Hey folks, looking for advice from the generous community here. Been lurking and searching, and well, I'm still stuck.

Disclaimer: I am well aware of my questionable decision making. Before you flame me for buying a piece of junk, and tell me I'd be better off buying a well maintained running car with a PPI and full records, yes, I know. I don't care. I like buying junk and spending too much money making it nice again. Please keep in mind that this is about fun for me, and it is a project. Phew, with that out of the way, here's my story:

I picked up a second non running 01' 996 to play with. My current 996 is a "driver" i.e. it has a salvage title, rips in the seats, but it's fast and it's fun. This one popped up with what the seller said was a "bad engine" by which he means it made a bad noise, died on the road and hasn't started since. The seller obtained it from his friend, the previous owner and never really got around to digging into it so he decided to pass it on. It's got better options and a clean title, and other than the engine is in much better shape all around than my black one. The seller had pulled the pan and taken some pictures. He found no metallic debris, but the rubber baffle had disintegrated and was a mess. He said he tried to start it and heard a noise like a school chair being dragged across the floor. When I got the car yesterday I also dropped the pan and confirmed no metal but nasty dirty oil and sludge all over. Yuk.

I turned the crank by hand to see if I could feel anything clunking. Smooth turning, no issues there. I resealed the pan, replaced the filter and filled with oil. Charged the battery and gave it a crank. Heard the grind/groan noise, and confirmed my suspicion that it was the starter not disengaging (the key switch is sticky). Removed the belt to rule out any accessories causing issues. They all turned fine, and no major changes in noises when cranking. Still no start though. Tried again and gave it a little gas and it sputtered, sort of started but died immediately. Sounded terrible but sounded a lot like my other one does on a cold morning when the chains rattle. Still have some hope that this engine may not need a rebuild but we'll see...

Plugged in my Bluetooth OBD reader and pulled the codes. P0343 Cam shaft position sensor bank 1 high input. P0300 multiple misfires. Through lots of reading, I understand that this is a short circuit or possibly a bad sensor. Easy enough I though. I read up on where it is: front side of driver side head. What I can't figure out though is how the heck do I get to it? Do I need to pull the intake? Can I get to it from underneath? I have snaked my hands in from the bottom, the top, through the rear wheel well, and I can't seem to locate it let alone get a wrench on it. Can someone tell me the easiest way to access it? I plan to drop the engine, but I would rather see if I can get it to start first to do a more thorough diagnosis of what is going on.

If you're still with me, here is a video of the terrible sounds it makes. Opinions welcome. Thanks!

 

Drop the engine.

 

Damn, for real? No other way to get to it?

 

replacing the CPS isn't too hard
doesn't sound like that's the only problem though...

 

You can access the cam position sensor for bank 1 in the engine compartment. It is on the left side of the engine. Remove the air cleaner and look below the large coolant hose on the left side. It is held in place with a socket head cap screw.

 

That horrible grinding noise is severe mechanical trauma. The engine is screaming at you. Even though you were able to rotate the crank, attempting to start the engine will only advance the collateral damage.

I know somewhere in your heart you want to believe this is a diamond in the rough and maybe you'll get lucky with a minor fix. I don't see it here. Roll the dice again and you'll get poorer.

 

Yea, it doesn't sound too good. I went into this anticipating a rebuild or replacement, but yes, deep down I had hoped it could be a dumb minor issue. I'm going to scope the spark plug holes today and see what I can see.

 

Is it just me or does that sound like piston noise. And I know injectors and valves can make tapping noises but that sounds loud.

A crank position sensor will cause a no start but I don’t think a can position sensor will.

 

I thought so too, but I would have expected some metal in the oil which I didn't find.

 

I was wondering, (btw that sounds horrible...yikes!) you got the cam position sensor OBDII code, so if the DME/ECU doesn't know the position of the cam, could it be that it defaults to some basic map? And that is what is causing all the noise and backfires? Sounds like at one point it backfired through the throttle body. Since the DME/ECU can't tell the cam position, all the firing (and maybe even the fuel injectors) are way off. Thus the misfire codes.

 

Wanna see something awful?

 

Cyl no 2 dropped a valve. Looks like some scoring on the cylinder walls. The others on this bank looked ok. Guess I'll be sticking to my original plan which was to take the engine and manual transmission out of the 99 and put them in this one.

I might see if LN can refresh this block with some Nickies and reassemble it myself.

 

If you decide to rebuild yourself or maybe even to decide if you want to, i would highly suggest buying Jake Raby's M9X rebuild video series. I would watch the whole series through before even disassembling. It would help with understanding the various components locations and things you want to track as you disassemble. If you do a search on this forum you will find a lot of very favorable recommendation on how helpful this is over trying to follow manuals alone.

 

Do not listen to bad advice. Your car is a 5 chain engine Variocam. The Camshaft Position Sensor on bank one is buried under the hoses and AOS on the forward side of bank 1 toward the front. It is NOT the Crankshaft Position Sensor on that video. That is a cake walk. It is also NOT the Cam Position Sensor on the 3-chain engine Variocam Plus. That would be toward the back behind the coolant hose.

On your car, you either disassemble the entire top of the engine to get to the Cam Position Sensor Bank 1, or drop the engine. Six or half a dozen. See item 34 on this diagram.

I see an engine out on this car anyway. The noise is ... really bad.

 

Thank you, I will check those out. I have done some reading on this rebuild since I had planned to build a nice fresh motor for my 99 anyway. Looks much trickier than the Ford and Toyota motors I've rebuilt but nothing I cant figure out with enough time, money, and foul language.
Looks like my next step is to get my transmission back in my truck so I can free up the Porsche to be a temporary donor.