LBOT -> Wine & Cheese car goes comatose, Little Bit Off Topic, a 3.2 takes a nap Options

[Carl]

My son called from college last week and said "Hey Dad, let's go to the Saint Mary's/Cal Poly football game this weekend!" I'm always up for a good road trip and football game. Since both schools are less than stellar on the field, one out of two ain't bad.

On Saturday, the sports we are, we tossed the ovenight bags in the 911 and jet off on the 3 1/2 hour trip to San Luis Obispo. It's a fun trip, we talk and play loud music. Half way there we swap seats and he drives.

In San Luis and have a couple of hours before the game so I show him where I went to school in the 70's. In the middle of my nostalgia trip he's feeling uneasy about driving a clutch in traffic. He pulls over, we swap seats again and I turn the key to fire up the trusty 911. Crank, crank, crank, pffffft. Crank, crank, crank, pffffft. Crank, crank, crank, pffffft. Damn.

Hmmm, wait a couple of minutes and try again. Crank, crank, crank, nothing. I can't believe this. Lots of cranking, lots more not starting. There's a gassy smell so I pulled a spark plug. It's clean and dry and shows a good blue spark when the engine cranks. That's not the problem. Remove the gas line at the filter, lots of gas and pressure. Reassemble. Try it again, the engine fires, coughs, runs really rough and dies again. No joy.

I call a friend in San Jose and he's no help. Take it to a dealer, he says. Right. There's no Porsche dealer in SLO, it's late Saturday afternoon and I've got a few tools, no shop manual and no idea where to find a competent mechanic. It's getting dark and so's my mood.

After a while with no success we leave the car there on the street and go to the game with a friend. St. Mary's, true to form, is down 28-0 half way into the second quarter. This was the only part of the trip that's going as expected.

The next morning the engine starts, runs for 2 minutes, gets ragged and quits. It won't start after that. The guy who lives in the house where the car is parked is very friendly and well-meaning. "Y'know, I've got a buddy who works on Beemers, he can take a look at it." I don't think so.

Sunday, my son makes the trip back to San Jose on the bus, I stayed in town and on Monday morning had the car towed to a local shop. They had it fixed in 2 hours and I made it home by 3:30 that afternoon.

Lessons learned:
Cylinder head temperature sensors do really strange things to the DME computer when they fail. If the car starts you can fool the computer by using a 200 Ohm resistor to ground on the sensor wire.
Replace the old style, one-wire sensor with the two-wire type.
Guy's Independent Porsche Repair is a very good shop. They were very responsive, diagnosed and fixed the car quickly and for a modest cost.
Be prepared for stuff to go wrong after a long drive on a hot day. Heat-soaked engines will do that.
Saint Mary's lost 54-10.
Taking a road trip with my son is a good thing and I'd do it again in a hearbeat.

Carl