JFP in PA

Be careful using a torch around the alloy heads, you can permanently soften the alloy with too much heat.

This is a holiday weekend here (Good Friday, Easter Sunday), and some forums tend to see less traffic over holidays.

Normally, the third tensioner is not a problem and does not have to come out, but every once in a while, after pulling the first two, the flange cover refuses to budge, and then the third tensioner has to come out.

Welcome to RennTech :welcome: I am troubled by the sloshing sound you describe, which sounds like the system still has air in it. Once filled (without any air pockets), these engines should not need daily or even monthly coolant top ups; either the coolant is going somewhere, or the system was never fully filled. A quick test to either put your mind at ease about the possibility of a major mechanical problem would be to have your cooling system tested for the presence of combustion by products. This is done by using a special system to extract the vapor above the coolant in the tank into a device that contains a liquid that changes color in the presence of combustion by products: If you get the color change, something is given way inside the engine and you need to address that; no color change and the problem lies elsewhere. The test takes about 5 min. to run and is very accurate.

Use the blue (medium strength) Loctite, not the red. You need to follow the LN IMS retrofit procedures to the letter (no short cuts): http://lnengineering.com/files/IMSR-Instruction-Warranty.pdf You will need to pull the two rear tensioners as described in step #7 before even attempting to pull the IMS flange cover. The object of removing the two tensioners is to release the chain tension on the bearing before the cover is removed. If this is not done properly, the shaft will jump to one side, making the bearing extraction and reinstallation impossible.

It is not a matter of being common knowledge, it is the factory's procedure for checking cam deviation values on this particular engine.

A fully warmed engine has always been part of the correct procedure for running cam deviation values. All of the control systems (chain tensioners, VarioCam units, etc.) in these engines are hydraulically operated which mandates a steady state temperature for both the oil and the components before the system is in its nominal running configuration.

Thanks Ashai, nice looking kit there. In my case, only VarioCam pads get replaced. All the other components remain the same. So putting the sprocket back to where it was can not make things worse, IMO. The engine ran fine with the sprocket at that given location. New vario pads should only tighten things a little bit. I still may try out the procedure I outlined in my previous post, will see how it goes. I agree with Ahsai on this one, cam timing is a precision sport; you simply cannot "eye ball" relative component positions and expect to be successful. You need the correct tools and to use procedures, as being "almost" correct can get very expensive quickly.

I have no direct experience with them, but perhaps another board member does.

Also add a dab of high temperature silicone based brake grease, or a little anti seize, inside the piston bore and in its face and it will never happen again.

Basically, cam deviation values represent how far off ideal the camshaft rotational position is in relation to the crankshaft rotational position. In these engines, the actual cam timing position on a running engine is complicated by the use of multiple chains driving the system at half crankshaft rotational speed, which are held in tension by hydraulic tensioners, and the use of hydraulic operated variable cam timing systems (VarioCam, VarioCam +) which allow the cams to advance or retard themselves in relation to the crank position at different engine speeds. As the result, the actual cam position may not always be ideal (zero degrees of deviation). The factory sets the allowed deviation from ideal to be +/- 6 degrees, but the DME will not throw a related code until the cams get much further out of position. As a point worth noting, you should never run cam deviation values on an engine that is not completely warmed up (driven for about 20 min. prior to testing). Cold engine tests can be very misleading. As you have the manual, you should also note that correctly reallocating the cams requires some special tooling to accomplish, and while time consuming, is not overly difficult.

And most of the Porsche GT & Cup cars do as well, and yet many of them do not run Mobil products, but do want the sponsorship $. When I raced, whosever's spark plugs, oil, tires, coolant, or whatever was paying the most money was on the side of the car; what was in the car was another story. It is all about money, period. I remember one event that was being sponsored by a pet food company; I had large dog food decals on both sides of the car, and I don't even own a dog.

The usual factory warranty was two years, so it is long over. As it was done in 05, it is most likely the oversized IMS version which cannot be upgraded without tearing the engine apart. Many "AT" engines were done by dealers, but some were also done by independent shops. If you dealer cannot find it in the car's service records, it was done outside the dealership network.

I always thought that placement for an access/vent was strange, some other makes use two or three horizontal slits that a mouse would have a hard time getting through. On the Boxsters, there are a couple of smaller openings near the very top of the bell housing, plus two small ones on the very bottom, none of which are that sized, but I would guess a determined mouse could still get in there. God knows they get everywhere else in these cars when they are in storage.

They are the same. Vermin storing lunch has got to be a new one to add to the books. This opening, right? IMG_4173 (Medium).JPG Yup, here's a 997 gearbox:

They are the same. Vermin storing lunch has got to be a new one to add to the books.

I don't see a leak, just a lot of accumulated dirt. What are you referring to?

Short of having the car scanned by the PIWIS, call your dealer and ask them if the version they last installed in the latest.

Not really. Pretty much all the dealer "fixes" have been software based to date. Are you sure your car has the latest version?

There is no real "average" life expectancy for the 3.4L engine; we have customers well over 200K, while others have had to change engines much sooner, and several of those were due to IMS failures. Besides specific component related failures, how long one of these will run depends a lot more on how they have been maintained and used. As for which type of IMS bearing to retrofit, consider this: With 2000-2001 cars, you need to pull the car apart to know which style bearing you are dealing with. And as Porsche does not sell replacement bearings, but only assembled shafts (which require a total engine teardown to install), you are limited to what is available in the aftermarket. And while there are suppliers of "an OEM like" single row steel bearing, if your engine is a dual row, you would have to use the single row bearing with a spacer, which would mean you are replacing the strongest known design with the weakest. If your car is a single row, and you replaced it with the aftermarket "OEM like" steel bearing, the moment your car touches the ground, you have the exact same odds of suffering a future failure as you did when you jacked it up. But if you used a ceramic hybrid bearing (LN Engineering), regardless of bearing type, while costs a bit more, your odds of going another 100K just got a whole lot better. With components like the IMS bearings, which can cause catastrophic failures, you really do get what you pay for. You can pull just the Tip on the ground, but you will need to get the car as high as possible and you will need a trans jack. Many find it actually quicker to drop the engine and trans as a package, but you can pull the Tip by itself. How much time it is going to take depends a lot on how you are equipped, as well as how talented a wrench you are. Going non stop, by yourself and on the ground, drive up to drive off is going to be about ten to twelve hours for most, but that would assume you have the replacement bearing on hand, which in you case isn't going to happen as you won't know what you are dealing with until the car is apart. On that basis, I would suggest planning for two weekends.

Ok, but I am not sure what that means. Is it an "AT" engine?

Unfortunately, these displays are well known for doing this, and as Porsche does not supply just the display, many are forced to buy a replacement instrument cluster. On possibility is ModuleMaster (http://modulemaster.com/rebuilds/) who specialize in rebuilding these displays. Good luck, this is never a fun project.

I would check for the action of the o2 sensors before and after the cats. Specifically, you are looking for one sensor to draw a straight voltage trace, while the other on the same side cycles in a sine ware like curve. This is a descritption of what you should see, and while it is for a Boxster, the principal is the same for your vehicle:

I was referring to his following comment more so than the typo: " my new Durometric scanner appears faulty because I am able to read values but not able to activate many of the functions. e.g. the cam solenoids because the tool becomes unresponsive and locks up (with Windows 10 laptop), so I'll have to get back on the phone with tech support today"

Duncan, I completely agree with your perspective, but I can also understand where Durametric is coming from. They do have a bug reporting program, which I and I am sure others have used in the past, finding Durametric receptive to the observation, and saw the problem fixed in subsequent updates. And I have spoken with Owen Sutton on more than one occasion, and always found him to be very helpful and interested. Unfortunately, they, much like Jake Raby and LN Engineering, have started to place some distance between themselves and the general public on some technical support issues simply because they have begun to view some problems as "end user induced" that end up needlessly consuming time and resources in a "no win" situation from their perspective. And not to disparage GCP or his efforts in getting the system to work, but very similar situations crop up from time to time that do not play out well for anyone involved, and leave me scratching my head. Another Porsche site that I frequent recently had a long time member buy the Durametric system, and not be able to get it to work successfully. He also tried it on multiple computers before sending the cable back as "defective". In this case, Durametric tested the cable and said that it checked out fine, but instead of returning it, sent the purchaser an brand new unit (which they said they tested before shipment), and which he also was unable to get to work, again trying multiple computers without success (all of this was posted in a very long thread on the site). Totally disgusted, the purchaser then publicly completely bitched out Durametric, and then sold the system to another board member for a fraction of what he had paid for it. The new owner installed the system on his laptop, and it worked perfectly on the very first attempt; he even offered the original purchaser a chance to come over and use it. So sometimes these problems are not as crystal clear as they might seem. When we recently converted the shop computers over from Windows 7 to Windows 10, our Durametric system completely stopped working. A phone call to Durametric, and we were told "common problem, uninstall and reinstall the latest version of the software and you will be fine." We did, and it did.