Water Cooled Rebuild Questions
 

ok, i have a boxster. i know that in general, it's not worth the trouble to rebuild these engines. i'm looking for advice on how to proceed here.

i have about 110K miles on my car. i take it to the track frequently, so it sees some serious use. currently, it makes good cylinder pressure and passes leak-down. i have one issue that concerns me: after several hard (>1G) left turns, the left bank starts to click (probably a sticky lifter). not sure if it's a major issue or not. other than that it runs like a champ.

should i wait for this thing to crap out and just get a different motor, or is it worth doing what i'd do for any other car from a preventative standpoint? i'm considering pulling the motor, replacing the oil pump, pulling the heads & having them reworked. basically, freshen the top end. is this a waste of time?

one other thing: i have a hypothesis on the intermediate shaft issue with these motors. any chance a faulty oil pump could be the cause of some of these failures? it looks to me like it's possible. thanks for your help.

Could this possibly be similar to the problem 996's had with sustained lateral g forces? Porsche sells a baffle or something that reduces the chance of oil starvation...but it voids the warranty...not that that would matter to you.

it's possible. it really probably has to do with the motor's age more than anything i think. it's a wierd issue. no noise at all under normal operating conditions. if i drive the heck out of it for a bit, it will tick loudly on the driver's side for about 5-10 minutes and then stop.

One of the guys at the track was having a similar symptom from his M3. He associated it with hot oil temps and the oils inability to keep the hydraulic lifters pumped up. Same revs with cooler oil didn't make the noise. May have no relevance yet I just heard him saying it this weekend so it came to mind. Have you tried different oil qualities and does it correlate with oil temps? Good luck

You say you take the car to the track frequently - how long has the oil been in the car when this problem happens. The factory fill of 0w40 might be thinning out. When the oil is fresh, does this also happen?

that was my thought the first time this happened. it does it regardless of how new the oil is (always Mobil 1 0W-40).

luke - that's an interesting thought. it had crossed my mind. unfortunately, i don't have an oil temp guage, just water temp. the water temp stays just above 180 degrees. for the heck of it, i pulled the cover plates off the bottom of the car to inspect the cooling system. the supply AND return pipes are crushed slightly. i think it's possible that they're restricting the flow of coolant to the motor / oil cooler just enough to let the oil overheat. i've ordered new pipes. i'll post the results when they're installed.