New to the board and with an odd issue

[993innc]

I picked up an '02 today (well actually a month ago but just took delivery) and it's got a strange thing happening, hoping someone else has experienced this before and can point me in the right direction.

The car sat for at least 2 years, battery was dead(er) than dead! We hooked a jump up to it and it seems the interior blower wants to blow on high but out of no specific location. On top of that, the CCU screen isn't on, the radio doesn't come on..........all is dead accept the silly blower......related? Any obvious things to play with? I haven't dove into the car yet so haven't check fuses etc.....but this seems a bit more odd than just fuses.

When the jump box died, we hooked up a real dealership diagnostic charger/jumper and in the start assist mode I did see the CCU screens flickering with the voltage, so not sure what that means either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. All of my Pcars are oil pumpers, this is my first water pumper. Going to make it track beater so if the electrical stuff is too big of a pain, I'll not worry about it, but it would be nice to have AC on those hot southern track days!

TIA

[stephen wilson]

You bought a car you didn't hear run? Well, start by charging or replacing the battery, then see where you are.

[Steve Tinker]

stephen is correct - if the battery has stood for 2 years, its never going to recover and the Boxster electrical systems are very dependent on a good steady state voltage.

Replace the old battery (don't even bother trying to resurrect it or connect a good battery to it), switch on the ignition for 1 minute (without starting the engine), switch off ignition for 30 seconds and then start the car. This procedure lets the ECU adapt to its base settings.

If possible, hook up a scanner (Durametric if possible) and read the fault codes.

[993innc]

Yes, a deal worth not passing up. I knew it may have motor issues when I bought it. Also bought a hard top from a very nice guy on here last weekend.

On a positive note, the car was supposed to need a new motor claimed the seller (or maybe the repair facility). I've drained the oil, no metal flakes. Motor flushed and drained, no metal flakes. All that appears to be wrong is the cam position sensor bank one is reading faulty. If that's all that's wrong with the engine on this car, I just scored the deal of a century!!!! Crossing my fingers.....

Back to my issue, its not the battery, we put a fresh one in, made no difference.

[Steve Tinker]

The other thing that causes many electrical issues (assuming all the fuses are OK) is a faulty ignition switch. If you use the search function for ignition switch you will see many instances of electrical failures.....

[993innc]

Thanks Steve I look into it.

[dagdisco03]

I think we need more info on what the deal was with the car to figure out what is wrong. Is this a flooded storm sandy car based on your location. Does the motor start or even turn over? Hard to tell from what you said other then just poured oil through to see what flushed out of a cold engine?

[993innc]

Yes Dag, the motor started albeit difficult. After the first attempt to start and realizing we had fire in the hole, we proceeded to put five gallons of 93 octane and 110 leaded race gas into the tank. The fuel level was low to start so we didn't bother draining the old, just tried to give a kick in the pants to the old.
It started but spun over for quite some time before catching. It idled rough for a few minutes with me working the gas pedal like a kick tom on a drum set
Finally ran long enough to idle by itself, sounded like 5 out of six cyl's running then smoothed out for a while and actually ran to redline on a rev or two, but just didn't want to run well. The check engine light was on so we read the codes and found only one....... an 0300 (or something like that), but was registering a bad cam position sensor. It went into "limp mode" one time, so we cleared the code and it fired up again but only to run rough.......I imagine the cam sensor has something to do with it.

When it ran smooth (at 2k rpm) everyone around thought it sounded pretty good. There wasn't any metal chunks in the oil just typical very faint bearing material. My buddy's friend who is apparently an oil analyst for Pennsoil happened to show up and thought everything looked good. We got the motor to operating temps, waited for the fan to kick on and shut it down to drain the new oil and motor flush. It too looked clean, but dark and mildly muddy from the left over sludge in the system
I did though find a few large pieces of something wedged out of the way in the pan once I got the car home and had it on the lift. A little worrisome, to find chunks this large but again, the old oil nor the new had any fragments floating in it, so I'm thinking this could be a random piece of anyone's guess what.

I don't think it's a flood car, no carfax record of it anyway. The headlights work, top works fine, dash display seems ok, power locks etc work and the ignition key isn't tight and seemed to work fine but I have a new switch electrical portion of the switch coming tomorrow to replace it. Figure I'll start with the easy, work out from there.

So...........I think that covers the big items. Thoughts as to why the blower motor works non stop with no display on the CCU and no radio at all?

[jsceash]

I believe you said all the fuses were OK but did you pull out the radio. There is a fuse in the back side of the radio you can't get to with out pulling the radio. You will need the little radio tools to pull it or take it to a Indy or P garage.

[993innc]

Did not pull or check fuses simply because it seemed like a non fuse issue and I saw the displays twitch when we put a "boost to start" charger on the car before replacing the battery. There's something weird going on that I'm hoping the ignition switch takes care of. If not my back up is that someone here has experienced similar and can point me in the right direction.

[RawleyD]

Sounds like a fun project, good luck with it!

[dghii]

Don't want to jump the gun and get you looking in the wrong direction but these cars will do weird things due to bad ignition switches. A/C, lights, locks, radio, fan...all sorts of seemingly random stuff, all due to a bad $15 part.

[993innc]

Well that's what the general consensus seems to point to and I'm having no CCU or radio, so......
The switch and other parts should be to me tomorrow, here's hoping for something simple
The car will be a track beater so I don't really care thaaaat much about CCu and a radio, but I don't need one problem leading to other, especially while on track!

I'll post what I find when I'm done, maybe it will help others.....

[993innc]

So..........................

I finally had to throw in the towel (ran out of time and patience).
Took the car to the shop (indy) and as was divulged to me upon purchase, the motor is bad.
More specifically, the IMS shaft is bad, the bank two intake cam was not spinning due to the sproket spinning on the shaft and was why the codes for misfire were being thrown.

Looks like I'm going to buy a used motor, replace the bearing and call it a day.

Was hoping the PO was wrong, but apparently not and it's time to pony up. Going to call Porsche since I can't get docs from the PO and see if it was diagnosed before the time frame for the CA suit was up, see if I can get reimbursed under the suit. The car sat after being diagnosed and was done so within 10 years and 130k miles. We'll see...........

[993innc]

So here's the car, finally running. Spent quite a bit with the Indy getting the motor put in, new bearing, water pump, under drive pulley and clutch. But it's finally done and with a couple more items I can get to the track while the motor is under warranty.

Got a steal of a deal on the motor and so far it's turned out to be in good shape. Huge miles on it and with the original bearing! Pulls strong so far with race fuel, can't wait to really open it up on track!