Follow up on my cooling question from last week.

Was just into my mechanic to get my new three spoke wheel installed (sweet!), and had a discussion about the operating temp on my '00 C2. Because some others had similar experiences, I thought I'd share the answers I got. If you know better or different, by all means argue, but I have lot of faith in this guy: Coolant loss after flush and fill. As some here said, normal and can take awhile to sort out. Score one for Rennlist. Are my fans working? Yup. I can't hear them because the engine hasn't got hot enough. These cars have two speed fans. When you hear it, it's on the second speed. (Later cars have variable speed fans). Is my operating temp normal? As that 1999 guy said in the earlier thread, yes, 80+ degrees on the highway is great, temps over 100 sitting in traffic are also plenty fine. 3.4s run hot, right? Maybe. But part of the 'problem' is that they have simple temperature gages, like race cars. Temp is sent from one sensor, in the engine, and if it fluctuates, so does the gage. Later cars have two sensors at different ends of the cooling system, and show you the average temp. (What messes new Porsche owners up is that many other cars that seem to have temperature gages actually have idiot lights disguised as gages, which have no sensitivity to fluctuations in operating temp). YMMV and all that. Hope it's useful, hope it's not a waste of bandwidth, but I thought I'd try to contribute something back on this topic. The wheel, BTW, is a fantastic mod.

All the Porsche'coolant temperature gauges display incorrect readings. Look at the models that show you are running at 175F, which is impossible to do, even in winter. The 3.4 will regularly and daily run at temperatures of 215F+ in moderately warm climates in stop and go traffic unless modifications are made. Often, coolant temperatures reach 225F+ while sitting in direct sun on warm days. If your mechanic thinks these temperatures are good and as designed for the engine, seek another mechanic when it comes to the cooling system. Maintaining coolant temperatures below 200F in ANY climate is quite easy to do once you correct the Porsche engineer's deisgn flaws. Cooler coolant translates into cooler oil and better performance and longer engine life.

He didn't say good. He said normal. Given the amount of track time the guy does, and his long resume as a crew chief, I think I'll keep him.

Commonality does not mean normalcy. NORMAL is what the coolant temperature was designed to maintain which is 194F +/-. If you need to prove to yourself that the airflow at slow speed is insufficiant, simply take your car on a run on the highway at 70 mph in 3rd gear and tell me what your coolant temperature stays at. The difference in horsepower between an engine running at 194F and 215F is more than 5%.

In fact, 'normal' means "usual, average or typical state or condition", and this is the sense in which I have used the word. Seriously, I just can't worry about this as much as you do. For all the problems the M96 engine is reputed to have, cooling related failures don't appear to be all that common. If Porsche says it's okay, and the dealership shop says it's okay, and a respectable indy says it's okay - and all of them stand to profit by saying otherwise, because I am not shy about spending money on my car - then as far as I'm concerned it IS okay. I do appreciate your perspective and that you care enough to share it.

You and I must have learned differently as to how "normal" is defined. Based on your definition, the patients of a mental ward would be considered normal. Normal in the case of this subject matter is: "as designed", "as expected". An example: YOUR "normal" weight might be 300 lbs, but that is related to you personally and not what is normal as far as healthly weight is concerned. The engine was designed to operate at 194F +/- and this is the stated target temperature by the Porsche engineers. The fact that timing is retarded as the coolant reaches 212+ as well as the fans turning on full speed is an indication that Porsche determined that this high of a temperature was not normal and steps were needed to bring it back down into the normal range. Bottom line is, your car will perform better at 194F that it will at 215F.

Was going with the Oxford American Dictionary version, but I won't bog us down in semantics. 194F is 90C, which is above my temp rolling and just below my temp sitting in summer traffic. The latter is probably 205F or so, dead reckoning. So, as I said earlier, seems to me I'm fine. And in any circumstance where the temp gets so high that timing is retarded, I don't suppose horsepower is much of a concern.