Toga

Hi, here is a picture of the inside of one of my distributor caps. You see one contact with corrosion and the other one as I cleaned it. When cleaned, the contacts fell smooth. They just have around 40.000km (+- 25.000mi) Do they have to be changed, or just cleaned?
Thanks for your advises!

viperbob

If it were me, I would just replace them AND the rotors.

Toga

Thank you Bob I'll do that!
Any idea on the double ignition belt life time? I'm tempted to change it too, but it doesn't look easy to do! And Porsche ask 760€ for a distributor exchange!!!
And a last question: I'm stuck on my way to the DMFW. I don't have the tool for the cheese head screws. Torx doesn't work, and all shops are closed untill monday! Is there another way to unscrew them?

Thanks for your help!

viperbob

I don't know how many total miles are on the car. If over 75K miles and the engine is out of the car, it isn't a bad time to change the belt just as a precaution. I have a lot of customers though with 100+K miles and have not had any issues with the belt.

Use the correct tool to get the bolts out. They are M12 12-point screws (if I recall correctly) that are torqued to 85 nm. You will have a tough time trying to get them out with anything else.... Bummer though that you have to wait.

Toga

Thanks Bob. I'll follow your advise...and have a quite sunday! The car is 120.000km that's right 75k miles! I'll try to change that distributor belt. p-car has a DIY on that topic.
On another thread, Wreck Me Otter told me that the engine carrier has a weak point and that you weld support braces on it.(engine carrier ) Do you have a picture on how you do that?

Once again thank you for your advises.

delanobe

Hi Toga,

How is the work going? When do you think the car will be ready?

And of course une bonne année pour vous et toutes la famille

Toga

Hi Delanobe! Happy New Year to you and family too!

Well I'm very slow in my progress mainly because I often miss the right tool! This time again I was expecting to do the LWF and clutch job this sunday. But I need a M12 12 point screw! And monday I go back to work... I have no idea yet on the expected engine start day! I'll keep you informed.

JasonAndreas

When your replacing the dual distributor belt don't follow the p-car instructions exactly. Instead use alan911sc and John Walkers tip so that you don't have to do any cutting/filing of the lower sealing cap. To replace the belt you DON'T need to remove the secondary distributor shaft. Just knock out both guide pins and slide the belt around the shaft. Its obvious once you read the above linked instruction and actually have the distributor partially dismantled in front of you and it saves a HUGE amount of time.

Carrera Mike

Toga,

Replace them including the rotors. When I got my car at 32K miles, I replaced them because of the same condition as what you have in the pictures, corroded and pitted. The result was very significant. I'm not an expert but I thought it gave me smoother acceleration below 3000rpm.

Bosch Distributor Cap
901339 F.08.16.03
Porsche no: 930.602.919.01
Carrera 2/4 Dist Cap
Performance Products part no. 106720

Bosch Rotor
901352 F.01.05.01
Porsche no: 930.602.902.02
Carrera 2/4 Rotor
Performance Products part no. 106725

I wrote the www.PerformanceProducts.com(NA) part no 'cause thats where I found them least expensive, specially if you have the 20% discount they offer. Ooops you're from UK. You might still want to compare prices with them vs what you have there.
My 993 is 97(They should be the same for all anyways, I think)

I numbered the cables and took digital picture before I removed the wires to make sure I install them back in their correct spots.

Toga

Jason Andreas: Thank you for the link! Reading it, it sounds a little bit like "chinese" to me, but ok, I'll proceed step by step and there shouldn't be to much problem. I'll take some pictures during the progress. We found the belt at pelican parts for 9.45$! Monique will bring them back for me!

Carrera Mike: I'm now convinced that they need to be replaced. Thanks for the ref and picture. I don't know yet where I'll get the parts, but Gert is an excellent provider for me (we live only 100km from each other). Uk is not far, but the "£" is still expensive from the "€", and most of their prices are expensive. Should I have known it earlier, I would have asked Monique to bring them from the US.

I'll have now a quite sunday, stuck that I'm in front of 9 M12 12 pans screws of the clutch.

Thank you for your help guys

Fred, Long Island

For convenience when pulling the wires. Most sets have each wire numbered by cylinder number and set, whether upper or lower plugs. You'll see something like 6 - 2 (and other symbols, letters) on a wire which calls for installation on plug 6 and set # 2. If memory serves me right, set 1 is lower and 2 upper. There is a difference in length if installing a whole new set.

JasonAndreas

I modified the two photos from Brian Smith's article on p-car and added two blue/purple arrows. The arrows point to the two guide pins that you knock/punch out so that you no longer need to remove both shafts which would normally require you to permanently mangle the distributor bottom sealing cap.

Toga

Thanks very much Jason,

This will be my next job after I'm finished with the LWF.

Toga

Jason,

with the help of a friend, we changed the belt of the dual distributor yesterday following the instructions from the link you posted. It just worked GREAT!
We had to design a "U" tool to help pulling the gear from the main shaft when the pin was drilled out. This included, it took around 90 minutes to do the job.
Now that we know how to do it and we have the tool, it could be done in...30 minutes.
Now lean back and recall the different options that we had: 90 min work to change a belt costing around 10$+15$ shipping from Pelican Vs 750€ for a Porsche exchange.

I'm now almost ready to bring my engine back to it's original place! I need some more days off though

mr_bock

Just a note to anyone thinking of saving a few $$ by trying to clean the cap and rotor contacts.... Don't do it! Just buy the new parts. 1. no matter how you clean the contacts, the gap between them will not be to specification (larger gap to jump). 2. for the amount of effort required to take out the parts only to have to do it again is not worth it.

Doing the belt while the engine, etc... is out is definetly the way to go. Good luck!