logray

If all of those things were sold as a set from the same car I don't see why it wouldn't start assuming you installed both the DME and alarm unit and the DME is the right one for your engine. Without a PST2/PIWIS though to validate all of the codes are in line and the pill does match, it's impossible without those tools. I am wondering if the car has some other water damage. Perhaps the airbag module is preventing the car from starting. Have you noticed anything strange about the windows rolling down on their own, or an airbag light on the dash? the A/B module is under the drivers seat as well IIRC. edit: also I am going to do some research on the Canada thing, if they use a different frequency for the transponder, that might be an issue...

Loren certainly has the goods sometimes... well done! :clapping: .5 hertz is every 2 seconds. 1 hertz is every second. If it is flashing every second... I am going to assume here that the #4 condition is part 99660640501 (<=2001) or 99660641000 (2002>), about a $25 part located on the oil pump housing, accessible from underneath passenger side rear of the engine sort in the middle behind the catalytic converter. #27 in the diagram below. The sensor plugged into the oil/coolant housing sorta situated in the middle of the upper right portion of the console that bolts to the front of the engine. And another pic of it located on the psngr side front of engine. The sensor looking thing on the left of the pic.

If the car has not been started yet you can pull the cam bearing caps to verify timing. If the car has been started validate the camshaft deviation values for bank 1 and bank 2 are 0 +/- 4 degrees.

You can buy those rubber nuts at an auto parts store, they are called well nuts. I drove around for a long time with just the upper nut on as well. :) So the DME reports 97C which is certainly not overheating. Did you also connect Durametric to the instrument cluster module to see what temperature it reports? If the coolant level sensor was disconnected and the light is still flashing at 105C then my guess would be that the instrument cluster thinks the car is overheating or the or DME thinks the purge fan is not running. I'm starting to run out of ideas too.

Best of luck! Let us know once you are back at it again.

Not that I'm superstitious or anything but I couldn't leave your rep at 666 Loren... bumped to 667. :)

Probably the water pump. The gasket is metal and unless those bolts worked their way loose which I doubt, the more common thing to read about is h20 pulley separation. If you are mechanically inclined remove the serpentine belt and see if you can wiggle the pulley with your hands. If there is any play then the pump should be replaced. H20 pump replacement is not too difficult and is covered in several DIY's here and elsewhere. I recently installed a brand new pump and it started leaking from behind the pulley at the shaft. Same symptoms. I replaced it almost immediately and the new one has not done the same thing.

There is no "resetting the variocam actuator". It is a sealed device activated by oil pressure. IF they get clogged and go bad they need to be replaced. It is possible the misfires could be the variocam actuator having gone really bad. It is a solenoid pack inside the engine head that enables/disables the cam advance for extra torque depending on the rpm and other conditions. You might try unplugging the battery for 5 minutes to reset any learned values in the DME, but I doubt that will work.

If you mean belly pan as in engine oil pan protection plate, 7.5 ft lbs. If you mean underside body panels, just hand tighten. If you mean engine oil/sump pan. 1. torque is 7.5 ft lbs IIRC. 2. seal is loctite 5900 silicone, tightening sequence inside to out, opposing sides, 1.5 mm bead of silicone in precisely the correct line around the pan and bolts otherwise it will leak. 3. no gasket is used. The sealing agent is silicone. 4. if i were you i wouldn't do it, unless you are skilled with silicone application and have a work shop manual, you'll find some stuff in the pan but probably not enough to worry about. 5. better use of your time/money to just cut your oil filter and examine it for metal debris and perhaps order an LN magnetic drain plug. Especially for a later 996 or 997 I give the above advice.

Currently the best place to click and view part numbers is probably www.autoatlanta.com. http://www.autoatlanta.com/porsche-parts/986-97-04/porsche_boxster_parts.php But you can also download the Porsche PET PDF online. http://www.porsche.com/all/media/pdf/originalparts/en/E_986_KATALOG.pdf The P/N is 99611031050

Based on the work you did above it's difficult for me to think of a reason why an entire bank of cylinders would stop running. I've read a few horror stories of rags/etc. getting sucked or dropped into the intake by mistake. One time I had my throttle body and T-plenum behind it out to do some cleaning and mistakenly misaligned one of the rubber boots between the manifold and T-plenum. The car ran very very rough, almost to the point of stalling because of the gaping intake leak. However, no CEL codes and both banks were running. Once the boot was re-installed correctly the car ran perfect again. I've not read about a DME causing the misfires before or the reason for an entire bank to stop running. Yes if it were me at this point, I would not run the engine again until there is some more diagnosis performed. Before dropping the engine I would at the very least start with trying to verify your cam timing, to see if perhaps that could be the reason for the misfires. That is a pretty simple procedure with the engine in car, if you go back a couple posts to the link I posted. You really only just need to focus on bank 1 (drivers side) since that seems to be where the problems lie. IT is just one very small plastic/metal cover at the end of the exhaust camshaft on the outside of the engine that you poke in the center carefully and pry out with a small screwdriver, then rotate the crankshaft clockwise with a 24mm wrench to top dead center and the grooves in the end of the camshaft should line up with the camshaft cover line (as pictured below). If they don't line up (by a significant amount), you've likely found one reason (possibly still a symptom) for the misfires. Right behind the cat converter on the drivers side bottom of the head front of engine (corner), there is small plastic cap, once you remove that and rotate the engine to top dead center, it should look like this: At that point you might have more ammo to remove the engine (or not if the cam timing looks ok, although could still warrant removing that cover) and/or at least remove the cam cover on bank 1, which is actually possible without removing the engine. Once the cam cover is off you can start to look for reasons why the timing is suddenly so far off. If the cam timing looks OK I would go back and focus on the coil packs, spark wires, since you had those things out... or perhaps wiring. The wiring loom that sends all the injector, spark, and sensors for cylinders 1-3 is right behind the oil filler tube, could you have perhaps damaged it during your work? It's right behind the oil filler tube, in fact... the black "bunch of wires" directly above the aluminum SAI tube.

Yes, a car with that amount of miles and an engine with a substantial amount of miles too is not worth much. Especially with a broken engine. If you are the DIY sort who would be comfortable removing the engine in your back yard, and it is ONLY the heads you CAN fix it yourself for about $2500 give or take. Heck if you were in Northern California I might even consider lending a hand since I've done this work before (aside from the intermix cleaning, which is more tedious than difficult), but I am also just an enthusiast, not in the trade. The dealers are just going to shove you out the door unless you want to buy a replacement engine. They would charge you just as much to drop the engine and repair it, in which case you'd be better off buying a replacement from them anyways. An indy might charge you less, but it is still going to be in the upper thousands range. Yes it would not make sense to buy a re-manufacturered engine from Porsche for $10,000 on car that's worth just about the price of the car $15-18k minus the repair (in most cases $10,000). The other option for you might be a used engine, which I've seen go for as little as $4000 for a used 3.4L on ebay (high miles). With removal and install costs on a used engine you are looking at maybe $5000-6000. With any luck, it will just be the oil cooler or AOS and then a thorough cleaning of the cooling system (about $1000 procedure guessing) and you are back on the road. The oil cooler can be pressure tested to see if it is the culprit. And at around $200 each the oil cooler and AOS are not that expensive to replace while you're in there items.

The function of the thermostat is independent of the temp sensor. The thermostat is already fully open at the temp your light is flashing. If it was stuck open that doesn't have any bearing on what the sensor reads, it will read a temp or it won't. H20 pump replacement could be co-related, if there is air in the system and the car is overheating, and the sensors are misreporting the temp. However, 105 C is not overheating (that's around the middle to the right of the 0 in 180 on your gauge). So there are two "known" conditions left for the flashing light since the car is not overheating and your instrument cluster also thinks it is not. Purge fan, but you said it works. I'm still a litte suspicious of that though because IIRC 105 might be a trigger point for that fan, or at least that might be hot enough for the purge fan to start running. Perhaps even though the fan can be activated with durametric for whatever reason the dme doesn't think it is on. Coolant level sensor. You could try to unplug the level sensor and see if the light flashes. IF it doesn't flash when you unplug it get the car up to temp and see if it flashes. If it does flash when you unplug it, you might be able to ground the terminals to trick the level sensor into thinking it is full, although I'm not certain how the sensor functions either, and would have to look at the wiring diagrams and do more research. Or since you've eliminated two of the three variables you could just get another level sensor and put it in and see if that works. Also I'm not sure a PST2 would help you here, since I believe Durametic can see all the values the PST2 can in this case for both the DME and instrument cluster. If I have time tomorrow I'll hook up my Durametric since I have the same year car and see what values I see. I would also try to monitor the three separate readings (two from dme oil & engine) and instrument cluster (and a/c hack) and make sure they are all in the same ballpark. IF there is too much coolant it should go out the overflow. Too much coolant is not a condition the light flashes in.

Yep, keep us posted if that is the right part.

There are quite a few threads about this subject if you spend a few minutes with the search feature of this site. But in a nutshell I believe you just need to replace the sensor in the seatbelt clip and you are good to go (there are write ups on this IIRC Let us know how it goes

First stop driving the car and have it towed everywhere from this point forward until you get the problem resolved. Intermix is a situation that arises typically when the engine has become too hot, and a crack occurs in the aluminum, typically in the spark plug tube area. This causes the oil to mix into the coolant, eventually (rapidly) clogging the cooling system and leading to much much bigger problems if they are ignored. Including engine/car write-off if ignored too much. There is a small small chance that the intermix is due to a failed oil cooler or AOS, which each run about $200. With that much sludge though you are still looking at a hefty bill to clean up the intermix sludge from the cooling system. And based on your description of the sludge formation I would bet more on the cracked head than the oil cooler or air oil seperator. Unless you are a very handy mechanic who is comfortable dismantling the engine, it is best to take it to a shop. Hopefully you caught the problem early enough and there has not been any other collateral damage and the engine is still salvageable. Basically fixing this problem requires removing the engine from the car, removing the heads, having them pressure tested to locate the leak, repaired, and reinstalled. Then the entire cooling system needs to be completely cleaned of residue. There are miles of coolant hoses in this car, 2 radiators, and from what I understand that part of the job is a big pain in the butt. Good luck and keep us posted. (but DO have it checked out before you drive it again).

Try the drive link in durametric to activate the engine compartment purge fan. Or drive the car until it gets hot again and see if the engine purge fan is running. If the compartment purge fan is working, then it's probably the fluid sensor because it sounds like your instrument cluster does not think the car is overheating (that happens well above 105 celcius) or a large discrepancy between sensors. BTW related to your other "wish" I have a KTS500 PST2 clone that I might sell soon, in order to raise funds for an upcoming 3.4 to 3.6 L upgrade of my 996 C2 car's engine.

This is my guess 99650181500, about $2 at your Porsche dealer. #15 in the diagram.

Thanks for the info. If the camshaft deviation is changing, generally that is some cause for concern, from what I understand. For example it could indicate an IMS bearing about to go pop, but possibly/more probably just sensor wear, campad wear, variocam actuator problem, chain stretch, tensioner problem, or something else. That being said, a 0.06 degree difference between your tests might just be within limits limits and none of the above problems are apparent, just the sensitivity of the cam position sensors and Durametric. Also since you have a 2001 car, it would be helpful if you could log the "actual angles" (camshaft) value from Durametric at idle and at 3000rpm. Depending on how many miles are on the car and what you get back on the actual angles depends on whether there would be further action recommended. Regardless, I would probably verify timing and correct it (all possible with the engine in car). Then continue to monitor the deviation to see if it fluctuates. If it were me I would pull off the green plastic camshaft cap at the front of the engine (rear of car) drivers side on the bottom of the camshaft cover. Then rotate the crankshaft to TDC. The scribe mark in the end of the exhaust camshaft should be aligned vertically with the camshaft cover if the timing is correct. Here is a good website describing what you should see when you pull that camshaft cover cap off. http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26418 OH, also if you do pull that cap off you should have another one to put on, they cost about $8-10 at your dealer. -8 degrees off is a fair bit of deviation (1 degree more retarded at the camshaft than the factory recommendation) and the timing is beyond the factory limitation of 6 degrees retarded or advanced.

Are you certain the oil filler tube is properly sealed? - a very serious crank case leak might cause rough running. A very bad air intake leak would also cause very rough running, perhaps if you removed them check your throttle body and plenum behind it, along with the rubber connectors to the intake manifold. However the above things wouldn't explain why one bank of cylinders wouldn't run. Wow, well I hope this isn't too serious. I have read about a similar problem a few times with a broken valve spring. The entire bank of cylinders doesn't run in that case. -6 degrees is not that far off, however I've noticed the 1999 MY car doesn't "update" that value if it is just idling. It has to get up to higher RPM ranges before it "updates". I'm not sure if a bad variocam actuator could be bad enough to cause misfires, unless perhaps the variocam pad has sheared in half and thus the timing chain is now out of whack. That would be terrible terrible luck if the work you did somehow happened at the same time a valve spring broke... that would be very very unlikely. Perhaps the wiring loom was damaged when you replaced the oil filler tube? That is just behind the filler tube. Since it sounds like you've checked all the basics it might be something more serious at this point. Starting with probably the least expensive thing to do, which can be done with engine in car - I would at least start by pulling off the plastic camshaft caps and checking the timing. If something doesn't look right that is a good place to start. Here is a good website on how to check the timing on the cams. http://986forum.com/...ead.php?t=26418 After that, the next option might be to pull the bumper, heat shield, muffler, and then the camshaft cover (once you've locked the cams in place) to see what is wrong.

Nice work, do you notice any difference with the new sensor location?

If you checked for spark though on that side I doubt that is the problem. Could you post all the codes?

Depending on your year car and DME you should fine one or both of these values in Durametric... Engine temperature (this is coolant temp AFAIK) Oil temperature

The coolant level sensor (one reason for the flashing of the temp light) is at the bottom of the coolant expansion tank. #2 in the pic.

There is a ground point right near the AOS bellows on the 1-3 drivers side rear of engine (front of car). the brown wires leading to the bolt in the center of the pic. There is another ground point on the passenger side 4-6 cylinders near the rear of the car (front corner of engine in the engine bay) near the aos breather. It's the bolt in the center of the pic with the two brown wires.