200 Miles so far since last Friday. She positively screams!
I took a trip across the bay to visit the CIS guru I've mentioned before. We spent a couple of hours shooting the poo and tinkering with my tuning. He replaced my WUR with the correct one for my engine and eliminated some strange electro-mechanical switch (emissions related?) in-line w/ the WUR's vacuum. We checked my throttle plate height, then checked the timing (was actually very good). Then he set the idle & mixture.
A little drive and she's running beautifully, by the time I got home though I try to re-start and not happening until I up those idle and mixture screws again?! I'm chasing a couple of things here and going round and round, but I'll get it (the possible list gets narrower all the time) and at least I don't have to lift the engine lid to start each time anymore.
I've officially broken my arm patting myself on the back. As of last night I have a running, functional automobile once again!
In the interest of documentation and transparency: My Duh! moments seem to continue. I had my brand new, non-crud-filled gas tank in, battery (that has been carefully cycled and maintained these last 6 months) placed and all connections double checked and then proceeded to gently turn the key.
Well it's cranking but no sign of real life, I smell gas, so check, I have everything re-wired the way it was (photo checked) 6 months ago so? Begin aggravation..... No, stop, look at everything again. Hmm....that's odd, the plug wire on the #1 spot is going to the wrong end of the engine. Ok Dumbass, look at all of them again (I only had 1 and 3 switched but that was enough).
Now I get a cough, begin to dial back the mixture till the coughs get stronger, keep going and vroom, my baby is purring again! Oh wow, and it's smooth too. I did have an odd distinct whistle (that I took to be a vacuum leak) but a call to my recent Porsche whisperer teacher instantly suggested that was an open port for the power brakes that my car doesn't have. Plug that (then reset my mixture and idle) and suwheet!
Then #2 DA move of the week. I discovered this one last week but hadn't dealt with it yet. I didn't think about the clutch fork when I slipped the engine in. Therefore I had trapped it back doing nothing. I started to put her away as it was 5pm and time to get the munchkin but I was way too excited about an operable machine this close. So I pulled the engine enough to properly align that fork and put it back in.
It's amazing how you learn all these little things along the way and [hopefully] don't have to repeat them.
Not only have I solved all the funky noises but as of last night re-starting the car after several hours and dead cold was an instant twist of the key affair (like it's supposed to be) I'll do yet another happy dance if that holds true after 24 hours of sitting there (like it's supposed to do) as I have never in my ownership of this car gotten it to restart after more than 1/2 hour w/o opening the decklid and tickling the throttle plate.
I found out today that I have the uber-rare, 1 of 1 1975 Porsche Targa Seville Edition. Boy if I didn't like this car so much I'd put it on ebay and collect my millions and buy a new project.
I discovered this while removing the last vestiges of the old aftermarket A/C unit that once resided in my car. I really want to have A/C in this car but something tells me this one "Made in the USA for Volkswagen" unit isn't going to be a great starting point. I'll hang onto it in case I'm wrong and have it tested.
I have been avoiding touching this for 3 years now, but faced with mounting evidence that my fuel tank was well and truly FUBAR, and being unwilling to screw up all my hard work from the last 5-6 months.... I managed to overcome excitement (and laziness) and take a peek inside the tank.
So then I fought back more laziness and took the tank out of the car.
Dammit all to hell.....
I've seen where people cut holes in these things and cleaned out all the junk and re-welded them. I've also read there is a special plastic "swirl pot" inside around that oh so pretty fuel filter of mine that can be damaged by the usual, take it to a radiator shop and have it boiled approach.
This was all too much to go through when I found disturbing amounts of rust on something that would just LOVE to catch fire.
So for ~$500 I ordered a new one. Hoping to put a few gallons of fresh premium in a shiny new tank this weekend and hear this bastard vroom.
Today was a good day, happily the fears of last week where I reported I had goofed and thought I messed up my flywheel were unfounded. I simply broke a couple of bolts.
Yet another order for a couple of special bolts and we are good to go.
I mounted the clutch, oil cooler & crossover pipe and it was time to re-introduce my engine to it's rightful place.
Check me out :D I need to address a gas tank issue (I found evidence of serious crud that I'd rather not have foul my new FI bits), get 10 new quarts of oil & check a couple of connections and we see if all this work was worth the trouble.
