lifter noise/cylinder scoring/piston slap

I know everyone is worried about one of the above. My car has been making a noise that sounds like one of the above for 20k miles now. It really hasn't changed much until recently. In January I decided to run Redline 5W50 in hopes of making the engine quitter. As it turns out, it seem to be getting worse. I never thought it had anything to do with heavier redline. Without having much to lose, I switched back to Motul 5W40 yesterday. I can definitely say after running the car twice and getting it completely up to temp, it is quiter. I still detect some lifter type noise, but it is below the embarrassing level. I have 81k miles on my 02 C4S and have been doing oil changes every 3-5k miles. I have not changed my IMSB, waiting for clutch time.

Going down that road as we type. Need to post a video , many here very savvy. I replaced lifters , no luck. Changed Oil regularly like you, mag plug - filter checks - even dropped pan to check for debris , no luck. Tensioners , oil pump just in case, no luck. BTW cha ching - cha ching of course. Boroscope hhhhmmmmm at some point if it is bore scoring you , like myself are in for a rebuild of some kind. It is a slow degradation of the cylinder wall . Anywhere between 10 - 15 k miles once noticed, to the final scenario of defcon 5. Engine rebuild at some point is what more than likely lays ahead at around 15k . Hoping it is just lifters bc when they go bad it is a soft tick. Piston slap is very distinct there are vids here on that. I feel your pain , but summer looms

Oil filter and magnetic drain plug good. UOAs all goid also. Hmmm. Rebuild someday, hopefully after 100k.

2005 C4S with similar noises. After purchased car in 2014 went with Mobil1 0-40 for a couple of years per engine lid sticker. Changed to the DT40 which is 5-40. The car became quieter after the switch. I do notice as the oil ages the sounds become more noticeable. Probably scoring based on other vids I have seen. Interesting thing is cold weather is often blamed for scoring but my car grew up in Houston, TX. Not so cold down there! If it gets bad and oil consumption increases beyond "spec" I will either toss a rebuilt engine in it or move to a Cayman.

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I think there are some misconceptions about a heavier oil always helping. Remember the piston bores are lubed via spray nozzles, so thicker oil may spray worse.

USNA1970, take your phone and record a video that moves from top to bottom of engine so that we can get the audio, then post to YouTube. There are some members here that are pretty good at diagnosing via audio. Based on what I learned in my 102 rebuild class, this sort of noise is almost never from the lifters and rather a symptom of the bore being out of round - even if there's not scoring evident, yet. It could be more severe on one end of the other due to taper. I learned that the ovality is a product of the open deck design that Porsche used, and unfortunately will haunt us all one day.

"...a symptom of the bore being out of round - even if there's not scoring evident, yet. It could be more severe on one end of the other due to taper." Dr: Was there an ultimate failure discussed due to this out of round issue, if different from scoring?

We didn't discuss "modes of failure" very much as it wasn't the purpose of the class, however we did spend some time talking about the common lifter misdiagnosis while we were installing them. It was a great time to go over how they work and what it would take to plug one, and furthermore why the lifter has a very limited failure rate. What we were taught, really, is that oftentimes a failure will be blamed on the damage found, when in fact there is another issue altogether that is causing the damage. So per your question, in the hypothetical situation of scoring, yes it's the scoring itself and the shedding of material that ultimately ruins the engine, but the actual cause of the scoring is the taper of the bore. Therefore, it would be possible to hear the slap before the slap causes heavy damage. I think a lot of folks catch the issue after the damage occurs because the deeper the scoring gets the issues are amplified. One way or another, if the cylinder is out of round, and damage is a one-way trip. The only question is how long will she run before rebuild?

Thanks, DR. Like I said if/when the engine calls "timeout" I will either replace with a rebuild or move on to the Cayman. Blasphemy...I know.

Try some Ceratec, works for me.

Here are two videos. One was from 5/3 while I still had RL 5W50 in the car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJNwrVsHxtg This is a video today with Motul X-Cess 5W40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGQkI3xKVCY Neither sound that good. Car runs well and uses a quart of oil every 1500 miles. I like this sound better. You Tube

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I *believe* the scoring is due to a couple of effects, one is the low friction coating wearing off the skirt, the other the tiny ceramic particles in the cylinder wall becoming dislodged and then riding between the skirt and cylinder bore. Obviously oval bores make everything worse. On the 3.6 motors the ceramic particles are smaller, however the cylinder walls are also thinner. I still find it amazing porsche managed to make these cylinders so badly. At the very least they should have made these cylinders as separate liners so the block isn't scrapped. I have a feeling they listened too much to their japanese consultants when doing this design; who had no experience with large bore high performance motors. These composite advanced materials were mainly used in japanese econoboxes before the m96

I have used cdratec and swepco. Maybe that's why I don't see wear metals in my UOA? Maybe just oval cylinders for the moment.

USNA: Is that your car in the night-time pull away vid!??

Yup, the pull away was January. You can here it knocking at the very beginning of the pull away video.

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Here is a 40 mph drive by from the same night. You Tube

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Actually, I couldn't really hear it. At 12 feet it is hardly noticeable and the car sounds great under throttle!

Thanks. I was getting a cel on my bank 2 downstream cat. I know the oxygen sensors are a pain to get out so I decided to buy 4 sensors and replace both cats. Rockauto had them for crazy cheap (Davico) Otherwise everything on car is stock. My buddy at work has the same car and he says my exhaust sounds awesome. Maybe these cheaper cats have less material inside and is chsngcha the tone.

This is my typical magnetic drain plug condition after 3-5k miles

Hard to tell, but mine doesn't look like that. Are those chunks?

No chunks. It is like very fine grey paste when I wipe it off. It isn't much.

Pic after wiping off magnetic plug.

Here is the UOA after 2600 miles on this noisy engine. Ignore the 07 in filename. It's an 02.

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I think that's normal, I had the same thing on my oil filter magnets on my last 5k oil change. My thinking is its coming from the cam lobe to lifter areas, the cams have aggressive profiles so lots of high pressure shearing action, ferrous on ferrous metal. I have no weird noises on my 108k mile motor