More than happy to go into more detail there. The car has 117,052 miles on it. I'm the third owner and purchased the car at 56,000 miles. I've self performed all (basic to intermediate) maintenance. MobilOne 0w40 oil changes twice a year or between track events (depends on the timing). Had the oil analyzed by BlackStone every other oil change. The car had been tracked by me at NCCAR once, VIR 3 wknds (Grand and Full courses), Roebling Road 2 wknds and then died at Carolina Motorsports Park (first wknd of Nov) on my 3rd session of first day.
State of car modifications: Suspension overhaul performed roughly 15,000 miles ago with Ohlins R&T coilovers, Ground Control front camber plates, new OEM front LCAs, new rear OEM upper strut mounts. Installed (week before CMP) Elephant Racing adjustable rear toe control arms. FVD Motorsports deep oil sump with X51 baffles installed 1 year ago. AOS replaced 1 year ago.
New front caliper piston seals installed 2 weeks before CMP. Original clutch. Tires on track were Nitto NT05s (with 4 previous track days on them). Carbotech street pads, Pagid Yellow track pads.
Here's what I posted on S2KI about the incident itself:
So what happened was... in the 3rd session, right after I lifted for Turn 14 (final turn of the track) the engine shut of and CEL came on. I heard nothing beforehand through my helmet to give me any sort of warning. Nor did any warning/idiot lights pop up on the dashboard beforehand to warn me of impeding disaster. I was able to roll the car back to the paddock and during that time tried to restart the engine, to no avail. See below for the video. Of note, I think the engine starts to sound "different" around the 1:19, and more clearly at the 1:30 points in the video. Failure occurs roughly at 1:40.
As stated above, I could not get the engine to restart while rolling back in the paddock. Additionally, since the engine shut off abruptly while on track, the coolant temps starting going sky high. Never fully in the red, but the needle stayed all the way at the top of the dial for a good while until the engine bay cooling fan could evacuate enough heat. In the meantime, while the engine cooled off I read the error code, P0301. This code states that a cylinder 1 misfire occurred. Okay I thought, not too bad. I hadn't heard any horrible sounds from the engine right before it shut off. There was no smoke from the exhaust. No fluids leaking from underneath the car. The digital display also indicated that I still had a full sump of oil. My initial thoughts were that one of my coil packs had failed. However my view of things got worse when I was able to restart the engine, which I was able to do about 30-45 minutes later. It took some coaxing, but when it finally started up it was not firing on all cylinders. And then after a few seconds the console display stated "Low Oil Pressure". Oh ****, that...that is very bad. I was able to get an on-site mechanic to come over and take a look at the car, mostly in hopes that he could manually verify what my oil pressure situation was. While waiting for him I removed the engine cover. When he arrived, we started up the car again and it sounded the same as before, bad and not running on all cylinders. Then after a few seconds a new metallic banging sound started (sounded like a socket attachment being shook inside a tin can). When that happened we immediately shut down the engine and he stated in his professional opinion that I had a serious internal engine problem (no kidding...). I had already assumed my weekend was over, and at this point I just packed it all up and planned to investigate things further myself at home.
At home I drained the oil (lots of metal flakes) and dropped the oil sump (lots of metal CHUNKS). I also sent an oil sample to Blackstone (why not?) After looking at the metal in the oil sump I basically stopped investigating. There's clearly internal engine damage that requires engine rebuilding (or more likely, replacement). I spoke with my trusted Porsche mechanic about the incident and details and he confirmed that it was completely unrelated to anything IMS related (I mention this since most people scream to stay away from 987.1 Caymans b/c of the IMS). He also strongly advised not trying to have the engine rebuilt - said get it replaced.
I may never know what caused the engine failure, because at this point I have no desire to pay for such a diagnosis. But what is clear is that something happened inside the engine that stopped or altered the flow of oil. I suspect that the connecting rod bolts for cylinder #1 may have failed or stretched (a "common" point of failure for track driven M97 engines). I will probably write a letter to Porsche. Most likely meaningless but why not, as it requires little effort on my part. The car is 15 years old but engine failure from 117,000 miles is just embarrassing for a sports car company.
I'm not sure what my next move is, but what I do know is that, at least right now, I cannot afford an engine replacement. Used M97s are $8500-10000 and I would not want to reinstall another (possibly) flawed engine. Rebuilt M97s with upgraded internals to correct factory design errors are $15000-20000. And none of these prices include labor to remove and replace from the car. Additionally, its worth noting that a Chevy LS swap conversion costs about $20,000 as well. There's a cheaper Audi V8 conversion out there, but I think that would be a bad idea.
If I can get some decent money for the car selling it as is (around $14,000) then I will probably go that route. If I don't get any bites that way I might start removing and selling a few of the aftermarket parts separately. Or if I have zero chance of selling the car for what I deem a reasonable amount then I might keep the car and save up to replace the engine with something better...and just not have a sports/track car for 1-3 years (
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