944S - Why Not Tensioner Sprocket Instead of Pad?
 

My car is an 85.5. But if I owned a 944S or S2, I'd be sorely tempted to remove the whole tensioner pad assembly and replace it with some sort of "tensioner sprocket," which I could adjust to the correct spec. Looking at photos it seems like this would be possible.

Not sure what Porsche was up to on this one...designing in such a critical part in a way which to me seems to almost guarantee its failure if not attended to religiously. Perhaps an extra sprocket would not fit after all?

At any rate, I'm just curious to know if anyone else has thought about some sort of DIY upgrade for this...or am I just being too picky?

No matter how expensive a product is, the company still has to make a profit. I work for a company that makes multi million dollar yachts and we do things like that all the time.

Not saying its right when it happens, but that is usually what is behind engineering decisions like this. Cost save outweighs what you are giving up in the company's mind at the time.

The tensioner pad system works well, the problem is people do not know it is a wear item and must be replaced periodically. My 996 uses a very similar system in it's vario-cam. I replaced the pads at 105K miles as a maintenance item along with the water pump, RMS, AOS, IMS bearing & seal and clutch.

Yeah, I think the problem lies where people buy a 25 year old high mileage car and don't know about stuff like that until it finally fails. I've never seen a 16v up close, but by the pictures it looks like it would be kind of tricky to build something that would fit in that small space. The sprocket would have to be pretty small with no room for any amount of wraparound, which could cause stability issues retaining the chain at high speed.