nottoshabi

The coolant thank leaked while I was driving and now the car wont start. I took the spark wires out to investigate them and they all look in ok condition no cracks or warping. Besides the fact that they are old the car has 140k on it, don't know when it was the last time they were changed. On the driver side the middle cylinder had a little bit of oil in the tube. The car ran fine before this, no signs of issues. The engine turns kind of fires then stops. The only codes I get are o2 sensors and mass air flow.

Have you ever encounter this before? How did you diagnose the problem?

I ran a multimeter test on the spark plug wires from this . I dont know if porsche spark plug wires are tested the same way, I got no reading out of any of them. How do you test spark plug wires on a porsche? Any ideas on this issue will be greatly appreciated.

JohnCA58

There are no spark plugs wire on the M96, coils mount directly on to the spark plugs.

DBJoe996

^^Correct. Don't know what type of car you are dealing with, but spark plug wires tested with a multimeter should show infinite resistance, i.e., no resistance, or in other words current should pass straight through. If you are getting no reading, change out the spark plug wires for new ones.

nottoshabi

@JohnCA58 thank you for the correction.

@DBJOE996 so another words there is no way to check if the coil is good or bad? We just replace for new ones?

DBJoe996

At 140K miles, you should just replace all the coil packs with the newer upgraded coil packs. But I still don't understand how you came up with spark plug wires you say your removed from your Porsche for testing???

808Bill

You're comparing apples to oranges...

jhbrennan

We determined that there were no plug wires to remove so what wires did you remove?

Noz1974

Crank and cam sensors are on that side of the engine at the back near the gearbox, could have coolant in the connectors if the tank been leaking??

nottoshabi

I was mistaken on the name. I removed the coils.

@Noz1974 I will look at the cam sensors maybe put some dielectric grease in the connectors. I did not get a code for that, what else should I look for?

Im going to change the coils and spark plugs since Im in there, also the bolts that hold the coils in place were stripped by who ever took them out before me. They were actually very tight, I was not expecting that. Anything else I should look for?

DBJoe996

Depending on where the coolant leaked, in this instance I would check the crank position sensor (CPS) and make sure it is clean and dry. It is the magneto-electric sensor that is located on the left side (drivers side) of the transmission bellhousing right at the flywheel. It provides a pulse signal that tells the DME/ECU where the crankshaft is, and thus provides the timing for the individual cylinder coil pack spark firing. No signal from the CPS, no spark, thus no engine running.
Once you get the old coil packs out, the new ones come with new bolts, and they do not really need to be tightened more than hand tight. I put them in by hand and then give them just a snug tight.

Noz1974

I think the crank sensor is your main culprit as I mentioned previous and dB joe also quoted, when your car won't start it's one of three things, sounds stupid but it's simply , Air, fuel,spark that's it , leave a coil pack loose and push a spark plug test lamp in it, if it lights up when you turn her over you know you getting a spark so it must be a fuel problem, if no flashing lights it must be a spark issue, probably related to a sensor, might help to get a read on the ecu, and CEL on dash??

nottoshabi

Thank you for the reply, I will look into it. The cell only gives me, o2 sensor and mass air flow sensor as a fault codes.

DBJoe996

Once you get everything else done, pull the negative lead on the battery to reset the DME to baseline values and clear the O2 and MAF fault codes. If it is truly a O2 and/or MAF issue the codes will come back. O2 and MAF errors will not prevent the car from running.

PCA1983

The worst scenario is the water pump was worn out, causing over heating and cracking the head. Coolant leaking into the cylinder prevents starting. To check for this, pull each plug and inspect for coolant. If OK, then something else. How old is the water pump? Most shops are now recommending new water pumps by at 60,000 miles, as the aforementioned problem is typically caused by deteriorated water pump vanes. I hope that isn't what it was. I know this is a problem with early Boxsters.
BTW, once you mess with plug wires, they typically need replacing.