924Board.org

924guy

over 2,000 miles , 4 days...the ultimate "test drive," in the 82 931. just rolled in this morning... the out bound trip went very well. the 931 ran like a champ and had ZERO issues. the way home was a bit different . about 100 miles into the return trip, she started cutting out on me. at first i thought it was electrical, but now im thinking my fuel filter is clogged. she'd pop , and back fire for a bit, sometime cutting out. id pull over, rev her up for a minute until the bogging stopped, then keep going.i filled up with fresh fuel and i made it about five hundred miles, figured i got some bad gas. and then it happened again, and more frequently. about 200 miles from home i thought i was done for, it was 4am and she wouldnt "clear" . its sort of like when you get popcorn stuck in your throat, you cough, gurgle till its clear. after an hour or so of letting her sit, and starting her, and feathering the throttle she finally "spit" and i made it to within a mile of my house before it happened again (figures!) but i was able to coax her home and shes resting comfortably in my garage now.

my best guess is that since the car sat for awhile, some junk accumulated in the fuel tank, and it just took a couple of tanks for it to "break free" and become a problem. at times it felt like if i modulated the gas pedal, it blow the junk out of the way of the fuel flow , but im not sure if thats what was happening or not. i could generally tell when it was about to happen though, as the tach would start fluctuating wildly, which made me think it was electrical at first. now i have to think its a fuel issue though, either the filter is jamming, or a clogging injector, possibly a failing fuel pump? im going to change the filter and cut open the old one and take a look inside, and take it from there i think. suggestions would be appreciated.

over all though, when she was running well, she was running really well. plenty of power on tap and just a heck of allot of fun. a few people have already called me "nuts" for taking a 20+ year old car on such a journey with only 11 miles of local testing after major work, but its a porsche , they were borne for this stuff

i consistantly averaged about 27.5 mpg, and most of the trip was with the roof out, but it didint seem to make a difference with the mileage roof in or out (i found that odd.) it did make the car a bit unstable over 85mph though(85 mph speedo , pinned, could of been a bit faster), with the roof in she was rock solid . i have a small "to do" list i developed while enroute as well, but nothing major besides the cutting out thing on the way home.
_________________
Eric
78 924
82 931 SE "smokey"
99' VehiCross
Y2K Honda Insight
http://www.cardomain.com/id/924Guy
Performance by Pasha

Lizard · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:53 am Post subject:

I would have done the same thing, good to hear,
too bad about the fuel system, checking the flow of the injcetors might be an idea
_________________
3 928s,

Smoothie · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 9:23 am Post subject:

This is my all time favorite car problem because the symptoms are so crazy and the fix so easy. The fix is to just unplug-replug the rectangular 12 pin connector at the ditc box. Apparently every one has this problem sooner or later and it's due simply to a flakey connection there. Might be something as obscure as a change in humidity that causes the connection to go bad. When it first happened to me, it was a foggy muggy warm night. Symptoms are always the same - backfires, pops, farts, just ridiculous things going on plus the tach flops around like crazy. It happens on average probably once a year, but thankfully the fix is so easy. Just pull over, unplug-replug and you're back on your way and good for another year.
_________________
"..it's made in Germany. You know the Germans always make good stuff."

'82 924T, US version, dark green metallic, 5 speed Audi 016G gearbox

924guy · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 12:20 pm Post subject:

im gonna scream if it turns out to be that simple...ill give it a shot... it would explain the electrical gremlins with the tach i guess, and i forgot to mention my directionals got a little wacky, and my hazards went out. not sure if it was related, but in the middle of the night on the highway, i was sure glad for that weird right directional "on " feature they left in our cars. it let me kill the headlights as not to drain the battery while trying to get it restarted again a few times, and still have some sort "hey, theres a car here" signal...
_________________
Eric
78 924
82 931 SE "smokey"
99' VehiCross
Y2K Honda Insight
http://www.cardomain.com/id/924Guy
Performance by Pasha

Smoothie · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 1:40 am Post subject:

It's an ignition-only problem fix and shouldn't have any affect on the lights.
Yeah it's less than wonderful to have to put up with the aggravation of those symptoms plus wondering what the f is going on compounded with "Will I get to where I'm going?", but still it's nice to find you don't have to perform major surgery to either the car or the wallet to fix it. I had it for a couple months in late summer-autumn '01 before I found the answer and found it through a websearch that brought me here. http://www.924board.org/viewtopic.php?t=1215
The answer was in the FAQ. It could also be a coil problem as larso found, but a few others have had the problem specifically at the ditc connector.
_________________
"..it's made in Germany. You know the Germans always make good stuff."

'82 924T, US version, dark green metallic, 5 speed Audi 016G gearbox

944s2guy · Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Posts: 143 Location: Banned

Where is the DITC located?

Smoothie · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 2:29 am Post subject:

It's mounted on the center hump behind the radio - accessible from the left side footwell. Here it is 1/3 from the bottom and 1/3 from the right with 3 connections - a vacuum line, elect connection from the crank sensor and 12 pin rectangular connector - http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/smoothies931pics/detail?.dir=/a174&.dnm=d9b6.jpg&.src=ph
_________________
"..it's made in Germany. You know the Germans always make good stuff."

'82 924T, US version, dark green metallic, 5 speed Audi 016G gearbox

Khal · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 8:51 am Post subject:

Ah, my very first problem... brings back memories!

And Smoothie posted the same fix and bugger me if he wasn't spot on

_________________
'80 924 Turbo