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Old 10-10-2019, 06:20 PM   #1
bg305
01 Seal Gray 986 S
 
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Join Date: Sep 2019
Posts: 167
2001 S idle issues / hesitation when warm

Hi all,

This is my first real post, I just bought a 2001 Seal Gray Boxster S and after about 150 miles have run into my first issue.

The short story:
Have driven it about 150 or so miles in the just over a week I have had it. Everything was going great until today when in passing a garbage truck ~5500rpm in second gear I noticed a sudden drop in power. I gingerly drove on and noticed the motor seemed to be hesitating. Went about a mile to the next stop light and it stalled when I put the clutch in as I rolled to a stop. I waited 10 seconds or so, and started it. It started without much fuss but continued to drive ruff. No lights on the dash. I was not far from home and got it back taking it slow, the hesitation stayed the rest of the journey (2-3 miles). I would definitely say the car was 'limping' but there were no violent shakes of the engine or anything like that. The top was down, I did not see or smell anything out of place. I have a OBDII scanner which I attached and it reported no codes or freeze frame data. (it only reads the generic codes on the Porsche)

So I did some searching and found lots of threads talking about the MAF, oil filter, and ground points. I had to replace the reverse light switch to pass inspection, so I tried pulling the battery while doing it. I cleaned the terminals with a bit of sand paper and cleaned up a ground above the engine I found a reference to in another thread. When I was done with the reverse light switch I reconnected the battery and turned the key to run and left it there for a couple of minutes, then I turned it back to off and let it there for more then 10 seconds (I believe I read this was the procedure to get the computer to relearn?). I started it and everything seemed great. It started up no hesitation and kicked down to a nice even idle after a bit. I decided to take it out for a quick drive to see how it was doing. I did not push it hard, most of the time staying below 4k rpm. I did a couple of light pulls ~4500 / 5k shifts later in the drive and started to notice that the engine would "almost" stall if i pushed the clutch in. The rpms would fall to about 400-500 then pop back up to 1k or so and then find an idle ~600rpm. After about 3-4 miles I did notice that it felt like it had less power in low rpms (<3k or so). There was no stalls while driving and the power loss was not nearly as bad as the earlier drive.

When I got back in the garage I shut it off for a minute or so and then tried restarting it. The idle became very erratic and it eventually stalled. I did it again (this time taking a video see link) and it hunted less, and did not stall.

Link: https://youtu.be/vLHhLmebIWo

Note: the last rev around 25 seconds in is me moving the car up in the garage. Everything before that, my foot is not touching the gas and the engine is warm.

Plan:
I ordered an oil filter, replacement air filter, and MAF cleaner. going to change these items / clean them when i get them over the next week.
I was reading you can disconnect the MAF and see if the problem goes away to test it?

I am thinking it might be the MAF??? thoughts? I was also reading about a relay for the computer possibly being a culprit.

Thank you in advance!
-Brian
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