Well about 11 months after I first discovered the intermix on my 2000 996 C4 Cab, and 2 ˝ months after starting to drop the engine I took the first real drive today. Put about 50 miles on the car and everything seems fine. Total cost was about $2,000 in parts and repair of the cracked head (this included some misc parts unrelated to the cracked head) and a lot of hours of labor (but these days I am working pretty cheap).

I guess I will feel better after I put a couple of thousand miles on the car, but I am thrilled to be back in the driver’s seat of my 996 again. I had forgotten how much fun it is to drive this car, especially with the top down. The whole process of tearing down the engine, finding the problem and fixing it was quite an adventure, with a lot of side roads taken. But the final outcome seems to be good.

So those of you who have an intermix problem, TAKE HEART! When mine first happened I was told by many sources, on the boards and mechanics that the only fix was a new/reman engine. Well that is really not the case. I will do a longer post later recapping the whole process, but just wanted to let people know that the car is fixed and back on the road.

I also want to thank several people who helped and consulted on the project.

First, thanks to Doug Donsbach, who has a “twin” crack in the head of his car. We commiserated and he gave me help in fabricating tools, and the picture of his crack helped me find mine.

Thanks to Jake Raby at Flat 6. Jake is an incredibly nice guy, who has an unbelievable knowledge of these engines, and was extremely generous with his time and advice. I can’t say enough nice about Jake.

Also, a big thanks to 99firehawk, a tech with a lot of knowledge who was helpful in many ways. His time and help were really appreciated.

And thanks to Jeff Clark at Sunset Porsche. I have been getting my parts from Jeff/Sunset for several years and they are great.

Thanks to John Edwards/Costa Mesa R&D. They did the head repair and valve job on the 1-3 head. John knows the problem with the heads and has experience in fixing them. He was quick and very well priced to do the work.

Also thank to Rick and Ron at Valley Tool & Mold in Gilberts, IL who did the tapping and plugging of the cams. The expansion plugs on these proved to be a major challenge, but should never be a problem again.

There were a lot of others who helped and commented but I can’t name all of them.

So I AM ON THE ROAD AGAIN. If anyone else needs some help with their intermix problem I would be glad to help as much as possible, I have developed a little bit of expertise in this over the last few months.

 

congrats!! looking forward to the write up

 

Doug,
Glad I could be of assistance!!! You adapted to and overcame a situation that most other 996 Owners would have walked away from.. Congrats to you for being a hard charger!!

 

That is AWESOME!!! I hope you have many year of happy motoring. Did you take the other head off to see if it had any problems?

You have done some great write ups on this too. Thanks!!

 

Only took the cam cover off of head 4-6. Actually did this first and did not see anything. Next I took the cover off of 1-3, and then started to dissaemble that head. Once the cams were off and the tappet carrier was off the crack was obvious. Actually I should have seen it with the tappet carrier on, probably even with the cam cover on. If I had used some penetrating dye it woul have showed right up. I was just lucky that I happened to take the engine apart in this order, although now with a little more research and experience I know that the cracks in heads are usually in 1-3, at the inner exhaust valve spring seat and then extend down the sprark plug chase. If anyone has an intermix this is the first thing I wold recommned checking. It is pretty easy to just take off the muffler and bracket on this side, than take off the coil cover and remove the coils and look at the tubes. Easy first step in analyzing the problem.

 

"We commiserated and he gave me help in fabricating tools, and the picture of his crack helped me find mine."

You may want to think about re-wording this,haha I could'nt resist!

On a more serious note, glad to hear your back on the road and enjoying the fruits of all your hard work. Good for you, not many others would take a big task like this into their own two hands.