JFP in PA

I hate to tell your local dealer this, but the OEM fill was a full synthetic product produced especially for Porsche to their specs, which because it is so unusual, had no GL rating. The OEM product is also the only product you should be using

No, that is actually the rear seal of the IMS bearing, but in a 996/997 it would be facing towards the front of the car. There is no oil, or should not be any oil, inside the shaft it self as there would be no way for it to get out; the IMS bearing is blocking that path. When the indicated seal is removed, there is still another seal on the other side of the bearing which seals off the inside of the IMS shaft. The bearing will be partially submerged in the normal sump oil capacity when the engine is not running, and oil will be splashing up between the IMS bering and flange when the engine is running, and is more than enough to lubricate the bearing.

The factory system has a link that reads the ground speed from the car's electronics that controls a relay which overrides the vacuum controls.

No, the quiet zone is between 28 and 42 MPH per the euro sound spec requirements.

These cars should not be flat towed, or towed by a boom style tow truck; flat bed transport only.

You need to pull the gearbox, clutch, and flywheel off the car, which will expose both the RMS and IMS flange. Here is an ugly but informative photo: The RMS replacement is straight forward, you just pull the old one out using a suitable pick, and install the latest PTFE version, being sure to set it to the correct depth from the face of the crank flange. As you will need to remove the IMS support flange, the engine will need to be locked at TDC with a pin, and the cams plugs need to be pulled and the cams locked before removing the three primary cam tensioners first. Then remove the IMS flange, which will expose the rear of the IMS bearing: Now use the same pick you used on the RMS to pop out the IMS rear seal. Reassemble and you are in business. There are several on-line tutorials on doing an IMS upgrade that will provide you with detailed step by step procedures, just follow one of them but leave out the IMS extraction and replacement steps. I would highly recommend using the LN Engineering procedure without short cutting any of the other steps: http://www.imsretrofit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/imsretrofit.pdf

Not sure that fits the turbo cars (they are different than the 996 cars), plus I don't see what advantage it would add for all that cash.

+1 The Metzger engine is a work of engineering art when compared to the M96/97 engine. Flog the Hell out of them and they keep coming back for more..........

As the bearing cannot easily be upgraded, removing the rear seal will allow continuous splash lubrication by the sump oil, eliminating the "trapped oil breakdown" pathway to bearing failure. We have several customers running this way with no problems.

Et un grand merci à vous aussi mon ami, et peut vous aussi un merveilleux week-end.

Certains s'accrochent plus serré que d'autres. The chain design changed between 2000 and 2001 model years (part number change, design was to reduce chain noise), but both were five chain styles; the three chain did not become prominent until model year 2003 for Boxsters and 2002 for the 996.

That is a possible, as with many things Porsche, it is not exactly clear when they switched chains, and I have never really tried to match the chain with the bearings style.

I know I am correct in what I said about the 2000-2001 cars, which proves the VarioCam+ explanation incorrect, and you also need to know that VIN numbers have proven basically useless in determining which bearing is in a given car, only the year of engine manufacture matters, and even then the 2000-2001 engines have to be visually checked for which IMS bearing style is in them as they used both. Plus you need to check the engine number for the letters "AT", which would indicate a replacement engine, which can potentially hold a different variation of the bearing depending upon the year it was remaned.

There are only two liquids in a 993 to burn, fuel or oil. High fuel problems (e.g.: Leaking injectors) would cause pungent black smoke; so it is probably oil.

I'm well aware of ROW car setups, the code you have says that sensor is the problem, either because the wiring harness leading to it is a problem, or the sensor itself is going south. You need to check the sensor and its harness.

Read my post directly above, as I noted, you probably have a bad O2 sensor, but you need to check it before replacing it...................................

Because this version of the engine utilized the OEM "final solution" oversized IMS bearing, you cannot replace it without dismantling the entire engine. You best bet here is to remove the rear IMS bearing seal and leave it at that.

Please do not "bump" your post, it is against forum rules..........

They were not so wrong with the initial double-row (996-1) and then decided to make it worse or very wrong with the single row (996-2). Capitalizing on both of these experiences; ie, being so-so wrong (D-Row) and then very wrong (S-Row), they then decided to be not so wrong with the larger S-Row (05 to 08 997); ie, not quite there, until 09 when they got rid of the IMS. It is what made the Porsche engineers go to a S-Row from a D-Row in 2001 that really leaves me perplexed!? What were they thinking ...? Hence so far, dumb and happy with a D-Row! The switch to a single row was a result of moving to Variocam +. This necessitated a slightly longer IM shaft, hence the smaller bearing. I'm afraid that is not correct; many 2000 and 2001 cars came from the factory with single row bearings, and they are all VarioCam, not VarioCam+ cars.......................

I don't think you are going to be able to get at it with the car assembled.

As Loren noted, cycling the ABS/PSM systems is only required if you have replaced major components in the ABS or PSM system, or gotten air into them; otherwise it is not necessary. Even dealerships do not cycle these systems during a flush unless specifically needed.

Hello. My 996tt's crank pulley has gotten loose lately. It fell off and I had to DIY screw it back with the help of my nephew right on the street. We removed the tensioner pulley and screwed the bolt back with a regular wrench. The bolt got a bit damaged, so we filed it a bit to restore the grooves. I was able to drive back to my parking place, expecting to take the car to get serviced later, however yesterday I decided to replace the battery (it died afterwards) and when I started the car and drove it around the parking I heard loud squeaking. Then the 'charge' light went on, steering became heavy: the pulley was loose once again, but I was able to catch the moment: I shut the engine off and the pulley did not fall off, but the crank bolt was loose -- I could see it thru the air filter. I have already gotten a new crank pulley bolt and the cylindrical locking pin also. I am not going to service the car myself, but I have a few questions and I want to make sure the mechanic does it right. 1. What's the deal with the cylindrical pin? It's mentioned in the service manual and there is a cavity for it in the crankshaft and the pulley, but the pin is not shown on PIWIS PET page for 996 turbo engine, only for 996 GT3. Is it supposed to be there, actually? I don't know if it was there originally, since it might have just gotten lost: I haven't found it in the engine compartment. 2. The 996tt service manual does mention the pin, and it also states the bolt has to be tightened to 170 Nm. Does that mean no glue/loctite is to be used? There was no trace of glue on the old bolt. I would appreciate any comment on this, please. The pin is a locking pin that goes through the belt pulley, and it is put in before torqueing the center bolt. The OEM manual does not call for Loctite on the center bolt, but a dab of the red stuff would be a very good idea:

From the sounds of the way the shaft looks, I would not hesitate to replace it as it sounds like someone has done some "creative" repairs at some point in time, and may have modified or swapped parts from another engine. That said, you may have to shorten the shaft you have to give you clearance for the end plug, and either re-Helicoil the end, or weld it up and re-machine it to the correct size; but I would have to wager that would end up costing more than sourcing a replacement.

Thanks! that clears up one concern of mine! JFP, do you see situations where several coils fail causing BOTH near undriveable condition as well as wet plugs in all cylinders? I guess the other thing i should mention is i only drove the car maybe 200 ft before checking the plugs.....maybe it didn't run long enough and the plugs were all wet simply because it only ran for 30 seconds? Coils generally fail individually, but because of the general difficulty in getting at them on some models (like the 996 Turbo cars), owners often opt to swap them all out just because they do not want to revisit the problem next week. In your case, you may not have allowed the car to get up to temp, resulting in wet plugs.

Hopefully this isn't the case....my thought it isn't since sometimes it would run clean....but only for short periods of time. Don't expect to find a bad coil with cracks or other outwards signs of problems. We get cars in all the time with misfires that trace to the coil packs; when extracted, the coil packs look fine, they just don't work properly. Nature of the beast.....