sml

you really meant that he needs to find a Bosch Hammer for a system adaptation .... the idle doesnt 'sort itself out' correctly just by itself.

Makmov

It does sort itself out to a degree and most of the time that produces an okay idle.

Any further sorting out is likely masking another issue with an adpatation, but sometimes you do need to do an adaptation for whatever reason.

SuperUser

When I un-hooked the battery on my 993 it takes a few minutes for the idle to stabilize. Is this not the same on an OBD1 964?

sc

It looks like the distributors are in pretty bad shape so are the plugs. Tom is almost certain this could be the culprit but recommends a major tune up. I was actually planning on getting a tune up anyway just to have a fresh start.

According to the PO the car ran perfectly when it was in MD a week ago. It's ironic that the car bugs out as soon as I take delivery

Is this something that should have been detected during a PPI with compression and leakdown?

I will update this thread until it's resolved.

sml

yea .. after a battery disconnect, mine would idle ok and be driveable without a bosch apdatation, but would regularly stall or have a idle jump.

with a bosch hammer it is perfect.

Indycam

Same thing happened to me . I took the car to the dealer and paid big bucks for a PPI . After they told me it was in good shape , made me sign paperwork and took my money , I drove off and got the full "christmas tree" within a mile . I went back and they offered nothing , no explanation , no money back , no apology .

I took it to an independent who put a set of brazilian coils on it , that fixed the "christmas tree" but then the cheap coils went bad ...

That's when I started to work on it myself , I found the cheap coils and went back to the guy and asked why he put brazilian coils on my car , he pointed to a small pile of dead brazilian coils he had and said he was also having problems with them .
Unfortunately I didn't get my old coils back .

Richard Curtis

Check simple things first: (1) Try new DME relay; (2) clean the battery cables both at the battery and at the chassis.

sc

Happy Friday gents! Confirmed culprit are the distributor caps. Also the plugs are in pretty bad shape and of the wrong kind. NGK 2 prongs. Oy vey! PO purchased the car from Victory about 9K miles ago and they we're the last stop to change out the plugs. Decided to go ahead and do a major tune anyway and replace all the cheap maintenance bits with proper ones. Amazingly the engine is a "dry" one. So in that respect I'm pleased.

Should all be fine and dandy come mid week. Thanks again for all the suggestions here!

Will start a new thread with proper pics etc. soon.

swftiii

glad to hear it wasn't something larger. A fresh tune up is always a good thing to start your relationship...enjoy!

-Skip

Rocket Rob

Glad to hear it wasn't anything major and that you have it resolved. And welcome to 964 ownership.

911Jetta

Good news. Once you get things sorted, you'll see that these are amazing cars. Many happy miles ahead!