[aneal000]

Hey everyone! Long time Porsche fan, used to own a beautiful 1969 912 years ago. Been doing the BMW thing for a while but had an opportunity to pick up a 1998 Boxster 2.5 Tiptronic today with 80k miles and what the owner described as having a "blown engine" per the dealer. I'm fairly mechanical but have never done a complete engine swap. I've been lurking on this site for a couple of weeks now and reading everything I can get my hands on including all of the 101Projects on Pelican parts. The car is in incredible condition, extremely clean and well taken care of. Original owner, never in the rain or snow and it shows! So here is the down-low:

Per the previous owner: he left his house one morning and a block up the street the check engine light comes on and it starts running really rough. He drives it back home and calls the dealer (Plaza Porsche in St. Louis) they come pick it up and diagnose it as internal engine damage and the owner says no thanks, just bring in back. They delivered it back to his house. He claims after they unloaded it off the flatbed they actually drove it into his garage, still running rough of course, but it started and ran. This was roughly August of 2011. It has been sitting in his garage every since.

He provided me the invoice from Plaza which states what they did, which follows: "CAR CAME IN AND CHECK ENGINE LIGHT WAS ON AND FLASHING, CAR WAS RUNNING ROUGH, CHECKED FAULTS IN SYSTEM AND FOUND 2, MISFIRES ON CYLINDER 3 AND O2 SENSOR, REPLACED #3 IGNITION COIL AND 02 SENSOR, CAR STILL RAN ROUGH, NOT ALL CYLINDERS FIRING, PULLED ALL SPARK PLUGS AND PERFORMED COMPRESSION TEST FOUND CYLINDER 3 WITH LEAKAGE, INTERNAL ENGINE DAMAGE, CLIENT ADVISED AND TOWED CAR OUT OF SERVICE"

So almost 3 years later I pick it up today and put a new battery in, everything electronically works and for fun I tried starting. It cranked fine and fired up but only runs for a second or two (roughly) then dies. Granted the gas is very old and so is everything else that has been sitting for 3 years. I checked the oil on the dipstick and it looked very clean with no signs of metal or coolant. I am hopeful that someone can point me in a direction. I was planning on doing my own compression test of the cylinders but wanted to throw this out to you guys as I've read some impressive threads on here where you guys have seen almost everything. So any thoughts you might have or suggestions of things to try (before I start pulling the engine and buying another off of ebay) would be greatly appreciated! Thanks - great site!

Tony