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996s don't have "weak" 2nd gear synchros. In fact they have basically the same 2nd gear synchro as the 993, GT3 and 996 Turbo.
The 996 Carrera AND 996 Turbo were both the victims of an assembly screw up at Getrag that eventually cost Porsche a lot of money and cost Getrag the relationship because for years they denied the issue existed.
There are 14 shims varying by .5mm in thickness from one size to the next. It goes under 4th gear. It sets the stack height and the location of 2nd gear relative to the slider. The workers at Getrag were using the same shim in every gearbox, assuming 100% consistency with respect to the width of 3rd,4th and 2nd gears. A risky assumption indeed when we are talking about .5mm combined variance making a difference.
The result was the 2nd gear popout fiasco. Any car that had the issue was fixed under warranty or shortly thereafter. Either it showed up in the early miles or the car was well within spec.
The synchro is not weak. It's actually pretty damn robust. Any car you test drive today 10-15 years later that pops out of 2nd is a car with a worn out 2nd gear synchro from miles or one with fubar'd engagement teeth because the owner drives like an asshat and downshifts while still going to fast or fails to rev match if keeping the speeds up. 2nd gear popout on a car with 75k on it is not the result of the assembly screw up. It is the result of driven hard out away wet. Same gearbox in the 2001-2004 Boxster S.
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