Robert_H

I would also be interested in this item. I feel that any tool that can help me keep the car running better would be a benefit. Either a stand alone or PC-based unit would be fine. Your efforts with this are greatly appreciated and although as everyone else is concerned that price will be a factor, I'm sure that we also realize that good (quality) tools are worth their weight in gold.

Please keep us informed on this and thanks !!!

Rob

Vilhuer

I'd also prefer laptop version but would also get standalone gadget for $300. Software development sure is costly but I think benefits are worth it. Or are you worried that someone copies connector cable design & program and gets working tool for £9.99? Perfectly understandable if answer is yes. Someone loan me 9268 for one month and I'm sure local electronics nuts have it figured out and have build fully working emulator with some cheap programmable processor costing way less than $300. Nothing so simple is safe nowdays. I personly would rather buy original or yours if only price is reasonable.

Regards,

Erkka
1992 928 GTS 5-speed that fails every test
Oak Green Metallic 22L
Classic Gray MX

John Speake

Thanks Rob, when I have some protypes ready, I will let people try the tool out. Then they can decide what it's worth.

Erkka, yes it's "easy" to do these things. There are lots of people who could do it, lots of people who say they will do it............. but putting a product in the market place is another thing.

Tell us about your GTS 5 speed - a really rare beast !

Vilhuer

Hi John, true that getting sellable product to market is totally different thing than having ugly somehow working device that may require soldering and programming skills to use it. Still making standalone tool that can be updated through RS232 sounds more complex than going laptop route. But maybe it's just me being software engineer.

Very rare in it's current state (almost, latest pictures no uploaded yet) . It was originally sold to older German living in Berlin. He drove (badly, bumps and scratches everywhere) it until early summer 2002 when something happened to the engine. Car was taken out of German registration July 2002. Last January it was for sale close to Hamburg with broken engine. One German beat me to it back then. Few months later in April it was for sale again. Seller gave interesting reason for selling. He has (had at the time) Nordstadt Golf with broken engine. He wanted to repair and install GTS engine to it but decided that GTS was too good to dismantle. I never saw that Golf and only saw GTS after deal was done and it arrived here. Long standing who knows where sure didn't do good to aluminium parts, they look bad. Since June I have slowly taken it apart. At the moment body is on jackstands, engine-tt-gearbox package is on floor, suspension and million other parts are out and waiting to be worked on. Cylinder heads are still on engine as I managed to broke four bearing bridge bolt Torx heads and thus couldn't get heads of when engine was still in car as I had planned. On top of that, I droped one Torx piece through oil return channel to oil pan. No big deal but would have been if engine wasn't coming to pieces. Hopefully can finally see what's wrong with it this weekend. At the moment all I know is that cooling water did drain pretty fast to oil pan somewhere at cylinder head level. No idea if it was driven like that, hope not. All the time I was looking for 5sp GTS with engine problems as plan is to rebuild it with something non stock under the hood. SC's are difficult to get street legal in here so what option that leaves then .

Regards,

Erkka
1992 928 GTS 5-speed half dismantled
Oak Green Metallic 22L
Classic Gray MX

John Speake

Hi Erkka,
God, a Golf with a GTS engine........................! ?

I admire your determination to resurrect your GTS - good luck ! I guess you know Niklas, then ?

The tester is a pain as far as the mechanics go, things like the leads etc. The laptop version would have the same problem. I realise that a PC version would be more appealing, but it wouldn't have any more useful functionality.

The feedback has been very useful ! Some people seem to think that it's nothing more than a flashing code tester, in fact it does virtually everything a 9288 "Hammer" does.

Good luck with the GTS !

Vilhuer

Would have been interesting to see that one.

Yes. 928 + electronics + Finland = who else?

Thanks. Soon it's just question of putting it back together. How hard it can be.

Erkka
1992 928 GTS 5-speed half together
Oak Green Metallic 22L
Classic Gray MX

aaron3

John,

I also would vote for the laptop version. Upgrades would be easy, everyone has a computer, etc. etc. I deal with huge industrial equipment in some of the most nasty environments you can find. Almost all of the diagnostic programs for our equipment is laptop based. My $0.02 is that the laptop method would be the way to go.

Flott Leben

John,

I would be interested at $300 if it would work on my '87. Please keep me on the list.

John Speake

Mark, Thanks for your comments -all duly noted.

I appreciate everyone's feedback - thankyou !



Hi Flott,
Yes, your '87 can be easily upgraded to work with diagnostics.

I'll start a list ..............!

Regards,

doug928

John,

Just thought I'd chime in - for $300 bucks I'd buy one.

T_MaX

I think the all imprortant word here is "Virtualy"!

John, not wanting to **** in you corn flakes, but what exacly will this tester do?

Being that Bosch has long since stopped production of the KTS-301 (9288 Porsche only version) and the KTS-300 (multi-manufacture tester) and used ones getting harder and harder to find, I think if you can pull it off you should do ok even at 600.00

FWIW

The KTS-300 Diag. tool with case, charger and universal test leads ~2K USD (used "if and when" avaliable)
Porsche only cable adapter (19 pin Porsche plug to Bosch hammer) ~200.00 USD (untill stock runs out)

DonT

John -

For $300 put me on your list - MY '87.

UKKid35

Hi John

Good luck with the development of your SPANNER (Speake Porsche ANalyis aNd Electronic Recorder). Although I won't be in the market to purchase, I would be interested if your were to offer a weekly hire for say $75.

I also think you will have a far more marketable device if it has the capability to record say 5 or 10 minutes data which could then be downloaded to a pc for graphical analysis. I've no idea whether this would be within the scope of your project, but perhaps it could be offered as an upgrade at a later date.

Good luck

PS sorry I didn't get a chance to talk with you at the meet on Saturday

John Speake

Doug, DonT - thanks for the encouragement !

TMaX - if you re-read my first post on this thread, this explains what the tester will do. Initially it like a 9268 tester but with a 2 line alpha display which will give you inteligible messages rhater than numbers.

So it has virtually all the functionality of the 9288. PSD bleeding is one I know of. Initially it won't read out the serial number.type of the ECUs as per the Hammer 9288, but I hope to add these later.

Updates will be free, and downloadable into the diagnostic tester from a PC.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer.


Paul; yes, sorry I didn't catch up with you at the meet on Saturday. I like the SPANNER name !

I'm not sure what kind of stored data you are thinking of displaying - detonation knocks, maybe ? But I think that would need to be displayed in real time, with the Laptop version !

regards to all-

Earl Gillstrom

John,

Count me in for $300.

One function that could make a difference in sales is "capture mode".

I have been using autoexray testers on my beaters and find capture mode invaluable.

Autoexray stores the last 15 events and the following 15 events for later display. The latest models will display on a pc so you can see all inputs simultaniously. For intermittents it is invaluable.