2000 6MT Aero Cab

I started this thread a few days ago: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...in-2-days.html And I'm happy to report, that I am now a Porsche owner. My 3 yo son rode in the back for the 2 hour drive home. He loved it. Especially the tiny window I can open right by him. I never knew about those until now. The back seat isn't ideal for him. He's basically sitting straight up in the car seat, and it makes the seat in front of him almost unusable. So the debate over selling and getting a Coupe will continue. But for now, we can swing the short weekend trips I usually take him on. Edit (sp)

Congrats & enjoy.

Down to business. I'm having trouble finding a DIY for the cylinder rebuilt. I see this kit on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hydraulic-C...-/273328486330 But I haven't had luck finding a good writeup on doing the work. There's a lot of recommendations for specialty shops that will do it for half or less a new cylinder costs. But I'm willing to give the DIY route a shot first. On to the engine. I noticed the typical seepage from the engine/transmission connection from the RMS. The IMS bearing was a line item in the swap paperwork, but no RMS. Seems silly that an import shop would miss the most common issue on these cars. I'll put one on order. In addition, I saw some oil on the valve covers. First thought (being a Miata guy) is valve cover gasket. Some searching actually pointed to the Camshaft Adjuster Solenoid seals. Put on the order list. I throw the plugs and plug tubes in there as well. Coolant piping seemed generally ok, but showing some age. Drivers size where it comes up to the rad I noticed it was a bit sticky. Ideally would like to just go ahead and do all the coolant lines at once. Maybe the rads too? Will look into this more. Finally, after the long drive home (filled with many visits to the 7k rev mark), I noticed the oil pressure is a bit low. Like under 1 bar at idle with the oil light occasionally turning on. I found the spec for 3 bar at 5k. Will check that tomorrow. Saw a nice youtube showing the inaccuracy of the instrument gauge. Still not feeling super great that I missed this in the checkout of the car. Any tips on how to debug and confirm. The easy/cheap possibility is the bypass oring. Will include that in the next oil change. Prices go up from there with sender units, oil pump (oh no) etc. Based on how it runs, I'm feeling its not a core issue.

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Congrats! I've used this "Rider Vest" with my daughter since she was 4 yrs old. She's almost 7 now and tall enough where just the booster seat is needed. The vest worked great with the booster and takes up no space in the back seat. I'll be putting it up on the Marketplace probably since I no longer need it. https://ridesafertravelvest.com/

Congrats, enjoy!

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Replace the oil pump relief spring and valve, it is located on the bottom of the oil pump above the 17mm plug. Easy to get to, can change it in 10min... No need to drain the oil, but about .5 quarts will come out when you take the plug out..If the spring is weak or broken the oil pressure will be low at hot idle, the is an updated part number for the valve also..

Around 1 bar at idle when hot is fairly normal, at least for my car. Is the level in the middle of the safe range on the dip stick when hot? If u think its a real issue i would bump the oil weight up a hair and pull the pan cover and verify the screens r clean.

I say this to every new owner, and it goes triple for TX 996 cars. First job, remove your front bumper, clean the hell out of the rads and AC condensers, and while it's apart, install the center 3rd rad kit. Along with the 160F thermostat, this will do more for everything on your car than any other job. Better oil pressure at idle, and running. Better fuel econ, better AC operation, helps everything in the engine. Your leaks are more likely from the spark plug well seals. Use flashlight and look carefully. The heat from the exh is rough on them. If/when you do the relief spring, get the LN full flow oil filter adapter. These cars NEED plenty of cool, fresh, clean oil - make sure it gets it for long engine life. Since you are in Dallas you can buy parts from Roger at 928sRUS.com. He sells everything for 996 and his prices are better than any other source. Tell him Doc sent you and I get a cold beer on my next trip. I don't know on the cab hyd cylinder job, but take your time, and don't chip the shaft when you are in there with tools. The shaft may look hard, but it usually isn't.

Here is a deal on cylinders. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/pts...816735500.html

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Added to the order list, thanks! Level was low when I got the car, but I've since filled it up to the top of the safe range (reads the same when hot and cold) and still get ~0.5 bar at idle when hot. Thinking I'll likely go 5W-40 for the next oil change. Gets pretty warm here in Dallas, so I could probably use it. Got pulling the bumper off on the to-do list. I might hold off on the center rad and LN adapter since they're not too hard to add. See if I'm going to have this as a keeper first. Will do the low thermostat at the same time. Definitely going to do the well seals and plugs as well. Can't tell if the cam cover is leaking too, but I'll start with those. Definitely one of the cam adjuster seals is leaking. Other one is good. I got a borescope I saw recommended on here: Amazon Amazon Hoping to take a look in the cylinder from the top with the plugs off and from the bottom when dropping the pan to get a feel for the current state of the motor. Driving for the past few hundred miles has been really solid. Have already reached out to Roger (thanks for the tip!), will be sending him my order list soon. It's great to have a local source. I'll likely be tearing this thing down to do the RMS and IMS flange seals (hopefully it's a dual row) while my dad is in town in March. In case it's a single row, I'll probably go with the LN ceramic bearing retrofit. Roger said he can usually get it in 24 hours if it's not in stock already. Went with this kit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/273328486330 Much cheaper than new or rebuilt and really not too bad as a DIY. Forgot to put the potentiometer back on which threw my for a short loop, but I figured it out pretty quick. Got familiar with all the microswitches that can fail and cause different top behaviors. Only rebuilt the left side as the right was replaced with the new one 2 years (5k miles) ago. Didn't want to risk nicking the cylinder. Son helping me with the top cylinder job: Also went ahead and pulled the pedal to clean it up, was feeling a bit "notch-y". Much smoother now. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...ed-feel-2.html Pulled the air filter and cleaned up the butterfly valve as well. Will clean up the rest as shown in this article when I tear things down later in March for more serious service: http://www.pedrosgarage.com/Site_3/C...ttle_Body.html Got new tips because the right one had been knocked off: https://www.bonanza.com/listings/199...m_source=email Cheapest I could find at ~$100. People on ebay want ridiculous prices for used Porsche tips. Also, found out it's not a factory Aero kit car - just has the wing. Should have been obvious from the regular sideskirts. Was part of the exclusive-programme tho: Got the car seats to fit by pulling the top cushions! Kids love it. Had to take them to school today cause they wanted to ride in the racecar.

Congrats, looks like you are off to a great start.

Got the bumper off and cleaned the radiators - an impressive amount of junk in there. One small trim piece was missing on the bumper 996-505-526-00-01C-M100), plan to get it replaced. Otherwise things look really clean for a 19 year old car. Checked the AOS by pulling the oil cap at hot idle, very minor change in RPM (<100) which went away immediately when putting it back on. I think I'll hold off making a cap manometer for now. Putting together a big order list for dropping the transmission to replace the RMS. Depending on the bearing (single/double) since I'm in the unknown year, might replace it or I might leave it. If it's leaking though, I'd like to address that. Can I just replace the seal with 996.105.112.01? I know I'll need the tools to lock the cams as to not bump the timing when pulling the flange. But I don't know if I'd need to get a new flange for the new seal. I see and oring type seal 999-0707-392-40 Rubber O ring and a ribbed seal: 996-105-112-01 Rubber gasket If the old style flange can only take the o-ring type seal which is known to leak, then instead of dumping $150 on a flange, I might just do the ~$650 for a LN dual row retrofit. If it's a single row, I'll be doing the retrofit regardless.

Welcome to the club. You can put something behind the lower seat back of the car seats to create more of an incline for your kids. I usually keep the kid's go bag there. The front seat will still be generally on usable. For unavoidable situations, you can raise the the front seat height to make the most of the space.

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Yup, we've all been there. Now is the time for the center rad and 160F t-stat. You'll be sorry if you don't do it now. Try Roger at 928srus.com. He has good prices, and can get you everything for a 996. He's in Double Oak. Right up the street from Dallas. Good initial work. Roger has a buddy in town that has the cam lock tools, and the IMSB tools. He let me borrow them, and I gave him a case of beer.

Or replace your 20 year old plastic radiators with 2 new CFS radiators.

Welcome to the Cab club!

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nice looking car.

Wait until you pull the IMS flange to decide which parts to buy. There is no way to know what you are dealing with until you can see the flange, or even better, visually inspect the bearing You need to lock the crank pulley and cams. The LN tools are great. I highly recommend them. You�ll need a large socket to remove the tensioners. 32mm IIRC. If you know how to get as far as the flange, I�ll assume you have the typical tools for working on porsche/vw cars and a large assortment of sockets and extensions of all sizes. There are some odd ones like triple square that you�ll need to remove the transmission.

Mbren1979 - very sweet cab! If mine ends up half as nice I'll be happy. cds72911 - I went ahead and got the LN tools and the LN dual row ceramic. OEM bimmer parts had the best price and they take returns for 30 days. So if I find a single row, I'll just send it back. Engine code indicates an early 2000 which increases the chances of it being a dual row. So some updates. Got a Durametric Pro, which seems to be essentially no better than an enthusiast for these cars. Measured the camshaft deviations with the car nice and hot: Bank 1: -9.44 Bank 2: -4.02 Well shoot. Looks like this is super common for the 5 chains even with <50k on it. Dependent on driving patterns though. So my plan goes from RMS/IMS/AOS/Plugs+Wells to pulling the engine and doing the Variocam pads. I've read it can be done in place, but considering my other work plans I don't think it's worth trying. So I'm gonna need to re-time after replacing these. Found this kit for pretty cheap: Amazon Amazon Anyone used it? Picked up a harbor freight 1000lb engine stand to hold things and will be borrowing a neighbors transmission jack + my jack to roll everything out from under the car. Any other recommendations on "while you're in there" things to do? Will be posting up pics of the progress. Hopefully can get most of this done this week while my dad is in town to help out.

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please document your variocam pads. Would love to see some pics on it. My cam dev isnt nearly that bad but it has been on the mind to do the chain guides

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If you haven't sold it, I would be interested in your RiderVest. My 3yo little guy wants to ride with me but his car seat would never fit in the back of my 99' Cab. PM me to discuss. Thanks.

Porsche makes an airbag cutoff device that allows you to put a car seat in the front. I used it for several years sold it a few months ago to a Rennlister. My grown-up kids still remember and talk about their rides to school in the P-car! with the top down!

Well we did it. Backed the car into the garage last Wednesday and finally drove it out last night. It was a hell of job to do in a short amount of time with just me and my dad - having never worked on a Porsche before. Lots of forum searches, Pelican parts photos, and referencing the FSM. Incoming photo drop... Bumper off and ready to go Variocam pad bits were the only anomalies in the oil filter Variocam pad bits and 1 small aluminum shaving were the only things in the pan. Lucky 2k car with a fuel cooler. Makes fooling with the A/C compressor even more of a pain. We used a scope to confirm that we got the socket on the 3rd bolt after removing the temp sensor to get access. This HF combo worked pretty well Engine dropped Exhaust off. Flipped the long bolts so it's easier next time. Flywheel ready to come off. Surface looked pretty good. I think we found the oil leak. Always have a tough time guessing IMS/RMS or both. But I'd say at least the IMS flange in this one. All cleaned up with a combo of simple green and brake cleaner. Old flange off Pulling a dual row bearing takes a bit of force but it popped eventually A good amount of oil came out. No evidence of metal shavings. Forgot to put the bearing in the freezer so we moved on to auxiliary items. Hate to replace this perfectly good <45k mile pump, but I ready the forums too much I suspect a spark plug tube leak See top o-ring for leak source New and old AOS I got mad respect for someone who does the AOS in the car New Porsche RMS - only $34 after tax from the local stealership. Plus they gave me a snack a drink and my kids some hotweels. Helluva deal 4" PVC Snap in drain <$3 at home depot. Did the trick for me. Of course without a stop you have to be **** about the number of turns to be sure you hit your target. New LN dual row ceramic bearing stuffed in. Keeping it straight was a bit scary, but I think the night the freezer probably helped. Flange on with all the required flange and thread treatments per the instructions Spark plugs make me feel good about how the engine is running. Very little wear on the guides Next set of plugs looking good as well The target of this operation. I used a cheapo HF engine stand to hold this which I picked up 2nd hand for even cheaper. Was able to lift it from the jack with just 2 guys. I'd recommend a 3rd for safety next time. Snap - replaced! It's pretty straightforward. I tried the zip tie method. It broke on me and sent pieces flying. I ended up just using a regular clamp to compress it. I recommend making the bolt to compress it. Would make re-installing the cams easier too. Bank 2 on the left, Bank 1 on the right (I snapped the top one when my zip tie broke and sent it flying). I was expecting to see more wear for my >9 degree dev on bank1. Bank 2 was ~4 degrees The timing operation is straightforward. But do read up. I missed the 360 degree turn between bank 1 and bank 2 the first time. First search for no firing on bank 2 found Jake Raby's post about the most common error timing these engines. Feel like a fool, but it certainly could have been a lot worse. Clutch with decent life left. Ah the simple things. This little clip was missing, came in with my order. So happy to have the handle stay on how. My organization method. Don't bother trying to read those, I can't even read my handwriting. Stuffing the turkey. It's really amazing how this puppy fits up in there. OEM Tools 24444 (knockoff uview?) worked perfectly. I recommend this far and away over the standard fill method.

Overall a successful operation. To summarize, I replaced the RMS, IMS, AOS, WP, Thermostat (LT Wahler), Variocam pads, plugs, plug tubes, and oil pump bypass valve/spring. Switched to motul x-cess 8100 5W-40 in the engine and lubri moly in the tranny. By the way, this thing took every last drop of 10L of motul to get to the 3/4 mark on the dip stick. Kept 2nd guessing myself when filling it. But I also dumped out a lot of oil that draining the pan doesn't usually get. Lots of fun as a father / son project. Hope my son and I get the chance to do something similar when he's older. The results are still coming in. But I've seen a bit of a drop in the location of the temp needle for steady state. The engine is running solid. Oil pressure hasn't gone below 1 bar at hot idle (used to come down to 0.5 bar). Transmission feels great, but it always did. And time will tell on the leaks. I do see a bit of oil on one of the cam adjuster seals we replaced, not sure how we messed up a new one of those. It's easy to reach, so I might just pop it off, clean it up and replace. Edit - forgot the big one. Camshaft deviation hot is now -3 deg bank 1 and -2.77 deg bank 2.

Well done on a difficult/time consuming job !! Not to be a Debbie downer on the oil leak thing, but I have seen many a seal blamed for the leak at the solenoid when the leak is the solenoid itself. Can leak from the end where the wires come out, not sure if it can sealed with something, I have never tried that.

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Good point. I hadn't considered the solenoid on this side because it wasn't leaking here before. I guess we might have caused it to start leaking from handling of the wire when removing the cam covers. With everything clean, it should be easy to nail down if it's the solenoid or not. Probably wait a few months to make sure there are no others leaks if it is the solenoid to determine the total work needed. Bank2 was leaking near the camshaft adjuster, but there's a little Y valve (996-107-047-51) that had an obvious leak up above there that definitely could have been the source. So far no oil from that one.

I'm curious if anyone can comment on the cam deviations after pad replacement. I was expecting them to come down closer to zero. But then there are some comments that the chains will wear into the pad until they get to the rollers - so maybe my deviations will change a bit in the coming miles as they wear in? Could the -3 dev on each bank indicate chain stretch or slight mistiming? Would love some input here. I'm finding a lot of people who replaced variocam pads but so far none with post pad replacement deviation numbers.

I'm replacing my pads within the next two weeks. I'll post my before and after durametric once they are done.

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Thanks! Mine have shifted just a bit more to -3.5 each. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks and keep taking readings before re-timing bank2 since it's the easiest to do with the engine in the car. I'll use the crank method this time: Turn crank until camshaft is aligned Insert locking tool (IMS Pro is the one that fits best in the car Loosen exhaust sprocket bolts Turn crank to TDC and lock Tighten exhaust sprocket bolts + loctite I'll run that for a week or 2 to confirm it was effective at getting me close to 0 before attempting to re-time bank 1. My understanding is that getting the bank 1 scavenge pump out requires loosing the transmission mount bolts and maybe the engine.

My pads were changed 4k miles ago and my Deviation was at 3.77 and 1.06 last week.

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You're better than me. I decided to take it to my indy. I've never messed with timing before and didn't want to learn on a M96.

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Do you know what they were pre-change? Those are positive deviations, correct? Do you have any more readings before last week? Curious if they were just timed that way after replacement or if they have drifted some.

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Frozen - did you end up getting the kit from Amazon? If so, how did it work for you? I assume the cam deviation must be taken with the engine running? You can tell, I haven't researched this much. Great photos and descriptions. Threads like this are so informative.

I did get it. There are 4 items for this job: Camshaft holding tool - I found these useful to hold the end of the cams when removing the covers to make sure nothing flopped around. Maybe less of a risk on the engine stand because the head was vertical, but still nice to have. Camshaft supports - I actually ended up needing these because I did not get a bolt to compress the variocam tensioner. Without it compressed the cams are pulled together by the tension on the chain and don't fit squarely into the bearing half on the head. I used these with the left over case bolts I replaced (which were a little short but still worked) to push the cams down into the seats to get the bearing caps back on. If you have something to compress the tensioner when installed then you might not need these. The other application would be timing with the cam cover off. But I think timing by the crankshaft my be better which doesn't need the cover off. Camshaft lock - this is the actual timing tool which helps you bring the camshaft to the perfect vertical orientation when you lock the crank at TDC. This worked, but I ended up being ~-3.5deg off after running and measuring deviation with the Durametric. Note that this is measured as crankshaft deviation and since the camshaft turns 1/2 as fast it's actually only ~1.75 degrees deviation on the camshaft itself. Not sure if that can be blamed on the tool, the user (maybe it wasn't perfectly straight, maybe the tensioners should have been pumped up with heavy oil, maybe it wasn't fit in tight, etc), or another source of deviation (stretched chain, weak adjuster tension). I definitely lined up the color chain links with the dots on the camshafts. I'm leaning toward user error. My new method is to turn the crank until I can fit the cam lock from the IMS Pro tool kit, then loosen the exhaust sprocket bolts and time the cam by moving the crank to TDC. I believe Jake Raby mentions using the crank to time as being more accurate in one of his posts. TDC pin - I already had one from the IMS Pro tool kit, so this wasn't too helpful. So overall, the price isn't bad for what you get and depending on your timing plans could be the right tool. And yes, deviation must be measured with the engine running and hot to get a valid reading.

I went ahead and did some adjusting of bank 2 to see if I could get closer to 0 deviation. I modified my procedure above a bit because it's impossible to make sure the camshaft is perfectly aligned for bank 2 with the engine in the car. Turn crank just past TDC. As I have negative deviation, it means that my cams are running behind the crank, so I need to advance them a bit. Insert locking tool (IMS Pro is the one that fits best in the car) Loosen exhaust sprocket bolts (scavenge pump already removed) Turn crank back to TDC and lock. You aren't supposed to turn the crank counter-clockwise, but for just a degree or 3 the general consensus is you're OK. Tighten exhaust sprocket bolts + loctite The end result - bank 2 is now -2.5 degrees. I knew I was conservative in how much I moved it. But now that I have a feel for how far one degree is on the crank, I think I can get it pretty close to 0 on the next try. Will update with that result. Hopefully can nail bank 1 on the first go around once bank 2 is adjusted.

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Did you have to drop the engine to do this?

I've done all my re-timing with the engine in the car. Note that all I have done so far is bank 2. Just last night I again adjusted bank 2 to try and hit closer to 0. My starting point is about -2.5 degrees. I turned the crank until the notch was at the end of the TDC marking in the case. I didn't get a picture of this, but you can see in the first image it's lined up at TDC - just image it turned clockwise past TDC to the end of the TDC case marking, then locked the camshaft and loosened the exhaust cam bolts (2nd image) before turning it back to TDC (3rd image). I'll report back once I get some time to run it this weekend how much angle that distance is. I'll use this to hopefully hit bank 1 close to 0 on the first try. You can see from the images this resulted in an almost imperceptible location change of the exhaust bolts on the sprocket. That's why timing with the crank is so much more accurate. For bank 1, I think it can also be done in the car, but it's definitely going to be more a challenge getting the scavenge pump out.

Another update on this. Looks like I overshot a bit. Bank 2 is now 4.5 degrees positive. So as a reference for anyone who's looking to nail down timing - the crank distance from TDC to the end of the case marking for TDC (clockwise) is about 7 degrees. It took me from -2.5 to 4.5.

Wow, I don't how I missed this thread until now. What an awesome amount of work you've accomplished in such a short time. Well done!

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Did you just use a Moly additive in the trans or use lubri moly gear oil and which one ? thank you.

That was a typo. I used liqui moly 75w-90 gear oil.