maalco

Found out this morning my 2004 Carrera had catastrophic engine failure. The timing chain broke. Just lovely. I'm sick.
Anyone know how to find out what it's worth as a "roller"?
I'm trying to weigh my options.

1. Indy thinks rebuilt engine with warranty will be approx. $14k installed (ouch!)
2. Sell as a roller and walk away.

sasilverbullet

Don't sell, fix it! A crate engine from Porsche is around $7K, get some buddies to help you put it in.

dporto

^^^ How about some real data to back up that claim ?^^^

rockhouse66

Very sorry to hear this. How many miles and how/when did it happen? Just cruising? I have seen the insides of one that had a broken chain and it was mostly just small pieces of shrapnel.

maalco

I have 96k on her. Did a 40 minute drive home from dinner, stopped at grocery for a quick 5 minutes. No warning or sounds whatsoever. Upon re-start...all hell broke loose.
Engine immediately sounded like metal on metal. So not good.

dporto

It's certainly possible, but it's hard to believe there was "no warning or sounds whatsoever". This is not to say that you're lying, just that maybe you missed something that wasn't so obvious. Regardless of the cause, the result sucks big time. I hope you get it figured out in the least painful way.

NuttyProfessor

If anything that's probably just a short block. Seems like I remember Porsche offering short blocks for around that amount.

NuttyProfessor

Sorry to hear about that! I think it's the worst nightmare around these M96 parts. Can you tell us more about your ownership that led up to this failure? How long you've owned it. What kind of service you do on it? Oil change intervals? Minor repairs? ... any preventive maintenance (e.g. water pump, AOS, RMS, or IMS bearing)?

sasilverbullet

Just called my local dealer, short block is the only thing available, it's $7200 (plus a core charge).

So I guess OP is about right with $14K, got to rebuild or get some heads.

And Raby's about $20K from what I've read here on the forum.

Anyone know where OP can get a complete engine?

minion

it was at idle when the engine fell apart supposedly.... could you likely salvage the existing heads with some new valves and seats?

Imo000

Probably but someone will still need to take the engine apart. Might not even need seats, just some valves. My '99 has 3 bent valves when I picked it up as anon runner 7 years ago. After changing the valves the engine ran fine.
Pull the sump late (oil pan) and see if there are any large metal chunks in there. If not then the engine can probably be repaired. There is a huge difference between repair, refresh, and rebuild. If it can be repaired, the cost will be a lot less.

dporto

^^^ Yup, that's more like it. FSI has a few different build levels. $20k would be very optimistic even for the street performer build. The only way to determine price with them is to speak to Jake - he doesn't post prices on the web (smart guy!).

808Bill

So sorry to read of this. My roller did the same thing, no warning from what I was told.

I would sell it to me cheap ($4K) or save up and have JR build it.
The factory short block would be my second option but you still have all the old failure prone parts.

maalco

Yep, sounds unbelievable. 40 min drive was all highway with no stop till shut it off at the grocery.

Prelude Guy

Where do you live? I'm always on the lookout for a roller.

I knew I would find you in here! We're like vultures, you know?! lol