The car was pretty low on fuel and it probably wasn't particularly fresh. After getting the struts and brakes installed and changing out the trans lube, I ran to the nearest gas station for a fill-up. I dumped in a full jug of Chevron Techron fuel system cleaner and then filled up with 89 octane mid-grade. Hey - I was getting $0.30 off per gallon after all. Had to get there, as this was the last day of June and I would lose my fuel points if I waited another day.

While at the gas station, a guy came over and was eyeing the car (sans hood). We started talking about 944s. Apparently he has one with a Ford V-8 conversion. He indicated he needed to do a little more work to get back on the road. It was kind of fun chatting about "our" cars. He asked if I lived on a particular road where he has seen another 944. Not sure how many nuts there are in my neighborhood.

Drove home and the car seemed to be running on three cylinders. Got back and checked to see if I could tell which cylinder was dropping out. After getting multiple shocks from pulling plug wires, I concluded it was #4. Just parked it for the night and called it a (good) day.

The next day I warmed up the engine and then pulled all of the plugs to perform a compression test. All were good. The lowest was 146 psi and the highest was 152 psi.

I suspected an injector issue on #4 so I pulled one from Penelope and put everything back together. I installed new spark plugs the previous day - I shifted these in case there was a plug fault that would now move to cylinder #1. Then I checked each plug wire for spark with an inductive timing light. Everything checked out and the car ran pretty good again.

I'm not sure if it was the injector or if the #4 plug wasn't fully seated the first time. Regardless, it's running better. Not visible in the first shot is the new rotor in the distributor. I didn't install the new cap yet. I'm not sure why.

There is a slight stumble, on occasion, right off idle. I was hoping the injector cleaner would help with this. It may still, but so far it has not. In the meantime, I installed a new fuel filter (again off the shelf). This didn't seem to change anything, but it's one less thing to do in the future.

I'll be swapping throttle parts next, to see if I can isolate what's causing the stumble.

 

Found some time to mess with Nico again on Sunday. Decided that rain falling in the engine bay might not be the best thing. I was hoping to replace the engine mounts and keeping the hood off would help with this. I'll just have that extra step to cover should I decide the hood needs to be clear.

Anyway the hood went back on with no problem. You always need to be careful with this not to scratch or, worse, crack the windshield when maneuvering the hood around. I swiped the hood struts from Penelope and now the hood stays up.

Oh, and what's that little light? I'm not sure I have ever had a functioning engine bay light on any of my other 944s. Not that I would ever need to use it...

I had to have my wife crawl in the back and see if she could see what was preventing the hatch from opening. I ended up having her remove the nuts holding the lower catch mechanisms. I was able to work it free from there.

After some messing and adjusting I now have a hatch that opens with either the key or with the switch.

 

Frentzen kitty enjoyed the plush carpeting for a few minutes while it was out.

Option tag: Most of the stuff that 90% of 944s came with. #456 is sport shocks and stabilizers. Again, I think most got this. But it is certainly better than the base stuff - if not just for the anti-sway bars.

Oh - and #158 is "Monterey" Blauplunkt stereo. I think that's what's still in the car!

 

After tussling with the motor mounts for a couple of days, I was finally able to get the old ones out. I had to have my wife hold a wrench on the nuts on the lower side. Nuts!? After getting the stupid mounts out I could see they were even crappier than the Uro brand mounts I was installing. Hard to believe. I'll have to get some pictures of them.

This was a bit of a surprise to see such junk installed on this car. Everything else I have encountered thus far has been original or original replacement.

Just need to bolt the rack back on the front crossmember and then put the crossmember back in place.

After that, I'll mount the phone dials and BFGs from Herbie on the car and it should be just about ready for daily use. Of course all of the paperwork and documentation needs to be taken care of.

 

Update: Nico got plenty of use since the last posting, here. Goodwench drove him right up until the first snow. Then when both of our Audis were down - I drove Nico to work a couple of days last week. I installed the winter tires we had been using for RallyCross. No problems. It was fun driving a rear wheel drive car in the snow again!

Here are a couple of shots from late last year.

Frentzen kitty likes to help. He does need to take a break once in a while though.