Some weirdness at the track.
 

Winding it out down the straight after a few laps of high rpm driving, I get a smoke bomb and a flashing CEL ! Oh dear me, says I. :eek: What could be the cause of this? Then the CEL goes out and the car continues like nothing had happened.
Cruise into the pits and hook up the Durametric: misfire code and specifically cylinder 6 misfire code ( can damage catalytic converter, it says). Clear the codes. Run some more laps, drive the next day ( slower due to wet track). Nothing. Drive home, pull #6 plug: clean and dry. Still no codes. Pull the AOS to intake plenum tube and it seems a bit oily. I am suspicious of this. So what do you think friends? Am I on the right track?

How full was your oil before the track day? I had *exactly* those same things my first track day, which was right after an oil change in which I filled it 1-2 bars over the top. To resolve I dropped the oil filter and them reinstalled a new filter/o-ring. Now when I do an oil change I only fill to halfway between the bars instead of to the top and it has never reoccurred for me, and I have done maybe 12-13 track days since then.

Steve

Yes, I think you are on to something here. Thanks Steve!

I found my original thread:
http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/48301-troubleshooting-sorting-possible-aos-issue-maybe-something-else.html

The other thing I have heard is that the 986 is very sensitive to oil overfilling, such that I have heard that at some point the digital oil display was calibrated so that the top bar/max full indicator was calibrated to show full with slightly less oil than before. I can't find the thread with this info though, so it may be me just mis-remembering what I thought I read.

When I blew my smoke bomb I came through turn 8/9 in third and then took 3rd right up to the redline and then shifted into 4th and that was when it happened. Since then I have been more conservative about my shifting, usually shifting between 6000 and 6500, but I am doing even more WOT now than I did back then.

Since my smoke bomb (on 9/7/2013) I have done 13 additional track days with no smoke bomb.

I was majorly freaked out but I think it is resolved with not running the oil at the top. I have heard about folks that setup a catch can after AOS, and then they fill the oil to the full mark, and then within their first few sessions the catch can fills up to a certain amount and then oil goes down a certain amount and then it all stabilizes there.

If you have a 2003 or up Boxster then you can more easily retrofit the larger AOS (super $$$ though) or if you have a lower year Boxster it takes a lot of fabrication and finagling to get it installed. I decided to just keep the stock one and keep an eye on it.

Steve