This is a car that I bought last year from a fellow who took it to a local Porsche shop here with some odd sounds when running. The car ran and drove, but every few seconds, it would create a loud screeching noise and other associated weird noises. I bought the car for $10K from this fellow, as it was headed to LA Porsche dismantlers if I didn't buy it. The car drove and appeared to run okay, but kept making these noises, particularly on startup. Sometimes it ran perfectly quiet, sometimes not.
The car is a 1999 Porsche 996 Carrera 3.4 engine with only 31,000 miles on it. Today, we took the IMS cover off of the engine to see what was underneath. Check out what we found:
The entire bearing has been destroyed. The seal is nowhere in sight, and the race came out stuck to the bearing cover (which was scratched and damaged). Apparently the balls were just floating around inside and it was only a matter of minutes before before the motor lost timing and grenaded. You can often detect a problem like this by plugging in the PST-2 (or Durametric) computer into the car and then checking camshaft deviation.
This car will be saved, as I think we got to it in time. As mentioned previously, we have a new prototype intermediate shaft bearing replacement kit that we are working on, and we'll be installing it on this engine for testing. This will all be detailed in a very lengthy tech article that I'm working on right now.
Enjoy!
-Wayne