porshhhh951

Well I am still in a world of %$# with my car. She still isint running. Ian came over tonight and with the help of him and jermey long distance on the phone we figured some stuff out. First off all belt's are tensioned and lined up correctly. The starter is turning over the engine cause Ian watched the belt's move while I tried to crank it. The car is still making a werid noise. I don't know it just doesn't sound right. Ian said it doesn't sound right and I think so as well. We also figured out we aren't getting any spark from the coil. I took a voltage meter to it while I crank it(per jermey's request) and there was no read. So now jermey think's it's either my dme or my speed referrence senor's. Leaning towards the dme on this one.


Does anyone in the dallas/ft worth area have a spare dme I can borrow to test? Jermey says should only take 10 minutes and this would really help me out.

I am so tired of my car running from problem to problem it makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. Jermey says this is good because we know the engine is fine and everything is were it should be. I don't know. It still doesn't sound right to me on while I am trying to start it up. Maybe he will chime in and add some thing's to this story.

At this point I guess I need to borrow someone's dme for testing. This is my only means of transportation at the momen't so you can understand my urgency to try and get this car fixed.

If it's still not running by monday I might have it towed to Perry(my porsche mechanic) and have him diagnoise it and see what it would cost to fix. That's another thing I have been throwing money at this car for 2 weeks now and I am starting to run a little low. If I can't get the part's I need for the few hundred doller's I have remaining I don't know what I am going to do.

If anyone has any advise or a spare dme or think they can help my situation in any way.....thanks in advance. I think I will go have a drink and cry a little.

Jeremy Himsel

I spent much of the evening talking John through some of this stiff and have come to a few ideas on his problems. It's somewhat difficult to diagnose over the phone (or the internet) so be sympathetic.

They (Ian and John) verified the cam timing is dead nuts accurate. The rail was pulled and the motor was cranked and it was verified there is fuel spraying from the injectors which removes the DME relay/fuel pump from the problem. All engine compartment connections are okay. Battery voltage is fine and starter speed seems good.

The car has no spark at the plugs, cap, or coil. When cranking, the coil is not receiving voltage signal. When the car was running it had a really bad backfire and hasn't run since and john stated he thought it seemed like it was loading up a bit before it died for good. This leads me to believe it's a DME or speed/reference sensor issue. John tried tapping the floor board to see if it was a bad solder joint in the DME and it still didn't start. without an oscilloscope it's nearly impossible to test the sensors (unless there's a trick that I don't know) so if anyone had a DME or even a spare sensor they could LEND to John (to save him from buying a new one for diagnosis) you would be helping a fellow member out greatly.

My opinion is it's less likely for a speed/reference sensor to fail randomly then a DME so i suggested that John find a spare DME to throw in temporarily to see if he gets spark. Anyone have an idea that I'm missing? This was all over the phone (while a few guys were picking up their cars) so I could have missed something.

Songzzz

You can tell if the speed/reference sensor is shot, by looking at the VDO rpm needle, it will remain motionless when cranking. If it moves, then the sensors are probably working.

944Ecology

Give me a call. If you want, we can test your DME and KLR for you here.

gb

porshhhh951

thanks 944 ecology. How would you test the dme??

jermey has agreed to put it in his car...but the turn around with mailing would be like a week. If you guy's have the porsche machines or what not I would be interested in this. If no one local has a spare dme or would be willing to drive over to my house and stay for 15 minutes while we try there's out to see if it works....I might take it to my porsche mechanic I just don't know.

Danno

Ok, here's the deal. If you get fuel squirting out of the injectors, you can be assured that the DME relay is OK, as well as the DME, fuel-pump and the speed/ref. sensors. ALL of those have to be OK in order for fuel to squirt (along with some other parts).

The way the DME works the coil is not to send power to it, but rather it grounds that side of the coil. With the key ON, verify that you get a constant +12v at the BLACK wire on the coil (use battery-neg for ground). Then the DME grounds the green wire to dump the coil. You can verify the DME's activity by using an test-light or LED (with ballast-resistor, anode on black wire) on both of the coil-terminals. When cranking, you should see the light flicker.

Now, if you have power pulsating on the coil, but no spark output from the center, then the coil is bad. If you have spark out of the center wire, but not out of the plug wires, then the distributor or rotor is bad. If you have spark out of the plug wires, but it doesn't fire the engine, then the plugs are bad. One time, I had a heck of a problem starting the car. Turned out my distributor rotor was out of phase, I kept on checking it and the bolt was in there holding the rotor on, and it was tight. Turned out the bolt that holds that little nose piece onto the cam was off, thus letting the rotor rotate out of phase.

porshhhh951

okay great post danno.

Sorry got some question's I know you are getting sick of them.lol.

There are three 10mm bolt's that hold on the cam tower cover(the front one over the rotor pin) do you mean that this was the bolt that was off or what? I am almost certain that could be my problem......especially since I was just messing with the firing pin and had just put that alen head bolt back in. So which bolt exactly cam loose.


oh btw I know about the light tester...we just didn't have one. Pery jermey request we took a volt meter to the coil and under cranking the meter didn't show anything....so jermey said that ment the coil was good. I could have been doing something wrong but, I swear we werent getting spark anywhere afterwards....not at the plug's.the cap, or the coil.

I am more inclined to think it's something like the bolt you are decribing. The dme and klr computer was just replaced not 3 year's ago....but, I was told this was prolly still it.


Okay so tell me which bolt you are talking about so I can go and check. I can't wait to see if this is it.

Danno




Turned out the bolt that holds that little nose piece onto the cam was off, thus letting the rotor rotate out of phase.

porshhhh951

oh and just curious if it is outta phase.......after I find the bolt and tighen it down...do I have to do something special to make sure it's back in phase.


Once again this would make alot of sense considering I just had the rotor pin off and just recently screwed that bolt on it back in place.

porshhhh951

edit okay well if you are talking about that 8mm bolt with gold tink to it....I just re tightened it. I think this is the one you are reffering too because when I removed it I could pull the rotor right off......it was tighten down fine...but, just incase I tried to crank it anyway......no luck.

Danno

"we took a volt meter to the coil and under cranking the meter didn't show anything....so jermey said that ment the coil was good. "

What did you use for ground and where did you stick the positive probe? If you used the engine-block for ground, and stuck the positive probe on the black wire, it would read a constant +12v all the time, with the key ON as well as during cranking. If you probed the other terminal (green) for positive, it would also read +12v all the time as well. Then when you cranked, there would be an intermitent drop to 0v, but you'd need a fast 'scope to catch it. An analog voltmeter might show a flicker of the needle.

"I am almost certain that could be my problem......especially since I was just messing with the firing pin and had just put that alen head bolt back in. So which bolt exactly cam loose."

" There are three 10mm bolt's that hold on the cam tower cover(the front one over the rotor pin) do you mean that this was the bolt that was off or what? "

Nope, with the engine at TDC, remove the distributor cap, then the upper belt-cover, then the cam-gear cover. Note that the mark on the cam-gear should line up with the mark on the cover. If it's off by 180-degrees, turn the engine over one more time. With the cam-gear lined up with the mark on the cover, the distributor rotor should be aimed at 4:30pm (45-degrees down to lower-right).

Make sure that there's a bolt on the cam-gear snout that holds the stubby piece that holds the rotor. This bolt is a little further back and is 180-degrees on the opposite side as the allen bolt for the rotor.

porshhhh951

Yeah Danno unfotunately we have done all of those. Oh the volt meter was a new digital one. My father owns a phone business so I took one from his stash. We stuck the negitive to the neg. and the positive to the pos.

The engine is at TDC right now and I just tightened that bolt you are talking about...it wasen't really loose at all. I put everything back on and tried to crank it again....no luck.

I swear it just doesn't sound right to me still.....sounds kinda like...it's not under any load....kinda hard to decribe...just sounds like it is free spining...and if something was hookup the motor would turn over. Kinda hard to decribe over the internet.

But, it sounds like It is free spinning. I am thinking it something stupid that is loose I just don't know what exactly.