Original '86 944 garage find

[355]

So next up was replacing all the belts and most importantly the cam timing belt. Once I removed the timing covers I found the original water pump and none of the updates that accompany a new water pump so it was confirmed that everything on the front of the engine was original. Here are photos of the original cam timing belt and water pump.

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In the second photo you can see that the timing belt was extra crispy with strands hanging out of it and certainly would have broken had I tried to turn over the engine using the starter before replacing it.

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After making sure the tensioners and pulleys spun freely and smoothly I replaced the timing belts with new ones, removed the spark plugs and gave the starter a try using a remote hand switch so I could be under the car to watch everything as it spun. To my relief the crankshaft spun smoothly with no bad sounds coming from the engine and it built full oil pressure after about 10 seconds. Next I put the spark plugs back in and ran the starter again listening to the compression pulses and everything sounded normal so I was pretty sure the engine would start if it had fuel and ignition. Little did I know that those two things were going to be difficult to obtain.

[Tom]

Good call changing that belt. Have you checked the fuel hoses that run to the fuel rail? They get brittle too, and when they leak onto the exhaust, it's not pretty. There was just a 944 on FB the other day that completely burned up.

Is that an oetiker clamp I see in your picture (see arrow below)? I'm suddenly wondering which of my many worm clamps were originally oetiker clamps. Have any more overall pics of the engine bay. Who knows what else might jump out.

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[355]

Yes, that is an Oetiker clamp and yes I did check the fuel hoses. One was brittle so I replaced it but that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg of the many problems I encountered with the fuel system.

Here's a photo from the hoarder's garage of the engine bay the day we were finally able to open the driver's door enough to get at the hood release lever.

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The odd wiring and black switch bracket by the hood release and running along the windshield washer hose are from a vintage Alpine alarm system that has since been removed (remember I mentioned ignition problems?). The 134a retrofit fittings are also not original which has led to my current A/C problems but more on that later. The battery is not the original and the missing fuse/relay box cover and battery cover in this photo were found next to the car and reinstalled before I brought the car home.

By the way, that is a moldy radiator hose, set of ignition wires and headlight motor cover!

[Stigs cousin]

This is an amazing story and the dreams of any Porsche enthusiast that would hope to find that undiscovered Porsche.Having owned a 1989 s2 for 30 year (from new) this is an exciting story.Please keep adding to the story as it unfolds.

[stitch2k1]

Wow even still has a lot of the cad plating on everything too still.

[355]

Sorry for taking so long to continue the story but I had some family commitments to take care of for the last couple of weeks that took up all my time.

So now with the engine capable of being spun over safely using the starter, the two things to check next were fuel and ignition. I decided to tackle the fuel first after doing a sniff test of the old fuel in the tank that smelled just awful. I decided to drain the tank by pulling off the fuel hose from the strainer at the bottom of the tank which resulted in a small trickling stream of a fluid that did not look or smell like gasoline. The brown liquid that separated to the bottom of the jar was actually water.

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I thought the slow stream indicated the tank was nearly empty and the fuel gauge showed empty, but after that first jar filled up it kept running so I put the hose into an old five gallon gas can and after an hour it was full to the top and then another gas can was filled up too so in all there was about ten gallons of rotten fuel mixed with water in the tank. The debris in the bottom of that jar should have been my clue that things were going to be really bad with the fuel system and after the last of the old fuel had drained I removed the strainer from the tank and found this.

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The strainer was completely clogged up with rust and debris caused the 10% ethanol fuel that had been left in the tank which absorbed water most likely from the damp garage over time. I then removed the fuel gauge sending unit and found the lower half of it had disintegrated into a pile of rust and aluminum corrosion which explained why the fuel gauge read empty. The corroded remains of the sending unit clogged up the strainer which also corroded until its mesh failed and then the corrosion continued as the water made it its way into the fuel pump and destroyed it. The fuel pump was so corroded out that putting 12V to it didn't result in any current draw at all much less the pump running. The moral of this story is to never leave ethanol blended gasoline in your 944 for an extended period of time. The fuel system components are made of steel and aluminum that are not compatible with ethanol. Even the owner's manual states that ethanol blended fuels should only be used if 100% gasoline is not available and then only temporarily until regular gasoline can be obtained. This fuel system corrosion was going to rear its ugly head over and over again as I worked my way forward to the fuel rail and injectors.

[355]

After removing the strainer and finding all the corrosion and debris I needed to flush and clean the fuel tank. The only thing that saved me from having to deal with a complete disaster was that Porsche put a plastic gas tank in these cars so it wouldn't rust and could be cleaned of debris. After much flushing and cleaning through the fuel sending unit bung the tank looked clean inside and no more debris was coming out so I installed a new strainer, fuel hose, fuel pump and filter and poured about five gallons of non-ethanol gasoline for my lawn equipment into the tank. I was hoping that the corrosion had only made it to the old fuel filter and it had stopped anything from going forward to the fuel rail.

My first try to start the car was a complete failure other than the starter worked well. The engine just turned over with no indication that it wanted to run. I checked the power to the new fuel pump and found none so I rigged up some jumper leads from a spare battery directly to the pump and it ran well, but there was a strange sound from the fuel rail. It sounded like the fuel was simply flowing at a high rate through the rail and returning to the fuel tank without any pressure being built up. I decided to try to start the engine again but once again it showed no signs of life.

Next I attached a fuel pressure gauge to the fuel injector rail and hooked up the fuel pump directly to the spare battery which resulted in about 5 psi of fuel pressure so I figured the fuel pressure regulator must have failed or the new pump was bad. Before removing the pressure regulator to test it I decided to test the fuel pump so I clamped off the fuel return line to the tank and fired up the pump again. Now the sound of the fuel running through the rail stopped and as the fuel pressure rose I heard a loud pop from the fuel pressure regulator. I removed the clamp and the rail pressure stayed correct even after the power to the pump was removed. The regulator must have gotten stuck wide open after all the years of sitting with no fuel in it. I tried to start the engine again, but still nothing.

Now I turned my attention to the fuel injectors because I could not hear them clicking at all so I pulled off one of the connectors and tested for electrical pulses with a NOID light. The light didn't flash at all when turning the engine over with the starter. So now I knew I had electrical problems with the fuel system - no pulses to the fuel injectors and no power to the fuel pump when starting the engine. Little did I know that this was the beginning of an endless number of electrical faults that would plague me for the next month and I was also to learn that there were still more components of the fuel system that had problems.

[stitch2k1]

Considering the sad state of the fuel system, I'm sure you already ordered a new strainer and in line fuel filter, but I would pull the injectors. There's o-rings and hats on them, plus a little filter. They very easy to clean, I do it with carb cleaner.

[355]

Considering the sad state of the fuel system, I'm sure you already ordered a new strainer and in line fuel filter, but I would pull the injectors. There's o-rings and hats on them, plus a little filter. They very easy to clean, I do it with carb cleaner.

Yes, I replaced everything from the filter back to the tank and in the end pulled the fuel rail and injectors only to find them packed full of rust. The fuel rail had rusted internally and filled the injectors with rust so badly that they wouldn't even click when 12V was applied to them. I ended up filling the fuel rail with the injectors still attached with Evapo-Rust and letting it sit on my work bench for a day. The Evapo-Rust removed and dissolved all the rust in the rail and the injectors and then I ran pressurized carb cleaner forwards and backwards through the injectors while tapping their contacts with12V from a battery until they started making nice a nice conical mist pattern again. Here's a photo of the rust after pulling the injectors from the rail.

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After treating and cleaning, the rail was silver metal internally again and the injectors were functional again. Evapo-Rust brought the fuel system on this 944 back from the dead!

[355]

But back to the electrical problems plaguing the fuel system. I immediately suspected the DME/fuel pump relay had gone bad but bypassing the relay did not make the fuel pump run. That left me with only one other system that was highly suspect and that was the aftermarket Alpine security system which was the only thing on this car other than the Alpine radio that was not original.

Even though I used the correct alarm code and tried both remotes, it turned out that the security system was malfunctioning. It was killing all the power to the DME and fuel pump even though it appeared to be disarming and not alarming. I ended up very carefully so as not to disturb or break anything original to the car extracting the entire system which took the better part of two days to accomplish. At least it was sympathetically installed and the car was not hacked up but finding and removing all the parts and wiring was a chore. Once everything was back to original with the wiring the fuel pump ran with the starter engaged but the injectors still had no power pulses from the DME.

I also had no spark at the coil so a deeper dive into the ignition and fuel systems was needed. Everything was pointing to a dead DME now. I removed the wood floor board from the passenger foot well only to see the case of the DME covered in white corroded aluminum powder so it appeared the DME had been in a wet environment for a long time. Oddly everything else around the DME looked brand new with no corrosion or signs of moisture but I was pretty sure the DME was dead. Then, by sheer luck while checking the wiring on the engine I found the plastic connector on the pigtail of the crankshaft position sensor had cracked and was falling apart when I accidentally pushed up against the mounting bracket and saw little bits of plastic fall from the connector. It turns out the male connector end had disintegrated inside the female connector even though the female connector was still in perfect condition so one of the pins was no longer making contact. Until I rubbed up against the bracket, the connectors looked to be in perfect condition so I hadn't touched them. I installed a new crankshaft position sensor along with a new reference sensor just to make sure the DME was getting good signals and ignition spark was restored along with injector pulses so the DME was good but the engine still would not run when I tried to start it.

This was all before I removed the fuel rail and injectors as I described in the above post which externally appeared to be in brand new condition only to find them full of rust so attempts to start the engine still failed. The only thing it could be at this point in time was a lack of fuel so I removed the intake hose and shot a small amount of starting fluid directly into the throttle body. I usually don't like doing this to an engine that hasn't run in years but I just wanted to see if it would fire up for a second or so. A twist of the key and the engine barked to life and stopped running after a second when the starting fluid was consumed. Now I knew the engine would run but was not getting fuel and that is when I discovered the fuel injectors were not pulsing which led me to pulling them and cleaning the whole system.