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Narrow escape - possible bore scoring.

From experience, its hard to see how bad it is from a picture.
I've had engines opened & to me, real bore scoring is when your finger nail picks up on it.

On the other hand, I've had a head off an old Audi S2 5 cyl head with 85k miles on it & the cross hatching was immaculate on it.

At a guess, I'd say that those in the pics certainly are beginning to show some signs of wear if not actual scoring.
 
Baz would usually refer to them as polish marks, it has been said many times before that a borescope needs to be done by someone that knows what they are looking at or it is just a waste of money.

There have even been stories of people shelling out for a full rebuild on the say so of someone not qualified to make the call as to whether there is scoring or not.
 
To me only file 1 and file 5 look anywhere near badly marked and even then it's really hard to tell how superficial it is. Oil consumption and funny noises would be more concerning.

You can either use this as a bargaining chip to get some cash off, or run away and not consider a 997.1 again. I think a lot of borescope images will show this won't they?
 
I`m not convinced that that is a borescored engine either, would be nice to know which photo is which cylinder 1-6 :nooo:

I used a borrowed £40 endoscope camera the other day for the first time at work, it is amazing how good a picture you can get with a little patience, those photos aren`t very good at all, given the £500+ Snap on camera used :sad:
 
infrasilver said:
Baz would usually refer to them as polish marks, it has been said many times before that a borescope needs to be done by someone that knows what they are looking at or it is just a waste of money.

There have even been stories of people shelling out for a full rebuild on the say so of someone not qualified to make the call as to whether there is scoring or not.

I was told my 997 gen 2 had a bore scored engine and would need a rebuild. Hartech independently assessed it and saved me from said rebuild as quoted above. Now had the car 2 1/2 years 12K miles so far.

What I was shown when I was there having it checked out was that just changing the camera angle and scope light angle changed the appearance of cylinder marks/lines. Other factors like quality of scope camera obviously affect things as well.

Therefore, assessing things not clearcut in some cases, obvious in some though.

I can understand why the OP would walk though and not take the chance given the internet traffic bore scoring receives.
 
That does not look like bore scoring and it's just the finish on the liners

Bore scoring puts much deeper grooves in the metal than that and you would have a lot more lines on the metal. It's much deeper and obvious

Was their soot on the left bank? Did it smoke on start up? Did you hear the tapping from the piston slap as you get the ovalling of the piston?

Sounds like you have walked away from a good car and I would remove the details of it as it could harm the seller
 
NLW73 said:
That does not look like bore scoring and it's just the finish on the liners

Bore scoring puts much deeper grooves in the metal than that and you would have a lot more lines on the metal. It's much deeper and obvious

:yes:

I've seen scored engines at Hartech & they look proper horror story stuff - similar to when you see a car bodywork that's been keyed - puts shivers down my spine. Looks to me like bank 2 was done and can be seen with clean bores in a couple of your photos and bank 1 is now goosed (hence the puff of smoke out the right tailpipe and an image or 2 that's potentially scored).

There is also the potential the previous owner drove 50 miles home with a burst radiator, no water in the system & temp gauge in the red, saying to himself - it'll be reyt, they used to be aircooled anyway :grin:
 
Impressed with the knowledge many of you have picked up over the recent years.

Pictures are indeed hard to interpret but none of them look like scoring to me.

Although our web site contains a lot of historical information about t he subject it is several years out of date and so I have recently written updates on the bore scoring issue that will soon replace the old text and will answer all of the questions raised.

There is too much involved to reproduce here but just to correct one thing - there are 4 repair modes, new crankcases with the same potential failure Lokasil bores, iron liners (of which we have many that subsequently failed and the new report explains why), plating onto the scored cylinder and replacement with alloy Nikasil liners (of which there are 2 versions on the market and ours is different than the other because it also d=secures the liner at the top and results in it becoming a closed deck method which is generally recognised as superior). Several thousand have been replaced and over a thousand engines rebuilt by us this way without issue.

However when a customer order is accepted for a bore score we cannot insist on all 6 being replaced although (as this post demonstrates) for those unable or unwilling to pay for all 6 use our less expensive alternative - it still has worked well for tens of thousands of miles.

It is always easy for miss-information to discredit or harm suppliers unfairly and as in this case I do wish those responsible would have the courtesy to contact us to find out the full story before deciding to post their opinions.

I hope the new report on bore scoring will help clear u p a lot of the always present confusion - due in probably 3 - 4 weeks time.

Baz
 
I've just put a deposit on a 54 plate black C2S with Fuchs alloys :D :wack:
 
Great post Baz as always.

Alex :Dance-Tap: :Dance-Tap: :Dance-Tap:
 
Alex said:
I've just put a deposit on a 54 plate black C2S with Fuchs alloys :D :wack:

Good work - it looked clean - I was looking at this one, but have now been slowly tempted to a gen 2! Enjoy!
 
I was refering to the OPs car :grin:

The cab I was looking at.......well, the seller couldn't even bother responding to my email and its now gone.
 
Been watching but feel I can chip in now Baz has commented. This is my car.

The engine rebuild was paid for by Warrantywise hence not getting the full treatment an owner would perhaps pay for.

When I spoke to the chap who did the borescope he said there was some scoring there but he wouldn't give an opinion on severity.

This post is the first time I've seen photos.

The car doesn't use much oil.

There is no sound of piston slap.

The car was rebuilt 5 years and 30,000 miles ago.

I should say that the car runs beautifully and pulls really strongly - I personally have found it very hard to corroborate the report with the way it drives but I am not a mechanic.

I completely understand why Justin did not want to proceed with the purchase, no problem there at all. I'm also grateful to all the posters for their opinions.
 
Just to clarify, the images posted were taken on a camera phone of the screen of the snap on scope being held up by the tech, so they are a photo of a screen thats then been compressed to a Jpg...
Now that may make them look better or worse than they really are, but all I (and the current owner) can go on is the advice from the Porsche specialist. Much as I applaud the knoweledge of everyone on here who has given their opinion on the images. If I bought it and it did turn out to be 'not good' I doubt that anybody here would help me chip in to the engine rebuild fund, so all I can reasonably do is discuss it with the current owner and go from there :thumb:
 
Personally I'd be doing some serious talking with Hartech around the actual jpegs, what work was carried out and what advice they can offer.........then buy the car before it gets snapped up.
 

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