Adam,
I know I am not Jake, and by no means pretend to be in the same league as him.

With that said, what I have read and its been quite a bit, is that you are basically prewashing your lifters and such with the stuff for about 5 to 30 minutes, not nearly enough time to break down the real oil. Most of the experts, including"little bastard" then suggest changing your oil immediately after, and some have suggested changing your oil again in about 500 miles. Unfortunately I have just put in some pricey castro sytnec and may wait till I am ready to change it out next year. The reason they advise me to change my oil is that after the seafoam, atf... has loosened the sludge and crap in your engine, you need to get it out quickly or it will just settle something else. the sludge forms when an oil starts to break down(read the following exerpt on sludge).

"Sludge formation begins when the chemically suspended particles of contaminants begin to settle out of the oil. It's a fairly daunting task for engine oil to suspend all the contaminants thrown at it, and any engine oil can do this successfully to a point. Pennzoil, and some other quality motor oils, are able to perform this task more effectively and for longer periods of time. But eventually, if the oil is not changed often enough, a "breaking point" will be reached. This breaking point is either when there are too many contaminants to handle or when the oil's chemical defenses are weakened, and it is caused by two main things: excessive accumulation of contaminants in the oil and chemical changes in the makeup of the oil itself (depletion of the additives and oxidation).

"As more particles are suspended, less of the additives are available to do their job. Knowing this makes it easy to see why too much time between oil changes can be one cause of the oil reaching its "breaking point"."
http://yotarepair.com/sludge%20article.html

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..


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.

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.

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.

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...

I hope I was clear, I stated that the costs were NOT prohibitive. Meaning I didn't think that the prices I've seen so far were anything but fare. If I wasn't clear, I apologize. Cali suks NV is much better!! I don't blame you my wife's Aunt lives near Helen Ga, and it's very nice, a great place to visit :cheers:

I don't think jakes prices are out of line at all, especially for the expertise and experience you get from him. Its like any business, you just want to find someone you can trust, will finish the job, finish it right and stand behind it. From what I have read, Jake brings all this to the table.

My dilema isn't price, its that I have been iching for more power(Same thing happened when I bought my Vmax bike). My internal question: is it more prudent for me to just get a new bigger engine. I bought this 2001 "s" knowing it could be a time bomb and if it happened I would probably upgrade engines. And every road on Porsche engines led right back to Jake. :cheers:

If I caused any confusion, I apologize. I was meaning to say that IMO, Flat6 and LN's prices are well inline with what I would expect, and probably a bargin considering so few others even attempt to offer their services.

I hope I haven't offended anyone.

I understand the concept behind it, but kerosene is a solvent meaing it breaks down oils and lubricants. While it may clean up some gunk and deposits, I wonder how that affects the rest of the internal engine compenents. My thought is it would lessen the oils ability to lubricate things like bearings, camshafts..ect and could open up a whole new can of problems.

You need to understand that these methods are so temporary that they pose little (if any) risk.

We're not talking about running the engine thousands, or even hundreds of miles with these 'cleaners' in the motor. Setting up to do the clean and running the car 30 min. @ 60mph means you're putting 30 mi. on the car - that's all.

And, ATF is generally better quality base oil to begin with because it has to last much longer in a tranny. It's advantage is that it is chock full of detergents/dispersants designed to keep the numerous small checkball valves and such in a tranny clean and is of a lower viscosity and so can penetrate areas your motor oil cannot. Also, realize that with the Boxster, you would be effectively diluting it 8:1. I wouldn't hesitate to add it to my engine in those circumstances, even with Jake's caveat about variocam solenoids, in fact I'll be doing just that this fall a month to two weeks prior to seasonal storage so I can do my final oil change just prior to hybernating it for the winter. An auto trans contains solenoids too (the tiptronic surely does), and it's made of the same materials as the variocam solenoids, yet it survives a 'lifetime' being bathed in ATF, not merely 30 min. I share the same degree of concern as Jake for longterm effects to the internals, but not if used under the guidelines I previously described.

30 minutes! That's it, then a full flush, and then another within 500 - 1000 mi. as a safeguard.

Be aware, I'm not promoting this, people have to decide on their own if it's worth it or not for their own car. I'm just pointing out that this method is not new and has worked successfully for years on many types of engines and it does clean up sticky lifters. According to the experts, your M96 engine is gonna grenade sooner or later anyway, from any number of possible causes, so how large is the risk really?

:cheers:

LiL bastard, would you suggest doing it with your old oil, rather than wasting the new. Or does it have to be done with new oil. And would you use atf over seafoam?

Thanks for the detailed response Jake. I totally understand your point of view if some other shop installs your IMS upgrade, for example, and then something goes wrong, you should not be responsible for it because your shop did not supervise the install, and something could of been improperly installed or damaged during the upgrade. However, what happens if the car comes to your shop, you install just the IMS upgrade, and then something happens whereby the upgraded IMS bolt fails (proven after you tear down the engine)? So there would be no recourse for the customer?

I see what you are saying about how a warranty does not prevent issues from happening, but it does protect the customer if that something should happen, no?

Jake,

I tried to PM you, but your mailbox is full. I've been reading your engine posts with interest and have a couple quick questions.

1) I've been interested in your 3.2-3.6 stage II upgrade and might be able to swing the cost over the winter. I know you are learning new things about these motors almost weekly now. Do you think you'll have a really solid product with your stage II by December or would it be best to wait a bit further into the development process? I guess I don't want to do the stage II in a few months only to have the same conversion be +30hp 6 months from now if you know what I mean. Also, what is a ballpark cost on the stage II (assuming I drive my healthy 19k mile anniversary edition car to you and leave it to pick up when you are finished)?

2) I have a friend who has a similar Boxster S to mine except his only has about 15k miles. He just bought a house and doesn't have the cash to do the 3.2 to 3.6 right now. However, he is interested in having you solidify the motor now which sounds like at a minimum it would be lifters and IMS. What would be a ballpark on the cost of you most basic "sturdiness" upgrade on the 3.2?

Of course I won't hold you to these prices, just trying to get a ballpark. Feel free to PM me or let me know when it's a good time to call your shop.

Thanks,
Mike

I'm not suggesting anything. I am simply passing along a tried and tested method for others to be aware of and to use if they believe it has merit.

Personally did this twice before, once with a GM smallblock and once with a miata motor. In both cases I used ATF and in both cases it cleaned/quieted the lifters for at least another 20k mi. (as long as I owned or had contact with the cars afterward).

I will use ATF over an additive because I have had sucess using it in the past.

It's critical to start with fresh oil for a couple reasons. Used oil will contain moisture, fuel, and acidic compounds which can breakdown or dilute the additive (or chemicals in ATF) minimizing their effectiveness. Second, used oil is already 'saturated' to some degree and has a lesser ability to hold additional crap in suspension.

I'd say that if you're not going to do it as described, it's probably best not to do it at all.

:cheers:

I am 5 miles from Helen GA :-)

Thank you! We've always delivered in botht the aircooled and watercooled Porsche world..

My program is the only way to get more power AND an updated engine. The 01' S is a perfect candidate for a 3.6 big bore in either stage I or stage II trim.

Exactly.

If that happened and the work had a guarantee there would be finger pointing and it would not be fun for anyone. Lots of other things can fail inside this engine that may APPEAR to be the IMS and the engine can be so destroyed that it would be impossible to determine what failed first. Due to that we assume risks together, I can't gold plate the process or guarantee that no issues will occur because its purely mechanical.

If the remainder of the engine that we can't update withiut a full tear down was so risky I'd have no problem guaranteeing this work. The worst nightmare for anyone is to have a warranty and the grat areas not point to any conclusive source of the issue.. We end up with red tape, court cases and bad reputations when that happens.. I'd much rather be up front, do the best job possible and support the job as much as possible the olod fashioned way should something occur.. I will not promise anyone a rose garden unless they buy MY version of this engine with the updates applied, and even then there are stipulations.

Maybe, maybe not... I am not big on the whole warranty thing, probably because I have been around mechanical things all my life and have seen perfectly good running engines die because of something that could not be explained... If the Warranty gives you the security you are looking for, lets just hope you don't end up in court trying to make them pay when reality strikes.

I just finished installing a test engine into the customer's car that had the crankshaft fail. He had no warranty (full track car) and didn't have to ask me to do this for him to finish his season.. He was fair and I went out of my way to accomodate him and I'll guarantee that no piece of paper on this planet would have forced any other shop to install another engine into his car after his failed ON THE TRACK- I offered to do this for him... See if Porsche will give you a loaner engine and let you take it on the track... I told him to try to blow it up, and I mean it.

This test engine has an IMS retrofit (the second one ever done) as well as a pair of cracked heads that we repaired with a new process and it has experimental camshafts.. We ripped the heads off, ported them, did a good valve job and repaired the cracks... Then bumped up the CR at bit, but we didn't crack into the block- thats all OE. A few minutes ago it made 250 RWHP from a bone stock 3.2 with 88,000 miles. It has over 500 dyno pulls on it and is stronger than ever!


Sorry about that.. This topic has filled my inbox, mostly with complainers...

The STageII is fully developed right now. We have already standardized it's design and components. If you are waiting for me to "perfect" it, well you'll never buy one!!! Development is a constant evolution here as we learn and apply even small changes. Waiting will just make it cost more money!!! :-)

Based on a few variables the cost would be roughly 20K out the door with install, dyno and ECU reflash.

3-6K with lots of variables in existence. This includes RMS/IMS retrofit bearing/clutch package/ lifter service,variocam service, oil sump inspection and new chain tensioners as well as vario cam solenoids. While we are there we can install some of our camshafts if you'd like :-)
We also dyno the vehicle and I'll put 200 miles on it with my telemetry in place.

This is a solid weeks work, so its not cheap.. We don't really work by the hour, there isn't a clock in my entire facility, all work takes as long as it takes.

Thanks for answering all the questions Jake.

Anybody in the market for a 2001 62k 3.2 motor, no leaks, no unusual noises and I will throw in the 9.25 quarts of castro syntec i just put in!! :eek:

I gotta go empty my quarter/dime/nickle jar and start rolling coins. I use to call it my Prop jar(boat), cause I was always chewing up props in lake erie!! Now I will call it my suicide jar, as I will probably kill myself with a new motor, at least i will have a **************** eating grin on my face when the paramedics try to scrape my carcass off the tree! :D

Hey serious questions folks.

1.) whats my engine worth on the market?
2.) How much more would a 3.8 be, and how much more power?

Now ya all got me drooling

Good running engines sell for 5-7K

Are you talking a Porsche 3.8 or my 3.8??

Jake,

I have a great running 2001 2.7 that I would LOVE to upgrade. There is so much talk about the 3.2 engines and what you have done to them but not much about the 2.7. Can you please shed some light on the options I/we have for our beloved 2.7 engines. Also pricing would be great!

Thanks!
James

Well now that I have heard the horror stories about the stock porsche, I would definately be more interested in yours. I have read on another site about a guy who blew a 3.8 x?? up after a very short time.

I assume yours is more powerful, right? Is it a whole lot better than the 3.6? and as stable in a boxster?

My buddy has a 1994 supra twin turbo, I would consider doing it just to see his face,in my rearview mirror [ :eek: ] It would be priceless!! Well maybe not priceless. Hey you only live once right. I had better spend it before the Government takes it!! See what not having kids can get you :cool:

I hope that supra is stock otherwise you'll be spending alot of $$$ and still get beat. There's a lot of 2JZ supras out there putting out double of what a 3.8L Porsche engine cranks out in the 500-900hp range. Regardless if straight line racing and accel is what you crave then you bought the wrong car. Even a 3.8L boxster probably couldn't beat a bone stock LS3 436 hp corvette that you drive right off the dealer lot.

Oh its stock, I just get tired of hearing him, Lets race, I will blow your doors off. I told him, thats not why people buy Boxsters. If I wanted to drag race I would have gotten a lancer or suburu wrx ???. I googled the specs on it and it is pretty impressive, 5.1 ish 0-60.

Actually I am considering it because I have the odd gene that makes people do crazy thrill seeking things. Or I just feel the need for more speed!!