Need help...again.

Tech and talk about all 16 valve 944 and 968 Cars
Mark802
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:11 pm
The car is a '91 S2 with 116K miles on it. I had posted before about weird running and actually thought that I'd fixed it because it ran fine for months, but now it's acting up again. So the other day, I set out to drive it and it wouldn't run for beans. It kept dying as soon as I let out the clutch. I got so disgusted, I pushed it back in the garage for another time.
So a week later I decided to look at it again. I warmed the car up to the first tick on the temperature gauge, because the last time I drove it from cold, it hardly ran, so I wanted to see if warming it up would make a difference. It was ticking over fine, took revs fine when I hit the throttle, everything seemed fine so I turned it off. Came back about 10-15 minutes later, it started right up, idled perfectly, took revs fine, all good. Backed out of my driveway and went to a store about 5 miles away. Again, switched it off, was gone about 20 minutes, returned, and the car did everything perfectly. Headed out of the parking lot, went about 200 yards and turned into a residential area and when I went for the throttle, instead of revs increasing they dropped to zero completely ignoring the throttle. Stopped the car, cycled the ignition and it started right up, idled fine, then I put it in gear and started to go and it died again. Coasted to the curb, turned the ignition off, waited about a minute, started it again and drove 5 miles home working perfectly. What the hell is going on?

#1

Petethepug
Posts: 58
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2025 6:00 pm
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 17 times
Ew boy. Could be so many things. Smells like a continuity or ground issue. Hall sensor or it’s harness comes to mind too.

#2

User avatar
Tom
Site Admin
Posts: 8908
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2021 2:04 pm
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Has thanked: 930 times
Been thanked: 3984 times
Contact:
Have you tried bypassing the DME relay?

The fact that it dies when you give it gas sometime leans away from the relay a little, but on most 944's the relay is a very common cause of no starts and intermittent dying. Try the bypass and see if the issue goes away....

https://www.carpokes.com/app.php/944-dm ... and-bypass

#3

User avatar
walfreyydo
Posts: 133
Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2024 7:28 am
Location: Wisconsin
Has thanked: 28 times
Been thanked: 57 times
Contact:
89 S2 Variocam, Megasquirt DIYPNP
Garage

#4

User avatar
danmartinic
Posts: 283
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2021 2:11 pm
Has thanked: 21 times
Been thanked: 36 times
Open your ECU / DME and look for these little lines

IMG_9458.JPG
IMG_9458.JPG (258.46 KiB) Viewed 92 times

Touch a hot solder-tipped iron to all of them

#5

Post Reply