Hi all,
I was at a HOD event at Thunderhill, driving pretty aggressively (redline occasionally) when on a relatively wide turn (Turn 2 for those who know) I lost power. My dashboard lit up saying check engine, bring service, and my Cayman was doing a Spy Hunter impression with white smoke billowing out of the tailpipes.
I immediately left off the gas and drove through the remainder of the course to get back to the pits.
By the time I got back to the pits, the dashboard stopped doing an impression of a christmas tree and the smoke died down a bit. I turned off the engine and inspected to see if I blew anything. But I found nothing leaking and only evidence of dry black soot in the tail pipes.
After letting it cool down a bit, I restarted the engine. Everything on the dashboard was good and only a light white smoke from the pipes.
I drove it back down back to the SF Bay Area and had no issues - power was still good, no obvious smoke, temperature was good. Starting it this morning, only minor white smoke for a couple of minutes.
Now, knowing the previous issues from oil leakage (need to get my separator installed) with people who track their car. Should I be worried?
I'm scheduled to have the dealership take a look tomorrow, but would love to get people's feedback - help? suggestions for the dealer to look at tomorrow? etc?
Thanks in advance,
Eugene
Hello Eykim,
You should not really be that worried. This has happened to most of us that have tracked our caymans.
I just fixed mine this last weekend with an X51 oil pan from Suncoast and a Porsche Motorsports VOS.
You can rad the many articles about the oil ingestion issue by using the search....
Welcome to the club of people who have ingested oil, there are several suggested fixes the most common of which is to replace the air/oil separator with the motorsport VOS version which seems to stop the problem for most people. Adding other items like X51 windage trays, etc. is also something that can help.
Thanks!
The previous articles that I read didn't have all the gloom and doom of my little adventure.... I seriously thought I blew something and I would be hitchhiking back home.
Should I be worried about any prolonged effects?
Not if your car is running fine now, happening once usually doesn't kill an engine, but repeatedly happening and yes sooner or later your engine will blow.
The dealership found that one of my cylinders (#6) misfired. They also found that someone (they as they did the last service) overfilled the oil by a quart which probably exacerbated the problem...
As a result, they replaced the spark plug and ignition coil.
So far so good - phew...
