Dan@SharkWerks

Shark Werks GT3 Coolant Pipes

This item is considered preventative maintenance and we believe it should be installed on all 996, 997 and 997.2 GT3 and GT3RS (2004 to 2011) models.

The GT3 engine is known for being incredibly robust and reliable, however a few major issues exist with concern to its cooling system, and this part is designed to fix one of these problems.

A known weakness is that the coolant pipes (6-8 per engine) come unstuck from various housings and cause complete catastrophic coolant failures.

A lesser known issue involves the plastic coolant elbow pipes that run to the oil cooler (aka heat exchanger). These pipes are molded plastic and have a very thin wall where the pipe connects to the engine with an O-ring seal. The problem is that over time and mileage, the thin plastic wall will break down at the o-ring slot (its weakest and thinnest point) causing a crack to appear. Eventually the whole engine will need to be removed in order to replace a cheap plastic tube. Both of these issues have been observed on the 997 Turbo models as well.

After a customer spent nearly $2500 replacing this small part, costing him two track days and several weeks of downtime, we decided that a permanent solution was necessary and made these stainless steel pipes with CNC billet ends. We believe these should be used in place of the OEM part to avoid the aforementioned costs involved in replacing these leaky tubes ever again.

A razor blade showing where the stock piece fails. The car had approximately 40,000 miles of use in a mild climate:


Shark Werks GT3 Coolant Pipe shown next to the stock plastic part:


The engine must be removed in order to install these so we recommend performing the "coolant fix" at the same time or replacing these whenever an engine rebuild is in progress.

We sell these in pairs as two are are required per vehicle. O-rings are included and pre-installed.

More info:
http://www.sharkwerks.com/products.php?pid=386

PS - I hate coolant! (tm)

sharkster

I really enjoyed (NOT) chasing this one down for a couple of days with James.

PS I hate coolant (tm) fan club member #3

P.J.S.

nice
sent a link to my tech
coolant welds are already done but my engine is coming out for another repair... he says go, I will take a set...

sharkster

Sounds good. Here's a couple of pictures showing where to look (it's from a 3.8L engine but same idea on your 07 RS):



And on the other side...


Kinda hard to get to so the engine needs to come out.. If it's out already it's easy

Alex

speedoflight

how timely. my engine is coming out for some oil leak warranty work. car is at fremont porsche. sent you an email.

sharkster

Roger that and back at ya

Jamie_GT3

Just ordered mine, was going to do the pinning myself without pulling the engine... This may have changed my mind on the not pulling the engine part!

Anything else while it's out?

sharkster

thank you sir And yes if you do take it out... I mean I'd get the updated pressure plate. I'm trying to think what else....

Eddie - RPW

another one ... this is scary !

aussie jimmy

cams, heads, displacement.....

sharkster

Yep this is a nasty one. We chased around a good while. A higher mileage track car had this and we'd already pinned/fixed it but later on smelt coolant first and it was fine on the street. As soon as it would go out on the track it would loose a gallon or so out on the track. Crazy... so out came the motor that's what we saw Ugh!

I know mate... never ends. Again, I HATE HATE coolant:P

stevecolletti

That 3.9 is sounding like a better and better deal.
You get to resolve almost everything Porsche didn't get right (Variocam adjusters, coolant pipes, mitigate the gearing gap due to the additional torque and RPM), get the better clutch and flywheel, exhaust bypass and DME... plus the additional 70 hp and 50 ft-lbs.

The only reason to put it off is that we keep finding new things that need to be fixed.

tcsracing1

nice looking part!

Darkstar1

Very nice looking part. Sad it is not there from the factory.

mooty

dan you lost me.
so we need to pin AND get these as well?