I have an 82 911 SC. After washing the car in the driveway I went to pull it into the garage. It just barley started. It spit and sputtered and died. After a restart I tried to rev it up and the accelerator pedal would not increase the RPM. After a another couple of restarts I got it into the garage. I looked in the engine compartment. There was a little water on the left side of the engine tray. The distributor cap and ignition wires were dry. I had a simular incident during the summer. I lightly cleaned the engine compartment after replacing an oil line. Same thing. It spit, sputtered and chugged. It got a little better each day and after a week was back to normal. I replaced the distributor cap and rotor after that incident.

Moisture is getting in somewhere. Years ago I used clear spray paint to coat the distributor cap on simular issues with the V8 types. Not sure that is still on the market or if thats the issue. Any ideas...

 

i clean my engine bay routinely through the summer and have never had this happen so you are correct water is seeping in .. could it be your wires/ connectors ? the best way to find out is cover your distributor with a plastic bag and tape next time. if it still does it , you know you are barking up the wrong tree.

 

could be condensation inside the distributor cap. was your engine warm when you washed it down?

 

I ordered some high temp automotive grade clear spray paint. I'll cover the coil and distributor. We'll go from there.

 

you could also run it at night and see if you have spark leak ..

 

Don't know how that would be better than some WD40 on the outside of the cap.

 

I guess it does leave a residue. I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

 

I put some dielectric grease on the outside of the male ends of the distributor cap. It's a start.