Spark Plug Connector Question (oil leak)

I have an oil leak, shop (they were doing tires) told me it was the valve cover but upon removing the heat shield and inspecting I'm 90% sure I have a leak from the spark plug area (front, passenger side, cylinder 6 I think). I cleaned the area and watched it while running and it appears to be seeping out very slowly from that cylinder 6. Today I got the car up, removed the coil and the spark plug connector came out with it. When I looked I was quite surprised because I thought all 996's had spark plug tubes (I already had a replacement set in hand) but it turns out later models (mine's a 2003) do not. So my question is -- do I just need to order a new spark plug connector (996.602.105) or is there a fix like putting an O-ring on it to stop the leak? Will a new connector stop this kind of leak or is there something else I should be doing? Or any other advice for stopping a leak coming from the spark plug "tube" on a later 996 that doesn't have the tubes? I searched a bunch but couldn't find much about later 996s with leaks that don't have the tubes. Pics of car, cylinder & connector attached for the heck of it. Thanks for any help!

Looks to me like you have a leaky oil cooler that sits on the block just above #6. I'd look there!

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Agreed, that leak looks to be originating higher up.

I think the other posters are right. The coil pack spark plug tube looks good, but the coil is oil soaked. Above that is the oil cooler and oil pressure sending unit. Replace coil pack with new. Degrease and cleanup the whole area. Monitor for awhile. Also - Nice dent on your hind quarters. A PDR guy can take care of that pretty easily.

Thanks to all of you for the advice, now I just have to decide if I want to DIY this one and/or if I want to address anything else while that's being done. I watched a video on it and getting to the oil cooler O-rings looks like a lot more work than I had been figuring with the tubes. I'll need to sleep on this one.

You appear to be handy in the wood working arena......I was thinking of doing something similar but with cinder blocks. I need to change out the transmission fluid was thinking of putting the car on cinder blocks......

A big NO on cinder blocks. Either use jack stands or build something like what he did. Cinder blocks fail in unexpected ways.

Like DBJoe said -- don't use cinder blocks, they can fail. I like to feel as safe as possible under the car, that's why I did the wheel cribs and also put jack stands under there. Easy to find plans/pictures to make the wheel cribs out of 2x4's. I think I built them 16 x 12 so they would use the 96" of the 2x4 evenly. Pretty sure it used 11 2x4's. And they are fairly light to carry around, probably 30-ish pounds. Lot of cutting and screwing, probably took me 45 minutes per crib. This was the first time I used them and they seem to work very well. If you don't want to spend the time but are willing to spend money then something like Race Ramps wheel cribs look like a good alternative.

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Have you looked at this video? Porsche Engine Oil Cooler Kit - Mahle Behr 996OILCOOLKT | FCP Euro Just a suggestion. When it came time to do mine, I passed it off to my Indie.

The video I watched (twice) was a fairly long FCP Euro video on youtube. First time I was thinking "heck no, too complicated" but the second time I was thinking "I could probably handle this." Haven't decided yet. I'm on the fence because I don't mind paying someone but I kinda enjoy wrenching and learning a little bit more about the car as I do. I replaced the ignition switch a couple months ago so the car & I have moved past the "mere acquaintances" phase. lol

Okay, just wanted to update this in case anyone reads this thread later. A lot of this is obvious stuff to some people, but when you're trying to figure out your own problem sometimes extra explanation and pictures can be helpful. So I took the car to an indy who looked and said the oil cooler looked clean but that the oil pressure sender was just hand tightened and was probably the cause of the leak. I replaced the oil pressure sender last night and did my best to clean up the oil off of the engine. Ran it for an hour yesterday and the bottom of the engine was bone dry. Checked this morning and the bottom was still dry but I had a drop of oil on my #4 spark coil. I looked all around but it seemed clean above and below and around the "tube" itself (not really a spark plug tube, this is a 996.2). Anyway, my theory is that the oil pressure sender leaked enough onto the spark coil that it got saturated and was slowly leaking oil out (even after the main leak was gone). There were a couple very minor hairline cracks on the old coil. So I replaced the spark coil with a new one, took it for a drive, then checked it with a borescope (since the heat shield was back on at that point). Everything looks dry so I'm declaring victory for now. A few tips for anyone reading this later who needs to replace the oil pressure sender (which is a pretty easy job): (1) you'll need a 19mm crowfoot wrench and a universal joint socket (i.e. swivel) to get on the nut holding the sender; (2) assuming you're working underneath set your ratchet for the opposite way you normally would (i.e. set it to tighten if you're trying to take it off); and (3) when tightening there's a good chance you'll need to grind your crowfoot thinner so it can get in the available space to actually tighten the sender down (most crowfeet wrenches I saw were a bit too thick, I bought a cheap Harbor Freight set and took a third of the thickness off to make it work, took a few minutes on a bench grinder). FWIW, I broke it loose and tightened it up from underneath but did the wire connections and the on/off of the sender from the top (without any engine lowering). A few pics: This is the passenger side of the engine (cylinders 4-6). Oil pressure sender is the silver cylindrical unit in the top center of the picture. Pretty sure that's where the oil on cylinder 4's spark coil was coming from. I saved some dollars doing this project myself so I bought a borescope so I could see around the engine better. This is a pic of the old oil sender. Looks like oil residue all over it. This is the new spark coil. This is where I had been getting oil accumulation. Heat shield was back on so I used the borescope to check it over/around the shield. Looked dry. Anyway, hopefully something in here will be helpful to someone in the future.

Good stuff, I�m glad you to hear you fixed it!!

Thanks I love the archival posts on this board. I've got some wetness around plugs and gasket cover. Though it seems like could be higher up. So def helpful when I go to dive deeper.