Bryan

My car is an '88 normally-aspirated 8v car. Looking around the back of the engine, there is no ground strap. The service manuals, as well as the PET for the '88 car, show what looks like a thick twisted copper ground strap back there somewhere. Does anyone know if Porsche deleted this for '88?

If not, does anyone know where exactly it goes?

In a possibly related story, the car doesn't start although it appears to have spark, fuel, and compression. Spark plugs fire outside of the combustion chamber (while looking at them), they're firing at about 15 deg BTDC, the fuel pressure is fine, injectors are clicking, raw fuel smell at the tailpipe, and compression appears to be OK (engine is stone cold). Also, starting fluid doesn't do anything either.

Thanks,

Bryan

IceShark

Your '88 has a different (and better) engine grounding scheme. Look at your battery and you will see 2 insulation covered cables coming off the negatine post. The thin one goes to the inner firewall about half a foot away from the battery. The thick one goes through the firewall, across the top and then down to a stud on the bellhousing.

The older cars had one woven bare copper strap from battery to inner firewall and then another from engine bay side of firewall to the stud on bellhousing. So, you are looking at older model drawings.

Bryan

Ok, so there is no woven copper ground strap on the later cars. Cool.

I have cleaned and tightened the grounds mentioned here - the bellhousing and battery area grounds are all clean and tight.

Are there any other ground points that, if dirty or loose, could cause what I am currently assuming is a problem with weak spark? The DME and ignition ground through the bellhousing grounds I believe. Are there others that could mess with the computer or ignition?

Thanks,

Bryan

Thaddeus

I would add an additional ground strap. I did. Little gremlins go away.

JLeake

This is probably not the source of your problem, but is worth mentioning. My car recently had a stalling fit (and sometimes wouldn't start). The problem turned out to be cracked solder connections on the large transistor that drives the coil (this transistor is in your DME).