txhokie4life

Is there a way to get it for cheaper than $287? That seems rather steep... Incentive to keep up with my PCA membership so I can bum one off someone else, I suppose! :help:

I won't go into the ethics -- but you will need a cable too -- and I think that is more where the proprietary nature

of what the duramatic software is located.

m

Hey Guys, I need some help diagnosing an issue im having with my 97 Boxster.

One day, Im driving 65MPH on the freeway when I hear what sounds like a handgun being fired from inside my engine compartment... The engine didnt hickup or anything but once I was off the freeway the Idle was alittle unstable, moving from 900 - 1100rpm's and I got a CEL with 1 code (P0441 Fuel Tank Ventilation System - Above Limit )

She sometimes stalls during idle and will take about 7 seconds of cranking to start back up & sometimes comes close but doesnt stall.

Also, when I turn off the engine after about 10min drive I'll hear a sound similar to a low toned 1 second honk coming from either the passenger front Fender or engine bay... Hard to tell, really.

Any ideas what would cause all these symptoms?

I would check for oil in coolant.....

Also check compression on each cylinder.

does your temperature gauge rise?

check your water pump to make sure the pulley is still there.

m

That was how I got into my whole Boxster S rebuild project -- bought the donor with a poor ticker,

was going to electrify her.

Cost for reasonable performance and unproven conversion was in excess of $42k, not

counting cost of donor.

Cost to rebuild the engine myself < $8k, depending on where you draw the line on

the minimal amount I needed to have done -- probably could have been under $6k.

I can buy a lot of gas for $30k+

mike

hey guys, and gals.....I ran across this ad on craigslist today...the guy is legit, and thought I'd expose it to anyone who might be interested.....

http://nashville.craigslist.org/cto/992209942.html

Hope it could be useful to someone!

do what is the value of a 97 with areplaced engine ....

edmunds says 10.3k .... kbb 14.1k.... but those both assume the car is original.... how much do you take off for a rebuilt or replaced with used engine.....

replaced engine is 5k+2k labor....

that puts this one at 13k..... seems way high to me......

thoughts????

what issues do I have to be concerned with swapping a 987 2.7L into an 986???

a

dme compatibility?

also if I change the dme I've heard there is a problem with the alarm controller ... is this over rideable via duramatic? or dealer only

is it reasonable to replace alarm unit ... what comppnent runs that?

thx

m

Got a Duramatric for Christmas, hoping to clear the notorious airbag light. However, the airbag fault codes would not clear. I emailed Durametric and got a quick response from Duram. He stated that this was a fatal error that could not be cleared. Most likely cause is when your battery is dead (as happened to me) and you hook up jumper cables with the ignition on (as I inadvertently did).

Sheesh...I wish Porsche had put this in the owners' manual. :huh:

I had this problem too...airbag light on...ended costing me £350 (approx $700) to replace the airbag ECU...fixed it!

So is this stored in flash memory somewhere?

Is there anyway to clear that memory rather than replace the Airbag control unit?

My concern here is that if that light is on -- will it disable all the airbags?

thanks,

Mike

UPDATE: It was one water hose which had rubbed in to something solid. Shop said that they have never seen that water hose so close. So I must thank local stealership which repaired an oil leak just before I purchased the car 21mo and 12kmls ago.

And of course my warranty don't cover the hose.

Glad it was relatively benign.....

Happy Boxstering....

Mike

Very interesting write up. Thank you for sharing. So the freeze plug let go internally during an overheat condition?? I would not have expected that. Totally repairable. I have been getting a little intermittent grinding noise from the front of my motor lately (77k miles). Sounds like a water pump bearing. Time to take a closer look. :o

It looks like you have done this sort of work before. Did you use a service manual for the tear down or just take lots of pictures and wing it? I have been inside many Chevy/Toyota/Nissan motors but the M96 looks so...German. Any surprises along the way? What did you figure your costs would be for an electric motor conversion?

My first time tearing anything down -- I'm the lackey is this duo -- Danny (in green) had rebuilt six 911 air cooled engines -- this is his first M96.

He took a lot of pictures, I bought a CD of the shop manuals from a guy on this board. Watched all the www.986fix.com videos.

Bought some of the special tools, Danny made the others.

I engineered what we would do when we found what -- found/ordered all the parts. Now I mostly clean any parts we are redoing and torque a few bolts :-)

But my eyes and ears are wide open! Picking anything up I can incase I decide to do this again some time.

Mike

Just curious where you found your engine?

I have a 99 996 C2 "DOA"

What is the cause of your DOA?

Here is my ongoing photo essay of my project to resurrect a 2000 Boxster S.

I purchased "Star" over the summer with the initial plan to turn it electric.

But the electrification was going to be way too expensive -- so I turned to rebuilding

the engine. We hope to have it back on the road in the next few weeks.....

If you like engine tear downs and rebuilds -- I hope you find these pictures interesting.

Also includes photos of the improved IMS from LnEngineering.

I have to thank Jeff at Sunset for the tons of discounted parts and ease of ordering.

A Star in the Making

enjoy,

Mike

I'm just guessing here:

How is you battery?

How is the battery cable connections?

If you have a low battery, or a poor connection then I could see something like this.

One of the experts here should be able to help better.

M

Add Jeff in Parts to the list -- I bought $3000 worth of stuff from them!

Well, you do know it's going somewhere it's not supposed to go. Check directly under the expansion tank for a leak, which is not uncommon. I have an engine sitting about 20 feet from me right now that was rendered to core status because of a water pump impeller separated from the shaft. The leaking happened around the pulley shaft at such a slow rate that it went unnoticed by the PO until it was too late. I assume he ignored the temp guage because it works fine. If you can't find anything external, then best bet would be to hook up a system pressure tester. If you don't have one, many parts stores have them for loaners. If that doesn't expose a leaking hose or component and you see the pressure dropping, it's probably going to be internal - possibly head gasket. Don't forget that the coolant is directed all the way from the back of the car to the two front radiators along with all the fittings, connections, and hoses. Depending on your abilities and resources, that might be the time to take it to an indy for a diagnosis/opinion. Good luck!

Did the water pump looks like this? Oddly -- the impeller spins freely now -- so I'm not sure how the shaft sheared off?

m

Wow....that's pretty catastrophic. And no, mine doesn't look like that. The impeller broke off of the shaft and simply sat in the housing doing nothing while the shaft turned. The pulley and belt stayed intact.

I bought the car knowing it had overheated. I managed to get the engine to run, but there was a loud rattle coming from the front of the engine. Putting two and two together (overheat and rattle), I decided to check out the water pump. Removed the pump to find the broken impeller. When removing the pump, the pulley had significant wobble to it.

The wobble of the shaft was obviously due to the bearing. I'm guessing that the bearing wore out over time allowing the belt to pull the pulley/shaft off center, and after enough wear, allowed the impeller to begin hitting the water pump housing which in turned caused it to finally break off of the shaft.

Make sure your coolant and oil did not mix -- and if not -- replace the waterpump - -and you should be good to go.

Mine was completely mis-daignossed -- and I bought it assuming something even worse!!

So I was glad it was only the water pump. Still a complete rebuild due to the water and coolant -- and corrosion potential,

that and we had already tore it down looking for a cracked cylinder liner.

Mike

If the car runs fine, I don't believe the failure point would be the water pump. If the water pump failed, I would think the drive belt would fail, and the dash board would light up like a Christmas tree. Hopefully it is something simple...please let us know what you find Jake. I'd put the front seats forward and pull the fire wall...

Good luck.

Bill B)

Has anyone run without the drive belt? Does the dash actually light up?

Just want to make sure there is no false sense of security.

mike

Squealing noise coming from the engine compartment behind the seats?? I been hearing a squealing noise for the past few weeks . I stopped driving the car as soon as heard it and I left it for a while.the Noise is more like the ribbed drive belt but I took it out and I started the car for a half a minute and the noise came back. The noise start when the temp is 180 (between 1- 8). It fade if I press on the paddle but as soon as it’s in ideal and the engine within the normal temperature the squealing starts.. the car is fine in term of performance and no engine light check .when I removed the belt and I run the car the noise start shortly after … and once I turn it off I get this fading squealing noise like a fading Whistle.

With ribbed drive belt removed while checking the sources of the noise would that eliminate

The possibility of having a faulty water pump since the only pulley rotating is the crankshaft pulley?

Please let me know if anyone had that problem before

Thank you all

97 boxster tip with 108000 mile

Well this would be just speculation, but it is possible that until the water temp gets high enough, there is no flow of coolant,

but once it does get high enough (and maybe the sensor is reading low) -- you are getting some movement of coolant which

is spinning the impeller of the water pump -- i.e. it's working backwards..... maybe the impeller bearings are going and

that is the source of the squeal -- the hissing sound could be steam cooking off from your coolant because it is overheating.....

Is the pulley on the water pump turning freely?

you don't want to run your car too long in this condition......

The first picture (sheared water pump shaft)

led to the second picture (freeze plug blowing)

which led to the third and a complete engine rebuild.

The waterpump can be had for ~$200 (or less) -- and might be a DIY..... depending on your abilities.

Here is a link to pictures from my project

A Star in the making

mike

Well, you do know it's going somewhere it's not supposed to go. Check directly under the expansion tank for a leak, which is not uncommon. I have an engine sitting about 20 feet from me right now that was rendered to core status because of a water pump impeller separated from the shaft. The leaking happened around the pulley shaft at such a slow rate that it went unnoticed by the PO until it was too late. I assume he ignored the temp guage because it works fine. If you can't find anything external, then best bet would be to hook up a system pressure tester. If you don't have one, many parts stores have them for loaners. If that doesn't expose a leaking hose or component and you see the pressure dropping, it's probably going to be internal - possibly head gasket. Don't forget that the coolant is directed all the way from the back of the car to the two front radiators along with all the fittings, connections, and hoses. Depending on your abilities and resources, that might be the time to take it to an indy for a diagnosis/opinion. Good luck!

Did the water pump looks like this? Oddly -- the impeller spins freely now -- so I'm not sure how the shaft sheared off?

m

did you lose power steering? if you did, this would indicate a broken belt (which also drives the water pump and other stuff) causing the overheating.

if it is the belt, VERY EASY DIY!

if not, might be a hose or something, but a "clunk" seems odd for that...

I have a 2000 S whose water pump shaft sheared off.

Hopefully the white smoke was boiling over your coolant and not coming from exhaust.

Have them check that the coolant did not mix with the oil. If so -- bad news --

If there is mixture --- then time for a new engine if it is under warranty.

Mike

I went to the Porsche USA website, and sent them an email asking if they would be willing to do a licensing agreement with Subaru to install the Subaru 2.5 boxer engine in place of the Porsche 2.5 boxster engine as a reliability improvement sine the Porsche 2.5 remanufactured engines are out of production and they have issues anyuway. It may make sense to install the Subaru transaxle also. Engine mounts and a wiring harness adaptor would be helpful. The ECU may need to be reprogrammed. I will let you know if I receive a reply.

If you happen to get an email return (which would be surprising to me) -- the answer would undoubtably be no.

Better to ask for an upgrade to a comparable larger bore engine that is still in production. Less integration problems - -and more likely to happen.

mike

I've got about $4200 into parts at this point.

But that includes brake pads, clutch, all hoses, belts, fluids, etc.

So that includes everything but the interior work.

mike

That is a long story :-)

Basically we tore the engine down to the bearings....... In the process we found the liners to be in perfect condition,

took us a while to notice the missing plugs in the heads, and worked our way back to figure out why. At more than

hands length -- you really couldn't tell the pully was sheared off the water pump -- so it didn't stick out as an issue.

But upon closer inspection it became obvious. Now why it sheared off -- who knows -- bad bearing, weak shaft, both?

I also have a local mechanic I am working with who's rates are very reasonable.

I'm not sure how many hours we've got into it so far ~50 to tear down and diagnose,

additional ~$500 at the machine shop for valve job and polishing. I paid ~$3000 in parts at sunsetporsche,

found a few things on Ebay -- but I'm doing a lot more than just addressing the water pump failure.

I also paid $911 to LnEngineering for their upgraded IMS.

Next week the process is to put it back together starts. Maybe another 50 hours?

He asked me to join him and watch and learn next week -- gotta figure out how to make time from

work to do that -- once in a lifetime opportunity!

m

Where is the best place to look?

m

What may have happened is that your engine has overheated due to the water pump failure.

Then either one of the head gaskets blew -- or one of the freeze plugs in your cylinder heads blew.

Either way water and oil end up mixing.

This happened to a '00 Boxster S that I bought that had been diagnosed as a cracked cylinder liner.

If water and oil mixed -- your likely to have a rebuild on your hands -- If done right ~$1.5k+ in parts

plus labor.

m

Okay,

I just bought my car 3 months ago. I was driving yesterday and the coolant light came on. I put distilled water in the coolant tank and the light went off. I noticed some crud floating in the water,

I drove home last night in the pouring rain and thought I would check it this morning. Bad , bad news. There is oil in my coolant resivoir and the oil is foamy on the dipstick.

I had no loss of power of CEL's when driving it. I put more water in this morning and it seems to be leaking out from the area that would be diagnosed as a faulty water pump.

I know from reading the horror stories on this site that water in the oil is a death sentence.

Is this true? Suggestions on what to do next? My wife thinks I'm an idiot for buying a car that is known to have this kind of failure.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

I you have the list of upgrades yet.

Long story short -- the problem turned out to be a sheared water pump shaft which allowed the engine to overheat

causing the freeze plug in one of the cylinder heads to blow -- which caused the coolant to mix with the oil.

So I didn't require the new liners.

I did get the LnEngineering IMS upgrade.

Replacing just about everything else that isn't nailed down, from bearings, to all timing chains, hoses, belts, AOS,

seals, rings, clutch, brake pads, and battery. Everything stock except for brake pads.

Will be putting it all back together starting next week.

Mike

Take a look at these photos. Anybody got a clue what the heck the hard, rubber/plastic like residue is? I'm guessing maybe something melted caused by extreme heat from the engine. I'm not the original owner, obviously. The seat isn't damaged, but it appears as if the heat pad under the carpet is a little burned looking. I have no maintenance history on the vehicle and no carfax history of damage/repairs. Something happened, and I thought I'd throw this out there to see if the mystery can be solved.

The black stuff is really hard, like plastic. And the area around it on the carpet feels greasy.

In any case, there's always been a faint unusual smell in the car I couldn't pin down. Wonder if it's from a fire extinguisher? The carpet is a little greasy so I'm cleaning this week. I guess I'll just buy some similar looking carpet, cut out the damaged section, and replace. Anybody have any idea how much a whole new carpet for that area of the car would run me?

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Joe

St. Louis, MO

The lower section rear section can be had from Oklahoma Foreign used for <$100, the bottom runs ~$225 shipped.

I bought a complete carpet system, utilizing live.com coupons from Oklahoma Foreign via Ebay for ~$300 shipped.

This was all carpeted surfaces except the speaker box and door panels.

It was used but in good condition.

From the dealer it was ~$1300.

mike

Hi,

I'm a very experienced motor rebuilder and long time auto mechanic - although 20 years removed from doing any pro wrenching. One year ago tomorrow, I took possession of a 2000 Boxster S, in immaculate condition. Other than my having to disassemble the CD300 changer to remove a stuck CD, I've had absolutely no trouble with the car and totally love it 1 year and 20,000+ miles later.

My question is simply this - Can the displacement of the stock motor be increased by larger diameter sleeves and/or through boring the cylinders? I've found nothing on this topic, and I'm not implying there's anything wrong with the way the car performs now, but as I have an insatiable curiosity regarding this, and have found virtually no information on the subject; thought I'd post my interest here.

If it's possible I might consider doing it over the course of a coming winter, as I'm sensing the chassis (optional turbo 18" wheels) could easily handle more torque and power, and although there's been no discernible diminishing of its performance, the only weakness I detected on taking possession was that the previous owner rode the clutch, and my monitoring tells me I'll need to replace it (and all other accesable replaceables once exposed) within the next 30,000 or so. So thinking how much I enjoy motor rebuilding (I've really missed that time in my life), just wondering what displacement options would be available since other than machine shop work, all other labor would be at no cost.

Thanks,

Jack (2000 Boxster S - 18" Turbo wheels)

Type SIs it possible to increase the bore on the 2000 3.2L Boxster S motor?

The short answer is yes -- goto www.lenengineering.com

I was going to have my 3.2 bored out to 3.6 -- but I didn't need

to replace the cylinder liners -- so I did not do it.

I am however getting their new IMS system.

m