Cloudsurfer

There is PLENTY of info to be had on this forum with regards to how to go about this. Since you car is an 03, you have a 7.8 DME. You will not have to change DME's to run a 3.6 or 3.8, but you will need to reflash it to the proper 996 software and add 4 wires to your wiring harness to handle the valve lift solenoids. Otherwise, you just need to lower the front and rear mounts a hair and the motor will fit right in. You will need to fabricate up an intake, and run a Cayman exhaust (to take advantage of the larger exhaust ports on the newer motors). The bigger issue I see with your particular situation is that your car is an automatic, and I'm not that you really want to try adding a ton of power to that transmission (to the best of my knowledge, no one has tried this before). As to your motor, if it had an IMS failure, the motor is junk. The case halves are probably salvageable, but there is probably so much metal in the oil, that to do a rebuild, you'd have to go with a completely new IMS assembly, all new liters, VarioCam vane cells, in addition to the usual bearings, seals, fasteners, etc. which gets expensive in a hurry. As to if the motor is worth anything or not, no one really wants a 2.7, so it's more or less scrap.

I'm not terribly impressed. The flange appears cast, which is never a sign of a "cost no object" part (and if priced at $1700, it **** well better be). Further, I do not see why the flange have rivets in it. This "triple seal" that is so highly touted by its maker appears to just be a newer, factory seal. Then, the hex cap fasteners holding the second bearings. Exactly how is there supposed to be a calibrated amount of "play" between the two bearings such that when the primary fails it allows the timing to shift "just enough" to trigger a CEL? Since these both appear to be open bearings, and that given that the secondary one would be DEEP within the IMS tube, how exactly are these supposed to get lubrication? I think I'll stick to the LN idea, and just replace it every time the gearbox is off.

Well, unfortunately, to replace the chains you need to split the cases, which means tearing the entire engine down, so that's not going to be an option. Keep in mind that the deviation value is actually a computed value. What's better is to compare the actual camshaft values that the DME commands vs the camshaft values as reported from the hall sensor. You should be able to read this for both banks.

I think this is the step that I missed.

It is the correct cluster. I will try either coding the DME and/or doing "Sports Car Delivery" to see if that solves this.

I purchased a "brand new" cluster off eBay (knew this deal was too good to be true at $300), and turns out it's not brand new, but rather has 11,000 miles on it. Either way, it's past the 250 mile mark where I can't re-code the mileage. What are the options to re-code the mileage on this thing these days? Also, when attempting to code the cluster through my PST2, it says "coding only possible after automatic search" or something similar. I did allow the PST to automatically search all modules in the car, and I can see the cluster info, but it will not let me code it. The coding seems correct for my use (996 C2 Cab), but now the CDR23 radio is stuck in "protect" mode. What am I missing? Finally, the cluster showed up without the two "pegs" used to re-set the odometer and adjust the clock. How can these be replaced? Other than all that, the cluster is perfect :)

Could be slack in one of the timing chains. The tensioners are hydraulic, so at idle when the engine has the least oil pressure, it's possible the chain isn't tight enough, and is "slapping" a bit. However, whenever I've had the tensioners out of these things, even static, they have a pretty significant amount of pressure, so perhaps if one of the tensioners went bad that could cause this. Might consider wear of the ramps themselves as well, though I've town down M96 engines with close to 100k on them and the ramps looked almost new. Unfortunately, the tensioner at the right rear is for the 4-6 bank, and that one is the least fun to get to, as its buried under the A/C compressor. If you want to entertain pulling a tensioner, it is IMPERATIVE that you put the engine at TDC, and since your motor is an early VarioCam motor, you don't HAVE to lock the cams with the timing tools (though it's still a good idea). It IS possible to have one bad lifter, and these people have had to put lifters into these motors before. Obviously, if one comes out, it'd be wise to replace all, at least on the bank. Have you looked at the oil? Might not be a bad idea to drain the oil and cut open the filter and just make sure it's not making metal.....

What is the ball park price of a refurbished engine (eg for 996 3.4 L)and that of a new engine from Porsche. Thanks.. You can get a rebuilt as cheap as 6k... but who knows what you are getting into. LA Dismantlers sells them, for example. I went with a rebuild from a reputable indy and paid just a hair more. Looking at the bill, most of the cost is labor, and about 1/3 in parts if I remember correctly. $3000 to $5000 is probably fair for labor on a rebuild of one of these. If yours comes apart, I wouldn't even consider doing it without having the IMS shaft upgraded by LN. Other than that, new bearings, seals, etc add up to more than you'd think. What's unfortunate, and ridiculous, is that Porsche has priced new piston rings at virtually $200 PER PISTON, so you're really better off just calling JE and ordering a piston set. When I had mine apart, I had LN sleeve the case halves thus making a 3.6 into a 3.8. Supposedly, there is now a way to wind up with a 4.0, but I'm not sure who is doing this and how they're getting the extra 200cc.

Porsche has actually upped the cost of their replacement engines, not lowered them. They were "cheap" for a while, but now they have gone up considerably, and sooner or later there will be no M96/M97 support. You're likely looking at $10,000 to $14,000 for a new engine, whether 3.6 or 3.8. Rebuild costs vary greatly, depending upon the level of rebuild. These engines are VERY labor intensive to build, and require some very odd tools, so there's really no way to do it cheap. Now, saying that a "pistonhead" is loose makes absolutely no sense. Internal combustion engines have cylinders, with pistons moving up and down inside of them, and a cylinder head that mounts to the top of the cylinder. These engines do have issues with cylinder heads cracking, but that does NOT involve replacing the whole engine. These also have failures of the cylinder walls, but if that was the case, you would not be driving the car still. So, something here does NOT add up at all. It is worth mentioning, that until you find out what exactly is going on here, that driving the car is not doing it any favors, as a problem that is allowed to get potentially worse may result in the actual damage being far greater. I would find an independent specialist, who has dealt with the M96 engine in a greater depth than changing the spark plugs, and try to find out what exactly is the cause of whatever is going on.

+1 on this. FANTASTIC stuff.

You're not giving us much to work with. Ask your mechanic what the cause of this "failure" is. The fact that you're being told you need a new engine, but you're driving the car around doesn't quite add up. As to what engine to install if you do need one, you can certainly install a 997 engine into the car, since yours being an 02, already has a 7.8 DME and VarioCam Plus, but why would you have been quoted LESS money to install the 997 engine than 996 replacement?

The rear wheel will be 2mm closer inboard than is "ideal" according to Porsche. More than likely, this will have zero practical effect. If needed, you can always use a thin spacer to push the wheel further outboard.

I'm not sure I understand your question? When changing wheel diameter, it is important to maintain the same (or reasonably similar) rolling diameter (the actual circumference of the outside of the tire). This is important for proper ABS/ PSM function, as well as speedometer and odometer accuracy. I'm not familiar with either of the wheels you mentioned, but if you post back with their dimensions (i..e 18x10, 18X8, etc.) and their offset (ET) we can help you. Typically the front will be an 18x8 or 19x8 or 8.5, ET50, while the rear will be 18x10 or 19x10 ET65 if a narrow body car, or 18x11 or 19x11 ET40 if a widebody. WIth tire size, it is important that the front and rear be close in rolling diameter so that the ABS/ PSM can function properly. You can go smaller or larger and obtain minor gearing differences, but will now suffer odometer and speedometer error. The common size is 225/40-18 and 265/35-18 or 285/30-18.

Both of my cars are running RoW (European) software. I happen to be in a state that does not have inspections, but as far as I understand, if your state does check for fault codes during an inspection, you will still pass. However, if you actually get smogged and/or have a visual inspection (i.e. California), that's going to be an issue.

I'm inclined to think that even at $400....this is worth confirming that the head isn't *#(@'ed before I go tearing cams out and what not. If the head checks out via borescope, swap out the vane cell unit and replace the sealing rings under the bearing sleeve and hope that fixes things. Obviously, if the head does turn out to be the problem, then, when the motor comes out I'm going to have a set of resurfaced 3.8 heads and cams and all ready to go on.

Welp, these guys: http://www.atlas-inspection.com/fiberscope-rentals.html have a .9mm scope for rental, at ONLY $415 a day!!!! (Sarcasm)

Touche!!

Looks like both places only rent 4mm scopes, and nothing smaller. I'd have to measure exactly, but I think 4mm is too big :(

Thank you for those links! I've been pondering where to even begin looking to rent something like that! Even my aircraft turbine mechanic friends don't have em that small.

I'm trying to source a tiny borescope (without coughing up $5k and buying one) to rule out the head BEFORE i pull the cams out. If it's a bad head, i'm going to jump on those 997 3.8 heads and swap both sides.

Ain't that the truth! Back on topic, does the consensus seem to be that this problem likely lies in the vane cell unit itself?

Well, found my borescope... http://www.gradientlens.com/bore_products-hpro_microflex.asp Yikes on the price!!!!

Charles- Thank you for taking the time to do this. I did some studying today myself of a vane type 3.2 Boxster engine and heads, and thoroughly studied the oil flow through the case up to the head and hydraulic solenoid. All of the oil feed to the heads is up through the head bolt bores, and then there are passages machined in the head in the bores to feed oil to wherever it has to go. In the case of the vane cell oil feed, it has its own feed from the upper head bolt nearest the adjuster. As you can see in the pictures I took, these passages are quite large, and there's really no way that anything could clog these up, and if any debris did get through (up from the bearing carrier), it would have lodged in the finger screen before the solenoid, which again, has been clean each time I've had it out. Further, since this oil comes off the bearing carrier, if there was any starvation issues they would have to be present at a main bearing journal, and if that was the case, the motor would have spun a bearing a LONG time ago. Examining the head gaskets, no matter how you put the gasket on, or what version of gasket was used, there'd be no way to partially plug up the feed hole, so I think that rules that possibility out. The 3.6 engine this all started with was intact, and had not suffered a failure, it was merely semi high mileage (75K or so). I did not source parts from several motors to complete this, nor did the motor blow up prior. However, maybe it is time to pull the cams from the engine and swap out vane cell adjusters. I would, however, like to find a way to inspect that oil passage in the head for damage (and obviously contamination), but I have no idea where to get a borescope that small. I don't think an RPM switch would work for this, as it needs multiple inputs. People have used that type of system to trigger the valve LIFT function, but that would not really work for the valve advance. There is no problem with the valve lift functionality. I have to assume, however, that when a tuner was writing a map for this thing, that the advance could easily be disabled below a certain RPM. Does anyone know of available of "normal" cams and solid lifters?

That was where my thinking was going until I did my little oil flow experiment yesterday. There was a marked difference in oil flow from the Bank 1 feed port to the Bank 2 feed port, so that would certainly seem to the culprit. If that's the case, I'm not sure it makes any sense to spend the time and PITA factor to pull the cams from Bank 1 and swap out vane cells, etc. On that topic, however, does anyone know if the 03 and later Boxster engines that use the vane cell use the same parts? I have not dug into PET yet to verify this. I have an 03 Boxster motor sitting here with a failed IMS bearing that I can harvest for parts, and had been entertaining the idea of swapping the vane cell guts over from that motor onto the affected side of the 3.8. While we're all brainstorming ideas, what options are out there for "normal" cams for these things? While I was building this thing, I had wet dreams about the possibility of fitting "normal" (no variocam BS) cams and solid lifters to this thing and letting it spin past 7K (the engine is all dynamically balanced to .1 gram, has JE pistons, R&R rods, so the bottom end is easily good for it). Obviously that would require some custom software so the DME wasn't super pissed about the non functioning VC+, but it sounds tempting. I also have access to a complete set of heads from a 997 S 3.8 engine that includes heads, cams, solenoids, etc so that may be an option, which I'm guessing may actually net a power advantage. Rather than mess around with possible culprits, if I'm going to pull the engine from the car, I want to know EXACTLY what I'm doing and that it will be close to a 100% solution BEFORE I do it. In thinking, I'm still inclined to think I could easily live with no variocam below 3000 RPM and just "fix" this via software. For the record, I have absolutely no animosity towards Charles or LN Engineering. He has been extremely helpful throughout this process, and I didn't think much of this problem, as before I started swapping parts out, was 99% sure it was just a bad solenoid. Oh how I wish that had been the case.... Now that we'r here, I just want some solution (and I'm open minded to all 3 scenarios I listed above, in addition to what anyone else can come up with) to get this thing running properly. The thing hauls serious A$$ from 3K up, and this issue only comes into play when you stop for a stoplight and have to accelerate off idle (and even then, if you just ease into it, it's perfectly fine, but if you push a little more, the DME asks for more advance, and then this problem shows itself), so I hate to go tearing things apart just to solve that. :(

Correct. As I understood it originally, I was getting back 3.4 cases that had been sleeved to 99mm, but after decoding the engine number on the cases, it turns out they are 2000 Boxster S 3.2 case halves. Hypothetically, this should not matter, but clearly, something isn't right. As stated, I have had to make modifications to the cases to interface with the VC+ heads, and I'm not 100% sold that is the end of it. The earlier chain tension based VarioCam is MUCH simpler than the vane cell based VarioCam Plus system is. Hypothetically, just to toss this idea out there, but what does the gang think of the idea of simply re-writing a software map for the DME to disable the valve phasing control below, say 2500 RPM, so that it would only actuate once there was sufficient pressure at that port? I realize this is a complete mickey mouse fix, but given that once the engine warms the only time it ever goes below that is when leaving a stoplight from idle, I would be more than happy to live with it. Charles- I am anxiously waiting to hear what you find.