[Jake Raby]

Jake, if this "sticky lifter" issue afflicts nearly all M96 engines why haven't we seen more posts/discussions on this topic? Do the 996 engines have the same issue with the lifters? Is it just me, or does this seem to coming out of left field?

Its been an issue.. The first engines I tore into several years ago had sticky lifters.. Because the issues are not catastrophic and because people and technicias don't pay attention to the engines this may seem like a new issue, but it is not.


Do yo know how many shops have the courage to tear into the valve train of one of these engines?? very few. Until the last year or so most dealerships were not allowed to do anything past the cam covers, they just replaced the engine and because of the the technicians don't have a clue as to what the issues are or how to solve them, or even how to diagnose them.

I have a factory trained technician on staff who worked at Brumos Porsche for 4 years.. While he was there he NEVER did anything past the cam covers. His FIRST day on the job here he pulled the lifters from a Boxster and we made it happy again. The first day he was here he was more challenged than he was for 4 years at one of the biggest dealers in the world.

Do not depend on the manufacturer to do more than they HAVE to do, bringing up these issues in a TSB would be admission to a problem..

Jake,
I am just curious, have any of the motors that you have worked on had any sort of catastrophic failure like factory porsche motors have experienced? Are there any other weak points in the motor that have not been discussed throughly?

Absolutely!! I have had one of my updated engines break.. It broke a crankshaft after we gave it a 100HP boost in performance.. The limitation of the stock cranks is now well known and the issues related to LWFWs is as well when impacting these failures. This failure was in one of my test engines belonging to a very good client who never complained an ounce about the broken parts. He said the car was so fast that he was more than pleased. He knew we took risks when the engine was designed and I told him up front that the crankshaft was the only weak link within the engine.

We are replacing the crank with our own updated unit, bumping up the CR even more and are taking even more risks in search of more performance.

I learned long ago that breaking parts is nothing more than the costy of development and application and is required. Any engine builder/ developer that hasn't broken parts is either a liar or isn't challenging himself enough. I have shelves of broken parts I have been gathering for over 20 years, rods broken in half, pistons shattered, you name it... I call it my "trophy shelf" because these broken parts mean more to me than any trophy I have ever won... True offerings to the Gods of Speed...

If I ever have the same part break twice I consider it a failure.. I fully expect to break every part once and I try my very best to do this.. One test car has over 50,000 over revs logged in the ECU.

We will continue finiding weak links in the engine over time and will address them. Thats all we can do.

Well I read through the thread, and found it interesting and informative as usual. It dose not surprise me that there are non-catastrophic issues with the valve train at 60k. As well, the cost associated with the repairs dose not seam prohibitive. We just need to discuss having Jake or Charles relocate their shops' out west!

First off: I lived in California for 4 years.. There isn't enough money on the planet to coax me away from my place nestled away here in the mountains.. I make all the noise I want and have freedom to do whatever with nop neighbors or BS. I have Deer, Bears and Eagles right outside my office window...

This service work isn't cheap, because you drive a Porsche and because it is specialized work that takes a lot of time to do. If you want cheap, buy a Honda. Jhandy's car was on my lift for 4 days straight to do these upgrades, see how much that would cost at a dealer and my prices look like poverty level wages.

I charge what is fair and you'll know up front what thats going to be.

You may have covered this but, why do you supposed the lifters are sticking? Is this a design issue with the engine. Can lubrication in any way deal with this?

Lubrication and extended drain intervals are the problem. The BS about going 10-15 or more thousand miles on an oil change is the issue. Also, the cars not being driven hard enough to get the oil hot and burn impurities from it also plays into it... Hotter oil temps at higher revs and pressure keeps the crap purged from the lifters.. The hydraulic chain tensioners do the same thing over time as well, thats why we are making a solid conversion kit for them and even making a solid lifter for our race engines or serious level (stage II and above) street engines.

The stock lifters and tensioners are actually very small filters that collect gunk.

Jake, do you offer any sort of limited warranty on any of your upgrades and/or engine work? Just reading one of the passages below, it says once your upgraded bearing is installed, it "should be good for the remainder of the engines life." What happens if for any crazy reason, it fails a few months down the road?

I guarantee the engines that have MY name on them. The engines I have upgraded completely and have assembled from A-Z here at my facility. I will not put my guarantee on an engine built by Porsche.

Working with mechanical things is a risk, at any time anything can break and without notice or explanation. I can do a job perfectly and something else let go within the engine that is not something I even touched... Because of that the owner of the car assumes the same rsisks that I do when doing upgrades.

My way might not be the way that today's society appreciates, because people generally believe that some sort of warranty will keep issues from occurring- thats not the case. The reality is anything can happen at any time and I won't give you a 12 page documet to sign that has 4 pages of BS fine print that basically says what we did for you really wasn't covered by any warranty to begin with..

What I will do is the most thorough job possible with the best post evaluations and I'll field test your car 200 miles myself under telemetry... These are things you won't get at the dealership, but they will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside with a piece of paper. When we have issues we just deal with them.. They happen and I work through them.

The other key is I don't work on ever car or accept every job that comes in, because I also learned long ago that at least 10% of todays society cannot be pleased, or they have expectations that can't be met.

I generally don't have any conflicts and most people don't even ask about a warranty...

I shoot straight and don't give gray areas a chance to exist. Everything is cut and dry and you know up front how we work, the risks and etc.. If you don't appreciate that, then feel free to go to someone who goes out of his way to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside...

I support what I create.. Use Google to prove that. I have had customers with 7 year old engines that had a weird issue and we still made it right! They were patient, understanding and appreciative- all of which are keys to success when things do go down hill.

All that said I will be doing my best to break at least two engines next weekend... Not many people are dedicated enough to compromise a perfectly good running engine to gather data...

If more people and shops pulled the cam covers and did internal work the lifter issue would have been known about last century...