I just bought an 03 911 cs4. It has 35k miles and the rms and clutch was recently replaced. When I drive it hard, I notice a sweet smell. Is this normal? Is it the clutch? Any ideas?

 

An overheated clutch generally does not smell "sweet." On the other hand, a lot of people describe the smell of radiator fluid that has dripped out onto hot engine parts and evaporated quickly as smelling "sweet."

 

Thanks for the reply...But this smell only happens when I shift while driving hard. If I drive easy, it doesn't smell

 

I'd still look for a radiator fluid leak. First, I doubt you can correlate the smell with the act of shifting itself - a shift takes only a part of a second - smells stay around for a few seconds or longer. And my thinking is that anytime you are really pushing the car hard you are shifting, going up through the gears, full throttle or close to it, etc., reving it up and shifting up through the gears, working it hard for a while, maybe even while twisting back and forth on a back road. That is the time when you really work the engine hard and the conditions under which I would expect a weak seal or a overfilled resvoir to leak a bit--when the engine has been heated up, the water pump is reved up and producing max pressure, and the engine has a lot of vibration in it -- if its going to leak just a bit that is when and what I'd look for.

Clutches definately smell like something burning, so it would be a very different smell, and you can test if the clutch is good anyway, so if it is, I'd look for signs of a minor fluid leak.