C4S_fan

First, before I even get into the write-up, I have to thank ViperBob.

There are no words to express my gratitude to someone who's answered every one of my calls and every single question over the last 2 months. He personifies the rennlist spirit, helping me throughout this process with both technical advice and moral support. Truly amazing.

About 2 months ago, I started off doing the SAI with Scott (a fellow rennlister who spend many hours on his weekends helping out.. yet another Rennlister who was willing to sacrifice his time to help someone out!)... getting the old check valve resulted in breaking the air distributor housing it sits in. You can see the thread with some pictures below..
https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...ight=SAI+broke

Long story short, I had to exchange the first distributor as it had a burr in it. While I waited another week for air distributor to come in, I bought a 16mm @ 1.5 die to clean up the airhose flare nut (just in case).. and then I waited for the distributor.

Once the distributor came, I did the flush and none of the ports were blocked.. they all whistled clean! Scott & I spent 8 hours bolting the distributor down and I began the process of putting everything back together.

After I buttoned everything up top, Viperbob recommended that I drop the bottom 6 spark plugs, pull the fuel pump fuse and crank over for 10-15 seconds to make sure the cylinders were clear.. they were.

I re-attached the heat exchangers using new gaskets. The stealership wanted $35 per piece... and you need 6 of them. My local gave them to me for $5 and gave me 12 new locking nuts to attached the exchangers to the studs (instead of charging me $5.50 per unit like the dealership wanted to...)

With the heat exchangers in place, I started the car up for the first time in 2 months (yes, I had to buy a charger)... it started right away with 3-5 seconds of blue smoke and then ran clean!!

I'm so excited that everything is now back "in its place".. I went for a spin... wow, did I miss driving this car! Which is what I plan to do for the next 30 years

Here is the new air distributor in place..


Here is the sprinkler pipe and brass tee I used (thank you Scott C. aka campbesl.. ) to put the solvent into the air distributor.


Here's another with the air-compressor end visible..




I've take some better pictures of the new and old check valves..

epj993

Great job Dennis! I'm glad everything worked out.

Remember, you need to do this every 5,000 miles - just kidding

rcwelch

Dennis......GOOD JOB!!!!...finally. I'm glad everything went smoothly on the startup. We can now get back to that long awaited cup of Starbucks. I am anxious to see your car on the ground with the new suspension. Glad you are up and running!

kkim

Congrats, Dennis. Glad to see you are finally done with that headache. Good job!

SR71BLACKBIRD

Dennis: You did good!!! I am so glad and happy that your baby is back on its feet. Now we can go out for coffee with Randy.

Scott

Texas993

'Great ending to the story. I guess sometimes we learn the hard way. Glad it ended well. You can start sleeping again!

Schnell 911

Awesome! Great PICS and great job... How many miles were on your car?

viperbob

It was my pleasure Dennis. My contribution however was very small. You were the one turning the wrench (and with the battle scars to prove it) and now have the satisfaction of a successful DIY... Congrats!!!!

donsacto

How often should this be done or at what mileage??? Sorry, too lazy to search today.

chris walrod

I would venture to say every 30K miles, including flushing. If one drives his or her 993 short(er) distances (not allowing for full warm-up), maybe every 15K miles?

c993k

Great job! It's so nice to have good pictures documenting these DIYs. Now you can help others.
Chris

Mike J

Good job and a very good show of patience....I guess you now understand how important it is to get a second elbow installed in each of your arms so you can work on these cars? ;-)

Cheers,

Mike

C4S_fan

I'll probably do the flush every 20K miles... but hopefully never going to break the distributor again!

C4S_fan

VERY true... an extra elbow would have made this job much easier. I stopped by a local shop and told them I was replacing the air distributor.. he told me that I was nuts to do it without dropping the engine.

C4S_fan

My car has 45,466 miles on it. No CEL, I just wanted to baseline it..