996 engine failure!

At 90,000 miles my motor went on my 2002 996. #5 cylinder has coolant and oil has coolant too. I'd write it off if I hadn't replaced the Tiptronic less than 1,000 miles ago with a rebuilt one from Vertex ($3,500 plus $2,000 install), new Michelins ($1,200), new paint ($6,000). I'm trying to find someone in the San Francisco area. Any ideas? Flat Six Innovations is booked until April 2012. Roock sounds questionable. Suncoast wants a $15,500 for a reman from Porsche, but $17,000 for the core so I pay $32,000 until they approve my core and return all or part of the $17,000. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Maybe not want you want to hear, but you may want to consider parting it out.

Your engine might still be salvageable but it will still cost lots of money to repair, even as a DIY. I just went through a head R&R DIY on my engine - I spent about $3500 on parts and labor (valve job at shop), and if I were to have included sending the block off to get the cylinders re-bored I would have been looking at about 7-8k total job. A used engine (not rebuilt) can cost 6-10k, although I've seen a few go on ebay for 4-5k. Don't know what you're getting though. A rebuilt engine will be in the 10-15k range regardless of who you get it from.

Try LA Dismantlers <ladismantler.com>

I recently had a Porsche factory replacement engine installed in my car, total cost $21,742 by Porsche Italia of Greensboro. Thank God I had an extended warranty.

+1 on the used engine. Otherwise sleeve yours - don't despair; Macster or Dharn might be in soon with ideas how to get it done.

I can't believe how expensive these M96 engines are - think of the crate motor you can get from Ford/GM - I know that is an apples & oranges comparison...but still. I just got my car back from Flat 6 (I made an appointment 3 months ahead of time) - I had the IMSR procedure done along with a long list of "while you're in there" items like clutch, spark plugs, Variocam wear pads, AOS, etc. in hopes that something like this doesn't happen to me - I just came off the CPO warranty that came with my car. Sorry to hear and good luck.

I'm not sure of the complete diagnosis of your engine but if it is just intermix and a cracked head - and the block is sound - then you could probably do the entire repair DIY in the neighborhood of $2500-3500. Here's my DIY on engine drop, head removal, and reinstall. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...res-later.html A cracked head can be repaired in some cases. The only difference to the above DIY is a shop would have to repair the crack in the head, and then you would have to clean the intermix residue from the system. That would be your best case scenario, assuming there isn't any other collateral damage.

Cylinder 5 failures are often cracked heads that just happen to favor the #5 cylinder. You need a specialist to look at this one that understands the M96 before simply buying a new engine. Lots of things can be repaired with specialized effort. Finding used engines is getting increwasingly difficult.. Mass producers of engines that jumped on the bandwagon that we spearheaded are now patching engines up and selling them "as used" to pawn off a hodge-podge of used components and make some money without assuming the liability associated with a "rebuilt" engine. Often salvage yards won't sell engines or parts because they are taking away from their own core bank that allows them to produce the engines I mentioned above. What they are doing is also not working, one car just showed up last week that was a victim of this and another is on the truck inbound now, should be here Tuesday. If you decide not to fix the car I have a list of people looking for "blown up" 996s to put one of our engines into. I could probably move it for you because these people want to buy a blown up car, they are going with our reconstructed full build anyway.

Jake, If you're booked solid through April of next year (I guess that's great for business!) perhaps it's time to hire on an extra hand... Sounds like you've got plenty of work to keep you busy.

Jake makes a good point & a cracked head would be good news at this point...check Dharn's (Doug's) thread on this - good ending. Probably worth a top-end teardown to know more. Please keep us posted.

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Booked that far in advance for reconstructed engines.. Indepth repairs and IMS Retrofit procedures follow a different schedule. We are busy with these as well, but reconstructed engines take 100+ hours to create start to finish, so the backlog works a lot differently.We can carry out repairs and elective procedures a lot faster than builds. An extra hand is not the answer.. If the work we did was simpler another pair of hands might make things faster. To operate at our level would take about two years to train someone to be proficient enough not to make mistakes and to not slow us down.. Fresh meat in the shop leads to mistakes and situations that slow the entire shop down. We do have one apprentice in the shop who has been in training for some time, but he hasn't proven himeslf to me yet. This work simply takes as long as it takes, people looking our way generally have the time to wait for the best job they can buy. We have never been about production numbers, in fact our primary mission is to lead Research and Development, which is what I do all day, everyday. Having a lower production facility isn't lucrative monetarily, but it sure does build a great reputation and make for a team of Employees that love what they do, have plenty of time off, never work weekends and maintain their morale. This has been the key to our success and why we don't consider what we do "work". What matters most is we have NEVER had an M96 powered vehicle come back to our shop after a procedure or engine reconstruction was carried out when the work wasn't considered "scheduled maintenance". You can't rush success, but you can damn sure rush failure. Anyway, sounds like a possible cracked head.. Find someone that knows these engines and has repaired cracked heads.. Don't judge them by the documents on the wall, but rather by the fact that they have actually assembled and repaired these engines internally.

Thanks Jake! I understand. I just wish I could wait...

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Like I said, you may just have a cracked head.. If that means anything less than a full reconstruction we CAN do the work timely. If the engine can be saved we have turned them around in 4 weeks with cracked head failures. You should probably call and speak with Dean tomorrow, he handles scheduling and knows our workload better than I do.. Everything is tentative until the heads are pulled.. Till that point its basically all speculation. We'd like to help you.. Cracked heads are one of the faster repairs that we do as long as collateral damage is limited to simple intermix.

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I would avoid them, do a search here on Rennlist.

Just my opinion here but even if I had to rent a car for 4-6 weeks while Jake fixed the engine it very easily could be a whole lot cheaper in the long run, especially if you end up buying someone else's problems. At least with Jake you will get longevity and considering what you already invested in the car it just seems prudent.

Just do the V8 conversion....

The challenge with all this is you really have to drop the engine and do some dis-assembly to find out just what is the matter with the engine. In the case of my cracked head I had severe intermix, but never had any coolant in a cylinder or any smoke of any kind. The good news is that I now have 13,000 miles since my fix and the engine is running strong (although I did have my e-gas throttle go bad recently). As for s shop to do the head repair if it is a cracked head, Costa Mesa R&D (engine-machining.com) knows and repairs these heads. You could drop your engine and ship it to Flat6, or ship the whole car. Jake is probably the best out there. But if is not a cracked head then you engine or car could be there waiting a long long time.