Been a while since I have updated this, not too much has happened due to winter and the car being tucked away.
More recently, I have unearthed the 964, ready for the warmer days and some events. Unfortunately, all hasn't gone so smoothly..
A few months back, I changed the belts, a dead easy job which stopped an occasional start up squeal from a slipping belt.
Last week, back out of the Bubble ready for an MOT. I had a near miss, I had left the door open on my MX5 while doing some jobs on it and as I was walking back to it, a gust of wind took the door!! In that split second, I had a heart attack but fortunately, the bubble simply bounced it back!! Perhaps I would have shut the door if the 964 was not inside the bubble but either way, an expensive accident was avoided! One thing my normal car covers would not have been able to protect.
Filled with V power
MOT passed, no issues at all and all looking very healthy on the underside although I will need to change the rear facing crank seal, that is weeping.
I recently moved to a new house and it has speed bumps entering the close, this was the first time the 964 had been here and I did have some concern, fortunately, it only just gets over without rubbing.
With a run of good weather, I was using the car, no issues at all and feeling very good. I'm still amazed at the thumbs up and looks it gets.
I love these seats, looking for a product to take the shine away. Note the temporary but quick access positioning of the extinguisher [
]
So a few days later, it was time to get to the Fairmile Porsche meet, met up with some friends and we all headed off, after 20 mins of rush hour stop start, we got on to the A3 and all was well until I was around 5 minute away from the meet, I started getting an occasional thump from the rear of the car, this turned out to be the car temporarily dropping out of drive and then back in as the engine misfired. Slightly confused as to what was going on, I got parked at the meet and poked around the engine, nothing appeared wrong, so just I just left the car and enjoyed the meet.
While I was happy and it was driving nicely
On the way home, instantly I had the same issue and was forced over to the hard shoulder twice as the problem got worse, I managed to get home OK and as it was late, the stalling at traffic lights didn't cause any embarrassment. Once in the garage, I did notice a ticking from the coils but as I was a bit grumpy and it was near midnight, I closed up and went off to bed.
In the mean time, plenty of googling and questions to others in the know, brought about many possible causes to my stalling issue, MAF, ISV, Vac leak, Coils, Leads, etc etc etc Everything basically. At this stage, I really did not want to be pulling everything apart in a trial and error fashion, I wanted a resolution without much fuss. Thankfully, due to past issues, I had an offer from a very kind member who happened to be local, with the offer of using his Bosch Hammer. If you don't know, this is a tool that anyone who tinkers with a 964 (or 928, 944 etc) should own! I have always known of the Hammer and been told that I need to have one, my car would benefit from an adaptation, you can use it to activate certain components and it can read/clear errors. As my car was never on the road, I could never get it over to be plugged in, once again, not possible due to the danger of breaking down or causing more damage. Anyway, long story short, I was able to pick up the hammer, enjoy a good chat and listen to how a healthy 964 and how it should sound.
I made some time to get back on to the car and investigate the issue, the first check was the ticking coils. Covers removed, car on, one of the coils was arcing and when this was occurring, the engine speed would drop and this is exactly what was happening while driving. It grew worse as engine revs increased. These coils are brand new Bosch items, you will have seen that they were fitted a short time ago and certainly not covered many miles at all. After cleaning terminals and wires, the problem continued. I swapped the position of the coils and while doing this, I regretted ignoring everyone's advice to go for 993 items but my logic was, how bad can the 964 ones actually be. My originals lasted since 1991, 80k miles and did the job, why should a new pair be so bad?
Plugging in the Hammer revealed a single error, HALL SIGNAL - This essentially tells me that there is an ignition problem, so this backed up my thoughts on the coil being the cause of my running issue.
Anyway, after swapping coils, the problem vanished! Error cleared and it did not come back. That's odd, so I wanted to pull them back off to check them out and discovered the issue, take a look inside where the lead plugs in, it was covered in the casting material of the coil and as they have got hot, fused the pieces together to cause a build up on the contact surfaces blocking a clear path way for the spark, so it ended up looking for a less resistant path.. Obviously by swapping the coils, the positioning of the HT leads in the coil causing the problem may have just be aligned enough to work properly.
So there you have it, poor quality on Bosch's behalf, the inside of these should be given a good wire brush or poked at with a sharp tool of sorts to ensure all of the contact area is clear of the casting material, an oversight on my behalf but not something I have ever had to do, or expect to do!
I refitted everything back together and started the car, it instantly run better and not more sparks! No more errors.
A test drive proved that the car was now back to 100%, running nicely, feeling much smoother as it should. Upon getting back home, with temperatures up, I wanted to perform a system adaptation, this is so that the car can reprogram itself to all of the new items I have fitted to the car, O2 sensor, ignition system and even fuelling. This was something else a few guys had told me, I NEED to do but as always, the car would never be ready to get out and over to someone to do it.
Anyway, if this has not been performed on your car, DO IT!!! Get it done, I honestly cannot tell you the difference it has made, complete night and day difference. The car fires up QUICK, it runs smoother, throttle response is sharper, it doesn't feel lumpy, especially when stopped and held in D, it's just smooth and as I would expect. My car would occasionally stall when shifting between D and R and parking, now there is no sign of this happening, no rev drops, no hesitance, just a totally well-behaved tiptronic 964! This made a world of difference to the running of my car and I am very surprised.
So that concludes the latest saga and hopefully I can continue with a perfectly running 964, I am due to take it for a long run one night this week, just to be sure and doing so at night, just in case of the worst. I feel happy on it's last outing which was 40 minutes, it was perfect but I just want to be sure no errors come back and it runs just right.
So another lesson for you all, check your coils, I'm still on the fence over 964 vs 993 coil debate, I wanted to stick with the original fitting items, there is not performance difference, only reliability but as my originals lasted so long, I figured that these will, learnt a lesson on checking the inside of the terminals but could just be bad luck.
So, fingers crossed, I should have one very well sorted car now, lots of new parts, hopefully it can be enjoyed... but the option of a manual car looms...
