Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

It seems my car is sulking after being left for a week. After its stirling service to and from the NEC car show it has decided to go on strike. The starter turns strongly (newly refurbished), and there is a strong tacho bounce but no ignition. I can smell a hint of petrol in the engine bay. I am no expert but did give the relays a bit of a professional wiggle and also twisted the HT leads. No joy. Any pointers on next steps?

I suspect the extremely damp weather has interfered with the electrics. It normally starts fantastically. Literally the first second.

I wouldn't be surprised if it started once the weather dries out.

I would check a few things first assuming the engine turns over and sounds like it has compression (i.e it does not sound like a washing machine when turning over):

1) Is there a spark present at the plugs? If not, is there a spark present at the King Lead? If you are local I have an ignition tester you can use without disconnecting anything . If there is no spark present at the plugs but there is at the king lead I would check the rotor arm and distributor cap next. Failing that I would check for voltage at the coil.
2) (The most common response!). However is your DME relay? Does the car start with the wire jumper trick or a new relay?
3) Have you disconnected an injector? If so, will it then fire up? This will point to an fuel regulator fault.
4) Does your tachometer bounce with the car cranking? If so the crank sensors should be working, but it may be worth checking their resistance just to be sure . EDIT - I shall assume that the sensors are fine for now.
5) Clean out our AFM connection. That (a poor connection) can also cause a non starter but the car will generally fire up for a few seconds in this condition.

It's doubly painful when you have to shell out for equipment just to tell you what you need to shell out on to fix the problem.

That's the problem with a non-start issue. You can't get to a garage so it's a trade off whether to call out a mobile mechanic to identify the problem or buy test equipment to try and find the problem yourself.

Looks like i'll be buying a fuel pressure testing kit and a spark tester,... or calling the mechanic!

It's not the DME. I ordered a spare then looked at the one in the car and its practically brand new! Point to note though, a DME relay is £52 from OPC and £23 from Frazerpart. I'll swap them and rule it out completely.

I have a feeling it might be a blocked fuel filter. I had a non-start issue a while back stuck away from home late at night. Kept turning it over and as I was beginning to fear that I'd flatten the battery it fired up. No idea if it has been changed recently. I'll be getting this changed as soon as possible.

If you have a spare spark plug you can test for a spark relatively easily against the engine block. Where in Hertfordshire are you? I go to Denham and Brighton quite a bit these days and can drop off a spark tester .

The reason why I asked you to test for a spark both the HT and kind lead was to rule out the rotor arm (cheap ones can be very intermittent) in addition to the distributor cap).

The DME relays are never the most reliable of things but the wire jumper trick will rule it out .

It's alive! I bought a spark tester and plugged it into the king lead and hey presto it started first time. Must have been damp in the ht leads as I first thought. I had pulled off the king lead so many times trying to get to started. I left the engine running to warm it up and get the damp out and watched the steam rise from the distributer!

Is there anything i can do to keep the damp out of the distributer?

Mighty pleased it was nothing more serious.

Great news. Reminds me of my days driving a mini!
Cheers
Mick