WP part found in head.

Been repairing the engine on my latest project, a '99 996. Pulled the heads to change some exhaust valves and to refresh the rest and when I was flipping the driver side head over for the 20th time, a pice of the old water pump impeller fell out from one of the cooling ports. I'll post pics of the part in the next couple days.

that is interesting, please post pics .. how many miles on your car ?

200K miles. It was a non runner when I got it details of the project are on the Canadian forum under "I dragged this home" thread. The engine haf a camntensioner pad faliure that made the timing chain jam and jump, bending the passanger exhaust valves but that is irrelevent to this as the waterpump looks rescent, so the piece has to be from the old one. The piece looks like a blade from the pump impeller. I'll post pics in the afernoon.

I'd be curious to see the cam tensionner pad failure as well. Last time I found some piece of what looks like cam pads in my oil pan, I wonder if that is the same problem but my car only has 40k miles so I hope they still have a long way to go!

I think the only way to be sure is to pull the cam covers and look. On mine, they wore down so much that the broke off. The chain saw it off over time. The previous owner should have replace them, and a whole bunch of other stuff a long time ago. Bad for him, good for me.

are you removing the cams with the engine still on the car ? or did you drop the engine already ? some say the cam can be taken off with the engine on the car but I don't think anyone has done it on this forum yet. without lift I assume it would be a pain..in the back phil

Pulled the engine and then took it apart. I didn't try but there seems to be plenty of room to remove the cams when the exhaust it removed.

Here is the only piece that I found.

I've only been stating this for about the past 7 years... No one listens, they think that we just want to sell something. We see this routinely and it leads to cracked heads.

I have to say that it is one of the first time I see someone actually find one and have a picture of it can you take a picture of where it was found ? I find those detail quite interesting

Also, if you could show something along side of it such as a dime or a ruler so we can judge the size of the piece.

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Jake are you insinuating that we should be putting metal impeller WP's on these cars or just stating that we should change them as PM's. I contacted Porsche on this and they still stand by the plastic impeller WP.

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I was turning the passanger side head over, to change one of the valve steam seals, when I heads something drop onto the work bench. It fell out from one of the cooling ports, on the combustion chamber side of the head. Which one exactly, I don't know.

Does someone make a quality metal propeller? E36 bmws has this problem and the factory finally superceded the water pump with a metal one!

My only concern with a metal waterpump would be if it were to fail like I've seen in the plastic ones where the shaft gets excessive play -- the metal blades might start shaving the waterpump housing inside the block. Not sure if you might get to the point where the housing might get damaged to the point where it is ruined? I could be completely off my rocker however...... Mike

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This was a real problem with the 928s until the plastic impeller pump became available again. There were several clocks that got damaged beyond use.

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As usual Mike you have a good point! I have seen cases damaged by waterpump failure. The 997-987's have a different waterpump but the same mounting. I wonder what the difference is?

Use an OEM WP only, the aftermarkets are garbage and tend to fail quickly and a metal impeller pump can go right through the block when it fails. Steel v aluminum, steel always wins. As Jake recommends, replace the pump every 5 years or 50k miles to prevent a WP failure which can send plastic bits into the heads where it will cause localised blockage of coolant and and possibly a cracked head. Consider WPs to be a maintenance item.

OEM is aftermarket. OE is the factory original.

I bought 4 WPs off of ebay (yes I had 4 Boxsters in the extended family at the time) Installed one - it failed within 1000 miles, I threw all 4 away and bought Porchse OE, lost one of those -- but that was after 30000 miles. Mike

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Mea colpa, mea grandisima colpa. Yes, original P part.

I believe most manufactures out there use metal waterpumps vs. plastic. With the BMWs, the plastic just broke down over time where as the metal ones did not. I have never heard of a metal one breaking down. I'm surprised now aftermarket WP exists that is made by a high quality company. Figure there would a lot of guys on this forum willing to pay a premium for a solid WP.

Stopped by my Indy's shop today and asked him to order me a new OE waterpump and an LNE low temp thermostat. My car is a 2002 with approx 45K miles on it. Upgraded the IMSB when I purchased the car in Feb. No issues, purely preventative and doing the waterpump for the same reason - no temp issues, just don't want to have to deal with any either. Seems like the right thing to do.

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Agree, 100%. I always put in the Stewart WP in my BMWs and it was built like a tank, beautifully machined with a larger, better bearing. I'd put the same in my 996, if they made one.

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The problem is any better pump would probably have to use a metal impeller. The problem with the metal impellers is that they can kill the engine block IF the water pump bearing begins to fail. The metal impeller becomes a high speed cutting machine and chews the aluminum block up like the Tasmanian Devil. That's too much liability to assume for those in our position. The best bet is to swap the factory pump every 3 years, no matter the mileage. We do have a way to make the perfect water pump that would use a metal impeller that could not kill the block, but with an 800 dollar price tag, no one would buy it. If they did buy it, the price leads the buyer to an absolute impossible level of expectation that no water pump could meet. On top of that the vendor haters would just say that we invented this mode of failure just to sell parts. I am seriously done with that group of people, my final development is the IMS Solution. Charles Navarro of LN and I are deep in Canada having driven an M96 Porsche 3000 miles in 3 days testing our IMS Solution for a final time. By the time we return it will have been over a 7000 mile trip in 10 days, gathering critical final data all the way. We are trusting a factory Porsche water pump in this Flat 6 Innovations test engine. In today's world no one else parallels the things we develop here in the real world. After 3 years of development, the IMS Solution is slated for release to my customers in 2013 for install at Flat 6. Anyway, keep that water pump changed and you won't have any issues. Now it's time to head to the Columbia Icefields and see what data we can collect..

The Stewert WP mentioned above for the BMW has a metal impeller encased in metal. It's a nice design (I've got one on my BMW). There is no way for a wobbly impellar to cut into the side of the engine case. They are very popular, have a lifetime warranty and cost around $200.00. I can't see why something similar couldn't be designed for the 996/997.