Hmmm, Bore Score and 7 weeks ago... 2006 Cayman S

Buyer beware....old words to live by. I've had the car just over a month and I'm pretty sure I know what this is. All of this material was inside the oil filter. I've never seen this type of material before but if the pics don't show it, it's greyish, brittle and super thin. So here's what's weird. The car has a slight tap on startup (Dead cold). Once it warms up it's quiet. Under load it's quiet and high revs, well it's loud obviously but nothing smacking, clunking or sounding bad...at all. Changed the plugs a few days ago. #6 has some oil gunk just around the washer and the rest of it looked fine. Hmmmm, thought maybe the sucker was just not tight enough. So, I have used about 1/3 of a liter of oil with almost 1000 miles on it and I don't think the engine is leaking. The previous owner had a major power steering leak and 4K later it was fixed. Still remnants of that oily mess so I'm cleaning and watching. Unclear if I have an oil leak yet. The exhaust tips are clean and no oily residue around the area/rear bumper. The car is smooth, fast and has not shown one iota of trouble but I cannot deny what I'm looking at. Unless there's some mystery material that perhaps is a result of glue from a head being resealed I'm not sure what else this could be. Can't tell if it's truly magnetic or just static grabbing it. Some pieces move and others don't and looks like all the same stuff. So, the car has 80K miles on it. Original clutch and pressure plate so I knew that was something that I would be doing in the near future. (I have a lift and full garage). I have some questions and would love to hear from others who have experience with this. I'm retired now and don't have the big dollars to just send the car over to the Porsche Dealership. But then again I have rebuilt 911 's, 914's and 356's. Several in fact so I like to think I'm competent. #1. I see Jake is getting 8K to fix these. I would bet that's the best case scenario and probably more like 10-12K by the time your done. Has anyone had Jake (Flat 6) do this or done this on their own? Any documentation on this process? It appears that Jake replaces pretty much everything and uses a different process to mate the piston/cylinder. #2. Other than the obvious, (Car knocking like crap some day), when do I know to just stop driving the car? Now that I understand the situation, I will be doing an oil/filter change at maybe 2500 to 3000 miles and just keep grinning. #3 I have read that using a 5W-40 or a thicker oil might help with things but seems like a hail marry at best to me. I drive the car on weekends when it's nice out. Here in California that's pretty much every weekend. I do not track the car. Only spirited flings. I was wondering why the previous owner only had the car for a couple months. Told me the car was not RAW enough for him and wanted a S2000 . Yeah.... Dave

Yikes, sorry to hear this... During the summer of 2016, I had a tapping sound in my ‘ 06 Cayman S . It turned into a louder consistent knock somewhat quickly, with shiny non-magnetic debris present in the oil filter. After the engine was disassembled, the shop found that it was a rod bearing that had failed on Cylinder 6. Luckily no bore scoring or other damage. Had my rebuild done by Dwain Dement’s shop (Vision Motorsports in Southern California). I just shipped the entire car there. At the time, Vision would occasionally have rebuilt Cayman engines sitting on a shelf ready to install that they could swap out for your core (if your core wasn’t too badly damaged). That meant the wait time could potentially be way less than what you’d experience with Jake Raby at Flat Six. Pricing was similar. Like Raby, Vision can also have the motor sent out to be re-sleeved if you do indeed have bore scoring. Back in 2016 re-sleeving added around $5K to the overall repair bill. On the bright side, upgrading to a larger displacement becomes a nice option at that point without increasing overall repair cost by much. I’d call around and see what you get quoted. Definitely ask about wait times. Also make sure you compare warranties on the work...some are stingier than others! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you really zoom in on the shrapnel, some of the pieces have ribbing on them. To me that would indicate off the piston right? I cannot recall a rod bearing being anything but smooth but then again, all my previous stuff has been old Porsche stuff.

Yes - the ribbing is from the side of the piston with the ferrostan coating. The coating is also very thin so the pieces should reflect that.

+1 for Vision. I had valve ticking and was burning about 1 qt of oil per 1000 miles and I was getting lots of oil in the intake and burned through the exhaust. Dwayne had a nice 3.8L M96 engine on the shelf he was looking to move so I took him up on his offer. When we broke down my engine, bore and IMS were fine. Heads needed rebuilding for valve guides in #5 and #6 cylinders. His engine was a M96.05 3.6L engine that had 3.8L L&M Nickies, replacement IMS bearing , stock pistons and rods, and a Vision race crank. I added larger Cayman injectors (to solve a lean A/F ratio), GT3 TB and IPD Competition plenum. Making over 320 HP to the wheels.

Pull a Used Oil sample for analysys. Results will be the answer....

So I guess here's what I don't understand. Have researched it a ton this morning and apparently this ferrostan coating is all I see and perhaps a sample will tell me if there's some aluminum or other metal in there. What I'm not getting though is there appears to be some thoughts on how long you can drive the car with the ferrostan flaking. Is there anyone who has found the ferrostan pieces and then logged how many miles they went after the fact? How often did you change the oil. I'm wondering if this flaking just occurred within the past few months and roughly how long I can drive it. I need to save some cash before I can shell out the big dough. I just got a quote from LNEngineering to have the cylinders replaced with nickies and some new pistons/rings along with other items once the case would be cracked.

I got my answer.... good info.

This is great! On the flip side of the same coin, it’s still unbelievable to me that Porsche messed up the M96 and M97 so badly that several people have made careers out of fixing them... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Porsche has had some really bad design issues exposed 'later in life' - when the platforms hit 6-10 years old. It seems, buying a 986/987.1 is a 'ticking' (sad pun intended) time bomb - not if, but when. The 986/Spec Boxster has been used as a racing platform for some time, but I also see several M96 engines in various states of rebuild every time I visit the local Indy who does my track inspections. There are a handful of common design issues that have emerged on the 981 that are coming to light in this forum as the platform starts to age. They are mostly cosmetic or minor mechanical issues so far - none nearly as bad as the engine design issues on the M96/M97. However, I'm a little fearful about what might lie ahead.

Do a search for “Metal Flakes”. You will find a few threads on here where people reported finding similar flakes in their oil filter. I don’t believe any resulted in needing an engine rebuild. One forum member did send their engine for a rebuild and after it was opened up, it was found that everything was in excellent condition including the IMS bearing , so the rebuild was completely unnecessary. I had the same discovery with my 06 CS about 8 years ago after going a bit long on an oil change interval. Oil sample came back and said everything was excellent. Since then, I just change the oil every 3000 miles and there are no flakes or problems. Based on your reported symptoms and use, I think your engine will be fine. I suggest changing your oil every 3000 miles with oil recommended in the manual. I use Mobil 1 fully synthetic 0W-40.

After reviewing that video, IMHO it is not a matter of 'if' but more of 'when', cylinder scoring means the engine is on borrowed time, and if it is continued to be used that time is running out. Like Jake said in the video the choice is now yours, if you love the car, you get it fixed before the damage renders the core unusable. I am curious what a complete rebuild would cost when all 6 cylinders are replaced, I didn't get the impression that it was cheap. He other comments about 'selling off' the problem is a completely other discussion. Good luck with your decision!

Well I guess you have to ask how much for a turn key or how much if you do the labor yourself. I just got a quote from a reputable provider. New Nickies (That's all 6 done). I can go 3.4, 3.6 or 3.8. JE Pistons and connecting rods, ARP bolts , coated mains and rod bearings. IMS retrofit and some misc seals for under 10K. Will also do the clutch assembly while it's out. BUT..... I think I'm in a unique situation timing wise. Jake made it clear that 1 quart for every 1000 miles is about right. I have @700 miles and have used not quite 1/2 of a quart. No soot and after the car warms up it's not making any weird noises. Just that ticking when it's cold. I'm not showing ANY signs of scoring currently. Now.... I'm not going to bury my head in the sand. I get it. The coating flakes off and eventually some scoring occurs. My thought process is to change the oil every 2-3K and look and listen very closely. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy the hell out of the car. It runs great. Save my pennies and figure I will do a 3.6 or 3.8 upgrade and rebuild the car then drive the tires off it for another 20 years. With those nickies, that should be a reality. I'm not tracking the car but spirited central coast of California rips will be often.

The ticking on cold start is just the lifters. Once the oil pressurizes them, it goes away (less than 10 seconds). Jake is right, Porsche states that using 1 quart every 1000 miles is acceptable. I don't know about the metal flakes, but I don't think you have bore scoring.

Should make this a little clearer. The flakes do not appear to be metal. I guess it's a ferrostan coating that is on the pistons. What it looks like, in a layman description is think of a super, thin/fine layer of grey epoxy because when I put a flake in my hand I can actually snap it. almost reminds me of JB Weld but SUPER thin. You can see the ribs in the material in the pic that matches the pistons. Oh well, it is what it is. Like I said, I will pay close attention, save my cash for a DYI rebuild and take care of it then.

I believe Porsche states that using 1 liter every 660 miles is acceptable.

Thanks for the detailed reply, $10K although a lot of money is much better that $25K! Also sounds like you know what is ahead (for the most part) and also know how to help it last until you are ready to proceed.

Best price I have heard regarding rebuilds is 9xx in Long Beach, CA. They quoted me $8k for a rebuild, not including any hard parts. L&N charges $5k for their Nikkies, not including pistons or rods. For an M97 engine , the IMS replacement is about $1k plus labor. So, for fixing the two biggest issues is about $15k keeping your original engine. Suddenly the $18k for a RND exchange seems like not such a bad deal.

10K was the cost of all the parts for me to do it myself. Now Buffalo soldier does bring up the machine shop that will in fact be checking out the crank and cams for me and fingers crossed that everything checks out to specs because that could severely boost the costs up but that look into the crank and cams is minimal. I have intentionally left out too many details of my quote because I'm not sure how that might look here. Some forums frown on that so I'm being generic. Yeah, I would be pulling the engine, tearing it down, shipping the case halves and having the nicks done and shipped back. Reassembly and installation. All by myself.

@Downerman , kudos for taking this on, a lot of work but also a lot of savings as well!

If you have the space, time and ability - doing it yourself is a great way to become one with your car and save lots of money. Years ago I would do this myself but now I'm just oil change, tires and brakes. More involved stuff goes to the shop which I haven't yet found in central Florida. Keep us posted; enjoying your headaches.

The ribbing imprint in the pieces is the dead giveaway that it's skirt coating. The earlier Ferrostan process is much more durable, but it was replaced with the Ferroprint coating that has adhesion issues. In an Al-Si cylinder system, this coating is all that prevents the aluminum to aluminum contact and resulting adhesive wear between the piston skirt and the cylinder bore. Switching to a thicker oil (5w40 or 5w50) with high ZDDP and moly content will prolong the situation. Many swear by LM Ceratec, but you can get double the moly content by using DT40 without any additives. For those wanting a 5w50, Driven FR50 would be an option.

I had the same scare with my 70k mile 06 CS a few years back. My indy mechanic decided to pull my filter apart after having never done so for years. He found the same flakes and told me that I would probably need a rebuild. I did some online research and brought the flakes to a shop which specializes in Porsche rebuilds. He assured me that there was nothing to worry about and it was totally normal as these pieces as they were part of the manufacturing process.He proceeded to show me a filter which had the bad metal in it and the difference was striking. As for the tapping, that was normal as well. It seemed to always happen when it sat for more than a few days and more so when the temp was lower. If you're lucky, you will have the same outcome as I did. However this spooked me and I ended up selling the car with just under 80k on it and ordered a new 718 . That car is amazing.

Update: Switched to DT40 5W-40. As I stated before I would get some ticking for about 10 seconds and it would go away. Now I don't have anything..... it's quiet from the time it fires up and until I shut it off and running great. I plan on changing at 3-4K miles and drive the tires off this car. What IS pissing me off is the damn oil indicator. Dead Cold.... maybe a week sitting in the garage I go out and it says it's full. Following week it's one notch down, next week it's full, and so on and so on. Give me a FRICKING dip stick please. I do have another issue and it's bugging me. I'm using some power steering fluid. I took off the bottom plastic right under the front of the engine because I 'm not getting oil drops anywhere except along the the drivers side trailing arm (The flat metal piece??) I think maybe I have a leak right at the bottom where one of the rubber P/S hose's meets the metal tube/hose line that runs towards the front of the car. I have some oil right at the compression joint. It twists, so does that come off right at that spot? Dave

So does this mean with the DT40 oil you are not planning to rebuild, or delaying the rebuild?

I've been using DT40 for a number of years now at the advise of one of my engineering friends. Guess it would a go move.

After watching Jake Raby’s videos, that sure sounds a lot like piston slap and wear that would be leading up to bore scoring (if not already there). My guess is the first mechanic was right and you avoided that by selling (at the right time?).

Downer- If you are intent on using your car, have a PPI/bore scope done. At least you will see the sides of the cylinder walls, but not the sides of the pistons. Second, find a motor oil that protects against scarring. Read 540/RAT blog. If you choose a motor oil like Mobil 1 FS 0W-40, which has the highest oil film strength wear protection heated to 280 degrees at a reasonable price. That may give you the film strength to prevent the two metals coming together. This is done by the engineer that did the oil tests to find the one with the highest PSI protection. I would go that direction with the addition of Oil Extreme Concentrate additive. The blog suggests this additive will give you an additional layer of protection. So, lets say you chose Mobil 1 FS 0W-40 and add Oil Extreme Concentrate (1 16 oz bottle to 8 1/2 qts of Mobil 1 ), then change your oil every 2500 miles. What you want to prevent is long high piston temps. So, on long hills where you really heat up the piston by not using a lower gear, you may inflict more damage to the coating of the piston skits. which deposits itself in the oil filter. Let's see if that oil fill prevents additional piston flaking. Read the blog. I also am using Oil Extreme Concentrate 1oz/1qt with Motul 300v Power to assure no piston flakes in my filter.