3.8 Replacement Motors

[ekam]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

At end of the day, the monetary value of a Porsche comes almost entirely from its engine.

Not entirely true. For Ferraris yes because you're literally paying for the sound of the engine. With Porsches you pay for the direct steering, awesome brakes and suspension tuning.

[The Radium King]

if you read the thread on pistonheads it talks about when Porsche changed linings. from what I understand from that thread it goes like this:

nikasil - pre m96 engines, aftermarket replacement (ie, lne)
lokasil - m96, m97.1 engines
alusil - m97.2 engines

apparently lokasil is the bad one, but the thread also goes on to say:

"Boxsters up to 3.2 and 3.4 996 engines do not suffer the problem (despite also running in Lokasil) and bank one is much less vulnerable ..."

this gives credence to jack's post regarding rod angle; the 3.2 and 3.4 share the same bottom end and just different bores, but the 3.6 strokes it and the 3.8 is a bored 3.6. so the stroking increases rod angle and must dramatically increase scoring. note that the m96 and m97 3.6 share the same crank (ie, the m96 3.6 is not a bored 3.4).

the other thing is the statement regarding banks, which indicates to me that cooling is an issue, and supports the idea that anything you can do to improve cooling is a good thing.

long story short, the 3.6, even the early ones, seem to be as subject to scoring.

ps, i'm not jack. I just read a lot. and have a 3.6 that i'm worrying about.

[Jake Raby]

I was stating that all of the engines that we create exclusively use LN Engineering "Nickies" (Nikisil plated) billet aluminum cylinders.

No engines retain Lokisil bores, or otherwise. This goes for all M96/ M97/ 9A1 (DFI) and Cayenne engines.

I assisted with the founding of LN Engineering and used the very first set of "Nickies" ever manufactured- They reside in the 914 based engine found in my personal 356 Outlaw today.

The only engines that leave this facility with factory cylinders are those that we have repaired that had acceptable cylinder wear and only needed some other extensive "repair" carried out. These are the engines that do not have a budget for reconstruction, or do not require it to resolve their internal issues. A good example of this would be an engine that has low mileage and loses an IMS bearing with limited collateral damages. We would disassemble the entire engine, replace the IMS with our upgraded unit, then install an IMS Solution, upgrade to ARP rod bolts, replace bearings and timing chains and save the owner at least 10K bucks.

Otherwise we use Nickies and I won't even consider any other solution. We developed these products from nothing and have used more than anyone in the world 20X over.

[pk2]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

if you read the thread on pistonheads it talks about when Porsche changed linings. from what I understand from that thread it goes like this:

....

long story short, the 3.6, even the early ones, seem to be as subject to scoring.

ps, i'm not jack. I just read a lot. and have a 3.6 that i'm worrying about.

What then is the symptom of scoring? is it just a gradual loss of compression? or a catastrophic failure. Will a simple compression check Identify evidence of scoring. This motor apparently has 36k miles. At what point does scoring really become an issue.

Regards, PK

[The Radium King]

i'm no expert but i'll start off:

- it'll burn more oil as more oil makes it past the rings
- potential smoke on start-up as oil may seep past the rings into the combustion chamber while sitting
- if the piston gets really loose in there you might start to hear piston slap (you can youtube it to hear what it sounds like)
- if things get really bad something might break.

scoping the bore when doing your next spark plug change is probably the best way to see what, if anything, is going on in there.

so sayeth the armchair mechanic.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by ekam

Not entirely true. For Ferraris yes because you're literally paying for the sound of the engine. With Porsches you pay for the direct steering, awesome brakes and suspension tuning.

Which are all worth paltry sums once the Porsche street engine goes kaputsky. Which is my point.
You bought an engine from the previous owner for $XX,XXX and he was nice enough to toss in four wheels, the steering, brakes and springs.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by pk2

What then is the symptom of scoring? is it just a gradual loss of compression? or a catastrophic failure. Will a simple compression check Identify evidence of scoring. This motor apparently has 36k miles. At what point does scoring really become an issue.

Regards, PK

The only symptom initially is a noise that sounds just like a bad lifter... Tick..tick..tick.

It will fool even the best pair of "mechanical ears" until the person outfitted with those ears has had it bite them in the ass after a "lifter job" was a waste of time and did not solve the problem. So, you spend 5K+ on a lifter job and the issue is not repaired, because people lack experience and ASSUME that symptoms are something they are not.

I have had these engines make the ticking sounds and never consume oil, never smoke and never lose power and even pass a compression and leak down test and have failed cylinders. It bites shops in the ass all of the time, but luckily we have been able to identify it up front in 100% of the cases.

The reason why the ticking starts first is because the wear occurs at the piston skirt area where friction is greatest. This is well blow the ring sealing area and because of that the engine can fail from this without any of the classic symptoms of a lost cylinder.

[pothole]

Interesting to see Nikasil pitched as the perfect premium solution.

Back in the 90s, BMW has problem with Nikasil bores suffering premature wear in some European territories due to high-sulphur fuel.

They never offered Nikasil bores in the US due to high sulphur fuel being common.

Makes me wonder two things.

1. If Nikasil is so expensive, how did BMW manage to offer it on basic 3 Series cars?
2. Is high sulphur fuel a thing of the past? Because if it isn't...

[pk2]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

i'm no expert but i'll start off:

- it'll burn more oil as more oil makes it past the rings
- potential smoke on start-up as oil may seep past the rings into the combustion chamber while sitting
- if the piston gets really loose in there you might start to hear piston slap (you can youtube it to hear what it sounds like)
- if things get really bad something might break.

scoping the bore when doing your next spark plug change is probably the best way to see what, if anything, is going on in there.

so sayeth the armchair mechanic.

Thanks,

- At what mileage can you expect slapping, if it's going to occur? (I realize how it's been driven plays a part)

- Do they all do it? Or is this an IMS type thing, some fail and others go a zillion miles?

Regards, PK

[pk2]

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

The only symptom initially is a noise that sounds just like a bad lifter... Tick..tick..tick.

...

The reason why the ticking starts first is because the wear occurs at the piston skirt area where friction is greatest. This is well blow the ring sealing area and because of that the engine can fail from this without any of the classic symptoms of a lost cylinder.

Thanks

At what kind of mileage? The car in question apparently has just 36k miles on it. I drive about 1500 miles a year. In 10 yrs the car will be trashed anyway with 50k miles on it. Do I need to sweat about it?

I drove it once for a couple miles and noticed nothing abnormal, no smoke, know rattles, sounded pretty tight.

Regards PK

[Jake Raby]

These failures can happen at any mileage, low mileage cars have yet to be exempt from ANY of the 24 modes of failure I have documented.
I have an engine at the shop now that has 27K miles and lost a cylinder. Here is the photo album for that failure and a description:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.644486948912437.1073741842.184464434914693&type=3

And here is what the cylinder looked like..
27K miles. I shake my head every time someone says "my car only has 30K miles". I am thinking the while time "wow, that just means it'll be a little cleaner when we strip it down to the crankshaft and build it the way it should have been from the factory after it scattered"



And the piston:

[Jager]

That is the strangest shaped piston I have ever seen... And the motor was still running??

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by Jager

That is the strangest shaped piston I have ever seen... And the motor was still running??

This engine ran absolutely fine.. Zero smoke, zero oil consumption and no cylinder symptoms, just a tick..tick..tick.

It fooled two dealerships and three other shops before the owner decided to ship it 1,000 miles to us. We diagnosed it in less than 30 minutes. Now he is getting a big bore and is part of our 13 month backlog!

[pk2]

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

This engine ran absolutely fine.. Zero smoke, zero oil consumption and no cylinder symptoms, just a tick..tick..tick.

It fooled two dealerships and three other shops before the owner decided to ship it 1,000 miles to us. We diagnosed it in less than 30 minutes. Now he is getting a big bore and is part of our 13 month backlog!

It seems your saying these motors are crap. Do any, in your opinion, survive to 50k? I've no interest in dropping 10k into a $18k car. 28 grand, for what? That would buy something far more contemporary without any hassle I should think.

When did Porsche get their _hit together on these motors?

Regards, PK

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by pk2

It seems your saying these motors are crap. Do any, in your opinion, survive to 50k? I've no interest in dropping 10k into a $18k car. 28 grand, for what? That would buy something far more contemporary without any hassle I should think.

When did Porsche get their _hit together on these motors?

Regards, PK

No, just stating what we see routinely. You must understand that we do not see best case scenarios, we do not do normal work at a normal shop level. All that we see is extreme and has usually already been manipulated by other shops that don't have a clue, so we have to pick up the pieces and start from scratch.

What I was stating more than anything is the bigger, later engines are NOT any better than those that preceded them, contrary to popular belief. These engines have proven to be some of the most problematic with the most failure modes.

All M96 and M97 engines are created equally and none are better or worse than others, it seems.

The DFI 9a1 engines have been our focus for the past 3 years already, I recently tore into one with 4100 miles to carry out our big bore process that increases displacement from 3.4 to 4.2 liters. The engine had no symptoms and was being built bigger for "no reason at all". We carried out a "before dyno" prior to disassembly so we could have a comparative after our work is finished. The dyno results were the lowest we'd seen from any DFI 3.4 Cayman spec engine and even a track engine with 14K miles on it (all on track) had beaten it. Upon disassembly I found two missing O rings from the oil system, a broken piston ring, scored cylinders and worn out lifters. I have documented all of this, and the engine had never even had its first oil service and had never been to the track.

BTW- We currently have 13 months worth of engines to create and of those only 5-6 of the cars have more street value than what is being spent on my reconstructed engines. The people that look our way have a different way of placing a value on their car. Since 1992 I have been building engines for customers that are spending more on my engine than the entire car is worth- thats nothing new with Porsches. The reason they don't care is because they never sell the car, so what the vehicle is worth is only determined by how much time in service it gives them.

I have a 2014 GT3 on the way here and it will have only 3-4K miles on it when we strip the engine down to make it as large as efficiently possible. We'll know more about it in just a few months and I am positive we'll have our hands inside one of these before anyone outside the factory (again).

[clickman]

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

We currently have 13 months worth of engines to create

So much for one of Jake's engines as an alternative.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by clickman

So much for one of Jake's engines as an alternative.

I've closed the performance engine program until we catch up. We have sold 5 months worth of engines in the last two months.

Each engine we create requires over 105 hours to complete, because we carry out install, dyno, tuning, invasive post inspection and etc. This is not something where we stock engines that are generic and just ship them away- thats how an engine builder loses a reputation quickly and even more so with these engines. The competitors that have grown on our coat tails are learning this one by one and taking themselves out one by one.

It takes as long as it takes and I refuse to compromise quality just to create more engines.

[pk2]

I Guess i'm going to listen carefully for the slapping noise before I buy.If it's not endemic,maybe it's a good motor, the one in five that works right. I just want a reliable Box.

I had a super-charged 2.5l. Despite nay-sayers, I had no problems, It never blew and was an -elll of lot of fun

[patssle]

The competitors that have grown on our coat tails are learning this one by one and taking themselves out one by one.

Can I ask who your (good) competitors are? I see your name among the Porsche boards (914world, Pelican) but never anybody else. Surely there are other people working on our engines too.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by patssle

Can I ask who your (good) competitors are? I see your name among the Porsche boards (914world, Pelican) but never anybody else. Surely there are other people working on our engines too.

They are all still learning. The mistakes we see being made prove that as they are very elementary and I made them the first time I built one of these engines.

In my last two WTI classes we have had a competitor show up and attend the class, which is always interesting.

Lots of shops that never considered working with these engines back when we started this craziness are now doing the work because they have to. They are the guys that laughed at us years ago for working with "disposable engines" but today they are fighting to stay alive and they are doing everything they can, including trying to create these engines.

Just look through the magazines to see who is doing this work, you'll find an ad from everyone of them and you won't find an ad from us.. Why advertise when you have a year's worth of work?

The parts bill on one of my engines is 14K+, these "other" engines are sold completely for less than that, so their is no comparison and therefore no competition.

They might now what we know today in 5 years from now, if they bust their ass and continue copying our products.