Thank you very much for your reply. I am going to sit down this afternoon and go back through everything I have tried and re-document it all.

There is ONE mechanic I know I can trust - Imagine Auto. I have heard so many good things about them that I would be hard pressed to take it anywhere else. However, I am sure the bill will represent this.

 

Thats good. I wasnt thinking about it, but if they figure out what the cause is 100%, chances are they will be able to just slap on a part right there, if you assume they had to dig through the car to find the cause. It may be just the same as asking them to fix your car. heh
However, they might know exactly the cause of this behavior from experience, and be able to pin point it fairly quickly.
In the end look at it this way...
Next time you have a problem, youre gonna be damn good at figuring out the cause. I'm sure you have learned more than you would from servicing the car a whole year (or more), over this one issue.

 

Oh hell yeah! I have spent so much time on this darn car, and been to places on it I didnt ever want to know existed! i.e. the fuse block, thats a PITA! I have learned so much and I cant imagine ever buying a different car and having to learn a whole nother engine. But it has made me want a beater car more than ever! I need a $500 Geo Prizm or somthin! My dad gets frustrated cause he is used to working on V8 Carburated cars. I like the design principles cause its all I have ever known! Know at times I shudder at the thought of a carb. (well maybe a carb'd 911 )

 

Well, she just left for a mechanic today. I am very interested to find out what it is. I hated to do it, but I can't go much longer without a car. I will keep y'all posted on how it goes.

 

UPDATE: It arrived at ImagineAuto last week. Before they could get to it, we took one more look at it. This time with a spark tester!!! Thats right, you heard me, they have things that check for spark!!! Now before you laugh at me, listen. I had spark, this I know. I just didnt have enough of it! I checked spark by pulling plugs and watching. This isnt good enough. A spark tester has a much larger gap, which requires much more juice to jump. Well, it showed spark from the coil, but not at the plugs. Thats right, a cap and rotor fixed it. A NEW cap and rotor fixed it. I had tried a DIFFERENT cap and rotor from a different car that I guess we now know is bad as well... Well it starts up everytime now, but runs like crap. Sounds like it is missing a cylinder. While replacing the rotor I noticed how god awful loose my tbelt is. NOT GOOD! So, I decided to check timing. With the cam set at TDC the flywheel idicator is BARELY in view. It is all the way at the top of the window, not in the middle like it should. Im thinking this is cause my belt is so loose and has probably stretched or even jumped a tooth with all the cranking. So I now have a new tbelt and balance belt and will be changing it in the ImagineAuto parking lot Wednesday afternoon. So we will see.

BTW: upon startup it puts out a bit of white smoke at first, and the spark plugs come out black and fuel soaked. Sound like timing? I hope so.

 

Could well be due to all the attempts to crank it. Get it running and then look at the plugs again.

 

After it was running, I put in brand new spark plugs. They came out blackish and fuel soaked after about 1 minute of idling. When I revved it a bit (not higher than 3000rpm) i notice a noise coming from the belt area, a noise I believe is my tbelt slapping against the belt cover. So naturally its not being started again until a new belt is on there and tightened.

 

A vacuum leak to the FPR would cause super-rich idle mixtures and difficulty starting. That's because the vacuum pulls down the FPR's pressure. If you got a leak, the loss of vacuum would have the FPR dump too much fuel in.

 

hmm... last I checked fuel pressure was dead on. Thats what you mean right? vacuum leak at FPR would cause super high pressure.

Today, I ran it for 6 minutes or so. Ran and sounded like it was on 3 cylinders. Puts out a kinda white smoke (more gray). and after about 5 minutes idle dropped to 500, then a minute later it died. All plugs looked fuel fouled. Still weak spark? too much fuel? Where do I go from here?

 

White smoke = water in cyl
grey smoke = oil in cyl
black smoke = too much fuel in cyl

at least that is what I have always known to be true

 

well if that is correct, then my prior hypothesis may be truer than I thought. With the car not running for so long and all the cranking it has gone through. Is it possible for the oil to have so much fuel in it that it has thinned so much that the oil is getting past the piston rings? Making it run very rough and put out smoke. I also noticed that the engine seemed A LOT harder to turn by hand than before, but didnt think anything of it at the time.

 

well pull the dipstick and look, if it has gas in it then it will be over filled, might even has a gas smell to it.

I'm not a porsche mechanic by any means but things like sparl plug indications and smoke colors are prety universal

 

ok, yeah. oil change coming right up!

 

Take a quick look at your coolant as well, I realize this is as basic as it gets but smoke out of the tail pipe means you are introducing either too much gas or something you shouldn't be into the cylinders.

Feels like it's running on 3 cylinders, smoking....your fouling the plugs with something......

fuel, oil, or water

I'm worried from your description that it may be water

 

hmm... The part that puzzles me the most is that when I put in BRAND NEW plugs, it runs like that and smokes as soon as it starts. So is it possible for it to be fouling a plug right on start-up? Im gonna check the coolant and the oil cap just to make sure, but im thinking its way too much fuel (atleast hoping) besides a failed FPR what else would cause it to run super rich?

Thank you!