Please help identify bits found in oil filter

Hi All I did an oil change yesterday 3,000 kms since I purchased the car. At the time of the PPI in June I had the dealer change the oil but didn't get a chance to inspect the filter. Upon examination of the oil filter I came across a few very small pieces and bits. (see attached pic). They all average about 1/8" (1.5mm) in size and some are light brown almost like see-through ceramic, some are dark brown and there is one alloy shaving. Its the brown bits I am concerned about, any ideas what they may be from will be welcome. I do have a magnetic sump plug which had nothing attached, understandably as the motor is mostly of non-ferrous material. My car is a 2001 3.4 C2 Tip. All the best Anthony

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Possibly part of the race bearing cover of a sealed IMS bearing. Anything found inside the oil filter is not good. Your guess is as good as mine as to what else it could be especially the metal piece. If it was mine, I would stop driving it and get it looked into by a qualified mechanic. Just in case it is the IMS on the way out.

The brown bits are from your cam pads as the chains run over it. Mine was beaten up after 99K miles in Post #2 (3rd pic) https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...with-pics.html

Thanks chus74, I must add that the image I uploaded is magnified and exaggerates the size of the pieces. The inch ruler gives a good idea of the real scale. In terms of the cam pads you mention, can I take it as normal wear and tear and what would be involved in replacing them? BTW my motor has done 23k miles.

Original motor?

Do you trust that the dealer changed the filter in the first place? Run it another 1000 kms and pull & inspect the filter. You only lose ~3/4 qt oil. If it has more junk time to dig deeper. If not pull it in another 3000 kms and check again.

Newbie to the forum and 996. I just bought a 99 and had a PPI everything checked out. That being said I did an oil change and opened up the filter and found quite a bit of metal shavings as well! I'm a little concerned and considering going with the new IMS bearing but would like to hear more feedback from others out there. I honestly think that there will be normal wear bits and pieces in every motor but I've never inspected any of my other vehicles filters before. I addressed this with the service supervisor at the local Porsche dealer and he didn't sound overly concerned??

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Yup, original motor.

the brown stuff are chain pads for sure, not really great news but it seems they wear quite a bit. I don't think you can worry about it as it is vey heard to change them the worrying part are the quite big metal bits... I am surprised they could actually travel in the oil filter lines. I have seen that before in the oil sump but not in the filter. keep us posted.

Its not that difficult to chage the cam pads. There is room in there to do it with the motor in the car. My '99 had these pads so worn down that finally a large chunk broke off and then got lodged between the chain and sprokcket. This caused the chain to skip and bend valves. The pads are only $20/ head but the labour will be alot. If you keep ignoring it, the pad will break.

simple.. looks like some black and yellowish shee-ot with a small pc of metal too. Any other questions.. I only post a joke becasue I feel the questions have been answered. Yes cam pads for sure and Im betting bearing race cover on IMS. Id have that IMS checked

That's a lot of chain pad material for 23K miles.

Weird. Those bits look too big to have come through the oil pump. The brown "plastic" pieces look -- as others have said -- to be from the cam chain tensioner/guide rail coverings. In the engines I've seen apart there can be two colors of plastic. One a light brown like medium caramel the other darker almost a burnt caramel color. The "shaving" piece... if it is non-ferrous chances are it is a piece of alum. flashing that came loose from somewhere inside the engine. What bothers me though is how those pieces ended up where they ended up and how they remained so large. No ferrous bits though... Has someone been at the engine? Worked on shortly (or not so shortly) before you bought the car? Sincerely, Macster.

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The photo is deceiving because it's magnified to get a good view of the pieces. They are actually really small. I have uploaded another pic of the bits to put their size into better perspective. Nobody has worked on the motor, stock standard, compression test at PPI was within spec. The consensus is that they are chips from the chain pads. The car's previous owner hardly used it so the pads might have become a bit brittle. Seems like fair wear and tear, something to keep an eye on in frequent oil filter inspections. The metal shaving does not worry me, it was a solitary, super-small bit. There again, keep a good and regular eye on that oil filter.

Did anybody posted a DIY to replace the cam pads with the engine in the car ? I would be curious to see how it can be done. I removed my oil pan a while back for sanity check and I did found a couple of those plastic bits in there. I'd love to know how my chain pads look like. But I think I need to have the cam tensioner and all that good stuff to remove the cover, right ? If only I could have a glimpse to re-assure me I'd love to do it.

While the size of the debris look a little more like what I would expect after coming through the pump they still are on the larger side of what I would expect. The oil pump gear teeth have just a few thousandths of an inch of clearance and this tends to pulverize (or for say alum. flatten out) anything that goes through the oil pump gear teeth. But absent of any untoward behavior from the engine coupled with a cover your you know what follow up check of the oil filter housing oil and filter element after say a half an hour of run time -- provided this doesn't involve a road trip at high speed -- and if you find nothing scary the debris is probably nothing serious. Sincerely, Macster.

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Unfortunately you probably found debris/trash that had been in the engine since befoe it left the factory. New or rebuilt engines when first fired up and for sometime after shed debris. The smaller stuff eventually goes through the oil pump which pulverizes the stuff and it ends up in the oil filter housing or oil filter element. The larger pieces just end up laying at the bottom of the oil pan or on top of the oil sump cover plate. Once in a great while a piece might be ingested by the pump so for someone paying close attention he will see a jump or increase in the stuff he finds in the oil filter housing oil and filter element. Some of that debris shed willl be loose fragments of the various chain guiide/rail plastic material. While I can't say for sure what your engine's cam chain guides/rails look like I had a chance to view the VarioCam actator rails which the exhaust to intake cam chain runs against and it was hardly worn. The tech said it looked just fine -- the actuator/solenoid was bad which is why this was out of the engine -- and advised me the other side didn't even need to be opened up let alone replaced. This was after over 200K miles of running. You can do what you want, what you think is best, but absent any signs of these actually deteriorating to the point it is affecting the engine's operation I think you should think about this some more. Sincerely, Macster.

my engine runs like a charm so I don't think I'll open it up anytime soon indeed. The problem is that without opening again the oil pan. Because of what you said on the debris being pulverized by the oil pump, it is almost impossible to tell if something goes wrong in there as the only trace found in the oil filter should be looking like dust. I am just glad I have my extended warranty to not worry too much about those things...

The pices have to be pretty small to pass through the oil pump pick up screen. Anything larger than about 1 square milimeter will get stuck in the pickup mesh screen. The ONLY way to know for sure is to pull the valve cover, anything less is just a guess.

It doesn't look bad to me. I've gotten that much debris on a couple of oil changes but I found that if I change the oil around 3k miles, I get little to no debris.

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Pulling the camshaft cover is expensive. And there are two of them. Besides I believe only the VarioCam guides/rails and only the top one is visible. The guides/rails along the long run of chain down to the IMS are not visble. Neither is the guide/rail along side the crankshaft to IMS. Sometimes one has to go this far but it is best to be as sure as one can be that it is necessary. Sincerely, Macster.

Yes and no. Only some of the vario pads are visible but with some creative missor or scope use, you can look at some of the other ones. However you are ringht that if you want to see all of them, the case has to be split. Ignoring it it worse then not pulling the valve. Maybe it's time to learn how to turn a wrench and dig in. These cars are getting old enough that things like these chain pads will become a common service item.