I just bought this 73k mile car and it normally runs quite well. It's an almost bone stock '75 914 1.8. The only non-stock item on the engine is a Pertonix ignitor. Normally the car starts and runs pretty well. It's a bit rough until it gets some heat into the engine, but then it runs great. Twice now the car starts and runs really rough and I get a big cloud of white smoke. I think it's vaporized fuel. This has happened when the car was driven earlier in the day and sat for a a couple of hours or more. I'm going to be pulling the plugs out to see which cylinders are affected. I already pulled #2 and it's black, but not wet with fuel. The second time this happened I couldn't get it to clear up and run properly. It acted like it loaded up with fuel and died. I cranked and cranked, but it wouldn't refire.
Could a bad head temp sensor (or bad connection to said sensor) cause the ECU to think it's incredibly cold and dump in way too much fuel? I would expect all the plugs to be wet if this were true. It's almost as if the injector harness is grounding out and two injectors are open constantly.
Suggestions?
Thanks for having such a great resource!
Ok, instant update. Went out to the car in the rain after the battery charger had been on for about an hour or so. Fiddled with one of the main ground points on the engine case and she started up like nothing in the world could ever be wrong.
Damn I hate intermittant problems! My horn is intermittant too. Once the Haynes manual arrives I should be able to fix that at least.
Joshua Skinner