Jump to content

Welcome to RennTech.org Community, Guest

There are many great features available to you once you register at RennTech.org
You are free to view posts here, but you must log in to reply to existing posts, or to start your own new topic. Like most online communities, there are costs involved to maintain a site like this - so we encourage our members to donate. All donations go to the costs operating and maintaining this site. We prefer that guests take part in our community and we offer a lot in return to those willing to join our corner of the Porsche world. This site is 99 percent member supported (less than 1 percent comes from advertising) - so please consider an annual donation to keep this site running.

Here are some of the features available - once you register at RennTech.org

  • View Classified Ads
  • DIY Tutorials
  • Porsche TSB Listings (limited)
  • VIN Decoder
  • Special Offers
  • OBD II P-Codes
  • Paint Codes
  • Registry
  • Videos System
  • View Reviews
  • and get rid of this welcome message

It takes just a few minutes to register, and it's FREE

Contributing Members also get these additional benefits:
(you become a Contributing Member by donating money to the operation of this site)

  • No ads - advertisements are removed
  • Access the Contributors Only Forum
  • Contributing Members Only Downloads
  • Send attachments with PMs
  • All image/file storage limits are substantially increased for all Contributing Members
  • Option Codes Lookup
  • VIN Option Lookups (limited)

Jake Raby

Members
  • Posts

    133
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Jake Raby

  1. And the bearing is applied BACKWARD from the way it was designed to operate.. More later, we have some serous info on this that we are not sure how to share!
  2. Is this smoke oily or steamy? Oily smoke will foul O2 sensors and generally throw a CEL, steamy smoke will not. I have had 5 experiences just like this, 4 were cracked heads and one was a blown exhaust gasket that allowed the watercooled exhaust ports to dump coolant into the exhaust where it created steam similar to that of a blown head gasket or cracked head. If the smoke isn't oily, it can't be the AOS.
  3. This subject will be the topic of one of my instructional videos. The whole process, start to finish.
  4. I choose Loctite 518. Its by far the best sealant I have experienced for the cam covers to date, including the Porsche sealant.
  5. If he wants some power to go with it, just call me.. I have lots of tricks and components that are legal for GT, but not IT or the Spec classes and we are looking for the right person to apply them... Looks good so far!
  6. Absolutely. The technology has been employed for the better part of 4 years now. We are as well... Thats why I have two engine dynos, a chassis dyno and 3 different data loggers with up to 28 challens of data collection capability. No they don't run hotter. The bore may be larger but the cylinder material used has already proven to allow 100HP per cylinder in aircooled applications, reliably. With the watercooled engines we have yet to scratch the surface of power potential from cool running big bores using the "Nickies" technology. The cylinders are Nikisil plated, just like the 911 of yesterday so friction reduction is key to keeping cooler running temps. To date we have not gathered any data that suggests that the engines will run any hotter than a bone stock engine. We are working to add this data to the web site in a searchable data base and thats happening this week. ALL I do here is product development and testing and we have data on every component we sell as well as a full understanding of it's function before it leaves my facility. Thats what EVERYTHING we have done to date has been developed for- everyday, dual purpose street driving with added longevity and reliability. Since there are few competetive race classes that the M96 is applied to that can see our level of modification "legally" not much has been done to develop track only engines... We are working on this now since there is an increase in cars being converted for track only use because they are so **** cheap these days. What we are doing is controversial and we do get our share of "doubt", thats for sure.. But its just because we chose to work with a problematic engine and then to hot rod it to a level that no one else could imagine... In my experience the doubt has been a catalyst to my development and a driving force to take our data collection to the highest level. This isn't my first Rodeo with developing problematic engines and I am used to the negative aspects of doing so. Remember: We started out ONLY doing modifications and creating components that would enhance reliability of these engines, but it didn't take long to see that the performance could be capitalized on as well.
  7. Look for revised dyno numbers soon as well as an alteration in our pricing schedule. Recent developments and the addition of more capability here has made more power and less cost a reality. Our 2.9 and the 2.7 are now the same cost, and both can be built from a factory 2.5 We have a new test engine in development now that can make a long stroke 89mm bored engine that will be around 3.2 liters. This installs without ANY conversion hassles at all and can be built from a 2.5 or 2.7 base engine. Needless to say we are busy!
  8. Someone needs to buy this one and send it in for some "Super Car" steroids....
  9. The new engines do not have this particular component, as it drives the IMS, a component they do not incorporate. Porsche sees these engines by the hundreds and I am sure they know how they fail, they don't need us to illustrate it to them. The new engine will have its own flaws, I am already trying to buy one so we can dissect it and start designing "fixes" for it as they pop up... Any new design breeds a fair amount of new problems while trying to address old ones.. It happens with anything thats manufactured and has even happened to us. I have several ideas about what causes the IMS issues but we need to see atleast a couple dozen more failures and fullyn investigate and compae them before I divulge the information.
  10. Some type of phenolic is pretty much the industry standard for internal chain tensioners. Do you have any idea how loud the engine would be if the tension surface was metal? It would be loud and wear would be hard to control on the chains... Something has to wear.. We are working on procedures and modifications to increase oil delivery to this area of the engine in an attempt to provide a solution to the tensioner pad wear issues.. The best part is that my initial concept may be patentable.
  11. The cars that built the Porsche brand were assembled by hand, not by robots.. Their engines were also built by hand, some by one individual. In those days the German Engineers called the shots.. Today the German Accountants are in command. 200 bucks per car multipled by the production rate of the Boxster and 996 is millions of dollars, where if it were still the 356 days it would not have been very much at all. We are building engines and creating parts the way that Porsche did yesterday.. One individual applies the upgrades and developments and takes the engine from an assembly of parts through it's dyno testing procedures. Its the way Porsches were designed to be built and the only way that I'll stamp my name on anything. All it has taken to create solutions to these inadequacies is an outlay of money and expenditure of effort.
  12. Despite what this engine had impact it first, this failure illustrated a weakness within the engine that could come back to bit me in the *** later down the road.. Anytime we witness something like this we must act upon it. Even if a valve snapped first, the tensioner should have been strong enough to absorb the impact... Its hard to tell exactly what happened first because the carnage is so bad, its lind of like crime scene investigation with a dead body thats been decapitated... Near impossible. I learned a bit more that I have not posted just yet, still waiting on some more evidence.. I do not believe that the issue occurred upstream in the valve train as trhere was no damage to any of the vario cam assembly, or etc that would occur IF a shock of this magnatude occured and sent a shockwave through the IMS and to the tensioner.
  13. To uncover this tensioner the ENTIRE engine must be torn down, if you notice the tensioner attaches to the crank carrier, the first assembly installed into the engine when building it and the last assembly removed at tear down. There is no way to apply our updated part without removing every bolt from the engine, unfortunately. And when you buy a replacement Porsche engine, guess what part they use :-)
  14. The metal wasn't breaking so they figured it was "over engineered"...
  15. Victim: 2001 M96 engine pulled from a Boxster S. Mileage reported to be 45K Catastrophic Failure MOF #14 We have discovered another MOF (Mode Of Failure) related to the M96 engine. This one is our most recent tear down that occurred with a 45K mile engine. It is one of the most radical failures that could occur with an engine and we have gained a good understanding of why it occurred. More importantly we are in work already on another "overkill" part to solve this issue that we can apply during our engine updates for our complete engines and component kits. This is interesting, because this engine fooled us, it also fooled a Porsche Dealership and another independent Porsche shop that had diagnosed the engine prior to it being sent into us. The engine had all the classic symptoms of a seriously failed IMS that had resulted in valve timing alterations, thus colliding the majority of the valves with the pistons, a true nasty affair. When the intake manifold was pulled we immediately saw carnage (broken valves and chunks of piston in the intake ports!) and since I love to dissect engine failures I stayed late to see what was inside this beast. As the engine was torn down I was expecting to see the IMS shredded, but every time we turned the engine while removing the valve train the only symptom that the engine had was altered valve timing, this was odd. Typically when an IMS fails this badly the shaft shears in half and "parks" the valve train that operates from the opposite end of the IMS drive, located at the flywheel end of the engine (I am trying to explain this so you guys can understand!) and that results in all the things we had witnessed. When this happens the IMS will not turn, so the oil pump stops functioning and 3 cylinders worth of valves stop actuating, resulting in a big mess. This is where it gets interesting: When the IMS fails to the point of allowing piston collisions with the valves the IMS is most always sheared.. But when this engine was rotated fore and aft the IMS was responsive to the change in crank position and the typical damage to the oil pump that results from IMS failure was not present. How could an engine have such a radical failure, with all the same initial symptoms as the IMS failure and have an IMS that was responsive to crank position changes, intact and still functional??? Read on... When the first cylinder head was removed the engine still had all the symptoms of an IMS failure, but when the second head was removed that cylinder head was found to be perfectly intact with zero piston/valve interference and no damage. The engine was still spotlessly clean inside and showed no signs of abnormal wear on the "intact" bank of cylinders. As we went deeper it got interesting as it seemed the valve timing was radically off on both sides of the engine, but all the timing chains were intact, nothing was broken and all was in decent condition. At this point of the autopsy we knew that when the case was split we'd find something we hadn't seen before. When the case was split the IMS came out in good condition without any oil inside it and without any signs of bearing failure or wear. We immediately removed the crank carrier and then we saw the culprit..... The crank/ IMS drive chain tensioner pad was non existant and the tensioner was broken in half! We then dug through the rubble and found the broken pieces and started putting the pieces together to figure out what happened. Why the valve timing changed: Because the main drive chain for the IMS lost all tension when the "tensioner" sheared in half, thus allowing the IMS to stop rotating and "parking" the valves. When this occurred a couple of cylinders had open and partially open valves that then collided with their pistons and that resulted in scattered parts, a loud bang and chunks of piston being emitted from the tail pipe... What we learned: Something we had never really paid close attention to was the shape and thickness of this tensioner through the various years and models of the M96 engine. We pulled this piece from several engines and started comparing them in shape, interchange, composition and design. We immediately noted that the the early 2.5 tensioner was thicker across the area where this tensioner had broken and that the early unit also had a hardened steel contact surface for the chain adjuster to ride against. The later 3.2 unit had been made thinner through the area where the breakage occurred and had a PLASTIC surface for the chain adjuster to contact. The part number from the two parts were the same, but one was a .4 while the other had a .5 suffix. So, why was this part changed? Why would anyone ever replace a hardened steel wear surface with something comprised of plastic, when even the steel wear surface does typically wear.... This is a MOF that we have never seen before and never heard of occurring. After seeing this failure and it's symptoms I believe that some of the "IMS failures" that are diagnosed without an engine tear down are actually this MOF, or at least something similar to it, that cannot be thoroughly understood without complete dissection of the engine. That said, we are already in work creating a two new components that will solve this MOF issue. First we are making a billet aluminum tensioner unit made to use the OE tensioner pad, this will replace the lightweight, cast aluminum factory unit. This will incorporate a larger, tool steel wear surface much like the earlier 2.5 unit pictured below. Making the wear surface larger will increase the contact patch that the chain adjuster sees, thus increasing service life. Secondly we are making the wear surface "button" compliant with the OE tensioner, so those that have the early tensioner can replace their wear surface with a larger, stronger part if they don't choose to utilize the entire billet tensioner that we are creating. I'll never trust one of these OE tensioners again, we'll be applying the billet units to ALL our engines effective immediately and all builds are currently halted while this component is being made. The key to avoiding problems like these are to make the parts heavier duty than they "need" to be on paper... I call it "overkill Engineering" and it's what keeps things from failing... Its nothing more than classic hotrodding being applied to these newer, robotically assembled, mass produced engines. We are now going through cores and doing research trying to specify when Porsche changed this tensioner.... I'll report back when we have concrete evidence. Now for the pictures... More will be posted today on the "reliability" page at www.flat6innovations.com The pictures speak for themselves, its mass carnage of an unreal kind.. The kind of stuff that makes it to our "trophy Shelf" filled with offerings to the Gods of Speed...
  16. The IMS failures are more prominent with certain models and dates of production. I do believe that the number quoted is not outrageous, based on the core engines we have received that have failed due to an IMS. There may well be models out there that see an extremely high failure rate, especially as average miles on the mass of cars on the road continues to rise.. Don't ask me which ones these are because I am trying to refrain from anything more than general statements and there are some things that just aren't worth the crap they start for us when people start bringing up questions and then answering themselves and then arguing with the answers. At any rate, just drive the **** thing- when it breaks upgrade it. Don't worry about it- anything mechanical can break at any time without warning, just like the M96. Sit back and enjoy the experience of owning a great car that handles, brakes and drives the way a Porsche should.
  17. Actually the pistons are horrible quality- that portion of the article was a bit incorrect. We must replace the pistons when doing our upgrade work because the Nikisil plating of the new cylinders is incompatible with the ring tensions used on the Boxster pistons. And a set of Piston rings is only 150 bucks less than a full piston/ ring/ wrist pin kit from JE and they are stronger, lighter and not a Porsche part (we are avoiding Porsche parts wherever possible!) I believe the new engine will be just as problematic as the M96, but probably in different areas. Time will tell, but the accounting department at Porsche certainly had as much impact on this design as the M96. The M96 is a great engine, Porsche just cheesed out on the most critical aspects of it to save some money. The Extrudabody set up works fine sith stock DME, but most engines that run these run an aftermarket ECU because they are at the higher end of our levelp of preparation.
  18. A potential Client called me yesterday with an IMS failure on his 3.2 engine- the car only has 15K miles on it since new. He caught the bearing failure early, at a regular oil service. The IMS is a serious issue- so serious that we have made our own grossly oversized unit from billet chromoly 4340 steel. Here is the unit compared to a "Stock" early unit. see here http://986forum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=9625 The best way to avoid an IMS failure is to do more frequent oil services (every 7K) and then drain the oil thats removed through a strainer looking for foreign object debris in the oil followed up by becoming a member of our oil monitoring service. Other than than that just drive the **** car!
  19. Any posting or sharing of the article would infringe on the copyright of Excellence Magazine, something they take seriously while issues are current. The article hasn't made it to news stands yet as Subscribers just received their last week. Look for the issue on the stands around the 20th of this month at Barnes and Noble. Jake Raby
  20. If you have oxygen sensor faults the ECU will try to compensate for them by ADDING fuel. This is why the engine runs rich. I'd say you are in need of some oxygen sensors or at least one.
  21. Most producers of headers are not engine developers- if they were they'd be able to provide a known arrangement with known results on the topic of CEL and power output with their products. Most of these people don't own a Boxster and certainly aren't concerned with what occurs after they sell the unit to you. This has been a battle that we have fought through our development of the M96 engine and it can be both a hassle and it can cost performance or even an engine as some have posted. Getting samples from different portions of the system, as far apart as possible is the key. We have also noticed that differences in fuel blends from one region to the next can also be a determining factor as the change of the "sniff" is just enough to trigger the CEL on some cars, but not on an exacting car and engine with the same system on the other side of the country, or even a state away. The condition of the engine and what oil is used also makes a difference, this is because higher mileage cars will have more oil consumption as oil passes by the rings and goes out the exhaust system, or when it is pulled past the intake valve guides on deceleration. Some oils are rich in zinc and phosphorous and these also have an impact on the "sniff" of the sensors. We are working to create an arrangement that offers known results with each model of the M96 engine, meaning that it can be installed with a known power increase and RPM range as well as a guarantee that no CEL will illuminate from it's installation onto the car. This is necessary due to the amount of calls and emails we get on the subject from people who are having these issues and costing themselves a lot of money in repairs or fighting the CEL for months before swapping back to stock exhaust. Most of our performance engines require headers, so it is a must for us to understand this portion of the engine well enough to provide an optimized arrangement that won't create issues down the road for the customer, or for us.
  22. COOL!!! I was not clear in the beginning with my post and that created some confusion.. Glad we are now on the same page :-)
  23. The fact that some engines have a LWFW stock is irrelevent to this situation. Those stock, FACTORY installed units are balanced to their respective rotating masses and BALANCED as a unit. My major gripe with adding the LWFW to an existing engine is the fact that it can't be balanced to that engine's rotating mass since the engine is already assembled. I have several hundred hours of run time on my CN balancer and know the impacts that can be expected when adding components to the rotating mass during the balance process, even if that component has been individually balanced prior to it's addition to the mass. As I reassemble the engine the same LWFW will be used, but I will balance a second (spare) pressure plate to the assembly and I will also balance the stock dual mass flywheel to the assembly. This will give the client the ability to swap flywheels and have no imbalance as each FW and PP will be indexed to each other as well as to the crankshaft. This flexability and forward thought should be applied by anyone who has their engine apart and is considering the LWFW option. I'd like to know if anyone who has weighed in on this thread has ever spent 5 minutes behind an Engine Balancer? As soon as the Metallurgy study is completed on the crank I plan on having it welded back together just so I can assemble the entire mass in my balancer, index all the components exactly as they were ran when the failure occurred and then see just how far out of balance the assembly really was. This is being done because we are documenting (and have been) every single M96 engine failure we come across in detail. I'd like to clarify that I do not feel that all LWFWs are bad, but my major gripe is they are added to a rotating mass that they cannot be indexed to, thus creating imbalance that cannot be measured or corrected for while the engine is assembled. This imbalance is multipliled by the fact that the second mass is not present to absorb any harmonics when the LWFW is added.
  24. Thanks for the post.. thats an interesting read for sure, where did you come across that? I'd like to archive it.
  25. I agree with slbates, everything has a service life and that becomes critical when an engine is exposed to the track for the amount of miles this one has been.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.