2006 Cayman S engine failure
 

73K miles, traveling at 65 mph, dry conditions, slight incline. A huge plume of mixed coolant/oil spewed of the tailpipes. Check engine light came on and the car ground to a halt. Flatbedded to a Porsche dealership, whose inspection found "Cataclysmic engine failure. Scoring to #5 cylinder, valve hit piston, metal debris in oil filter. No repairs possible. Needs engine replacement." So, that's the result. But what was the cause? The dealership declined to comment.

Over one year beyond CPO warranty. Porsche NA refuses to acknowledge the problems with these MY97 engines. From my recent and exhaustive reading of site forums it's not if a 2006-2008 3.4 engine will blow, it's when. You've done all the correct things right - LN Engineering IMS bearing retrofit, 2-litre deep sump with baffle, Accusump, etc. Seems like it's all you can do and you're still not sure...

I am having a reputable motorsports company put together a build sheet for another 3.4 - the stories they shared about quality control from Porsche of these engines is horrifying!

Anyway, off to blab about my story on other sites and hopefully give Porsche the black eye they deserve. Hopefully this (and the many other peoples' posts) forewarn potential buyers of these cars.

Sincerely,

Dan

Time for a nice Raby 4.0L

^^^^^^^^^^^^

this would be my 1st choice of action.

Are you saying you had the LN bearing?

We'd be happy to help.. As long as you don't need the car until may of 2014!! :-)

Sucks that it happened. Good luck!

Piston #5 is located close to the RMS side. Were you not able to see your car?

*edit: What's a "Raby"? is it an engine builder?

This guy is an engine surgeon .
He has an operating theatre .
And a laboratory .
He treads a path no other tuners have the guts to go down and is a pioneer of Volkswagen and porsche tuning .
He has plans to do things before the porsche Motorsport supported race teams and alios ruf etc even think of them .
He single handedly turned the vw world upside down when he disproved over 50 years of racing history and theory .
He is the savior of our world .

Of course , some people think he is a untrained snake oil peddler with delusions of grandeur .

You can't replace the IMSB on an '06 without a complete engine teardown, unlike the previous watercoolers.

Ian will you explain the comment about how Jake 'turned 50 yrs. ....'?

Satire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've been around long enough to remember when jake was JUST a self proclaimed "vw specialist" ...
I think even then he called it a "division" , as if it was a small part of this big thing he had going on at "the facility" :rolleyes:

When he says he could move to California and make money and be just like everyone else , this just isn't true ...
The California speed shops build world record holding drag cars and race cars ;)

I have nothing against the guy , in fact I have conversed with him many years ago via pm on a BIG Volkswagen forum , however his Internet "persona" and the claims he makes are preposterous , and that annoys me at times .

I was in "moderator trouble" on the Internet way before he turned his interests to h2o Porsches , and to be honest he isn't worth it , so that's all I'm saying ...

Thank you for your criticism. We all had to start somewhere, and the majority of the top Porsche engine specialists started with VWs. I am proud of what I accomplished in that industry and we are still a part of it with the aircooled division, where we maintain an 8 month+ backlog. This is truly a division, as the two sides do not share the same employees and is located in a separate building of our 30,000 square foot facility.

Bill Doyle who builds 125,000.00 4 Cam Fuhrmann engines started with 36HP VW engines and he is also proud of that, as he should be. I spent a couple of weeks working at Bill's shop in Jackson Hole Wyoming.

I have created ACVW engines that made 650HP and held 37 PSI boost from a 4 cylinder pushrod engine. Making 162HP per cylinder with an aircooled 4 cylinder engine and hitting 128MPH in 1/8 mile in 5.68 seconds is not a simple task.

That said, I was working with the h20 platform for several years before anyone knew about it. To be As early as 2002 Bruce Anderson pulled Charles Navarro aside at the Porsche Literature Meet and said "Charles, you and Jake have to develop fixes for these watercooled engines". From that, it all started as soon as we landed back at home from the trip. The full story is found in the first chapter of my book to be released at the 2014 Porsche Parade. We knew that the aircooled industry had our capabilities on a leash and that it would end up dying off before we reached retirement age, and it all fit together well as a master plan.

I appreciate your criticism, people like you are my driving force and without you I wouldn't challenge myself quite so hard. We are all entitled to opinions, whether they are accurate or not. VW engines and aircooled Porsches were nothing more than a stepping stone for us, like many others in the industry. The difference is we have stuck to our roots and my original aircooled employees currently maintain the aircooled side of the house, with an average of a 9 month backlog for a Raby engine. We'll never be too big to remember where it all started, and why.

Maybe I should have worded it better , but I wasnt being derogatory about the aircooled volkswagens .
They have been my hobby for years .
I own one and always will .

+1 Jake, from all I've read and researched on the Boxsters. If my engine blew tomorrow and I needed to ship my car from CA, I would happily do so and be willing to wait until May 2014. Carry on sir!

I feel the same way. Lots of days I would rather drive any of my old VWs rather than a Porsche. I have a lot of both and feel that they are all from the same family.

What makes an engine a "Raby engine"?

That guy VVV builds it :D

Created under my roof using the components we have developed, installed by my team and proven with me in the driver's seat.

You all design and does machining in-house?

Absolutely. Everything associated with development, assembly and evaluation related to my engines is done under this roof, with the exception of the Nikisil plating procedures carried out BY LN Engineering. With those we have our own bore sizes, our own ring packages and have carried out all of that development as well.

The first IMS Retrofit was carried out here, the IMS Solution was invented and developed here and so were all the tooling components to support IMS Retrofits.

We are completely self sufficient- thats the only way to ensure quality. Its also the only way that we can ensure that our proprietary procedures are not stolen, or otherwise compromised.

Cool! Have your company investigate the ceramic bearing offered by LN Engineering after extensive mileage or use? If so, are there any report?

Sounds like you're the owner of Flat 6 Innovation or something?

Jake was one of the forces behind what is marketed as the LN bearing. There have been around 8-10,000 installed, some for over 4 years and 50k+ miles. Jake was instrumental in working out the procedures for removal and replacement as well as the tools needed. Also tested them in his personal car on both road and track. Have they looked at LN bearings removed from cars and shipped them to a bearing engineer for further analysis, yes. And they have extended their projection for the probable life of the bearing repeatedly as they are shown by experience to be lasting much longer than their original cautious claims.

There are hundreds of online reports on the use of the LN bearings. The very few problems seem to be when people have used them as a "just replace the old bearing" AFTER the original bearing has shed pieces throughout the engine or when unqualified folks screw up the install.

Jake teaches a M96 engine internals class to qualify folks to do the installs properly.

Yes, Jake Raby is Flat6

Poke around the LN and Flat6 web sites. You'll learn a lot there.