I recently had an engine oil analysis done by Blackstone Laboratories on my 1999 911. As you may know, Blackstone has earned a name for itself as being a sort of fortune teller with Porsche engines, especially as it relates to helping to understand potential IMS failures and other issues that can lead to material deposits of the unwanted kind in the first water-cooled engine.
I held my breath deciding to do this, as in some ways, ignorance is bliss. After all, what do you do with the "bad news" should you receive it? Not drive the car? Park it out of fear of doing more damage? There's no good answer, and you can go down a total rabbit hole of then trying to sort out problems that may not rear their heads for years to come.
Fortunately, my first report with Blackstone returned with good news all around. Based on the mileage of my engine, their findings indicated all was within spec without any significant concerns resulting from excess deposits of materials like silicon, magnesium, or aluminum, among other unwanted substances.
The smart thing to do (and also why Blackstone continues to make money) is to perform these analysis over a given time period to form a baseline and see if anything changes significantly. I may do this going forward, but for now, I am just thrilled to see these initial results on what is a high-mileage 996 engine.