[steve 986]

After a IMS failure (I also had the RMS replaced), I was fraught with panic over having to replace the engine. A new crated engine from Porsche is now $20k ('03 986), and a rebuild was running about $7k or more, and hard to find to say the least. I asked my local mechanic where the car was to pull the engine to ship it to a rebuilder, as I was convinced I'd just bite the bullet. After a little more thought, we decided to simply pull the head off and see what damage there was. Lo and behold -- six bent valves on one bank of the engine (subsequently, there are a few more bent stems, so we're replacing twelve valves), and obviously the bearing of the IMS being done.

I had thought, from the reading I had done on various boards that the engine was seriously gone -- I imagined bent connecting rods, cracked pistons, busted heads, scarred cylinders from metal fragments.

That was anything but the case. It's not going to be cheap to repair the engine, but owning a Porsche isn't really cheap in any case. But on the other hand, we're a long way away from a blown engine where the block and pistons aren't usable. The chains were not in good shape, so they're being replaced.

That much being said, the engine did shut down, and it happened at relatively low revs (if I recall correctly, it was essentially at idle). I guess it could be a lot worse if the engine was at redline and everything came to a grinding halt at high speed.

But, at the end of the day, before writing the engine off, a good mechanic can see what the true extent of damage is -- and it may not be as bad as you may think.