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I took the car for another test drive and hooked up the scanner. I have full tank of gas and have added this injector cleaners from costco. Here are the results:
Trip Data:
52 min driving
23.6 miles
20,6mpg
average 27mph
I am really not sure what is going on here. My Dad doubts that it has to do anything with the spark plugs or the coils, since even before we changed those, I had these random misfires. Before I head over to my Indy, any ideas from the experts here in the forum?
John did you replace the plugs before that run? My tech that installed the plugs had said that the DI engines are extremely sensitive to misfires which can result if the tip of the plug touches anything before going into the engine. He emphasized how critical it is to keep the plug perfectly straight and prevent the tip from touching any metal surface. If the tip touches a metal surface it can pick up traces of that metal which will then potentially cause misfires.
John did you replace the plugs before that run? My tech that installed the plugs had said that the DI engines are extremely sensitive to misfires which can result if the tip of the plug touches anything before going into the engine. He emphasized how critical it is to keep the plug perfectly straight and prevent the tip from touching any metal surface. If the tip touches a metal surface it can pick up traces of that metal which will then potentially cause misfires.
Wow.. Thank you Afshin! Yes I changed them last week. That is one of things I was afraid of!! I tried to keep them all as straight as possible but remember that Spark plug for cylinder 6 hit 2 or 3 times the surrounding metal. Because it was so tight, I could not prevent it. That would explain the misfire on the cylinder 6but how about the others? That is really frustrating and takes all of the fun away I usually have with the car.
I am not sure if I should just wait and observe or go back and replace the plug on cylinder 6 and maybe 3. I don't have any bigger symptoms except of feeling the misfires while idling and having the exhaust tip getting dirty much quicker.
I had the random misfires before I changed the plugs but these were not as often as now.
Your cylinder numbering is incorrect. Passenger side front to rear is 1, 2, 3. Driver side front to rear is 4, 5, 6. Cylinder 6 is actually the easiest one to access and for some reason the one most prone to misfires.
911 engines are flipped relative to 981s. Perhaps the source of confusion.
Your cylinder numbering is incorrect. Passenger side front to rear is 1, 2, 3. Driver side front to rear is 4, 5, 6. Cylinder 6 is actually the easiest one to access and for some reason the one most prone to misfires.
911 engines are flipped relative to 981s. Perhaps the source of confusion.
Good to know, thank you!! Now I am completely lost, since (as you already mentioned) Cyl Nr 6 was the easiest to access and I was super careful to go right straight in and this one has by far the most misfires which already generated a code on my scanner. I am really surprised that we don't hear much about misfires here. I assume not many people are as paranoid as I am and just drive and enjoy their cars until the CEL comes up. Any Ideas/suggestions what to do here would be highly appreciated.
If you do ever get a light and the engine runs poorly turn the car off, remove the key, and wait a few minutes to restart. Sometimes this will reset the codes and allow you to drive normally for awhile.
If you do ever get a light and the engine runs poorly turn the car off, remove the key, and wait a few minutes to restart. Sometimes this will reset the codes and allow you to drive normally for awhile.
The code is gone but it still annoys me a lot, especially because for the first time I can hear and feel the misfires (while the scanner is on and counts the MFs, you can clearly hear them). Since this is the easiest spark plug to replace, I think I am going to give it a trial and swap Nr 6 this weekend. Afterwards, if things remain unchanged, that means there is something else going on. The coils are brand new, so hope there is nothing wrong with those.
Report back after swapping Spark plug Nr. 6: Just went in and swapped the spark plug on the cylinder with most of the misfires and I think I found the reason of the misfires. As I removed the coil and looked at it, what a nasty surprise, there were lots of small metal debris. I took a picture to show you the mess, it was actually far worse. What the hell!! I am not a super mechanic but I am also not a bull in a china shop, so as I did the initial job I was pretty cautious. I don't know why Porsche is using such a sensitive material to built their engines that with the smallest touch it starts to fall apart and creates debris.
Anyway, I replaced the spark plug. The one which was inside looked perfectly fine but I thought I am there let's just swap it. I installed the new spark plug first. Cleaned up the Coil and before installing the coil I took my leaf blower and went it to make sure all debris are out. Put everything back together and started the car. For now everything is cool, lets see how things go after the first test drive.
I read a lot but have never seen or heard about this issue. I can imagine this happens much more often than we think. Good thing is that there are not many paranoid people like me running around with their scanners and counting every single misfire.
LESSON for the FORUM: Be super careful when you install your spark plugs. Try to touch as little as possible the surrounding metal when you put in your plug.
Report back after swapping Spark plug Nr. 6: Just went in and swapped the spark plug on the cylinder with most of the misfires and I think I found the reason of the misfires. As I removed the coil and looked at it, what a nasty surprise, there were lots of small metal debris. I took a picture to show you the mess, it was actually far worse. What the hell!! I am not a super mechanic but I am also not a bull in a china shop, so as I did the initial job I was pretty cautious. I don't know why Porsche is using such a sensitive material to built their engines that with the smallest touch it starts to fall apart and creates debris.
Anyway, I replaced the spark plug. The one which was inside looked perfectly fine but I thought I am there let's just swap it. I installed the new spark plug first. Cleaned up the Coil and before installing the coil I took my leaf blower and went it to make sure all debris are out. Put everything back together and started the car. For now everything is cool, lets see how things go after the first test drive.
I read a lot but have never seen or heard about this issue. I can imagine this happens much more often than we think. Good thing is that there are not many paranoid people like me running around with their scanners and counting every single misfire.
LESSON for the FORUM: Be super careful when you install your spark plugs. Try to touch as little as possible the surrounding metal when you put in your plug.
Everything is ok. I decided just to leave the i-carsoft in the drawer and not to check every day how many misfires I get. It is kind of annoying and I just don't want to go crazy about something what is not a real issue. As long as my engine performs well, I don't feel or hear the misfires and the check engine light is not on, I think we are good and for now we are good. I am not sure if there is any direct injection engine where you don't see any misfires on those devices. I recently hooked the icarsoft up to my 2018 nissan maxima and see there, every cylinder had several misfires.
Report back after swapping Spark plug Nr. 6: Just went in and swapped the spark plug on the cylinder with most of the misfires and I think I found the reason of the misfires. As I removed the coil and looked at it, what a nasty surprise, there were lots of small metal debris. I took a picture to show you the mess, it was actually far worse. What the hell!! I am not a super mechanic but I am also not a bull in a china shop, so as I did the initial job I was pretty cautious. I don't know why Porsche is using such a sensitive material to built their engines that with the smallest touch it starts to fall apart and creates debris.
Anyway, I replaced the spark plug. The one which was inside looked perfectly fine but I thought I am there let's just swap it. I installed the new spark plug first. Cleaned up the Coil and before installing the coil I took my leaf blower and went it to make sure all debris are out. Put everything back together and started the car. For now everything is cool, lets see how things go after the first test drive.
I read a lot but have never seen or heard about this issue. I can imagine this happens much more often than we think. Good thing is that there are not many paranoid people like me running around with their scanners and counting every single misfire.
LESSON for the FORUM: Be super careful when you install your spark plugs. Try to touch as little as possible the surrounding metal when you put in your plug.
Ever since I posted that, I have not heard from anyone here in the forum what these metal shavings could be. My car is still doing ok, even though I still think there is something fishy going on in the engine. Has anybody seen these kind of metal shavings on the coils/plugs before? I have even googled it and there is nothing I could find. I am really curious and would appreciate when one of our experts could give a remote diagnosis. BTW, still have my 50-200 misfires per cylinder/ per ride. Some Cylinders are better than the others with below 10. Thank you in Advance!
Ever since I posted that, I have not heard from anyone here in the forum what these metal shavings could be. My car is still doing ok, even though I still think there is something fishy going on in the engine. Has anybody seen these kind of metal shavings on the coils/plugs before? I have even googled it and there is nothing I could find. I am really curious and would appreciate when one of our experts could give a remote diagnosis. BTW, still have my 50-200 misfires per cylinder/ per ride. Some Cylinders are better than the others with below 10. Thank you in Advance!
Did the coil and plugs on my 2014 base Cayman with 17k miles just recently - DIY thanks to the instructions and tips posted on this forum.
Due to low mileage decided to do it time based at 6 year mark instead of 4 year which was in line with guidance I've received from a couple different dealerships for low mileage cars, i.e. doing at 4 year may be unnecessary / overkill on a 10k mile car. That said if I keep the car long term I will probably do the plugs again in 4 years (since it is cheap insurance for ~$30-40 if DIY'ing just the plugs) and keep the coil packs unless I see an issue that would warrant replacing the coils again.
Previously coil pack on cylinder 6 was replaced with Borg-Warner ending in 07 part a year or two ago under CPO/warranty due to CEL/misfire, common issue from what I understand due to that coil location most susceptible to heat and it happened to me after somewhat spirited driving on a 100F+ summer day Rest which were presumably the original coils to the car were Beru 06 iteration. Since there was a newer revision part and I was in there anyway and not really wanting to go in there again anytime soon, I went ahead and changed them all with the the genuine Porsche part (Borg-Warner 07).
I did not note any metal shavings on the coil packs like in the picture you attached or on the plugs. From your posts it sounds like when you first did the job you did note not this either and are saying you noted this after removing the coil pack shortly after doing the first job and think it may be due to hitting the spark plug on the spark plug tube / inner walls when installing it? Unless your socket was banging around in there and or you heavily scraped the spark plug while installing seems would be unlikely to be caused during installation of plug but I don't know if debris from the cylinder can make it's way up to the coils.
I have not really ever monitored for misfires on my car, I do have Durametric pro (not sure if it can report live or historical info on this?) but I did feel the car seemed to be running smoother especially at lower rpms after doing the plugs and coils
Just did mine. Really tempted to smear some anti-seize on the new ones but ended up not.
'15 boxster with 21k. Plugs look ok. Combination of 3", 6", 10" extension with flex joint help. Quite the process given that I changed my 991 GT3's plugs and that was a breeze.
11-06-2019, 12:32 AM
