For sale: 1996 Porsche 993 coupe

I am selling my lovely midnight blue Porsche 993 varioram coupe as I have seen another one that I like (different colour interior).

The car has had extensive work done to it which you can read about here http://www.fiat127.co.uk/Porsche-993-coupe-for-sale/

Porsche 911 993 DIY lower rocker valve cover seal fix

A typical problem on the 993 is a leaking lower valve or rocker cover. They are made of a composite material with aluminium inserts around the fixing screws. Various problems can occur from warping, the aluminium inserts becoming loose to a failed seal. Mine were original to the car, now fifteen years old so it was time to replace one side which was leaking engine oil onto the heat exchanger.

The job starts, wheel off, cleaned the oil off the heat exchanger



Remove the rubber hose from the heat exchanger to get to the rear bolts. Remove the plug leads and wedge them out of the way - you can't get them back on in the wrong order as they are simply the order they come through the rubber body/tinware grommet. There are 11 x M6 Allen bolts on the lower covers. The heads on all of mine were corroded and caused some problems with a 5mm Allen key to remove. Thankfully they did all come undone. The cause was clearly that they had been removed previously - probably to replace the seal and most of the heads were butchered internally. I had temporarily replaced the bolts before starting the job, so that I knew they would all come undone - you can do most of them in advance without taking the wheel off.



Had to shorten a 5mm Allen key to get to the lower rear bolt



With all the bolts loose the cover just pops off. Cleaned the surface on the heads.



Installed the new seal in a new cover and bolted all new bolts up - tightening to 7 ftlbs - i.e. not very much. Refit the rubber heater hose and plug leads and it's job done.

New parts details:

Cover bolts (7ftlbs torque) M6 x 11 900 067 238 02 £0.42 each
Lower cover seals                   993 105 135 02 £14
Lower cover OEM                     993 105 16 07 £60.42

Labour £0 !

Porsche 911 993 DIY oil and filters change 12000 service

So you've had you 993 for a while now and it's time for an oil and filters change.

You can read up on the p-car DIY and in the Adrian Streather book and assemble the parts you need to do the job. Typical fixed menu priced oil and filters service on your Porsche 993 cost between £200 and £500 depending where you take it for the work. The usual independents in the north of England include Hartech, Sports and Classic, Pro-Porsche, Ninemeister, and Unit 11.

I decided to so the service myself after reading through the p-car article and having a good look under the car to familiarise myself with the job.

First of all it was clear that the drain plugs on the sump and thermostat housing had seen better days so I ordered new ones from Porsche and they were reasonably priced.

Engine case sump nut           944-107-197-01 £9.55
Thermostat housing sump nut   993-207-258-02 £12.56

add in the service parts too:

Oil filter small            993 107 203 03 £12.84
Oil filter large            993 207 201 02 £9.87
O-ring for thermostat sump nut    999 701 269 40 £4.01
22 x 27 seal for sump nuts    900 123 118 30 £1
Oil Motul 8100 X-cess 5W-40 Synthetic-1 oil x 10 Litres £60

So service items alone come to around £110 - I used only genuine Porsche parts and approved oil.

You can see the chewed up thermostat plug here.



and the new one as a comparison. It's aluminium so open to abuse - best to use a 6 sided socket on it. When you remove the plug to drain the oil it's best to warm the engine up until about 9 o'clock on the temperature guage or until the oil cooler pipes get hot. This way the thermostat is open and you'll drain the oil in the cooler too. Beware though as nearly 10 litres of hot oil come out and fast - you need a big oil catch tub!



With the rear arch liner removed you can easily get to the thermostat filter (the larger filter) and with the car jacked up a little you can remove the filter with a 74mm x 14 flute wrench. I bought my wrench from GSF Car Parts for about £9.






Then time to undo the engine sump nut and filter. The nut is straight forward and I drained about 0.5 - 1L or oil here. The filter requires you to remove the oil return line from the block. You can see it here circled in red.



Then you can easily get the filter wrench on the filter and remove it.



Here's a view of the filter mount.



New filters to go on. Genuine Porsche and remember hand tight only! I mark them up with a date or mileage or both for future reference.



Then filled with around 8 litres of the new oil and start the car, check for leaks and top up until you get the appropriate reading on the dip stick - the oil level gauge in the dash board isn't accurate until the engine is up to temperature and the oil thermostat is open. I was surprised to find that I used all 10L of oil suggesting that I drained virtually all the old oil in the system.

Looked at a 993 targa

Following the C4 and some thinking I went to see a local-ish 96 C2 targa. It had high mileage (120K) but was cheaper than others at around £18K. We went for a drive and all seemed ok, but it was untidy and dirty inside with loose bits of trim. When we stopped smoke was pouring from the rear arches - a sign of leaking cam covers - a well know problem. I was very honest with the owner about all these points, thanked him and walked away.

Fell at the final hurdle

Thanks to my Adrian Streather book on the 993 I did some ID checking on the C4 to discover that the engine number did not match what was on the documents and the HPI check. The seller did some investigation with Porsche UK and they confirmed that the engine in the car was not the one it was built with - hmm, I don't like that for the sake of resale. It turned out that the original seized engine had been replaced with a used one, albeit by a respectable independent Porsche specialist down south. The seller did his best to get as much history but it came to a dead end with the engine having unknown mileage on it.

I was very close with this one and even had my cheque book in hand to pay the deposit, but I walked away. Oh, well carry on looking.

Test drove a local Porsche 993 Carrera 4

Having fun in my other cars for now and enjoying the summer. Spotted a Carrera 4 locally in a dealer near Knutsford: http://www.autoperform.co.uk/ and have been to see it for a test drive. It has a few issues - air conditioning is non functional which I hear is not unusual on a 993. It's a manual but has had a recent new clutch. All seems good so I'm considering a move on this car.

Busy, busy, busy

Just still saving hard for the 993 and have been distracted by work (damn it) and my Ferrari Dino springing a few leaks. So I'm in the garage over the next few weeks working on that one. My target is to be able to buy a 993 by the end of summer.