rleeq

I just got my car back with my new (remanufactured) engine. Any suggestions on break-in other than the Porsche recommended guideline of keeping the RPMs under 4200 for 5000 miles?

Lee

1999Porsche911

Change the 0W40 to another approved weight.

C4CRNA

I thought the remanufactured(replacement) engines did not need a break in period.

Oscypek

wait i don't get it i have 0w40 oil in my car did i miss something about oils or something

1999Porsche911

Just a big oil debate. Personally, I would not run 0W40 in any car unless I lived in sub zero temperatures. There is no need, whatsoever to run a 0W40, otherwise.

What did you run in your first engine? That might make you think a little bit more about what oil to run. JMHO.

Tbred911

Hey Jim,

hows the movil 1 "delvac" 5W40... can we use that in our 996?

1999Porsche911

That's a diesel oil and should not be used and since there are so many approved oils on the list, I would use one of those. However, most here know I personally recommend 15W50 in areas of the country where normal temps are above 20F or so.

Macster

And a good start would be to follow the owners manual guidelines for breaking in the engine.

Personally, I like to change the initial oil and filter early in the break-in -- unles the owners manual specifically forbids it (and I ignore service advisors who advise me against it -- as long as I'm paying for the oil and filter I'll change it whenever I please), around the 1st 1000 miles.

I like to change the oil at the end of the break-in time. I see no reason to treat an engine kindly for a while then start hammering on it with dirty oil and a possibly plugged oil filter (which means this dirty oil gets routed around the oil filter).

(Even at the end of the break-in, I try to avoid going from mild to wild, instead preferring to take the engine to higher and higher RPMs over some length of time, that is upping the upper RPM limit I try to keep the engine under until over time I gradually have raised my self-imposed limit to redline. No matter whazt, lastly, I always ensure the engine has had plenty of time to get up to operating temperature. The engine has lots of coolant and oil and these take time to get up to temperature.)

As for 0w-40 oil, I've run that in my Porsche ('02 Boxster) for almost its whole life and it just passed 163,000 miles. (It gets, besides 0w-40 oil, an oil/filter service approx. every 5000 miles.)

Unless you live and use the car in an extremely hot area, or track it, there's no reason to go to 15w-50 oil and if you live where its cold one or two reasons why you shouldn't use that heavy of an oil. (A heavier oil can get hotter from excessive hydraulic friction than a lighter weight oil.)

Also, what does your car's owner manual say about oil viscosity? Does it specifically recommend 152-50 oil or does it allow for w-40.

BTW, I believe Porsche recently went from using 0w-40 oil to 5w-40 oil as its factory fill, so you can use 5w-40 oil if you can find it. (Dealer probably stocks it but will charge arm/leg for it. I can buy Mobil 1 0w-40 oil for around $6/quart, sometimes less on sale.)

Enjoy the new engine!

Sincerely,

Macster.

Tbred911

I don't think Mobil 1 makes a 5W40 for our cars... I just checked their website and the only 5W40 listed is the Delvac for diesel motors...

joes c4 cab

I am sure I will catch hell for this - but after you spent $13K on a new motor and now have a 2 year warranty, my goal would be to make sure they end up putting in another motor under warranty before the 2 years is up. So for break-in, I say rev to 7K, start revving hard immediately after startup, and lots of double clutching.

Sorry, I am pissed at PCNA for the same reason and would like to see someone make use of that second-hand warranty.

Let me ask you this, now that you have spent the money, how much (short of a new motor) could PCNA have offered you to lessen the blow? Are you sour on the whole thing, or do you just chalk it up to experience and maintenace as some of the others here would have you do?

Enjoy your new motor!

mkc4s

Macster,
it seems to me that it is better not to change oil early in break-in.

A new engine may produce a large number of small and big metal particles floating in the oil. The big ones could cause damage, but are caught by the filter and just sit there. The small ones (that pass through the filter) are beneficial for fine polishing of engine surfaces.

An early oil change removes small particles, and now the break-in process is disrupted and/or prolonged.

rleeq

The final bill came to $11,626 due mostly to a 10% discount “given” to PCA members.
In my letter, e-mails and my Phone calls to Porsche I said I wasn’t asking for them to give me an engine. The point I was trying to get across was that this failure should not have happened with a car with just 69,000 miles, any car for that matter much less a Porsche and that Porsche should not profit on it. I specifically asked that I be charged at cost. I’m not bitter. Yet! I haven’t been contacted by anyone with Porsche but it has only been 11 days since my first contact and a week since they received my letter. I was told that I will get a response within 15 days of receiving a letter so I’m reserving judgment until then. Since they already got my money I doubt it but one can hope they do the right thing.

Macster

In the 996 engine Porsche put in a bypass filter to filter out the very fine particles in order to protect the Variocam Plus system.

What you always want to run in an engine like the Porsche engine -- or for that matter any engine you care about -- is clean, undiluted oil of the proper type and weight.

New engines shed loads of dirt. Even if the assembly is done in clean room conditions, all new castings/machined surfaces shed lots of small metal particles (or in the case of sand cast parts, sand particles...). These can (almost certainly will) overload the filter to the point it is no longer able to filter oil. To "protect" the engine there's a bypass valve that under sufficient pressure at the pressure side of the filter will open and direct oil into the main oil galleys without the benefit of any filtering.

Also, those metal particles consist of various types of metal. Not all are compatible with other metals in the engine. Under high loads, high temperatures, if similar metals come into contact extreme wear -- galling -- can and will occur.

Polishing works by one surface, usually the softer material, retaining the abrasive particles and abrading the harder surface. (Very hard glass/pyrex mirror blanks are fine polished and figured with the right curve by using a pitch covered tool -- the pitch soft enough to dent with your finger nail, the surface charged with a fine polishing compound.)

Besides, almost no bearing surfaces wants to be super finished, with the exception of say the main and rod bearing journals, because a super fine finish here reduces friction of the hydradynamic bearing (fluid film bearing) that exists between the bearing journal and the enclosing bearing housing. The journals are finished before the crank is installed in the engine.

In most cases, a certain amount of uniform roughess is desired to give places for the oil molecules to reside, so the other component as it rolls, slides or rubs across the bearing face presses upon these tiny oil molecues and thus metal to metal contact is avoided. (Dirt in the oil can take the place of these oil molecules with the result these bearing interfaces will see accelerated wear.)

It is your car, your engine, and you can do with as you wish. My experience is that an early oil/filter change -- unless specifically cautioned against by the owners manual) followed by regular oil and filter changes helps prolong the useable life of the engine. It is a course of action I've followed with all my new cars (and for those older cars for which I rebuilt the engine) and one I intend to follow going forward.

Sincerely,

Macster.

ElTorrente

Drive it like you stole it, and change the oil after a few hundred miles, then again at 1500 or so and carry on like normal.

You want to make sure the piston rings actualy seal properly. If you baby it and drive like a grandma during the first miles, your rings won't seal properly, which means you will likely burn oil and have more blow-by gases from the cylinders getting into the inner-engine. Seal those rings and you'll have a car that uses no oil between changes, and keeps the oil in better condition also. Your engine will last longer, you'll have better compression, and hence more power.

Macster

owners manual the engine will break in very nicely. The rings are already seated when the engine comes from the factory.

The ring/cylinder interface and other sliding/rubbing bearing surfaces are not quite to their optimum state though, and following the proper break in will almost certainly ensure they do obtain this state.

I always cringe when someone suggests driving a new car like one stole it to do a "proper" break-in knowing that if the engine goes **** up at some point in the future the person who was advocating this type of break in will be no where to be found to help make restitution.

If however, one drives the car reasonably, if anythign should happen, he can point this out to the dealership and the dealership can also verify this to some extent by querying the engine controller for details on how the engine was treated during its initial break in miles.

The only time drive it like you stole applies, in my opinion, is if you did indeed steal the car...

Sincerely,

Macster.