That's certainly how I read it.

I suspect a 3.8L monster build is a teensy bit more expensive than a stock replacement.

I think that is the whole conversation, That is their quote, cut and pasted above #198

I would guess most of us would just buy the machined parts for 6K with the pistons

I am intending to lift mine with these

https://liftbars.com/

I just ordered a pair. A little spendy but I like the concept. Should be nice for geting all 4 in the air.


987.2 are pretty low risk for bore scoring as I understand it. I think if you are really worried just go 981

Was on the fence on the center jack point though I am sure its fine. It is located by not super thick aluminum but its a sturdy geometry trusslike structure. Still makes it a bit of a challenge in the front

I LIKE THAT!

That would cut my track prep time down a bunch.

Further-
My thoughts from the nervous reticent cash register.
The cost of an engine fix (IMS / Cylinder score problem,) has me thinking of moving up the scale to a newer model, perhaps even a GT type.
Buying an older car for say 30K, then having to stick another 15 to 30K into it for such a problem suddenly makes these cars prone to it a really upside dwn arrangement.
Not that we will make money on these cars, not the point, but to stick another engine in it completely buries it.

How about one of the older twin turbos? Weren't those exempt from some of these problems due to running "Mezger" engines?

Gotcha. I had an '88 targa, a couple of miatas including a factory turbo, and now an '08 Boxster S. I've driven the heck out of them, but not been on the track. To me, the main difference between the 911 and boxster is that the 911 seemed to have more traction, but that may be as much due to the 217hp vs 303hp as due to the increased rear weight bias.

The boxster is amazing. It's not got the same amount of charisma/character as I remember the 911 having. The boxster is a fabulous car. The old, air-cooled 911 was also a fabulous car, but had a thick German accent. I think a lot of that comes down to the size, design, motor, bottom hinged pedals, no-nonsense dash, etc....

I suspect a 996 or 997 twin turbo would be VERY different from your old 911, probably as much as a 987.

I did drive a 2001 996 tt when I was looking for my current Porsche. I think they were rated for 415hp. It felt a little numb to me, but then I only got a relatively short test drive. I drove several boxsters and Caymans and preferred the feel of them. I think they are closer to my old 911 than the 996tt was.

I guess 20 years is a big difference by my lowly 4cyl 718 GTS is as fast as a 996TT in a straight line.

I get some of the animosity for the 4cyl 718s I guess soundwise, they pull harder than one might think however.

No doubt that they are extremely fast and capable. I think the S are 350hp, and the base are what, 300 or 320hp? But I have heard that they have very fat torque curves that start at relatively low rpms which make them faster, and especially so in daily driving around town. I'm sure I wouldn't kick one out of the garage for dropping oil on the epoxy.

Agreed, animosity.
No flat 4 for me !
IDC how great it is .
One thing is for so sure, the education here has educated me and prolly some of all of us .
Keep it up!
Ps my 911 was 2300 lbs wet and 170 at the wheels, no slouch.
But I have graduated from that love affair or something like that .
A big flat 6 in a Cayman would be nice.
Perhaps I should buy one cheap with a blown engine.....argh argh
No, i don't need just one more project.

I'm pretty happy with my 3.4. But if I could manage one of the newer 4.0L cars, GT4 or even the lowly GTS4.0, hell yeah. I suspect a built 3.8L would be a lot of fun too.

Getting smarter by the day here............
More on IMS and cylinder scoring.
The IMS is absolutely going to fail in these cars, it is just a when. (2008 and back)
This news is from smarter people than me, (L&N engineering)
They say if you try to fix this after it starts to fail, it is a wasted effort as it has expelled too much metal residue and sometimes chunks through the system.
The key here is to fix the things B4 they start the early symptoms.
According to L&N they have this all divided into phases 1,2,3 of said symptoms. ( of failure modes)
In the first couple of phases, there are no outward signs, just those in oil samples.
They have a questionnaire to fill out if you wish to purchase a kit explaining if they should or should not even sell you a fix-it kit or not !

Cylinder scoring -
OHhhh boy
Some of it can be seen through the spark plug holes, no guarantees.
If I have this information correctly processed, it is also best to drop the sump and look behind the pistons as lots of times it shows up there first B4 moving toward the heads.

I am no expert here just a pretty good reader and researcher.
You guys jump in as you have, as it is all good info.
In the process of locating my car, I just don't know where it is yet. LOL

I'd drive a turbo 4-cly Boxster all day any day if I had the money. That being money beyond other interests. It would be at the end of a long list.

I didn't realize that by the time the Cayman was out that the IMS issue was still a factor. We still have a 2000 Boxster and after some 15 air cooled VW's and Porsches owned, I will never visit the brand again.

Nice looking cars but siht builds going back to the pulled head studs and cam chain tensioners. A logical person would never get involved.

But that's the thing, we aren't logical until we are.

Almost pulled the trigger a couple of times ...but the 2012 Black Edition keeps teasing me.
For all their hype, it is very impossible to figure out the Porsche option ideas for this car!!
One would think...... all of them would come with LSD, and a bunch of other options as standard.
Nope.
Lots of great things have been left on the table!
And a lot of other standard "R" items are included.
a Very strange package.

Interesting. I suppose that makes sense. From a certain point of view, eventually the main bearings, rod bearings, rings, pistons, valves, etc... are all going to fail, it's just a question of when. My guess is that the "when" on some of those may be several hundred thousand miles. Porsche made 3-4 different IMS bearings over the run of motors that had them (986/996 - 987.1/997.1 excepting the 911 twin turbos). All of those motors have intermediate shafts, and the shafts run on bearings, and eventually all bearings fail.
Yep, I think every engine that has an intermediate shaft has an IMS bearing, so could potentially have an IMS bearing issue. Intermediate shafts ran until approx 2008. Starting in 2009, the motors didn't have an intermediate shaft, so no bearing, so no failure.

I would guess these would combine to tell you what was "standard" with the Black Edition. LSD wasn't standard for a long time on these cars. That's unfortunate. I wish mine had a torque biasing style diff. My experience is that with most of the normal special editions, you get a couple of cool upgrades, probably sport-chrono, one of the various suspension upgrades, exhaust, possibly a modest bump in power, and then a bunch of visual upgrades.
https://press.porsche.com/prod/presse_pag/PressResources.nsf/Content?ReadForm&languageversionid=848155&archive= 1&hl=modelle-archiv&Level1ID=1
https://press.porsche.com/prod/presse_pag/PressResources.nsf/Content?ReadForm&languageversionid=850338&archive= 1&hl=modelle-archiv&level1id=1

https://www.excellence-mag.com/of-note/cayman-s-black-edition-limited-to-500

PCA youtube channel has very informative series on bore scoring (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZmxzg99WQzOM-udRSScLBqXmrJ7VL0d) and on IMS failure (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZmxzg99WQwAe2z-CC2vmYNjmUWiqleq). I don’t recall if its in the IMS series or a 996/Boxster video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i14LKvAW-So) but they talk about what to do during a PPI to check for potential IMS issues.

I just found out dealers are deleting the Sports Plus on their PDK cars going back to 2010, I heard. Including the 991 cars. I have to find out more about that any why porsche is doing this. Must be a nasty law suit somewhere? So before you take your car to the dealers, find out.

I have been following all the thoughts on cylinder scoring/ IMS.
Pretty simple things seem to alleviate the problems.
For sure the sump plate should be dropped and cylinders looked at from the back side rather than down the spark plug hole. ( PPI or just want to know)
The IMS should be thought of as maintenance rather than fix it when needed situation.
If one waits for a noise or just waits, the FOD goes all through the engine!.
Moving up just a little on oil viscosity helps a lot with cylinder scoring.
All the above is making me buy from the year 2009 to 2012 market.
Personally, I just do not like the looks of 2014 and latter.

There's not really a "maintenance" way of fixing the last IMS bearings. At that point, it's practically an engine rebuild. I don't know what the exact years are (2005-2008?), but for those, you have to pull the motor and split the case to replace the bearing. That's kind of a BIG deal. If you've got the case apart, it seems like it would be crazy to not do a ton of other crap, essentially amounting to a rebuild.

I remember reading an article or something for some company that was putting some sort of squirter in that enhanced the lubrication of the bearing. You don't really hear much about that these days. I wonder if it wasn't effective or just more expensive that going with one of the fix-it bearing solutions.