends how bad the AOS was, and how long the car was driven that way. A car that had a sudden but recent failure may have only a slight amount of oil in the system, but even that can take a lot of miles to clean out. Thanx JFP. I would assume that if enough oil was introduced into the intake to cause serious trouble that the oil level in the crankcase would drop enough to be noticeable on our stupid electronic gauges. Might the best approach be to monitor your oil level closely? The combination of persistent smoking and an oil level drop should certainly raise concern and a flat bed ride. When the AOS totally fails and the vacuum jumps from 5 inches of water to over 20 inches, it can start pulling a lot of oil very quickly. And, as oil is not at all compressible, any volume larger than that of one cylinder head combustion chamber and piston valve relief volume (combined less than 100CC total) is enough to be fatal to the engine in one revolution. If that happens, neither the driver or the dash display would be able to react fast enough to be useful. So if it starts smoking, the safe bet is a flat bed. Thanx JFP, You should be a doctor. You have the hang of negating any risk. Now, all of my cars have smoked initially on start up. This usually clears in 30 seconds or so. How would you differentiate between this and pathologic smoking. Excuse me for being dim witted but I have never had a car do this to me (hopefully never). The car just starts smoking on the road?? How do people usually notice thay have a problem?? I have seen old cars that have a severe oil burning issue (bad rings?) and they puff blue white smoke most noticable at a stop. If I were driving along on the highway at 80 miles an hour and my AOS went what would I happen?? (other than hydrolock and bent connecting rods) OK, just about everyone knows that horizontally opposed engine designs like Porsche puff a little smoke now and then at start up; we laughingly call it "a feature of the car", and so it is. The difference is that when the AOS starts on its way out, the start up smoke tends to become more of a regular occurrence rather than the once in a while thing. The smoke also tends to become more pronounced at start up and lasts longer. When the AOS really gets bad, the smoke becomes a more frequent occurrence, usually at times other than start up, and very pronounced during high manifold vacuum (e.g.: steady cruise, downshifting as you approach a corner or stop light, etc.) when it can look like you are spraying for mosquitos, and sometimes accompanied by what driver's call a shrill squealing sound coming from the engine. These are definite signs the AOS is toast. In your hypothetical "driving at 80 miles an hour", the loss of the AOS would result in you not being able to see anything but white smoke in your review mirror. Fortunately, you can quickly check to see if the AOS is going away. The easiest test is to try and remove your oil fill cap while the car is idling (a high manifold vacuum period), if the cap comes off and the car's idle drops off or becomes rough, the AOS is fine. But if the cap is very difficult to remove (as sign of very high vacuum in the sump), the AOS is going or gone. A more scientific approach would be to buy a spare oil cap and a 0-30 inches of water vacuum gauge (about $25-35) and mate the two by drilling the cap to accept the gauge and using a little epoxy to seal them together. A good AOS would show about 5 inches of vacuum or less at and idle, a bad one would be more in the 20-25 inches of vacuum range. We built a couple of these for the shop to test every car we work on; you would be surprised how often we catch an AOS in the early stages of "buying the farm".

I would have to speculate on that as prices vary around the country, but I would think somewhere in the $150-200 (without PAG oil) would be about right.

Left in that condition, the system needs to be flushed out and start over from scratch. Too risky to do otherwise. You can drive the car with the system assembled and uncharged, as long as the system is switched off so that the compressor does not try to run at any time. I don't mean to sound discouraging, but with these systems there is one correct way, and an unlimited litany of wrong ways to do it. Done right, the system will run trouble free, done wrong it will be an unending heart ache.

I hate to answer your question by asking more, but in this case it is required. I also think once you consider what is involved, you may want to leave this to a pro. When the shop removed the condenser, did they somehow cap off or seal the system, or just leave it open to the environment? Did they remove any other AC components at the same time? Reason I ask is two fold: If the system has been left open for a prolonged period, you need to be flushing the remaining oil out of the system and starting fresh, which is going to require additional flushing tools and special solvents to do that step correctly, as well as access to a supply of dry inert gas (nitrogen is fine) to blow through the system after the oil and solvent are out, and both the solvent and oil are classified as hazardous waste, so they must be disposed of properly. If you can get access to the original 13 volume Porsche service manual set for the car, there is an entire volume dedicated to the AC system. When the system has been run, the oil is distributed through the various components. A full system oil charge of oil is 195+/-15 cc's, but once run the oil is kind of everywhere in the system hardware. You can also loose as much as 15-40 cc of the oil just by evacuating the system prior to recharge. Porsche has a chart of what amount of oil to expect to find in various items; in the case of the condensers, each would hold about 20 cc of oil (now you know why I asked if they touched anything else). You also do not know how much total oil was lost if the system vented in the accident itself. And the total oil volume is critical, so it must be correctly adjusted, or preferably totally replaced. You should also replace the system drier; these are single use devices and need to be replaced anytime the system is opened up by component removal. Once the system is back together, you need to pull and hold a high vacuum on it, both to remove any residual moisture and to leak test it before recharging. The system should take approximately 850gm of R134A to recharge. The Porsche manuals I mentioned earlier have charts relating ambient air temperatures to the temp of the AC coming out of the center dash vents that will confirm the system is operating normally, as wells as charts for the high and low side pressures at the same ambient temperature. None of this is particularly difficult to do, but it does require access to required tooling and technical resources that are often not easily found.

It totally depends upon how much oil has gotten into the intake. We have pulled the throttle body off a car that was still smoking intermittently more than 1,000 mile after someone had replaced the AOS and dropped a bore scope down the runners, when we showed the owner what was still in there, he had us pull the intake and clean it. Not all blown AOS lead to severe oiling of the intake; it depends how bad the AOS was, and how long the car was driven that way. A car that had a sudden but recent failure may have only a slight amount of oil in the system, but even that can take a lot of miles to clean out. Thanx JFP. I would assume that if enough oil was introduced into the intake to cause serious trouble that the oil level in the crankcase would drop enough to be noticeable on our stupid electronic gauges. Might the best approach be to monitor your oil level closely? The combination of persistent smoking and an oil level drop should certainly raise concern and a flat bed ride. When the AOS totally fails and the vacuum jumps from 5 inches of water to over 20 inches, it can start pulling a lot of oil very quickly. And, as oil is not at all compressible, any volume larger than that of one cylinder head combustion chamber and piston valve relief volume (combined less than 100CC total) is enough to be fatal to the engine in one revolution. If that happens, neither the driver or the dash display would be able to react fast enough to be useful. So if it starts smoking, the safe bet is a flat bed.

It would still be very useful to know what the codes are before going further.

It totally depends upon how much oil has gotten into the intake. We have pulled the throttle body off a car that was still smoking intermittently more than 1,000 mile after someone had replaced the AOS and dropped a bore scope down the runners, when we showed the owner what was still in there, he had us pull the intake and clean it. Not all blown AOS lead to severe oiling of the intake; it depends how bad the AOS was, and how long the car was driven that way. A car that had a sudden but recent failure may have only a slight amount of oil in the system, but even that can take a lot of miles to clean out.

JFP, just wondering. What would happen if you blew a bunch of combustible solvent into the intake before starting the engine, say ether. Could you not at least partially dissolve the oil? Once it gets down there the engine should burn it just fine. My car always smokes for about 30 seconds on start up. I was told this was due to oil residue getting trapped in horizontal cylinders. Problem with blowing solvent into the intake is that it has to collect somewhere, like in the cylinders where it takes all the oil off the walls, which can cause scoring, or it collect in the oil sump. Either way, not good Excuse me JFP I should have been more specific. Using a spray can of ether, spraying enough for the vapor to just wet the walls of the intake then immediately starting the car. Not spraying so much that a significant amount could collect above the intake valve. This is another one of those how fast is fast enough questions. Problem remains that the amount of oil that builds up in the intake over a relatively short time is considerable, you can wipe it off the runner walls with your fingers and can often find little pools in places. There have been instances where a blown AOS has actually sucked enough liquid oil into the intake system to flood cylinders and cause a hydraulic lock to occur which bends or breaks very expensive parts. This is why we tell people with cars billowing smoke not to drive them, flatbed them to the shop. So with the potential for this amount of oil getting into the intake, I think you can understand I might be hesitant to believe that introducing a spray into the intake is going to clean it out on an assembled and running engine. We do use spray cleaners on the intake, but after it is off the car.........

JFP, just wondering. What would happen if you blew a bunch of combustible solvent into the intake before starting the engine, say ether. Could you not at least partially dissolve the oil? Once it gets down there the engine should burn it just fine. My car always smokes for about 30 seconds on start up. I was told this was due to oil residue getting trapped in horizontal cylinders. Problem with blowing solvent into the intake is that it has to collect somewhere, like in the cylinders where it takes all the oil off the walls, which can cause scoring, or it collect in the oil sump. Either way, not good.

This does not sound overly well. While the lack of compression is most probably a mechanical rather than an electronic issue, I would not be running the engine and would get the vehicle scanned with a Porsche specific diagnostics tool (PIWIS or Durametric) to find out what codes are triggering the MIL. To make a long story short, if you have suffered a mechanical failure, the engine is most likely going to have to come out.

It is not at all uncommon for there to be residual oil and smoke after replacing a blown AOS. Problem is that over a period of time, a failing AOS can coat a lot of surfaces in the intake system with oil, which does not go away quickly. Some owners have had to resort to manually cleaning out their intakes to eliminate this problem. Not a fun job, but if the amount of oil is considerable, it may be you only option other than living with the smoke until the residual oil eventually vaporizes.

If it was installed by a dealer in 2009, it has the last design IMS bearing.

You can also use cheap and readily available "rattle can" underbody coatings or bed liner materials, which a flexible plastic spray on material that can later be stripped off.

my 997-2 turbo s is a 2011 model. I have reviewed all the 997-2 turbo tutorials and can not find an answer as to how to change the air filter [which I assume is easy] or how to change the coolant. Air filter: Open your engine lid. 1. Pull the air cover straight up (1 hand on each of the openings and just pull up gently). 2. It will reveal the air filter. Air filter is held in with 4 Torx screws. Unscrew and pull air filter out. 3. Replace air filter. Re-install the 4 screws, and reinstall the air cover. The coolant is a bit more involved. With the car up in the air, you need to locate the two small coolant drain plugs on the bottom of the water necks (one is seen in the top center of this photo): Once the plugs are out, you should also disconnect the hoses going forward to the radiators and up to the heater core so that they can drain as well. Expect to only get about 70-80% of the coolant out with a straight gravity drain; there are several places it can get trapped and simply will not drain from. Once all the coolant that can drain off is out, replace the plugs and hoses. Because of the complexity of the cooling system on this car, I strongly recommend refilling the system with OEM coolant mixed in equal parts with distilled water, and doing it with a vacuum filling tool.

Suggest contacting Charles Navarro at LN Engineering, I'm sure he will be able to help you out.