Ferrous Metal in Oil Filter - Update

Orignal thread here. I wanted to give an update on this. Short story - The metal is reducing but the jury is still out. Longer story... I contacted a highly recommended local indy that does some of the PCA track events to work with on this and emailed them the pictures I posted here. Like Jake, he originally thought it could be bearing material due to the color. I drove the metal sample I collected down to him along with the oil filter to take a look. After looking at it in person, it didn't look as much like bearing material to him as it did in the pictures. We talked a bit and he decided it was safe enough to start the engine & check camshaft deviation with no load. I did that and it was 3% and 0%. Same as it was a year ago. After that, he had me bring it through two hot/cold cycles with no load and pull the oil filter. That filter had the equivalent of maybe 20 miles on it (6 mile drive after the initial oil change + 2 hot/cold cycles) & still had some debris but nothing that couldn't have been left over. After that I drove it 2 cycles of 100 miles and one 300 mile cycle, pulling and inspecting the filter each time. After the first 100 mile inspection I did find quite a bit of black plastic (timing chain tensioners?) that made me worry about the IMSB but there hasn't been that much of that in the two cycles after that. I replaced the cheap Castrol I put in after pulling the sump with the normal Motul I use after the first 100 mile cycle. There was some fuzz on the magnetic drain plug. After this last 300 mile cycle found maybe 2-3 larger ferrous flakes. It seems like the larger debris is reducing but I am still seeing quite a bit of very small specks that are either non-ferrous or too small to be picked up with the magnet. I'd say it's an average of 2-6 specs per ridge. You have to flatten out the element to see them and I'm wearing +3 reading glasses when I look. Those might be normal. I haven't paid this much attention before. I also see a few (2-4) pieces of non-ferrous yellow metal or plastic. Only a tiny bit of black plastic. So, overall the large stuff is definitely reducing but I'm not so sure about the small stuff. The small specks might be locasil from the cylinders getting damaged by whatever happened before. That worries me a little. I've got a total of 400 miles on this oil right now. I'm thinking of putting another 5-600 miles on it to make it an even 1,000 for another UOA. Then take it in to the indy to drain the oil, pull the filter & magnetic plug and see what he thinks. I'm waiting to hear back from him to see if he agrees.

The small stuff is more damaging than the large pieces. It suspends in the oil, and is disbursed everywhere within the engine.

As far as I can tell, the worst case scenario is that you have to rebuild or replace the engine. Either of those choices seem to cost about the same money. In a situation like that, is there anything else to be done that would "save" the engine or lessen the cost? At what point do you call it and tear the engine down?

After the denial stage.. Then after reaching the decisive moment, after deliberating what to do, while spending a ton of time further confirming that you really do have a problem.. Ultimately its after realizing that the wear debris came from somewhere, and no matter where that is, you now have an open clearance in the engine that WILL NOT get any better without mechanical intervention.

The issue is we don't know what that mechanical intervention might be yet. Yes, it will not get any better but there's the possibility that it was a one time event and may not get worse. The goal is to avoid spending $15-$20K on a complete teardown. From what I've read and heard so far any investigation into this would involve splitting the case. Unless it's the IMSB and it probably isn't. Once you've split the case, you're pretty much doing a rebuild at that point AFAIK. So what would I be avoiding by tearing it down at this point vs some further investigation?

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They don't fix themselves!

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A lizard can regenerate a broken tail... An engine won't reverse wear. The damage is done, and at best progression will only be slowed down. It will only get worse- never better.

Either rebuild it or drive it and check filter at oil change. You probably have less metal now because your right foot isn�t working the car as hard. Don�t these engines have oil starvation problems when pushed hard? Don�t think you should track it anymore, or for a 20 year old engines sake, ever.

Seems to me like this is the "writing on the wall" moment and it's either time to start saving for the new engine or start prepping the car for sale. If you sell it - just be a mensch and disclose the issue.

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It may very well be. I (and the mechanic) just don't want to use the nuclear option without a little more evidence. So I'm putting 600 more miles on it this weekend to make it an even 1,000 & then the indy is going to look at the oil, filter & magnetic plug himself and go from there. I'm also sending in another UOA although I don't think those are very revealing in this situation. He may decide it's a good idea to pull the transmission & check the IMSB first. I'm not sure if he thinks splitting the case is a good idea. I got the impression that he thinks a replacement engine is more cost effective than tearing the existing one apart but we haven't really discussed it yet. At this point I can't fathom selling it. It's a '99 in really great condition & I'd like to keep the car forever. I just know I'm still in the honeymoon phase (a little over a year). If I were 5 years into ownership and knew at that point I still wanted to keep it forever, a rebuild with The Solution, Nickies, etc would actually be an exciting prospect. But only 1 year and 9K miles into ownership it's a hard pill to swallow. I'm not the kind of person that would keep that kind of information secret. Plus it's public record now.

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A rebuild is very exciting when the right person is doing it...Raby or bust!

It seems there are 2 options: 1) keep driving the car and eventually whatever is wearing will break further possibly causing damage to really expensive parts of the engine requiring even more money, maybe this happens in 1000 miles, maybe 20000 miles 2) rebuild it now before anything is severely broken, i.e. crank, bearing carrier, block... and if done right, drive it forever as originally planned without a concern I bought my car knowing a rebuild would be needed, not because it had any signs of it, but just from the shear number of posts about the problems. It was only a matter of time. Sure enough, 1.5 years into ownership, the ticking started. A year and a half later, I'll have an engine that will last the rest of my driving life, 25-30 years. I'll likely have other part replacement problems before the engine gives up. Good luck with your decision. You can go crazy with the what ifs...

Ssherman68, Not certain what it is exactly that you are looking for? Please clarify.

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Originally I was trying to determine where the metal might be coming from and what the best course of action was. Not only that, I wanted to document this situation so that it might help others in the future. Since then, I've gotten help from a local Porsche shop and am also taking it up to a shop in LA next week to see what they think. I plan on posting an update, possibly with some questions after they take a look. Most likely the metal was from the main or rod bearings. What I'm trying to understand now is the risk or value of splitting the case now vs. monitoring it to see if it gets worse. If we split the case to take a look at the main bearings, you're going through a rebuild AFAIK. So the question now is - if the damage has stabilized, what is the risk of leaving it alone for now and monitoring? Having to buy a new crankshaft is probably the biggest risk but I'm not sure what else. The indy I have worked with does not see enough of a reason to open it up yet. I'll see what the other one says. My other question is about what I should do near term to make sure this doesn't happen again. The Porsche specialists who track their cars seem happy with the deep sump and/or extra cooling. However some enthusiasts say its not enough. Porschetech's ulitmate dry sump is definitely something I'm interested in but that might take a while.

Sorry about your dilemma. Three thoughts. 1. At this stage, you need to get your arms around what's happening inside your engine before you even consider going back out on the track again. ​​​2. Don't know who you are using to service your car, but you need to get yourself a Porsche Indy that knows what they are doing with the 996, so you can once and for all begin to address the issues with conviction. 3. Lastly, what concerns me about every 996 is the service history of the car, in particular, the number of oil changes. Porsche blew it by recommending oil changes every 15k miles. So if your car only had 45k miles on it when you bought it, then there is a good chance that it only had 3 oil changes over the past 22 years. So let's say you got the 4th oil change when you bought the car, then 3500 miles later you decided to track the car at 3 different 2 day events; that's six track days without fresh oil. This in itself is a problem. The lifeblood of every engine is oil. Bad oil doesn't lubricate as well as good oil. Bad lubrication creates excessive heat and wear. Depending on if the car spent any of its life in a cold weather location will add complexity to the equation. Add in lack of additional oil supply thru a deep sump which provides oil cooling advantages and potentially faulty AOS, you increase the probability of issues. You get the idea. Once you get your arms around the internals of the engine, we can then have a lot of fun discussing track prep. Besides keeping your 996 running in top form, there is no more pure enjoyment than tracking your 996. Keep pushing forward. It will all come together.

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^^^ So the �mechanic� doesn�t want to be bothered rebuilding the engine... Sounds like A) He�s not confident in his abilities and/or B) He�d rather take the easy way out and just throw the old one away and drop in a new one... either option says get another opinion...Jake/FSI isn�t the only game in town, but at least you know what you�re going to get for your $...

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I completely agree with finding a shop that knows the M96 well. The mechanic that did my PPI daily drove a 996 but he retired several months back so I'm not sure what their M96 brain trust anymore. I DM'd a few 996 owners in my area to see who they recommended and came up with the shop I consulted with last month. They're at the PCA events and have a stable of P-cars that they race, including M96 Boxsters. They are familiar with the tracks around here and even know which turns are the ones that cause oil starvation. They are a relatively new shop though. The shop I have an appointment with up in LA is considered one of the best in Southern California and have been in business for a long time. I will see what they have to say. It looks like the metal was from bearing damage done on the track due to oil starvation. I have two oil changes and one UOA before the damage as a baseline so I know it was done in the time period when I did the track events. I don't think we will ever be 100% sure without splitting the case.

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Yeah, if the shop supports 996 club racing and DE clients at PCA events, they are light years ahead of a typical shop in knowledge and application. Let's hope that there was minimal damage. What's seems to be fairly clear is that it may be advisable to track 996s with some preventative medicine regardless of your driving level. No question you may be able to escape damage, but it may be smart to run as a bare minimum the UAOS with drainback to be able run full oil which will help to mitigate some oil starvation and even better is to run a 2qt Deep sump with the UAOS for more oil to provide more lubrication and oil cooling. Obviously the optimal set-up will change once the UIDS and Oil Cooling system are available. However, I ran the 2Qt deep sump and motorsports aos (way before the UAOS was available) for 14 years of which half of those years were on Hoosiers, and I had no problems. But as I said, in the previous post, oil lubrication is everything and I never went on the track without new oil. I was on the phone earlier today with my shop discussing the scenarios we would be implementing for next year depending on when the UIDS and Oil Cooling system will available. The name of the game is to prolong engine life with whatever tools are available. Definitely keep us posted.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this so I figured I’d post one. I keep thinking I’ll have more information in a week or so & keep putting it off. Based on advice from my indy I ran the car 1,000 miles & had them look at the filter & plug and change the oil. Also did a UOA. I ran it another 2,000 miles on that oil, did another UOA and took it to a second indy to take a look. Both indys are very well respected & both are active in PCA, track events, etc. Indy #2 is probably the go-to mechanic in the L.A. area for all things Porsche, especially 911. I also took Jake Raby’s “what’s in your oil" seminar. I did a graph of the UOAs. First data point is the pre-damage UOA. The second is when I found the metal in the filter. The third and fourth are at the 1,000 and 3,000 mile points after the damage. This is all per 1,000 miles so it’s all normalized: Indy #1 - Thinks I did damage to the main or rod bearings during a track event. IMSB is another possibility but says those throw off more and more metal as they deteriorate and that’s not happening. Since it’s a ~4 year old LN bearing, that makes it even less of a possibility. When he checked the oil, filter & magnetic drain plug after I ran it 1,000 miles he said the filter & plug looked clean (but he didn’t cut the filter open). He was still concerned about the rise in iron in my UOAs but said it wasn’t time to break open the engine yet. He said I “may have dodged a bullet here.” Indy #2 – After another 2K miles I took it to a second indy. The drain plug was clean but they did see more metal in the filter than they would like to see and also found it in the bottom of the canister. Not an alarming amount but not good either. They also looked at the original filter & metal I collected, the UOAs and the graph above. Indy #2 doesn’t think it’s main or rod bearing material. According to them early stage bearing failure throws off more tin, etc. and we are not seeing that in the UOAs. They could not say where the metal was coming from but mentioned it could be IMSB, cams, lifters or timing chain. They were hesitant to point a finger at the IMSB since it’s a 4 year old LN and it’s not throwing off more and more metal as above. Still, it seems like it’s the most likely suspect. They did not offer any suggestions for what to do next. Seems they were leaving it up to me. They did say it would be “exploratory surgery” at this point. So, not the news I was hoping for. Something continues to throw off metal. Due to the shorter intervals it’s hard to tell if it’s shedding metal at the same rate. Nothing is pointing to a particular source yet and two knowledgeable indys don’t agree on where it’s coming from. After thinking about it, I am going to bring it back to Indy #2 and have them drop the trans to take a look at the IMSB and possibly put the Solution in if it make sense at that point. The car is at 50K miles and they mentioned the clutch felt “gritty” in their inspection so it might be a good time to replace that too. I know one other person with the same symptoms and a single row LN bearing ended up having a failed IMSB. Since mine is a dual row it’s possible it’s failing at a slower rate. I talked with the service advisor on the phone and he agreed this is the best place to start. If you have personal or professional experience with this situation, thoughts are welcome. I’m way past comments from the peanut gallery at this point.

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You are only paying attention to wear metals. This is a mistake. Plot the Zn and P values of each UOA as well as viscosity. I judge mechanical wear based on retention of the anti wear package. when I see wear metals drop, I know that the particles may be too large to be detected, and the results are faux. Wear doesn�t diminish. It can flat line, or get worse, but when I see results get better they are actually getting worse.

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Thanks! Good to know. I plotted the phosphorus, zinc and viscosity results but I'm not sure how to interpret them. I don't know what they're supposed to be or what the value of an unused sample would be for P & Z. From what I read, new oil viscosity is 14 for Motul and 14.1 for Liqui-Moly (last sample). The last 3 samples (post damage) all came back as yellow for viscosity which I thought was strange, especially for a sample with only 1K miles on it. Maybe there's actually something to that. Some comments: -The first sample is "pre-damage". No metal in the filter. The second is where I first saw metal -The numbers at the bottom are the number of miles on that oil sample -The first three samples are Motul 8100 5W-40. The last one is Liqui-Moly High Tech 5W-40 which might have a different amount of phosphorus and zinc in it The phosphorus and zinc look pretty stable to me. Viscosity does seem to be going down. I can't explain why the loss in viscosity in sample 3 is so high. At first I was hoping that something got damaged on the track and it was an isolated event. It's obvious now that's not the case and the wear is continuing. The trick now is to figure out where it's coming from.

The longer you run it with shrapnel, the more damage and the higher the cost,, Crank/cams/Case it all adds on to the bill. Your at the total bore scope stage. bottom top cylinders etc. Maybe your lucky and its a cam actuator, but all that stuff is in the system.

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What does your fuel dilution look like? Any coolant in the oil? As others have suggested, I would scope the cylinders before going further, I think you will find your issue there.

Things to think about. 1. Every one of us will eventually need an engine rebuild. The question is when. 2. The LN IMS Retro has proven to be an extremely durable product and the likelihood that a 4 year old IMS Retro is the cause is a low probability suggestion. If it were me, I would not spend the money yet to drop the engine, look at the IMSB, nor replace the clutch and flywheel. Instead, I would first do a very thorough borescope to see what I got. Along the way, I would call up the provider of the oil testing and get a firm understanding of what everything means, as well as a potential clue as to what to look for inside your engine.

Wait, I'm confused. WHEN is it too late to do anything about? And If it's TOO LATE to do anything about it, then why rebuild now? Because you might take out more parts when she goes? That mindset doesn't make sense to me. You can buy a known good motor for $8000 and throw it in while your rebuilding your original engine. Then sell said known good motor for just as much as you paid for it. Am I the only one with this philosophy or is my wallet bigger than my brains?

If you wait too long and trash the crankshaft the rebuild becomes a lot more expensive.

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Never too late to do anything. Some may just not like the definition of what "anything" means.

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Ok, I can swallow that pill. For me personally, I'll take my chances with x or xx or xxx or x,xxx or xx,xxx amount of "trouble free" smiles and pay additional for more parts when and IF they are needed.

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This is good advice. OP can spend $4k on a solution and it does nothing for the rest of the engine. Which means a rebuild could be coming next. Until the borescope has been done, we are all just guessing.

Throwing a different oil in the mix throws off all the data. This is due to cross- pollination of the two oils, so everything beyond the oil swap is questionable for accuracy. When gathering data you must change only one factor at a time, and changing the oil brand/ etc would be considered the biggest mistake that could be made in this scenario. If the viscosity is dropping, and the anti- wear package is being consumed, you have mechanical wear. I don't give a damn what the wear metals state at that point. The contaminants have likely come too large to be detected, therefore they show up as a reduction in wear, when in reality this is far from the case.

Could you explain your thinking on the bore scope idea? Are you saying there is a way to scope to check cams, timing chain or main bearings? Or are you suggesting I do that simply to find out if there is damage within the cylinders? Neither indy has suggested bore scoping as a method for finding where the metal is coming from. Since ferrous metal doesn't normally come from within the cylinders I don't see what the reasoning is beyond assessing possible secondary damage. I can talk to them about what a bore scope would do for me. The shop has already talked to Speediagnostix to get suggestions from them. They said they were not able to tell where it might be coming from. Most ferrous wear will normally come from the IMSB, main/rod bearings, cams or possibly timing chain. While nothing is pointing to any of these yet the IMSB is still the most likely suspect and is also the easiest/least expensive to check. I think it will also cause the most damage with the least amount of warning if it is the problem so it's also a bigger risk. I haven't talked details with them yet but once they pull it out I doubt they will put it back in. Since there are metal particles in the oil that eliminates putting in anything but the Solution or equivalent. I am going to ask them about checking the bearing without replacing it but I don't have much hope for that. One indy thought it was from the main bearings because I had used that oil on a particular track. The other doesn't think it's that because there's no evidence of tin, etc in any of the UOAs. Both say it could be the IMSB but agree 4 year old LN bearings rarely fail. Another user on this board had the exact same symptoms and it was his single row LN bearing. Both Indys also say it could be cams or timing chain. Neither of them or Speediagnostix want to place a bet on any particular cause. At this point it is evident that wear is still happening. That is no longer a question. The goal now is to figure out WHAT is wearing down while not breaking the bank. When Indy #1 changed my oil and evaluated it they unfortunately put in the oil they normally use. I did a 1K mile filter swap two weeks ago. I drained the canister into a coffee filter & followed it up with some WD-40 to get the rest of the debris out. There were ferrous (yes they were magnetic) particles in there, most of them silver & some smaller black ones. I'm wondering if the black ones would be from a timing chain?

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This is sounding like the IMS drive chain. I had one almost like you describe a few years ago that failed an IMSR pre- inspection with the same debris. It was the internal tooth drive chain that was the culprit. I would say that it�s time to pull it apart. You are chasing your tail at this point.

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OK. This is good information though it might not be good news. I can bring this up to them. When you say pull it apart are we talking about splitting the case here?

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All the way or not at all. You�ll do it whether you want to or not.. No other way to find the issue and to remove the wear debris..

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The reason is to see what the condition of the bores are in. If they are shot, and I�m not saying they are, you know for sure you need a rebuild. It�s just a quick and cost effective way to determine if bore scoring is an issue or not.

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�.and nothing is worse for scoring bores than debris laden oil.. When this occurs it is not typical scoring, it occurs due to the particles being caught between the friction components within the cylinder/ piston/ ring combo. Operating an engine with debris laden oil is punishment for every internally lubricated component within that engine.. The oil turns to liquid sand paper and takes out every clearance and tolerance within the engine. it accelerates wear and this generates more wear debris. Trying to avoid a big bill, creates an even bigger bill. Come spend a day with me, and you�d understand what collateral damage is all about. collateral damage IS what costs the big money.. Cease operation or tear it down, any other decision is going to come with an even bigger price tag.

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I have a very similar story to you , a few months back I hade removed my engine ( 2001 996 3.4 with 61,000 miles ) for some general service , I had already done an oil analyses and it came back very good , this was in a car that ran very good and didn't burn a drop of oil , first thing was to replace the veriocam actuators and pads so I removed the bank one cam cover and cams and I noticed there was what I thought was excessive wear on the cams and bearing surfaces so I send some pictures to Jake and he replied within minutes telling me essentially the same thing as you , that debris had gone through my engine and it needed to come apart and be cleaned , I know nothing about these engines but I have been around aircraft engine builders and have learned that if they tell you something needs to come apart you just don't question it as they have seen thousands of engines and see thing that most of us can't . So after a few weeks of pondering what to do I decided to tear the engine down and have a look, as soon as I had taken the heads off I realized Jake was right as I could se were debris had scored a couple of cylinder ( this did not show up in the bore scope ), I than split the case and as soon as I removed the bank two pistons and rods the bearings were already into the copper on the top and bottom of each bearing throw and the crank bearings were similar but to a lesser existent . This is the condensed version but I am quit sure my engine would not have made it through the year and at the very least I would have spun a rod bearing and at the worst my engine could have become scrap metal. There was no way I would have known how close to failure my engine was without tearing it down as the damage from the debris was considerable , but with most parts still being salvageable with the exception of maybe the cams, and this was from an engine that seemed to run very good . Hope this helps with your decision .

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Jake, how common is this and when should they be replaced as a precaution?

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Yeah, these are both really helpful. Did you have any debris in your oil filter or sump? I'm still hopeful the debris hasn't caused any damage. I'm worried about it but my main focus has been figuring out what is wearing first. I think I'm at the end of that road. I just need to figure out where I'm going to take it. Indy #2 above has a great reputation but they are 1.5 hours away and very pricey. Indy #1 is close, has a good reputation (although much newer) but he said "most people put in a used engine unless they're made of money" I don't like the idea of swapping in a used engine. There's another indy close by that I've taken it to. They're good but the guy there that daily drove a 996 retired last year so I don't know what their brain trust is anymore. There's also an engine builder in Long Beach. I'll probably take it in to indy #2, talk to them about the kind of debris I discovered since they saw it & talk about options. No matter what they will still need to take a look at the debris. Since it's been a few thousand miles it's probably significant and will need to be cleaned out. Fingers crossed for no bore scoring.

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The decision about where to take it must be made by determining which shop has the modest hands on experience inside the M9X series of engines, only. People that repair cars and use scan tools all day long are �technicians�. People who can understand the inside of this engine are �mechanics� and the difference is huge. No scan tool or manual will solve this equation. Prior experience inside this engine is required. If one of these shops has had an M9X all apart, and successfully reassembled it, that�s the guy that has a snowballs chance in hell of helping you without misdiagnoses, or just plain guesswork. He�s the only guy. It doesn�t matter how far away he is, or how much he charges. If you make the wrong decision you will end up with a car with it�s heart disassembled, after spending thousands of dollars. I have a 996 inbound from Bahrain and it�s engine is apart, filling the trunk and cabin with engine parts. I answer these calls for help all the time. Unfortunately, we can�t help in the majority of cases. Someone takes it apart, gets in over their head, and bails. That said, you must go into this knowing that debris laden oil isn�t kind to components, and I�ll be very surprised if you don�t find extensive collateral damage from it. Nothing is worse than oil circulating between critical clearances that is filled with microscopic wear debris. The oil filter isn�t enough.

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My sump was very clean, no metal only several pieces of chain pad tensioner material and the filter had very few non ferrous particles . I will say that on my engine even if the cylinders had been clean and undamaged they were still out of round so the case went off to LN Engineering for new cylinders . This is not a cheep engine to rebuild if done right and if you do a cheap rebuild you will probably get to do it twice . If you talk to Jake and see how many parts he replaces you will see his engines are a bargain, even doing it myself I will save very little money over having Jake do the rebuild , I am only doing it myself begrudgingly because my wife and I have several trips planned in the car this coming summer and we just went through two really bad years ( 3 deaths' in the family ) so we both need this. Pick a shop that only does engines, do it right do it once, if your intension is to keep the car long term the cost of doing it correctly vs cheaply is insignificant .

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Denial Deliberation Decisive moment These are the 3 steps when a situation like this occurs. The faster the person gets through the denial period, the better it is for their stress level. Yes, it IS happening. Deal with it, and deliberate wisely based on a list of pros/ cons for the particular car. If the cons outweigh the pros, sell the car broken. People have one chance to make a wise decision, cheap, and fast is appealing, but when it tastes bad, and makes them puke- they did it to themselves. I see this damn near daily. The regret from bad decisions made haphazardly is abundant.

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Food for thought - I bought my roller from a guy who got his engine rebuilt from a reputable local (not to me) indy. Don'tcha love a dogpile?

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Thanks Jake , it's been a rocky road this past year, there has never been any thought of selling the car it's the prefect blend of old and new and optioned the way I would have ordered it , so it stays until I can no longer drive it, no decisions have been based on money as it's not an issue , it's purely a time issue and wanting to use the car this year , that does not mean I am going to hurry , I am retired have all the tools and a heated shop , been tearing things apart and putting them back together cense I was 10 years old . My first choice definitely would have been to have you do it but I'm well past that point now with my heads just back from Hoffman, case and IMS shaft due back from LN Engineering soon.

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Haha. Yeah auto shops can be like communications companies sometimes. They can all have their problems. The three I've taken mine to (Black Forest, Callas & Vollig) have all impressed me in some ways and disappointed me in others. I still wouldn't have a problem taking my car in to any of them depending on what needs to be done. Rest assured they all have lots of M96 experience and are all involved in track & PCA events. I've tried to avoid the "Joe's Plumbing & Porsches" guys and the "Ferdinand's Cayenne repair for rich housewives" guys. (insert your own fictional auto shop names below) Work and Christmas prep have been busy. I haven't had time to make a phone call yet.

Well, I got it on a flatbed this morning and it's headed up to 9XX Motors in Long Beach. They specialize in 911 rebuilds and I've only been able to find good things about them. He's going to tear down the engine and let me know what he finds. I'll post an update when I have one.

Best of luck after all this you will have a beast of a 911 again

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Thanks! I'm really hoping the pistons and bores look good. I'm also very interested to see what the source of the metal is. Here are my guesses in order of likeliness: Timing/IMS chain IMSB Rod/main bearing Cam Timing/IMS chain is my best guess because I'm seeing both black and silver colored ferrous metal. I don't know if there is anything else that would throw off black ferrous metal. Jake also said he had a case like this.

Good luck with everything! Hope to see your car back on the road quickly. Please keep everyone updated when they figure out what the mode of failure ends up being on your car!

Fingers crossed for you! I just got finished scoping mine, and the Gods smiled upon me this time.

UPDATE The builder tore the engine down and their diagnosis is a failing IMSB. They emailed me last week with the findings. I drove up there on a few days ago to look at the bearing & engine and talk about what options I wanted on the rebuild. He showed me the extra play in the bearing and what it should feel like on a new one. He also sees pitting in the races & the debris I gave him matches what he sees in the bearing. The next day I called the IMSB vendor and they’re working with me. Since aftermarket dual row failures are so rare, they want me to send them the bearing and the IMS shaft so they can check for runout issues, etc. They should have that next week. The rest of the engine looks good. There is no evidence of excess wear on the cams, crankshaft, rod bearings or journals. He only found debris in the oil pumps and those will be replaced. The bores and pistons look really good except for a yellow-ish hue on one of the pistons. I decided to have 3.8 Nickies put in. I don’t need them but if I don’t I’ll always be worried about bore scoring. I’ll also replace the IMSB with the Solution. For the more interesting news, it turns out the engine had already been opened up, most likely when the PO had the IMSB replaced. The IMS had been pinned (either by the vendor or the mechanic) and they found aftermarket rod bolts when they took apart the engine last week. The PO told me he’d had the IMSB replaced, showed me the original IMSB and gave me the receipt. He never told me the engine was torn down when they did it. Whether that would have stopped me from buying the car, I don’t know. Depends on why they did it and who did it. He had the car for almost 2 years after it was done so it’s not like he was trying to get rid of it afterwards. The next piece of information will be from the vendor coming back to me with their findings after they look at the bearing & shaft. Since this situation is so rare and there doesn’t seem to be anything else wrong in the engine, I’m also suspecting it’s something funky in the IMS itself. So in my case it appears that oil starvation on the track wasn’t the cause of my issues. Maybe the harder driving there brought out whatever issue caused the IMSB problem but I’m not sure I’ll ever know that. Luckily there hasn’t been any collateral damage from the debris. The good news is I should have a worry free engine when this is all done.

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Big thanks for sharing the update, really looking forward to your rebuild and the details�.

Glad to hear things are moving along in a positive direction.

Great news! Totally agree with the change to Nickies. Never worry again. It will be really interesting to see why the dual row failed. They are supposed to be the most reliable. It's good to have a rare case, people pay more attention.

I'm surprised, your UOA was showing a ppm of 15 for iron, that;s a little high but wasn't flagged. Do you still have the oil from this engine in a clean container? I would like to have a sample to test the PQI on it to see if it would have detected this. But anyway glad you found the root cause...

Which IMSB was installed?

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When mine failed a few years back, I had the same. UOA didn�t show anything out of the ordinary. If I understand Jake�s explanation, it is that the particles produced are too large to be picked up in UOA. Glad to hear things are progressing positively ssherman68. When you say the IMS was pinned, do you mean the sprocket was pinned to the shaft? Sounds like at least someone was trying to do it right.

Ssherman, Glad to hear that you were able to identify what was happening. Sounds like it is the best of scenarios given the circumstances. Appreciate you keeping us posted. Looking forward to hearing how things progress towards a solution.

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I'm afraid I don't have any of the old oil. The last UOA did say there was a very high concentration of iron for the mileage.

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Yup. It was pinned to the shaft. They saw the service on their copy of the invoice. The strange thing is that my copy of the invoice that the PO gave me did not show the pinning service so there's a question on whether they pinned the shaft (and installed the IMSB in the shaft) or if a local shop did it. Once they take a look, maybe they can figure that out. I'm worried that once they get it they'll say the bearing looks fine and the builder doesn't know what he's talking about. Hopefully that won't happen. I'd also like to point out that @JTT was one of the first people to respond to my original thread with the possibility of the IMSB. I didn't think it was a very strong possibility even though our symptoms were very similar. It was a 2-3 year old aftermarket dual row. He hit the nail on the head. Thanks! Yeah, it's a good thing there's no collateral damage. Maybe if I'd had the tranny pulled and the IMSB inspected right after I found the original debris I could have installed the Solution and avoided a rebuild. Not sure. This rebuild is still going to be expensive! Especially with the Nickies. I'm also getting the oil pumps, clutch, injectors, oil cooler, starter & engine mounts replaced. Skipping the flywheel and the $4k worth of variocam actuator parts (except the paddles). If anyone things the pricing on the FSI rebuilds is too high compared to other options, they're wrong. If you replace the same parts they're all in line.

Smart. You will be good for another 25 years.

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That;s why I wanted to run a PQI test on a sample of your old oil. The PQI test will represent ALL iron in the oil, not just the small particles under 10 micron that the element test will show.. If the Iron ppm is low and the PQI is low: all particle are small and few. If the iron ppm is low but the PQI is high: it means that the particles are too big for the element test too see.

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Good to know. I went into the garage last night to figure out if I had any old oil. There is some in an oil pan but it would be a mixture of two different sets of oil at different points dumped out of the filter. Not good for a UOA. I knew there was a lot of iron in there. What I was really trying to figure out if there were any other metals leading to a culprit without tearing the engine down to physically look. No luck there. What the UOAs did show was that there wasn�t any advanced damage to the main bearings yet. When looking at my pictures, almost everyone came to the conclusion that I had damaged a main or rod bearing due to the copper coloring. That turned out to just be the lighting in the picture. The coloring was all silver in real life.

UPDATE I had the builder send the IMS with the IMSB still installed to the vendor so they can take a look. They kept all that and are sending back another shaft with The Solution installed. They charged me for their IMS service (pinning, installation, etc) & the Solution with a hefty discount. So far they've been great to work with. They had the Solution installed in a new shaft the same day they got my old one. No word from them yet on any findings on what might have caused the issue. But it's only been two days. And just to throw a monkey wrench in the situation, my builder got a notice that they're not renewing his lease and he has 60 days to be out of his shop. He's looking for another location but there's no guarantee He can find another one in that amount of time. With a 10 week lead time for Nickies that doesn't give enough time to have those installed and back before he has to vacate. Having my engine still torn down and having to be moved to a still unknown location wasn't a risk I was willing to take so I made the tough decision to not re-sleeve the cylinders. The bores look good so it was more of a "nice to have". I'm bummed I'll still have to worry about bore scoring though. The builder likes the Porsche year 2001 style pistons for the 3.4 and is putting those in at a discount. I wonder if I'll hear back from the vendor about the bearing. Both they and the builder both said they'd never seen a dual row model fail. I've seen people say that if it failed then it was installed incorrectly. Since the shaft was pinned and the engine was torn down when it was installed it's not likely whoever did it was trying to do a half-assed job.

Some naked engine ****...

I wanted to give an update and information about the rebuild since I’ve had the car back for a while. I got the car back in early March. The builder put 250 miles on the car as an initial test/break-in before giving it back to me. I’ve already done the first 1,500 miles and first oil change. So far, so good. About the rebuild I took it to 9xx Motors in Southern CA. It’s a small shop that specializes in Porsche rebuilds. Their basic rebuild includes all the things on the spreadsheet done by another user here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...9Ks/edit#gid=0 The standard rebuild price does not include pistons or sleeves. Just rings. After he tore down the engine, there was no sign of excess wear in the crankshaft, camshafts, rods or any other ferrous part aside from the ISMB. No sign of any oil starvation (which was my first suspect). He found play in the IMSB, pitting in the IMSB races and excess wear in both oil pumps. He found that the IMS had been pinned, ARP (aftermarket) rod bolts and lack of wear on the plastic chain tensioners indicating a previous rebuild. He did not find any damage in the bores. Just some yellowing on one of the piston skirts. I had originally opted for Nickies and boring to 3.8 by LN. The builder lost his lease and would have to move before LN would be able to do the work so I decided to stay with the original bores. Other things that got installed/replaced during the rebuild: Pistons (he likes the Porsche 2001 OE pistons for this engine) Primary & secondary oil pumps Oil cooler Clutch slave cylinder Clutch (left the flywheel alone) LN IMS Solution Transmission mount Engine mounts Starter (was starting to misbehave) Oil sending units Oil filler tube Injectors Their base rebuild is $8,500 + $1,750 for engine R&R. All of the above including taxes, IMSB Solution, etc. was $19K out the door. Had I gone for the Nickies it would have been $23K. Replacing all the Variocam stuff would have been another $4K. When you consider all of the above, FSI’s prices aren’t out of line for what they do. A short block if you can get one isn’t a bad option either. I think I saw someone on RL post that they got a short block from Porsche for $16-$17K. When I asked the builder to contact LN about the failed bearing, they said they tried that in a similar situation and LN refused to do anything. Since I had the records from the previous owner, etc. I told them I would give it a try. LN was very responsive when I emailed them and had several conversations with their support on the phone. LN’s records seemed to indicate that the previous owner had been quoted IMS pinning service along with the dual row IMSB but the owner did not buy the pinning service (however, the IMS shaft had been pinned by someone). He did buy the IMSB and a magnetic drain plug. They asked that we send the IMS with the bearing still installed. LN said they’d never seen one of their dual rows physically fail. The builder said the same thing. They sent back the Solution kit with a new pinned IMS shaft at a discount of around $1,500. They were very quick with the shipping so that the shop could continue with the build. I emailed them 2 months ago to see if they’d had a chance to analyze the bearing to see why/how it failed. LN said they haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I emailed them again the day before yesterday and didn’t hear back. At this point I don’t think I’ll hear from them. I don’t think it would do them any good to share any information about the bearing. There is always the possibility that the bearing was incorrectly installed. But since the engine was rebuilt before and the IMS had been pinned, the builder said that it looked like they were trying to do a good job. The builder could have mis-diagnosed the failure. But he didn’t find evidence of any other ferrous part wearing down. At this point I’m considering the matter closed. I’m enjoying the car again and driving towards the 3,000 miles to the next oil change. Per the builder I’m not babying it but I’m trying to keep the revs below 6,000 during the break-in. The build has a 1 year or 12K mile warranty. During that time track events aren’t allowed so I won’t be doing any of that until at least next March. If I do more HPDE events, I’ll probably get the UIDS installed first. I’m thinking of doing a paint correction since I have to be nice to it the next year. Oh, and I just had to spend $4K on my Outback. So there’s that…

Glad to hear you're back up and running!

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Yeah, it's great to have it back! I went on that PCA east county back roads tour last Sunday. Did you go on that?

$19k ain�t bad at all! Especially since you had less wear on other components that contributed to less cost for you - good on you to closely monitor the situation, and make the decision to take action sooner than later. If you kept driving the car, you�d possibly end up having to replace more parts.

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True. On one hand I caught it early enough to not do too much damage. Luckily the crankshaft, cams, bores, etc were all good. I was also happy to find out my track events didn't cause any damage (nothing that won't buff out anyway). On the other hand, since I didn't think it was the IMSB (LN dual row with 15K miles on it) and it happened right after some HPDE events, I spent 6 months and 3K miles monitoring it trying to figure out what it was and trying to see if it was one time damage from the track. Had I immediately gotten the IMSB checked out I would have felt more comfortable simply having the Solution installed sans rebuild. But hindsight is 20/20 and even the mechanics thought the IMSB was a longshot. All the "normal" rebuild components were replaced. keeping a timing chain, leaving in the main bearings, etc. wouldn't have saved much $$ and it's nice to know it's all new. Oh, I also had him replace the injectors. Forgot to put that in.

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I let my PCA membership lapse so unless I go to the website I don't hear about the events. I went to a thing on Point Loma but your drive sounds like it would have been more fun.