fve

Hidie ho. I am sure that many will lecture me about the evils of salt (even though it was 13F, she got the hose afterwards) and feel that the GT3 should go for a long winter sleep. Alas, i use mine as a DD and heck, i even enjoy driving it to the ski slopes. In any case, many around north america are aware of the recent chill. Yesterday, while driving to the slopes, the throttle would occasionally ... hiccup. It felt as though there was a momentary decrease in power: it could be felt and heard in terms of engine/exhaust note. It would happen most often going up-hill. Temperatures were around 0 F (i.e. -17 C).

Incidentally, i felt something similar when i drove the car to CO in the summer. I wound feel this periodically at high altitudes, just assumed it was a sensitive, highly tuned engine, nothing big. Well, until i was hammering the car through some (lovely) mountain roads (FYI: the road between Estes Park and Neatherland is one my favorites in the country) and the throttle just gave out: no throttle response at all (the engine stayed at idle) and the check engine light turned on. Well, i coasted about 1000' vertical. Stopped, took several breaths, turned off the car...after realizing that i was out of cell service, i took several more breaths and restarted. Well, the check engine light remained, but i was able to drive it (normal response) down to Boulder. The good folks at Boulder porsche, as it turns out, have had several local GT3's do something similar, diagnosed it right away, and re-flashed the ECU. Apparently something to do with the O2-fuel mixture around 8000-9000' (~2500 m) under load.

Just curious if others have had a similar experience and any good input. thanks in advance.

enthusiast

Yes, but not to my car. There was an issue with the fuel mapping on the early production 996 GT3 and it typically happened when the car was at higher altitude. Some technicians at Porsche dealerships had a hard time getting the ECU software reloaded properly (could take several attempts).