Mijostyn

JFP, I have seen the LN spin on adapter and it does look well made. I know Porsche increased the size of the filter with the 977.2. Can you use a larger filter (surface area) with the LN adapter? Is this really worth the money and why. I heard the no by pass part but I though if you changed the filter regularly you would never go on bypass. Buying a filter cutter all hinges on this. You can get 5-6 oil analyses for the price of this stuff combined and it does give you a lot more information about the car than examining your oil filter. I suppose in a perfect world we would do both.

And it looks nicely made!

Hi Don, I think you are asking yourself the wrong question. Ask yourself if you REALLY have to have this car. If it is a cool car and you REALLY have to have it then **** the torpedoes. Like Papachristou says above, these cars are expensive to maintain. More than likely the IMS bearing is going to be just fine but there are a zillion other things that can go wrong and many of them are going to be very expensive. That is the price of life in the fast lane. If you can not afford it and do not absolutely love this car then bail out now or you will for certain be a very unhappy camper. But if you can throw about 3 to 4 grand a year average at the car (service, tires and such) then knock yourself out. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE. (I love getting ***** out of perfectly proper English)

True, but for the average DIY fix where it would only be used once or twice in its life, sometimes a cheaper but not as capable alternative fits the budget better. Absolutely! I like to put it out there because after several rattle disasters of my own like the poor fellow above, who got a new exhaust, all shops should have one and many people do not know this technology exists. The dealer I used 20 years ago had one and bailed me out after having spent... two weeks chasing a rattle in my glove box that turned out to be a plastic panel on the bottom of the car. All shops should have one as I am sure they get at least a few rattle complaints and there is nothing like a happy customer. These rattles can be like a splinter...in your brain. I use mine more frequently on new vehicles but with three other cars to maintain (wife, daughter) it gets used about once a year. BUT, it saves me HOURS spent chasing hard to find rattles and time is invaluable. The Engine Ears are much less expensive than the chassis set up and are used differently. As an example it is much better at finding rattles inside the car as opposed to out side. Rattles can be ventriloquists. It can be very hard to find them. This device will lead you right to them down to the millimeter.

JFP, that is a stethoscope your 3 year old would use. Mine cost $148.99. The way you use it as you suggest is to touch the edge of the bell to the part you want to listen to, not the diaphragm. It is useless for listening through air which is what makes the Engine Ears special and cheaper than my Littmann Cardiologist!

That's a riot. Nothing more than a big pipe cutter!!

Hi Firmsi, My cluster was replaced under warranty as it got electrocuted by a wayward PCM. The cluster with Speed Yellow dials was $4000. Anyway, your problem is the Sport Chrono part. The clusters are not the same and the C4S part will not work so, don't waste your money. You can not just plug one in either as I believe it has to be programmed in the car with a PWIS unit. I am not sure if a Durametric will do it. This means it has to be done by a Porsche dealer. I think you are stuck here. Doing anything but getting a new unit installed by a Porsche dealer is risky and in all probability you will just be throwing good money after bad. Also, if done by a Porsche dealer the part will have a warranty which is very useful with these cars. I feel your pain.

Hi Garrarni, Welcome! Your rattle has a resonant frequency that is being excited by the engine at 3000 RPM and is modified by heat... things expanding and contracting. As you have discovered these rattles can be tough to locate. Since I got a set of these, http://www.jsproductsinc.com/Store/Product/11331 I have never been stumped. You have someone control the car and you slowly wave the microphone around following the volume of the rattle. As you get closer to the rattle the volume increases. It will lead you right to it. No guessing, which is what everyone has been doing. This same company makes Chassis Ears. Say you think you have a bad wheel bearing. The set consists of 4 microphone/transmitter units each with a unique radio frequency. You place a microphone by each wheel and take the car for a ride. You toggle each microphone and the one with the loudest noise is the bad wheel. You can also find all manner of rattles, creaks whatever. Your friends will be amazed!! Worth every Shilling. JFP you REALLY need one of these. If you don't like it I will buy it back from you.

It should not have but the PCM does control certain integral Bose amplifier settings such as fade and balance digitally over the MOST bus. Somehow these settings must have been changed. You have to go into the sound management menu and reset things to your taste. Just toggle through. There is a depiction of the car that will show up on the screen with arrows front to back and side to side. I have not looked at it for a while as I replaced the PCM with an Alpine unit.

Silver TT, understood. Now, the very interesting thing about humans is that if they don't know what is going on they make stuff up. You see this with very complex subjects like medicine and oil physics. You are not making stuff up. You have made a good decision based on what you were told and perhaps some 1st hand experience. I am neurotic enough to want to know exactly what is going on thus the lengthy research, experimentation and explanation. I would like every one to know about oil. There is a lot of marketing baloney out there. Again, the wear on those teeth is absolutely not from oil. When the dogs are engaged there is absolutely no friction as they are locked. The duration of engagement is miniscule as compared to the constant rubbing and meshing of gears. Notice the gear teeth in your picture are pristine. Shifting technique did that perhaps with the addition of bad metalurgy say if the teeth were not hardened correctly. Excuse me. If you were using an oil like Delvac and lived and drove in a cold environment. Shifting in to first and second gears is going to be rediculously stiff. If you insisted in jamming your shifts in spite of this you might do that kind of damage with prolonged use particularly if you heard a brief "crunch" as the dogs engaged. A smart person would immediately ditch the oil which is exactly what I did as it became PAINFULLY obvious that that oil is DEFINATELY not for our transmissions unless you only used the car for racing with an always HOT transmission. The hot viscosity of PTX and Delvac are not that much different. Both are Mobil synthetic lubes by the way. Delvac was engineered for Caterpillar Tractors. Dog teeth are engineered to take a certain amount of abuse. We all miss the occasional shift. Those teeth were subject to repetitive crunching.

Hey Chris, Welcome to 911dom. 911s always feel a little light in the front and the steering wheel twitches, more so in the older cars. Just hold it loosely in your hands and let it do its thing. It will give you more feedback than any steering ever! The worry with your car is that it has been worked on. Porsche really knows what it is doing with these cars and messing with the suspension is asking for it. I think the way to go is to take the car to the track or a really BIG parking lot early on a Sunday morning and have at it. See what it does. If it is controllable and you are comfortable with it, wonderful. But, if you loose it then you best get it straightened out. The old axim is, everyone totals their first 911. Don't let it be you. These cars are very fast and you do not have to step far over the line to get into trouble. HAVE FUN!!

OK guys, this is TTTTOO cool. I got the WIKA gauge JFP found. It has a standard threaded fitting on the back for NPT compressor stuff. It looks very heavy duty and is quite heavy. If you look at 6 olck just above the WIKA label you will see a calibration screw. Very cool. The new Oil cap is coming. I do believe I can drill and thread right into the top of the cap and mount the gauge directly with epoxy support. Better yet I think it will actually fit under the hood! I can keep it on all the time if the heat does not get to it. I will take pictures when the job is done. Ours are mounted to the oil cap and only used as a diagnostic's tool, so they don't remain in the car. If it fits under the hood and is durable enough to tolerate the environment it might be handy to have on board if something happens. You need to use it on multiple cars. It probably won't clear the fan anyway. But, it is a really nice gauge. Thanx!!

OK guys, this is TTTTOO cool. I got the WIKA gauge JFP found. It has a standard threaded fitting on the back for NPT compressor stuff. It looks very heavy duty and is quite heavy. If you look at 6 olck just above the WIKA label you will see a calibration screw. Very cool. The new Oil cap is coming. I do believe I can drill and thread right into the top of the cap and mount the gauge directly with epoxy support. Better yet I think it will actually fit under the hood! I can keep it on all the time if the heat does not get to it. I will take pictures when the job is done.

Their web site is...British. But what you describe is exactly what will happen if people put Millers CRX 75W 90 in their 911 transaxles. This is the racing version that has been around a while. People think that if you use a racing product that this is somehow better. WRONG. Racing cars operate at a very steady HIGH temp. Their utmost concern is friction reduction. The high additive concentrations required to get a high viscosity index cut the oils lubricity. In our transaxles we have to balance the needs of the hypoid final drive with those of the transmission in a much wider variety of conditions. Millers developed the EE 75W 90 oil for this reason. It was released June 2013. Millers does divide its site into Motorsports and road car categories but, it is easy to navigate to the wrong spot. The stuff is expensive. This is not such a big deal for the gear oil as you don't change it often but the motor oil is $186 per oil change and that is very steep for just about everyone and the guys who can afford it probably don't change their own oil. As far as I know Millers does not do any private label stuff but they have a lot of categories which makes things confusing. There is race stuff, road stuff, classic car stuff, Synthetic stuff, not so synthetic stuff and on and on. You have to love the British. They can't make a production car worth a toot but they do make the best race cars in the world. Silver TT you need to calm down. Nothing in this life is black and white. No oil, not even Delvac will break dog teeth like that. Only severely uncoordinated and forceful movement of the left foot and right hand (for us Americans) will do that. I suggest you have a beer ;-) I suppose it could have been a bad casting.

Silver TT, these transmissions are not bad they are just not as good as the G50 made by Getrag. I have just finished a 1 and 1/2 year experiment using 5 different transmission oils in my car through all the weather conditions we have up here in New England and I will be posting a DIY on transmission oil changing including all of the results of this experiment. It took so long because I had to use all the oils in winter conditions and it took two winters to get them all in. In most circumstances but not all, Millers is the best and my personal favorite. But, you are welcome to chug along with PTX. That is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. A34735, when someone tells you something that is wrong they are full of it. I myself have been full of it on occasion. I am with you on the voltmeter but the water temp gauge is important. As you have noticed there is a lag between oil temp and water temp. This is because the oil is down in the sump where the water is hopefully not. Going the other way, if your car starts to over heat, under some circumstances you will see it sooner in the water temp Wouldn't ever think of putting anything but the OEM PTX in the gearbox. I have first-hand experience with the damage this will cause. $6K for a gearbox rebuild, or you can buy a reman from Porsche for $10K (before labor). The OEM PTX is an oil which is unique in that it literally has properties that no other oil has. Using the non-OEM will cause wear inside the gearbox over time (some people notice right away, in other cases this can take many thousands of miles). A lot of things people do with their cars I think are obsessing more than anything else, but with this topic I know first hand that if you use anything but the OEM gear fluid, you're asking for trouble. Silver TT, these transmissions are not bad they are just not as good as the G50 made by Getrag. I have just finished a 1 and 1/2 year experiment using 5 different transmission oils in my car through all the weather conditions we have up here in New England and I will be posting a DIY on transmission oil changing including all of the results of this experiment. It took so long because I had to use all the oils in winter conditions and it took two winters to get them all in. In most circumstances but not all, Millers is the best and my personal favorite. But, you are welcome to chug along with PTX. That is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. A34735, when someone tells you something that is wrong they are full of it. I myself have been full of it on occasion. I am with you on the voltmeter but the water temp gauge is important. As you have noticed there is a lag between oil temp and water temp. This is because the oil is down in the sump where the water is hopefully not. Going the other way, if your car starts to over heat, under some circumstances you will see it sooner in the water temp Wouldn't ever think of putting anything but the OEM PTX in the gearbox. I have first-hand experience with the damage this will cause. $6K for a gearbox rebuild, or you can buy a reman from Porsche for $10K (before labor). The OEM PTX is an oil which is unique in that it literally has properties that no other oil has. Using the non-OEM will cause wear inside the gearbox over time (some people notice right away, in other cases this can take many thousands of miles). A lot of things people do with their cars I think are obsessing more than anything else, but with this topic I know first hand that if you use anything but the OEM gear fluid, you're asking for trouble. +1 I have to agree with Silver_TT on this one. While some have gotten away with using aftermarket gear oils in these gearboxes, most have not. Problems have ranged from pronounced noise, to poor shifting, and actual mechanical failure problems. Considering the cost of either rebuilding or replacing these gear boxes, and the simple fact that the OEM lube is a full synthetic made to Porsche specs and not an API "GL" catagory, it seems counter intuitive to start playing around. The OEM product is readily availiable, not all that expensive, and works very well. Take a deep breath. OK. What makes these transmissions special is they are transaxles. The transmission and the hypoid final drive are in the same case. The transmission itself is the rather standard constant mesh synchronized transmission which Porsche was the very first to introduce in the 1952 356!! I'm sure JFP knows the deal well. For those of you who do not check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOo3TLgL0kM . The problem with the transaxle designs is that hypoid final drives generate a lot of friction and require heavier lubes. Syncromesh transmissions do not like their oil to thick or the baulk rings do not clutch correctly, they float. Revs don't match up and you can't get the car in gear. So, what Porsche did was spec a gear lube that is at the very thinnest of the SAE 75W90 range with a very high Viscosity index. The higher the viscosity index the less the oil's weight changes with temperature. The oils had to have a cSt less than 600 at 0 C. The first to meet that spec was Shell with what was then called Shell Transaxle. It is now called Spirax S5 ATE which you can get in 20 liter drums. Ferrari uses it in their transaxle cars. Porsche use to use it but then Mobil made a marketing deal with Porsche. Thus Mobilube PTX (Porsche TransaXle) was born. These two are the only 75W 90 gear oils that meet Porsche's entire spec. The problem with them is that they are very thin when warm. Why a problem you ask?? All of these transaxles have a degree of drive train lash. Individual cars better or worse depending on luck and the weather. My car is a bit worse in this department. Don't believe me?? Next time you have your car up, put it in gear with the e-brake off. Grab a rear wheel and rotate it back and forth. You will have between 5 and 10 degrees of free play. That is the lash. You can feel it when you drive. Rapid large transitions on an off the gas produce a "thunk" which you feel in seat of your pants. Drive with the window down. You will also notice a lot of transmission noise as say compared with an Audi manual. This stuff is what got me started. Science and specs tell us what to do. An SAE 90 oil can have a viscosity of any where between 13.8 and 18.8 cSt at 100 C. PTX is 14.5 cSt with a viscosity index of 194 (perfect is 200) Spirax is pretty much the same. All the other oils except Millers are around 15.5 cSt at 100 C with a viscosity index ranging from terrible like Delvac at 140 up to Redline at 176. Millers is special because their EE Nano oil has a viscosity of 17.8 at 100 C with a viscosity index of 183. These oils perform exactly as you would expect. With the exception of Millers none of the oils do much to soften the lash and quiet the transmission. Delvac is just plain stupid below 10 C. If you try to jam the car into gear you might score the dog teeth on your syncro rings. Until the transmission reaches full temp, which can take a while, shifting with Delvac ranges from poor to worse. The other oils are OK if you live and drive in environments that are always over 15 C. But if you live and drive anywhere where the Temp drops below 0 C Stick to the PTX or Spirax with ONE exception. Millers is an interesting British company that has been around for a while making lubricants for industrial machines. In the last decade they started getting into motorsports and recently started formulating synthetic oils with nano particles. These particles have been absolutely proven to lower friction by up to 25%. All the science is available on-line. The stuff is very expensive. The gear oil got me to try the motor oil which I now use. Anyway, The Millers most definitely quiets the transmission enough so that even my wife notices it. It takes about 50% of the sting out of the lash. It most definitely shifts better when warm than PTX. At 10 C shifting into 1st and second get a bit stiff but then something strange happens. The other oils including PTX get stiffer as they get colder. Millers starts to get stiff at 10 C but then gets no stiffer all the way down to -8 F. Which is as cold as the car has gone so far. I have used Millers EE exclusively for almost 10,000 miles and everything is just peachy keen. The only things special about PTX other than its viscosity is that it is overloaded with very expensive viscosity modifiers which dilute the oil's friction reducing capability and Mobil has a marketing deal with Porsche. If you don't like marketing deals and you are paranoid about using other oils by all means go with the Spirax. Glad you like it, but we have had customer's that had zero luck with it. That is right JFP. They were using the wrong oil. The EE just came out. They were using the racing formulation which came out several years ago. It has a spec very similar to the Delvac. (yuk) Go to Millers web site and check it out. Millers made the EE just for our transaxles and the stuff is nuts. I have absolutely no interest in Millers by the way. Did you disagree with anything I said above??

Such is life. They probably got sand in it.

Silver TT, these transmissions are not bad they are just not as good as the G50 made by Getrag. I have just finished a 1 and 1/2 year experiment using 5 different transmission oils in my car through all the weather conditions we have up here in New England and I will be posting a DIY on transmission oil changing including all of the results of this experiment. It took so long because I had to use all the oils in winter conditions and it took two winters to get them all in. In most circumstances but not all, Millers is the best and my personal favorite. But, you are welcome to chug along with PTX. That is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. A34735, when someone tells you something that is wrong they are full of it. I myself have been full of it on occasion. I am with you on the voltmeter but the water temp gauge is important. As you have noticed there is a lag between oil temp and water temp. This is because the oil is down in the sump where the water is hopefully not. Going the other way, if your car starts to over heat, under some circumstances you will see it sooner in the water temp Wouldn't ever think of putting anything but the OEM PTX in the gearbox. I have first-hand experience with the damage this will cause. $6K for a gearbox rebuild, or you can buy a reman from Porsche for $10K (before labor). The OEM PTX is an oil which is unique in that it literally has properties that no other oil has. Using the non-OEM will cause wear inside the gearbox over time (some people notice right away, in other cases this can take many thousands of miles). A lot of things people do with their cars I think are obsessing more than anything else, but with this topic I know first hand that if you use anything but the OEM gear fluid, you're asking for trouble. Silver TT, these transmissions are not bad they are just not as good as the G50 made by Getrag. I have just finished a 1 and 1/2 year experiment using 5 different transmission oils in my car through all the weather conditions we have up here in New England and I will be posting a DIY on transmission oil changing including all of the results of this experiment. It took so long because I had to use all the oils in winter conditions and it took two winters to get them all in. In most circumstances but not all, Millers is the best and my personal favorite. But, you are welcome to chug along with PTX. That is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. A34735, when someone tells you something that is wrong they are full of it. I myself have been full of it on occasion. I am with you on the voltmeter but the water temp gauge is important. As you have noticed there is a lag between oil temp and water temp. This is because the oil is down in the sump where the water is hopefully not. Going the other way, if your car starts to over heat, under some circumstances you will see it sooner in the water temp Wouldn't ever think of putting anything but the OEM PTX in the gearbox. I have first-hand experience with the damage this will cause. $6K for a gearbox rebuild, or you can buy a reman from Porsche for $10K (before labor). The OEM PTX is an oil which is unique in that it literally has properties that no other oil has. Using the non-OEM will cause wear inside the gearbox over time (some people notice right away, in other cases this can take many thousands of miles). A lot of things people do with their cars I think are obsessing more than anything else, but with this topic I know first hand that if you use anything but the OEM gear fluid, you're asking for trouble. +1 I have to agree with Silver_TT on this one. While some have gotten away with using aftermarket gear oils in these gearboxes, most have not. Problems have ranged from pronounced noise, to poor shifting, and actual mechanical failure problems. Considering the cost of either rebuilding or replacing these gear boxes, and the simple fact that the OEM lube is a full synthetic made to Porsche specs and not an API "GL" catagory, it seems counter intuitive to start playing around. The OEM product is readily availiable, not all that expensive, and works very well. Take a deep breath. OK. What makes these transmissions special is they are transaxles. The transmission and the hypoid final drive are in the same case. The transmission itself is the rather standard constant mesh synchronized transmission which Porsche was the very first to introduce in the 1952 356!! I'm sure JFP knows the deal well. For those of you who do not check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOo3TLgL0kM . The problem with the transaxle designs is that hypoid final drives generate a lot of friction and require heavier lubes. Syncromesh transmissions do not like their oil to thick or the baulk rings do not clutch correctly, they float. Revs don't match up and you can't get the car in gear. So, what Porsche did was spec a gear lube that is at the very thinnest of the SAE 75W90 range with a very high Viscosity index. The higher the viscosity index the less the oil's weight changes with temperature. The oils had to have a cSt less than 600 at 0 C. The first to meet that spec was Shell with what was then called Shell Transaxle. It is now called Spirax S5 ATE which you can get in 20 liter drums. Ferrari uses it in their transaxle cars. Porsche use to use it but then Mobil made a marketing deal with Porsche. Thus Mobilube PTX (Porsche TransaXle) was born. These two are the only 75W 90 gear oils that meet Porsche's entire spec. The problem with them is that they are very thin when warm. Why a problem you ask?? All of these transaxles have a degree of drive train lash. Individual cars better or worse depending on luck and the weather. My car is a bit worse in this department. Don't believe me?? Next time you have your car up, put it in gear with the e-brake off. Grab a rear wheel and rotate it back and forth. You will have between 5 and 10 degrees of free play. That is the lash. You can feel it when you drive. Rapid large transitions on an off the gas produce a "thunk" which you feel in seat of your pants. Drive with the window down. You will also notice a lot of transmission noise as say compared with an Audi manual. This stuff is what got me started. Science and specs tell us what to do. An SAE 90 oil can have a viscosity of any where between 13.8 and 18.8 cSt at 100 C. PTX is 14.5 cSt with a viscosity index of 194 (perfect is 200) Spirax is pretty much the same. All the other oils except Millers are around 15.5 cSt at 100 C with a viscosity index ranging from terrible like Delvac at 140 up to Redline at 176. Millers is special because their EE Nano oil has a viscosity of 17.8 at 100 C with a viscosity index of 183. These oils perform exactly as you would expect. With the exception of Millers none of the oils do much to soften the lash and quiet the transmission. Delvac is just plain stupid below 10 C. If you try to jam the car into gear you might score the dog teeth on your syncro rings. Until the transmission reaches full temp, which can take a while, shifting with Delvac ranges from poor to worse. The other oils are OK if you live and drive in environments that are always over 15 C. But if you live and drive anywhere where the Temp drops below 0 C Stick to the PTX or Spirax with ONE exception. Millers is an interesting British company that has been around for a while making lubricants for industrial machines. In the last decade they started getting into motorsports and recently started formulating synthetic oils with nano particles. These particles have been absolutely proven to lower friction by up to 25%. All the science is available on-line. The stuff is very expensive. The gear oil got me to try the motor oil which I now use. Anyway, The Millers most definitely quiets the transmission enough so that even my wife notices it. It takes about 50% of the sting out of the lash. It most definitely shifts better when warm than PTX. At 10 C shifting into 1st and second get a bit stiff but then something strange happens. The other oils including PTX get stiffer as they get colder. Millers starts to get stiff at 10 C but then gets no stiffer all the way down to -8 F. Which is as cold as the car has gone so far. I have used Millers EE exclusively for almost 10,000 miles and everything is just peachy keen. The only things special about PTX other than its viscosity is that it is overloaded with very expensive viscosity modifiers which dilute the oil's friction reducing capability and Mobil has a marketing deal with Porsche. If you don't like marketing deals and you are paranoid about using other oils by all means go with the Spirax.

Silver TT, these transmissions are not bad they are just not as good as the G50 made by Getrag. I have just finished a 1 and 1/2 year experiment using 5 different transmission oils in my car through all the weather conditions we have up here in New England and I will be posting a DIY on transmission oil changing including all of the results of this experiment. It took so long because I had to use all the oils in winter conditions and it took two winters to get them all in. In most circumstances but not all, Millers is the best and my personal favorite. But, you are welcome to chug along with PTX. That is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors. A34735, when someone tells you something that is wrong they are full of it. I myself have been full of it on occasion. I am with you on the voltmeter but the water temp gauge is important. As you have noticed there is a lag between oil temp and water temp. This is because the oil is down in the sump where the water is hopefully not. Going the other way, if your car starts to over heat, under some circumstances you will see it sooner in the water temp

JFP, I found the gauge above at Kodiac Controls. It is listed as a Pressure gauge but it may be compound. I will call them on Monday and ask.

JFP, I went to Cole-Parmer's web site and found gauges in everything but inches water most of them costing over $500. Do you know where that one comes from? I'll continue to cruise and see what I can find. There is always Logray's contraption. Perfectly accurate just bulky. You can get inches of water vacuum gauges from lab supply houses, the ones we have are from Cole Palmer:

You may not be. Now, I owned a 1999 C2 for two years so I feel qualified to have this discussion. The transmissions are not as good. There is more drive lash and shifting in and out of 1st and second gears can be notchy, sticky or whatever especially when cold. But, I would NEVER drive a Tiptronic. I'm a manual guy. I have learned to deal with it. Use Miller's EE 75W 90 Nanodrive transmission oil and things will improve a bit. I have been a 911 guy since....1968. If you think those other headlights look better you need another drink. Round headlights are it. NOTHING ELSE will do on a 911 and that is why 966 cars are worth less and Porsche, with it's tail between it's legs went right back to round lights. You need new tires. If you think a 996 car handles near as well you either can't drive or you have bad tires. Get Michelin Super Sports have them expertly balanced and ROCK AND ROLL. I have my car in and out of 4 wheel drifts all the time. It is SO easy in the 997 S. Ditch the PCM. Get an Alpine or Kenwood Nav, a NAV TV most head unit replacement module, a mount kit for the 997 and you will have what looks like a factory system with the best NAV, Bluetooth, iPod integration and better sound. That version of PCM is Becker trash. (I think Becker?) Talking about learning as you go. The gauges are wonderful. Your dealer is full of crap. You are good to go when your oil temp is over 200. The pistons, heads and upper block may be warm when the water temp gets to 175 but the rest of the engine (crank bearings) is not. Just don't horse it until the oil temp is up. Which means drive like your grandmother. (Actually, my grandmother was hell on wheels)

Aneroid vacuum gauges are all over the place and they sell for around $15 - $20. They are all calibrated in inches mercury (hg). An inch hg is equal to 13.6 inches H2O. This makes the mercury manometer much less sensitive and harder to read but it will work. You would just test your gauge with your normal running engine understanding that when the AOS goes the reading will increase 2 - 3 fold or higher. Which with a mercury manometer is not much, 0.3 to 1.0 or above.

Just be sure the gauge is calibrated in inches of water, not mercury (Hg). No sweat JFP. Inches of water it is. It is only inches of oil if you fill the manometer with oil but that would mean we would need a bigger gauge and it already looks quite comber some. But it is simple and cheap. I bet some one makes a small aneroid (dial) version that would work well and be a lot smaller, easier to use and store. I'll hunt the net and see what I can come up with.

Wonderful reply JFP. I'm going to go out and get the parts for my vacuum gauge tomorrow.

It totally depends upon how much oil has gotten into the intake. We have pulled the throttle body off a car that was still smoking intermittently more than 1,000 mile after someone had replaced the AOS and dropped a bore scope down the runners, when we showed the owner what was still in there, he had us pull the intake and clean it. Not all blown AOS lead to severe oiling of the intake; it depends how bad the AOS was, and how long the car was driven that way. A car that had a sudden but recent failure may have only a slight amount of oil in the system, but even that can take a lot of miles to clean out. Thanx JFP. I would assume that if enough oil was introduced into the intake to cause serious trouble that the oil level in the crankcase would drop enough to be noticeable on our stupid electronic gauges. Might the best approach be to monitor your oil level closely? The combination of persistent smoking and an oil level drop should certainly raise concern and a flat bed ride. When the AOS totally fails and the vacuum jumps from 5 inches of water to over 20 inches, it can start pulling a lot of oil very quickly. And, as oil is not at all compressible, any volume larger than that of one cylinder head combustion chamber and piston valve relief volume (combined less than 100CC total) is enough to be fatal to the engine in one revolution. If that happens, neither the driver or the dash display would be able to react fast enough to be useful. So if it starts smoking, the safe bet is a flat bed. Thanx JFP, You should be a doctor. You have the hang of negating any risk. Now, all of my cars have smoked initially on start up. This usually clears in 30 seconds or so. How would you differentiate between this and pathologic smoking. Excuse me for being dim witted but I have never had a car do this to me (hopefully never). The car just starts smoking on the road?? How do people usually notice thay have a problem?? I have seen old cars that have a severe oil burning issue (bad rings?) and they puff blue white smoke most noticable at a stop. If I were driving along on the highway at 80 miles an hour and my AOS went what would happen?? (other than hydrolock and bent connecting rods)