So today I got my car back after a lengthy stay at the dealer. I dropped it off on Sept 1st, back to me on Oct 21st. A little background on the car: 2007 997.1TT, 43K miles, I’ve had for 2 years and it had 31K miles when I bought it. Never tracked. A few minor mods (Speedtech exhaust)

A few weeks ago, driving along in traffic, the CEL comes on.. First time in my ownership that I’ve seen the CEL light.. I get home and read it out with my Torque app.. Uh oh, P0011. (Aside: whoever said that Durametric does NOT reverse some codes on readout was WRONG. I hooked my Durametric up and read out the code and it reported a P1100. This was with Durametric version 6.3.2.5 )

From reading the forums I had an idea what this was.. so I make an appointment at the local Porsche dealer in town.

First they replaced the variocam actuator (the one that sits on top of the cam housing, not the solenoid between the cylinders.) Not sure why they don’t just swap it to the other side to troubleshoot, but whatever.. so they give the car back to me (end of 1st week). I drive all of 3 miles toward home and CEL comes back on.. back to the dealer I go..

This time they pull the engine and, according to them, inspect the camshaft and see that it is still lined up.. the camshaft holes are aligned. So, according to their book, they replace the camshaft actuator on the end of the camshaft, along with the hex bolt that secures it to the camshaft itself.

It all goes back together, they do a test drive this time and the CEL appears again..

So once again the engine comes out and the cam is inspected and this time they can see that it has spun in the sleeve. So a new cam is ordered and put in.. Since this is a dealer they don’t support “pinning” it. The shop foreman was apologetic about the time it was taking to troubleshoot and said that he spoke to the regional rep and also to another dealer nearby.. supposedly the other dealer had a car with the same issue and it had had its engine out 3 times trying to fix..

A few other notes:

- During the 1st engine-out procedure they managed to break the alternator mounting bracket, so I got a new alternator out of the deal as it’s an entire assembly, apparently.

- Since the engine was out, I decided to have them crack the clutch housing apart and inspect the clutch. Good thing I did, as it was pretty worn, probably about 40% was left. I elected to buy the upgraded Sachs “2.5” clutch that comprised of the 764 Pressure plate and 098 disc. (pics below) Thanks Sam (by Design) for the quick delivery!

- I previously had complained on a previous visit to the dealer that the clutch didn’t feel completely right. It worked correctly, and didn’t have any visible leaks, but sometimes I could feel an almost a pulsing thru the clutch pedal when I went to push it in after cruising in gear for a long time. I mentioned this again with the shop foreman and he said he would check it again.. Well, they ended up putting in a new accumulator & clutch slave as well.. that’s the 2nd one done on this car (the first was done prior to my ownership - I have records indicating it being done at 11K miles.)

- I had them replace the fuel filter..it was sitting on my shelf from an parts order from last year and I never did put it in yet.

- I had a Volvo S60 loaner for 6 weeks, not too bad for a family hauler..

So you might ask, what was the damage? Well thank goodness as the car is CPO, and it expires in about 3 weeks.. needless to say, I will be obtaining a Fidelity platinum warranty before the CPO is gone, I have already shopped around and got some pricing.. If I didn’t have the CPO this repair would have been between 6-8K.

All I paid was the labor to R&R the clutch that I provided, which ended up being 2 hours at dealer rates.
-
Anyone know a procedure to break in the new clutch?

Car feels good as new, clutch feels nice and smooth, just a tad touchier than the stock one.

A couple of pics below:














Old clutch disk & PP



New clutch & PP




Glad to have it back!!

 

Really glad to hear you're back in the driver seat man. Warranty for president!

 

Dang, Sorry for the troubles. I haven't come across this error "yet."


Good choice on the clutch though. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Looks like you had a little slipping on the flywheel. Did the old clutch shake the car at all during engagement?

 

Guys. What's the cause of the spun Cam shaft issues? There's been quite a number cases on this forum. Tracking the car and extreme engine mods don't appear to be the culprit. Pinning the cam appears to be the "mod" once a new camshaft is put in, but there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done as a preventative measure

 

No, it wasn't slipping as far as I could tell, and no shaking..

What's the correct "break-in" procedure for a new clutch?

Manufacturing defect I believe.. I'd still say these are rare failures. My dealer has repaired just a couple of these in the past few years.. Doesn't seem to be related to mileage, tracking, mods, anything specific..nor do I know of any "preventative" measures..

 

I'm probably not the one to ask on proper clutch break in.


I tracked my car the same day of install. Most say to shift the hell out of it at low RPM for the first 500 Miles. Drive highway speeds and city driving.

 

The way to break in a street clutch is usually 500 miles of stop/go traffic, city driving. Highway mileage doesn't count. OP, glad you got it sorted, should've pinned the cams.

 

6,000 miles on the loaner is baller though.

 

I think the spun camshaft is very rare indeed, only a few of us unfortunately have to his issue. My local dealer haven't come across this problem yet, but if it does I will send it to pin it and never worry about it again.

 

I got the P0021 and it would come and go. I would clear it with my scanner and within a few hundred miles, it would pop again. It got progressively worse, to the point that it would be triggered with only about 5-10 miles of driving it.

My motor has about 27,000 miles and the cam actuator selenoids were still the original ones. I also noticed that my torque and power down low was a little sluggish, which is a symptom that the cam is getting stuck in the advanced position. At WOT, the car ran perfect.

I replaced the faulty one at bank 1. After I replaced bank 1 (really easy to get to - maybe a 5 minute job), the car ran considerably better down low. Much smoother and felt incredible. The engine light/error did not come back right away as usual...but within 300 miles of driving the car (spirited driving, mind you), the engine light came back, except this time, it was pointing to bank 2.

Well, I replaced # 2 - - I have about 300 miles now since then, and the problem hasn't come back yet. The car still runs great and no engine light yet.

I feel confident this was the problem in my case. These parts wear out. If you take a close look at these actuators, they are driven by a huge magnet that opens and closes and regulates the amount of oil flow. The are constantly working on and off and on and off...they can wear out. I think in my case, bank 1 was considerably more worn than 2...and when 1 was working great, then the 2 was not able to keep up.

Each of those cam actuator selenoids are about US$ 250-300 per side. It is worth replacing them before going through the trouble of bringing down the motor. Sometimes, replacing the oil alone can clear any debris that could get stuck in there. Sometimes, that is not enough and those puppies can get dirty dirty...(I don't think there is any way of cleaning them). I would replace these before replacing sensors or other items.

Hope this insight helps someone.

Angel

 

I had the same issue with the Cam a long time ago. You have to pin the cams.

 

Thanks. Interesting scenario. What is the part number for the cam solenoid?

 

I will post those tonight in this thread:
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ors-issue.html

I think it will be a great resource for a lot of people as there are SO many parts that cause this issue, but this one gets overlooked very often, yet it takes a shorter time to address than an oil change.

 

So I'm new here on the forum but not to this p0021. My Boss' son has a 2008 997 turbo cab with 27k miles and we have been trying to get this CEL to go away for a while now. We have replaced the cam, solenoid, cam gear and basically everything else around the cam. We have had the Porsche dealer check wiring and nothing crazy was found. Porsche dealer suggested replacing the head as there may be something blocking oil passages and that solenoid is not getting enough oil pressure.


Engine has been out 3 times. The last time we even took the cam housing out before we even think of taking the head out(new head is around 5500). There are some oil passages on the cam housing but no debris of any kind was found. We still cleaned the cam housing and put all back together.


Yesterday I pulled both solenoids out and held 2 rags over the solenoid holes and had somebody start the car for a few secs. There's lots of oil pressure coming out both sides. It was a little messy test but at this point we are willing to try any suggestion.


This has to be something silly or something big.

 

Sorry for your troubles.. I see you are in DFW, was it Porsche Plano that was doing the dealer work?