Mods or Basic Maintenance to Prolong the M96

Hi everyone, I purchased my first Porsche 996.1 a little over a month ago and have been trying to soak in everything. While my car is right at 60k miles, it�s in decent condition and seems the prior owners took good care of the car. My question is what �stuff� can be done as preventative maintenance to prolong the life of the engine. Currently the list includes: �IMS replacement or IMS Solution �Air Oil Separator, Motorsport AOS, or UAOS �change the dang oil often (high zinc content) �water pump (Porsche Part only NO METAL IMPELLER) every 3 years. �LN thermostat �Keep tabs on camshaft deviation �DRIVE IT anything else? I understand sometimes there�s not much we can do given the right conditions, but I want to do what I can.

You've got most of the big ones. Here are a couple others I can think of off the top of my head: Fuel injectors - old leaky injectors washing out your cylinders is no good. UIDS - probably overkill for anyone not tracking, but still a great asset for M96 longevity and oil stability UAOS - is the clear choice for replacement AOS, lots of upsides and zero cons

Plugs and coils plus all rubber hoses while your in there

By no means a complete list, this is what I�ve had done to my 996 in the last 8 months. ( I only did oil changes for the first year of ownership but I decided this one is a keeper) IMS Solution Clutch Flywheel Rear Main Seal Air Oil Separator Timing Chain Tensioners Spark plugs Coil packs Fuel Injectors Water pump Low Temp Thermostat Serpentine Belt, rollers and tensioner Fuel Filter Battery Oil Change and all fluids flushed

Camarocane, congrats. You will love the 996 and are approaching it the right way. You got a very good list between yours and the members. A couple of quick questions that your answers may help in developing a list that you may be able to execute on in segments over the next 2 years. Do you have any past service records? Do you plan on tracking your car? Do you want to scope your bores to see if you have any bore scoring? Have you done any oil testing yet on the car?

I have service records, invoices, receipts, contacts, old parts ( original IMS, water pump, etc) and a car journal denoting oil changes and other milestone dates back to 2006. Not planning on tracking the car, just enjoying it on the street. No other testing or investigation has been done.

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This is really important. You should check for bore scoring and the cam deviation to assess the general health of the engine.

Uhh coolant reservoir. Clean the radiators.

Here are some thoughts and things that I learned after owning my 996.2 for 20 years. I am not an engineer nor skilled in the art of wrenching. You want to hear from the guys that work on the 996.1 and own them to counterbalance my suggestions. Here goes, if you love the car and plan on keeping it, the first thing I would do is take all of your service receipts and build out a spreadsheet to see what was done and when. Did the previous owner(s) do the 15, 30, 45, 60 porsche service recommendations. Then I would fill in around that to see what else was done to develop a baseline knowledge of its service history. The next thing I would do is test your oil if it has over 1000 miles since the last change, to see what's floating around inside your engine. This will give you a baseline to judge from and tell you what may be failing. Then take your car into a damn good porsche indy that knows what they are doing and have them drop your sump and see what's in there. When they do that, have them scope your bores to see if you have any scoring. If your oil test, sump and bores are clean and clear, then you are in good shape to start with replacing items that can grenade your engine. Depending on how much you you want to spend and when, you can add in other replacements. I just went thru this exercise last month. These items will grenade your engine. 1. IMSB - your call on either IMS solution or retro kit. I drop my engine fairly often so replacing the Retro hasnt bothered me. In fact i am replacing it this week. Others want a one and done solution. 2. Water Pump - go with porsche factory pump and "while you are in there" replace the hoses and plastic bits including the tank. 3. AOS - replace with the uaos which is better than the factory aos and motorsports aos. I am replacing my motorsports aos with the uaos w/ track drain this week. My ms aos just failed in my garage at start-up. Because your engine will be dropped to do the above procedures you should consider replacing the following parts. 1. Factory oil cooler - replace with another factory oil cooler. The seals fail and you can leak fluid. This is another part i am replacing this week. 2. Replace your spark plugs and ignition coils. 3. Replace your fuel injectors 4. Since you are replacing the water pump and rubber plastic cooling parts, have them look over your radiators which are pretty tough and probably fine. But you never know. Since you aren't tracking the car, there really isn't a need for more powerful radiators or a low temp Thermostat. 5. Lastly, replace your maf sensor. It seems to be in the center of many cel appearances. Good to have a new one. If you do the above items, your engine will be in pretty good shape giving you quite a bit of preventative breathing room before you decide to replace other items such as exhaust, suspension, wheels, brakes, etc. Best advice I can give you is take care of engine durability first and save the sexy stuff for later. Because you only have 60k miles on the car, you most likely have some breathing room for timing chains, guides etc. BUT...the oil testing and sump drop will give you indications if if bits are floating around that will tell you if you need to change them sooner. Check with the Porsche maintenence schedule to see what they tell you to replace and when at their major 15k milestones. Then crosscheck with your cars actual service history. Last point is a point that you made. Change your oil at least 2x a year. DO NOT LISTEN to porsches 15k recommendation unless you want to tempt the bore score gods. Plenty of more service stuff to do like brake, transmission, differential fluid changes. But you get the idea. Hope it helps. It's an awesome car! ADD: forgot to mention, replace the RMS when you do the IMS.

Rein manufacturers water pumps for Porsche, so that is a slightly cheaper alternative.

Thanks for the input all. So far the previous owner has replaced the IMS (LN), clutch (Sachs), pressure plate, flywheel, throw-out brg, RMS, axles, AOS (Porsche), engine mounts, and fuel filter, on Jan 2, 2018. Water pump, 180� thermostat, plugs, and 2 lower coolant hoses were replaced on Jan 27, 2017.

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Thanks Tex. Didn't know that. Replaced mine 4 years ago along with all of the rubber/plastic cooling parts but developed a little coolant smell somewhere in the cooling system �s of late. Doubt it is coming from old seals on my oil cooler but I'll know this week when they drop the engine. Probably coolant tank. They don't last long. Appreciate the heads up you gave on rein engine mounts and now on the rein water pump as well as cost savings. Put the rein engine mounts on last month. Big improvement over old mounts.

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Good news. Looks like you won't have to drop the engine and will be saving quite a bit of money. If they didnt change the ignition coils, fuel injectors, Maf and oil cooler you may want to change them and you can sleep at night knowing you have 0-4 year old parts that won't work against you in preventing issues. Keep an eye on your factory AOS, they don't last long. You ultimately want the UAOS over the long haul. Same can be said for water pump and tank. I would still start testing the oil, drop your sump and scope the bores to be sure you are in good shape. From here its all about a rotation schedule to service and replace parts per the Porsche parts schedule and as you and your indy see fit. Dont forget to drive the hell out of it. The engine loves to be exercised over 4000 rpm. Congrats man. Looks like you made a good purchase.

Read through this sticky thread... https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...ssues-etc.html

Drive it and don't worry about all the scary crap you read on the internet (this applies to the 996 and life in general).

Tex, is there a difference between the Rein pump and Porsche pump? If Porsche is manufactured by Rein, I assume not, but I'll posit the question anyway. I do recall the previous owner mentioning the difficult time he had replacing the reservoir, but I don't see it in any of the notes or receipts. One thing I just stumbled across is camshaft deviations, about 2500 miles ago where bank 1 was 10� and bank 2 was 5�. There is a note saying that the phase sensor on #1 was loose, and code PO343. Regardless I need to have the deviations checked.

Isn't everything on the internet true. Especially on YouTube? 🙂 Yeah, the 996 is pretty damn durable if you take care of it.