funny, I don't let my wife ride in my car - eliminates all the drone

 

so you guys are saying your wives talk at 3000 rpm?

 

Yes that's their lip speed.

 

Thank god wives don't get on this forum

 

interesting.

I don't recall how often I drove above 3k when the car was stock but now with my ebwerks exhaust I will drive above 3k just to hear that sweet noise.

43,000 | No | 90% of time | No

 

My 03 996TT with Tip rarely goes above 3K RPM during normal daily driving, mostly around 2K. Guess that the engine is not happy. Anything to be concerned?
Thanks,
Michael

 

LOL at the Wife's comments...

I tried searching on the owners manual last night. I couldn't find it. Maybe I was on something when I read it. Regardless, my good friend stated that what I said earlier. He has over 300,000 miles on his 911, he follows it religiously- 0 engine problems and he drives like a maniac on crack. He use to be a mechanic and worked at a shop with very competent individuals. ( He himself holds a MBA, JDM, & Mechanical engineering from UCLA) ... I recall he stated the reason why above 3,000 rpm is because the air cooled engines, engines needs the oil to cool down, lube the whole engine components, inherently the flat 6 motor is imbalance- the higher you rev it the balance issues go away. As a driver, I can feel the motor not being to happy under 2800 rpm. Given that it was derived from a race motor, it makes sense that this motors heritage was design to be in the upper revs. Regardless, I will keep following his advice. It has worked for him and other individuals that i personally know, and my motor seems happy.

 

The 996 Turbo engine is obviously not air cooled.

If the engine is imbalanced, it will be imbalanced at all RPM.

How do you define "not being too happy"?

I believe all engines produce their best horsepower and torque in the mid to upper RPM range, so "race motor" or the motor's "heritage" really has nothing to do with anything. The advantage of the Turbo is that it can make good power lower in the RPM range than the N/A 996 engine.

I believe the best indicator of where Porsche intends these engines to run when not being max performed, that is driving normally on public roads, is to look at both the Tip and PDK gear change programming and see where Porsche has decided to run the RPM. I believe the Tip starts in 2nd gear when driven in automatic, and as mentioned by someone earlier here, the automatic transmissions (Tip/PDK) probably keep the RPM in the lower ranges when there is no hard demand for acceleration (that is, just easily cruising around). If Porsche intended the engine to be kept in the upper half of the RPM range (>3000 RPM), then you'd see Tips/PDKs running around all the time at or above that RPM. I suspect you won't find this to be the case. So Tip/PDK transmissions are a good look into Porsche's mind regarding where the engine should be run in the RPM range.

 

I wish I could answer all your questions. BUT regarding the PDK, that is a completely different engine- then the 996/3/2/turbo or 997/3/2/turbo.1

So that should be thrown out of the equation. That said, tip cars have a torque converter that puts load on the engine, I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not on tip. The way I drive my car, has held up much better then cars that have been pampered- yes i do take extreme care of maintenance on my vehicles. I think these engines love oil pressure, Rob at S-Car-Go also mentioned to me that, and to drive the car above 3,000 rpm when warm. Maybe it is an older Porsche driver tradition ?

P.s. I define not to happy, how the engine seems to be bog down, dead pedal when you smash it- lwfw chatters etc. If you lug the motor at low rpm, what takes the hit ? The crank shaft. I only made this thread because 1) I'm concern of a crank shaft failure 2) I would like to know who drives their cars certain ways to see if we can find a culprit.


I suspect, given that Alex mentioned cars with lwfw seem to get it more, you can hear/feel the engine bog down and the crank shaft take the brunt of the lugging. Hence I'm trying to see if it is that .

 

Right, that is true. However, you initiated your comments by citing the opinion of an air-cooled 911 owner, which also is a completely different engine. So a bit of "pot and kettle" there. All three are flat-sixes, of course.

 

I sited two owners in this thread- one shop mechanic and one Porsche tuning shop owner( S Car Go -- Rob has a pretty darn good reputation, if you ask around ). Two other sources that told me the same. One of them is main tech at Sonnen Porsche, Danny- whom works on my car at dealer- I would like to get Kevin at UMW's opinion as he is probably the most knowledgeable person with these engines, and I suspect his thoughts would correlate with Danny's as well as they are in communication often. To bad 6spd banned him.

 

It's not completely different, especially in terms of power production (horsepower/torque curves), and both are flat 6 configurations. Looking at where Porsche engineered the PDK transmission to keep engine RPM is as reflective as examining the same on a Tip.

Do you have data to support this?

Yes.

Bog down? Well of course the throttle response is going to be different in 3rd at 2000 RPM, versus 2nd gear at 2800 RPM at the same speed. That doesn't mean driving at steady state throttle at 2000 RPM in 3rd is bad for the engine.

LWFW chatter? Do you sit at a stop light in neutral with your foot off the clutch? Have you heard the chatter? Try turning on the A/C and see the increase the noise megaphoned through the LWFW. None of this indicates that damage is occurring.

As for "lugging the motor"; define "lugging". I'm not advocating WOT pulls starting at 2000 RPM in 3rd or higher gears, but cruising around at lower RPM does not automatically qualify as lugging the engine.

Drive at whatever RPM makes you happy. But don't pick an arbitrary number and think that it is necessarily more beneficial in terms of the mechanical health of the engine than running at some other RPM. There is no question that higher RPM wears parts faster than lower RPM.

 

I only drive it under 3,000 or use 6th gear when the miles left in the tank display is 30 and I've got 27 miles to go....

 

Exactly....

 

"When the engine is operating temperature ? It states on the Porsche Vehicle Manual, to maintain the engine ABOVE 3,000 rpm's when the motor is up to normal operating temperature. How many members here actually do it religiously ?"

I don't see anywhere in the manual where it says that. It does say to not exceed 4200 rpm during first 5 minutes (p60). Also on the tachometer is says "Shift to the next lower  gear when the engine rpm drops below 1500 rpm (p69).

Normal min cruise rpm for me is about 2k depending on traffic speed. I'd only cruise above 3k if I want to be loud or spirited driving keeping on maximum torque curve. People with regular 996/Boxster might want to keep rpms up since cars driven like stolen tend not to have the rms issue IIRC from http://www.lnengineering.com/ims.html