Looking at a 996 - thoughts on over rev stats

Hi, new member here. I'm shopping for my first Porsche 911, lots of experience with other cars and relatively mechanically apt, I can do a lot of work on my own cars and more importantly know what I cannot do . I'm looking at a 1999 that has the PPI done, nothing on the PPI is a deal-breaker, a few things as one would expect with a 17 year old car but there is one thing that concerns me, the over rev stats: Range 1: 22568 @ 3267.0HR Range 2: 902 @ 3267.0HR Total Operating hours 3303.0HR reading this report, it seems like this car has been redlined often and has been into range 2 very recently. Looking specifically at the range 2 it doesn't add up to a lot of time over the range? I guess the thing that I'm concerned about is that it happened recently and the car is now for sale.... There are a few other things that need attention but are generally jobs that I can handle, the over-abused engine thing is my main concern with this car Thoughts from those that have experience with this. Is this a red flag?

I have yet to understand what these really mean, but here are the values from my 99 a couple of months ago: Number of igntion ranges 1: 18006/1238.5 Hours Number of ignition ranges 2: 0 / 0 Hours Operating hours counter: 1244.9

discuss with one of the RL engine experts the hours on engine and ver rev question - there is a way to determine if engine mileage is correct by engine hours. i am fairly certain a few engine revs is ok but i'm not 100%

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**paul - how many miles on your car??

When I had my PPI done, the tech told me that 1's and 2's weren't a big deal as long as there weren't a LOT of them. Anything higher than that, was worrying. R

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Total #1 revs not that high a number. Some cars have this to 65535 which is the max number. The total engine run time is 3303 hours. The last over rev event occurred at 3267 hours or 36 hours of engine run time ago. At an average speed of 30 miles per hour that is a 1080 miles. Provided the engine sounds ok at a cold start and during an idle warm up and during a 15 mile test ride and then a 15 mile test drive, the CEL stays off, and the engine manifests no untoward behavior, the over revs are of no real concern. How many miles on the car? Divide this number by the 3303 and get an average speed. 30mph is "about average". A higher average speed could arise if the car was driven on the highway a lot. If the miles are quite low and and the average speed high could be a track car. Could be. If the average speed is below 30mph average could be a boulevard cruiser. If the average speed is quite low could be a sign the odometer has been tampered with. But at 17 years old? What's the point? Unless perhaps -- just saying -- the odometer was rolled back to get the car under 100K miles, provided of course that's its current odometer reading. Generally lease vehicles get this odometer tampering as the lessee seeks to roll back the miles the car is over the agreed upon mileage limit to save money when he turns the car in. Up to you. If the over rev numbers bother you keep looking. Rule #1 of used car buying is there is always another car.

I've always thought range 1 was everytime you turned on the car Range 2 being over revs. Hmmmm.. Off to reread everything

Range 1 is hitting the rev limiter by pressing the skinny pedal No harm, no foul. That is why it is a rev limiter Range 2 is over revving the car past the rev limiter. It is a mechanical overrev. That can really only be done by downshifting to a lower gear than you should based on your speed. Simply put, the speed of the car in a specific gear will be at a specific RPM. In my Boxster, redline in 3rd as ~ 97 mph, so if I down shifted the car at 105 from 4th to 3rd, I would get a range 2 overrev as that speed in that gear would exceed 7200 RPM Bear in mind that the number you see is ignitions, so you can divide by 6 to get actual revs of the engine, 6 ignitions per revolution. So in your case, 902 ignitions is ~ 150 revolutions at 7200 RPM, that is ~ 1.25 seconds Of course, that range 2 overrev could have been at a much higher RPM and in that case it would have been an even shorter time. Most likely is was a bad downshift and was caught as soon as the clutch was being let out and the tach went to redline I personally would not worry about the range 1 at all as 22568 ignitions is a total of ~31 seconds. They probably did not happen all at once in any case, so probably a second or two 20-30 times, and the rev limiter was protecting the engine anyway. I will hit the rev limiter at the track or even in an AX sometimes. Hell I hev even hit it on a freeway entrance ramp accelerating and not paying attention to the car and what gear I was in. range 2 at ~1.25 seconds again, I personally would not be overly concerned as it could have been a couple of missed shifts and thus even less than a second each time. As long as the car has been maintained well, you should be fine

Thank you for the detailed responses gents. I'll take the car for a long test drive to see what transpires. If this one doesn't play out, another one will come along eventually. tough times being in Canada now, for the last few years the US market has always been an option but with the Canadian $ in the tank, the US market is totally out of play now.

Good analysis, Jay!

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39K miles

I read a lot on this originally until my head started to hurt. I've gone past the rev limiter on the track a couple of times. I've missed gears a couple of times. Thankfully I haven't mis-downshifted. My numbers look almost exactly the same. I'm not worried.

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Can't have 6 ignitions per revolution...that would mean all 6 cylinders firing at the same time. The calculation is 7200 rpm divided by 60 seconds = 120 revolutions per second x 3 ignitions per revolution = 360 ignitions per second - divide that into 902 ignitions and you get 2.5 seconds in the range.

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+1 Ima did really good there!

Look at time since the last over revs. If it's a been while and the car is still running then it is safe to assume nothing broke. Now if you are looking at a 997 or 991 there are 5 or 6 over rev ranges.

Thanks for all the feedback. The hunt continues...