bimmerhead

yeah risks involved with any high performance machine - my other choice, an E46 M3 has had reports of vanos and various bearing failures - I'm wondering if the reason why there hasn't been as strong as a response by the online community because BMW owned up to it eventually, whereas porsche just basically left people hanging..

Hello! I have been a bimmer enthusiasts for many years now and am obsessed with taking the plunge on a local 99 996 with 10k miles on a new crate motor installed in 07 (so should incorporate all the updates on the engine). I know that there have been many threads about this subject, but please bear with me as I have a specific (somewhat involved) question. From that long thread over at pistonheads recording engine failures, the main conclusion that "Hartech" seems to have come to with rebuilds of M96s is that due to inherent design issues that have not been rectified in any of the updated engines, a small percentage of M96s are essentially ticking time bombs - due to the lokasil cylinder liners which eventually go out of spec and oval out as well as cylinder wall thickness, all of which will lead to cracked cylinder walls and coolant/oil intermix. I am no engineer but his reasoning appears sound, and though there is a bit of a ulterior motive in terms of selling his revised cylinder liners, he is one of a few companies that offer this as a lower cost and more reliable alternative for a rebuild. http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic...!&mid=0 However, this oft quoted article from Excellence seems to argue the opposite as their engine teardown at 100k miles showed that cylinder wear was almost non-existant - which I'm going to assume means to "ovaling". http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?a...ost&id=3224 These two assumptions seem to contradict each other, so I am quite confused - which is right? Who do we trust? Has the porsche community come to any conclusion on what really is causing failures on many M96s? Is it inherent engineering faults or just a bad batch of motors? What muddies the waters even more are these stories that the earlier engines were affected by poor castings from the factory. I know what some of you will say, just buy it and enjoy driving it, but with the cost of replacement engines now coming close to the purchase price of a 99-00 911 C2, it seems like a foolhardy chance to take - if rebuilds were more reasonably priced than it would be a different thing, but then we go into issue of resale on a car with a rebuilt engine rather than a new factory crate motor - which to the passing buyer would seem less attractive even though you could incorporate design fixes in a rebuild that would still exist in the crate motor.

Looks awesome and great write-up. My only concern is glare being that your halogens do not have projector lens - if you ever driven past a riced out honda with aftermarket xenons in the stock halogen housings you know what I mean. I'm wondering if there's a way to cleverly retrofit projectors in the housing..

where are you guys buying your mods like the clear lights, turbo front bumper, etc?