While waiting for the Solution to arrive I've been researching bore scoring, second only to IMS bearing failure in causing catastrophic failure in Porsche engines. I own a borescope and had planned to eyeball the cylinders through the spark plug holes, as I have done with conventional engines. However, I've learned from LN's pre-qualification procedure and from videos at flat6innovations.com (Jake Raby's company) that this method is not sufficient, that one must remove the sump cover and examine the cylinders from underneath. D'OH! There is a ray of light, though. It seems M96 engines are less prone to bore scoring, because the pistons are cast rather than forged (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7idZe6qAtg 9:45).
So I'm idling in neutral at the moment. Perhaps my almost OCD-level perfectionism will force me to unbolt the sump cover and have a look. But doggone it, as I've complained before, making this new engine bulletproof is like yanking a piece of yarn on a sweater. It's only 1 pm here on the West Coast, but it feels like beer thirty. And I don't drink.