JFP in PA

Bad scenario. The car, as a "roller" (read dead engine) is only worth a couple grand, even in near perfect condition. And don't even consider trying to break the car up and sell it for parts as that usually does not work out well as a DIY. Probably the optimum solution is to source a used but good engine from a wreck and have that installed; then you would have a serviceable used car if you wanted to sell it. Depending upon your location and the style engine in the car, you would be spending a few thousand for the used engine and a couple grand more to do the swap. Still not cheap, but better than having a lawn ornament, and it would have much better resale or trade value to help recoup the outlay.

The factory caliper bolt should be a M12X1.5X72.

Obviously, Jake sees a lot more engines completely disassembled than we do, so I would be the last to refute his observations, plus there are many instances we are aware of that ultimately turned out to be confirmed cylinder issues on the M96/97 engines. He does have a valid point about cold start induced wear, particularly on engines that continue to run lower film strength 0W-40 oils as most engine wear occurs during cold start and warm up when these oils are at their weakest levels of wear protection, and the cars are often just cold started and then immediately driven without any real warm up period. If you are concerned that Jake may be correct, I would pull the plugs and bore scope the cylinders looking for signs of unusual thrust side wear patterns, which are often quite obvious even to the untrained observer. For clarification, when you said "the cars are often just cold started and then immediately driven without any real warm up period." this was talking about when people went past 3000rpms while the engine/oil is cold? While RPM's will obviously exacerbate the problem, the real issue is a combination of the design, plus the efforts by all of the OEM's to convince people that it is perfectly fine to start a dead cold engine in the winter and then just drive off. While the OEM's want to max out the CAFE potential by not allowing the car to idle a bit to warm up, the pistons and the cylinders expand under heat at differing rates, the DFI tends it increase cylinder "wash" when cold, and the "preferred" oil is low in film strength. Not a good combination for longevity.

If the plug tubes leak, normally I would expect to see oil seepage on the cylinder heads, and would definitely expect to see oil on the coil packs when removed.

It all has to do with the combination of the very low piston ring tension found in these engines, and deposit build up. DFI injection systems utilize very high fuel pressure to obtain atomization in the combustion chamber, and any change in the spray pattern can significantly alter how the car runs. One of the unfortunate side effects of having an injector inside the chamber is that you can get build up on the injector tip, which can alter it spray pattern and there by reduce its efficiency. The occasional use of a high dose of a quality product like Techron helps to clean the injectors, and at the same time removes any build up in ring lands of the pistons and on the low tension rings themselves as well, promoting better sealing, and reduced oil usage. A lot of old time mechanics used to tell customers to give their car's an "Italian tune up", basically take the car out and beat the Hell out of it to "clean it out". Techron does that without the probability of getting a ticket at the same time.

Pulley or idlers, water pump, power steering pump.

The use of fuel system cleaners like Techron can remove carbon and other build up off pistons, rings, and valves, improving seal and overall performance. That said, a lot of what the additive removes ends up in the oil, so we normally suggest using Techron in the last tank of fuel before you do an oil change.

Rather than spray it with WD 40, which will attract dirt, spray it with DuPont dry Teflon spray which coats it with a Teflon lubricant that remains dry and won't attract any dirt.

There have also been reports of wiring from something like a radar detector that passes near the sensor throwing it off as well.

While the Durametric is always a good buy, it is entirely possible that the momentary PSM activation is nothing more than the direct result of your "grip check". Sudden yaw motions induced by "dropping the hammer" can activate the sensors in the PSM system, which will turn on the MIL momentarily. While the Durametric system can do a lot of things, I do not believe it can recode your rain sensor system wipe frequency. Coding at that level requires a PIWIS, and even then some things are pre set parameters that cannot be altered.

Sorry, but I can't work with a partial code, I need the full code to help start chasing down what is happening.

It looks like you may have a cam allocation issue. P0011 sets if the cam deviations on bank 1 are more than +/- 10 degrees (all the other codes are cylinder misfires). Before digging deeper, try hand rotating the engine (clockwise only) around to TDC again and see if the cams look the same, if they are, you need to start looking at why the cams are so far off, with an eye towards correcting the problem and reallocating the cams.

If the AOS were going, the vacuum level in the oil sump would be so high that the cap would not easily come off. What code(s) did you have?

If you think your AOS is failing, try removing the oil fill cap with the car idling; if the cap comes off with minor effort the AOS is OK, if it is very hard to get off, the AOS is toast.

Porsche had the same composite impeller issues, and still do. But when they tried metal impellers, the results were worse, so they went back to composites and stayed there. Water pumps are now considered a consumable and should be replaced on mileage or age rather than waiting until they fail. This also applies to their cars as well as the SUV's.

We are not talking about auto-up, but rather how the windows on a cab work in conjunction with the top release micro switch.

Even Porsche tried metal impellers, and then went back to composite. Problem is that all water pump shafts will wear and will start to wobble over time. If the metal impeller is very close to the case (as it should be), it will tear it up pretty badly. And beside the damage to the engine case, there is now a much larger space between the impeller and the case, reducing the efficiency of the pump even if the case is not destroyed. Bad idea all around.

It is always a good idea to start looking at the last thing(s) touched.

On your car, they are accessible from above with the engine still in the car, but there is a lot of stuff in the way, like the power steering reservoir, parts of the intake, and the AC compressor, which have to be removed to get at them. If you have access to the Bentley manual for your car, they show a multipage how-to with color photos to walk you through the process. While time consuming, the job is not overly difficult and only requires basic tools to accomplish. Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't have access to any useful how-to's and searching online isn't yielding much. Any how-to's or photos of what I am looking for?? From what I read, there's one on the left side toward the front and another on the right side toward the rear. If there is nothing useful in the DIY section, I would suggest investing in one of the Bentley manuals. You are going to find that not everything on theses cars can be found online or for free, so the manual could be a real cost saver for you in the long run. If you click on the "Special Offers" tab at the top of the page, you can find more information about the manual.

On your car, they are accessible from above with the engine still in the car, but there is a lot of stuff in the way, like the power steering reservoir, parts of the intake, and the AC compressor, which have to be removed to get at them. If you have access to the Bentley manual for your car, they show a multipage how-to with color photos to walk you through the process. While time consuming, the job is not overly difficult and only requires basic tools to accomplish.

You may come to regret this decision, we have seen more than one severely damaged engine case as the result of the metal blades grinding away when the shaft bearings loosen up and start to wobble, as all water pumps do. The factory pumps use a composite impeller for a reason.

That is one possibility. Bigger ain't always better.

We have pulled the rear seal off of several of the third generation bearings and all of them are still going fine as far as I know. The single row bearings used between 2001 and 2005 were by far the worst based upon Porsche's own numbers from the class action lawsuit, and they tended to be worse amongst the street use only vehicles, while the third generation failures were just the opposite and had more failures amongst cars with lots of track use. I'm not really sure anyone has been able to identify why this dichotomy exists.

That can always be an issue, but from the sounds of your slave cylinder pushing out its innards, I'm wondering it there may be a mechanical issue with the throw out bearing fork that is causing the slave to have to reach too far to depress the throw out bearing and gain clutch release. That could also cause the slave to come apart as it is not designed to push out that far.

Did you do the clutch yourself, or was it done by a shop?