Project Sonny 2001 Carrera 4 Tiptronic

Guys I'm a first time poster. I started a thread on Reddit before I even knew this forum existed. I hope it is ok but I'm going to move my original posts here. Reddit doesn't have a good way to really follow a long restoration. My plan is to move each of my posts daily over the next week so everything is tracked in one place. If this is not appropriate please let me know. Below is the original post. Well I was recently gifted a 2001 C4. I guess technically I was paid to haul it off because I found $0.45 in it. It's bad, I mean really bad. Tags are from 2015 and the wife confirmed they took a trip in it and parked it under an oak tree 10 years ago. Husband got really sick shortly after and fought for 5 years and finally passed and now another 5 years later the wife was ready to let it go. She only asked me not to part it out and get it back on the road. I dead headed a trailer 1200 miles to pick this up thinking I should be able to get it running long enough to load it on a trailer. Ran when parked doesnt apply to Porsche. Luckily I was planning to be here 3 weeks for business because I'm going to need every minute of it. Also, I know zero about Porsche and never even touched one The Good: I was paid $0.45 to haul it away The Bad: Remember that Oak tree? 10 years clogged every drain and its flooded. Smells like a boat Carpets wet Fungus, Mold, Algea is growing everywhere Clear coat on side facing the sun is basically gone Drivers door will not open Front Trunk will not open Rear lid will not open I can't inspect it until I get more access Tomorrow Im having it towed somewhere I can work on it. More to come

I thought I'd take a moment and give a little back history on this car. I'm not one to respond to every comment but happy to answer questions in these updates. First about me, I'm 53 from Nebraska and have restored a bunch of cars over the years. If I've learned anything I need to stick to a budget and abandon the first moment I'm realizing the car will cost more than a daily driver value. In this case I'm valuing this car at $15k if it were in daily driver condition with workable paint so I feel like $10k is a fair budget to keep me whole. Again I know nothing about Porsche and did a lot of research and wow didn't expect an engine rebuild or replacement to come to the prices I was seeing. It's not that I'm not a Porsche fan, I just never thought I would own one as disposable income for projects was always hard to come by. Normally all my projects are sub $1000k cars or gift cars that end up highly modified, chopped up, or swapped. I would never drive this far for a car but this one felt worthwhile as there might be value in it even after the trip. I had to be in Houston anyway so technically it's only the lost fuel mileage from towing I'll be out. I can do everything from mechanical, paint and body, electrical, etc and know enough to know when it's time to bale. My parents also live here so they have offered up their garage to me for the next 3 weeks. Given my age I've had to be more selective about projects and make sure I'm not burning time for no reason. Next on the previous owner. He was a Houston Sheriff Deputy and a car enthusiast. His wife is a close friend of my Mom's and she knew I was a car lover so that's how we got connected. At the time of his passing he had 13 different sports cars and most of his collection were Corvette's though he did have a few german cars and this one was the last one he bought before getting sick so never really got any love. His wife was able to sell all the other cars and offered me this one. On the car, this is a 2001 C4 Coupe in Rainforest Green Metallic with a Tiptronic Transmission and sunroof. I was surprised to learn this is a rare color as it's really a very nice color. I pulled both a Carfax and Autocheck to see what I could gleam from it as there is no paperwork in the car other than the bill of sale. The last record is the sale to this owner and it had a recorded mileage of 187k at that time, OUCH. This was a California car that found it's way to Texas through auctions. All recorded service was done at the same dealership in California so records in both Carfax and Autocheck were pretty good but ends around 150k miles when the car went to auction. It must have been a daily driver for someone and seems to have been cared for. It ended up at a Mercedes dealership and had an engine out service. The record says new engine but I'm seriously doubting that. I know the owner drove it off the lot when purchased and he paid $11,999 at the time. It also passed smog when last registered in 2015 when parked so that gave me enough hope to come down and look at it. So goals right now are very simple. I need to be able to drive it onto my car hauler. I don't have a winch. As a last resort I'll buy one and mount it to the deck and pull it on but I'll feel much better if I hear it run and drive. Everything comes down to the engine. If the engine needs replaced then I've got some serious things to think about. It seems like the only valuable thing on the car is the motor. My focus is what I call the three basics; fuel, spark, and compression. Compression for me, is in this case, is simply getting it to crank and hope there is enough there for it to start. You will see me do things and ask, why did you clean and reuse the spark plugs, just replace them or you should have just replaced the coils while they were out. Yes very true but the focus is only get it moving enough to get it on the trailer and determine what if anything I have mechanically with the least amount of investment so I can build a plan.

Get ready for a very expensive and/or labor intensive project! This is not to say it cant be done - Of course it can!!! *** A wise man once said, "the cheapest Porsche you can buy (or tow away...), will be the most expensive Porsche you ever own" ! Good Luck - here's hoping it works out well for you.

Best of luck with your effort, my opinion is they are all worth saving if they can be saved. As you go forward don’t bite off to much at one time I would start by cleaning up the car as much as you can after sitting so long. Then determine what it would take to get it running. As having expierence restoring cars I bet you already know the pitfalls but 996 cars require a specific approach to reactivating from a long sleep. Keep posting here especially if you run into issues there is a great volume of knowledge in Rennlist members who will gladly help. Rich

Day 2 Updates I'm not going to lie today was miserable not because of the car but the heat in Houston is incredible. 102 today and no air moving. 2 showers and 3 changes of clothes later I've made my goals today. Roadside assistance came by and picked up the car from the owners home. While I was waiting I was able to get the front trunk open from the emergency cable on the front passenger side. The trunk was clean and no water intrusion but everything outside of the seal was a mess with tree crap, bugs, etc. The Porsche toolkit was in there and I'm glad I opened it as there was a tool to screw into the bumper so he could winch it up. Guy was super nice and put it right into the garage for me. When I opened the frunk there was a Bentley Manual in there and I could tell the fuel pump had been messed with. There were multiple "bookmarks" in the manual all marked to fuses, relays, and fuel pump. Guessing a minimum there was a fuel issue but I think the issue is much deeper based on some comments on another thread. Lifted the car on jacks and removed the wheels. Galvanic corrosion really had them locked to the disks but after kicking like a turtle on his back I managed to get them all off. As expected disks are rusted badly and took a minute to break them loose so it would roll. I have no clue how but the brakes are working currently so that is a win. All under belly plates are on the car and everything looks complete. Went to work on the rear engine lid. Too easy to get to the motor of a 996 without keys and a pick. Everything looks complete nothing has been bastardized. Oil level was good from dip stick but could smell gas. I suspect there was a no start condition and they thought they had a fuel issue and gave up. Running when parked? Likely not. It was clear I have to get that drivers side door open so decided to install a battery and smoke test and see what comes online. I pulled the Fuel Pump fuse just to keep it from pulling 10 year old gas and whatever crap is down there into the system. No smoke but I hear loud clicking under the drivers seat. One bit of luck the windows roll down but that seems to be the only thing working besides 400 lights on the dashboard. I choose not to even try and turn over the engine as I have plans for that. Keyfob doesn't work on the doors, switches at base of drivers door controlling the front and rear hoods do nothing. Based on everyones comments about a possibly flooded immobilizer under the seat it looks like that was the next thing to sort. I only had access to the passenger door and need to get under the drivers seat and neither seat's motors work to get to the rear bolts. I ended up removing the lower seat cushion on the passenger side which gave me access to the middle motor that controls the seat movement. Removed the motor and attached a drill to the shaft and moved it manually that way. Both passenger and drivers seat came out the passenger door wth little resistance after that. Now I see the issue and it's not small.... So apparently Porsche built a sump under the drivers seat to catch any water but instead of a pump they installed the immobilizer. To add insult to injury someone has installed a aftermarket alarm system down there also and the clicking is coming from that. Leave your sunroof open in the rain, bricked. Leave your window open in the rain, bricked. Don't check the sunroof drains and they get clogged, bricked. I get what you guys are saying. This could be a show stopper. That's a tonight problem, right now need to get the drivers door open. With the seat out, it was easy work removing the door card. I took apart the passenger side just to see how it all worked and repeated it on the drivers side and was able to pop the latch. Someone has already been in there as the weather proof membrane was pulled away at the latch. Not the easiest way to get a door open but not hard either. The immobilizer is going to be a major issue I think. This car is likely bricked but i have a few tricks up my sleeve to try. I hooked the battery back up and scanned the system. Luckily both the ECU and Immobilizer are responding. I'm getting live data from the motor sensors like coolant temps, air temp, etc. so that is positive. This gives me some hope the security keys are still in working order between the units. ECU has no codes but the Immobilizer has 10 and some of them look pretty ugly. I stored these for future reference and cleared codes and it responded successful. It appears the immobilizer only flooded on one side as it sits unlevel under the seat. The right thing to do is pull the ECU, Immobilizer, and keys and ship to ECUDoctors but I honestly don't have time for that if I want this to run before I leave. I forgot to mention I'm Robotics Engineer with experience on embedded control systems. So the Immobilizer is currently in a bath of Isopropol Alcohol and getting scrubbed every hour and maybe the relays will loosen up. I'll then go to town on it tonight with a magnifying glass and clean up any potential shorts then into my Mom's oven to reflow and evaporate any remaining Iso and finally a good spray of contact cleaner and cleaning of the plugs that go into it. This is a hail mary attempt to get it going. Guys honestly you really should not try this as the chance of success here is extremely low but I don't know anything about Porsche and nobody has told me not to try so here we go. Plan for Day 3 We need to attack fuel and compression next while I'm sorting the electronics. Remove fuel pump and sending unit, drain and clean the tank. Drain the oil, checking for water and get a sample to send off to Blackstone Labs. Cut filter open and check for debris. Remove coils and plugs and see how it was last running. Clean plugs for reinstallation at a later date. Finalize the Immobilizer and prep it for reinstall. I did want to address one thing. Several have mentioned not to turn over the motor since the cylinders are Nikasil and Aluminum. Again I don't have any experience on Porsche and can understand why people have this opinion. Although I've never worked on a Porsche I have had a lot of experience with aluminum cylinders and Nikasil plating. I spent a good amount of time repairing and restoring high performance Enduro and Motorcross bikes. Strangely enough this is the same way most of these motors are built. I've been in a lot of Chevy and Ford engines that are rusted, I've never been in a Nikasil engine that has ever had corrosion. My theory here is simple, aluminum doesn't oxidize unless it's exposed to air and the Nikasil plating keeps it from being exposed to air. I have seen steel rings damaged in these if a lot of moisture has been in them. Motocross and Enduro bikes are run and stored in way tougher environments and several have come out of fields with no ill effects. Looking over the design I can't see a way water can get into the cylinder unless there is already a cracked head, humidity is another thing altogether. Also the same process required to remove the piston is the identical process that would damage the lining anyway as the piston has to be pushed through the cylinder to get it out and what likely will scratch the cylinder is corrosion on the rings which you can't see. This is a high mileage motor and there is likely some type of bore scoring or wear going on anyway. In a normal motor I would flood the cylinder with Marvels Mystery and Seafoam and let it sit a for a day then fill it up again. Unfortunately, this motor is horizontal and there is no way to fill the cylinder to get to the topside of the rings so I need to find something that creeps. I've used Kroil on rifles to break up carbon deposits and corrosion, it's a little thicker and in aerosol format and will creep uphill in gaps so I'm going to squirt that in there a couple of times a day for a couple of days and let it work the rings and cylinders. The final day I will use a marine engine fogging solution that should stick nicely to the walls of the cylinder and provide lubrication then try and turn it over by hand from the pulley feeling for any resistance or stuck lifters etc before putting the beans to it. When it does fire up it will smoke worse than getting out of a car with Cheech and Chong but is the safest way to start a motor that has been sitting a long time. I'm likely to take some flaming here but I can blame the lack of knowledge on Porsche if it fails miserably. So far I have nothing to lose. Car was free and I have zero dollars in it.

Well, that astounding price of $.45 is probably a record somewhere. It certainly doesn't fit the RL thread "Prices Keep Drifting Up".... I suggest getting the "Porsche 911 (Type 996) Service Manual 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005: Carrera, Carrera 4, Carrera 4s" By Bentley Publishers. Various folks have it, not cheap, ~$130 or so IIRC. It isn't the absolute "Greatest", but it can be a good start point and better than nothing. If really "serious", get a Durametric Diagnostic Tool. It reads what P-computers are "saying/finding" and can help diagnose problems. Not cheap either, and needs a laptop to make it work on a screen. New battery and clean electric posts. Do the Clean & Dry-Out car stuff first. See if lights and things actually work B4 trying the engine. Drain engine oil, get new filter, take off sump and see what is there. Maybe the "oil" comes out or it is like pudding or something. Inspect pan & cut-open filter to see if "crap" is there. Identify magnetic, non-magnetic, materials, and colors of anything you find. Write it down. Various colors go to specific things. Perhaps save/get oil sample and send it to Blackstone to get a test of what is in it. Look at RL threads and learn the major failure points of 996 5-chain engine. -- Water Pump, Low Temp Thermostat, RMS, Coolant Reservoir, Junk in front radiators, etc. Be prepared for rubber and plastic hoses (like oil fill pipe) to break if you are not careful. Fix this or that as you see it. Get parts from FCP or Pelican or what you find is in budget. Some aftermarket parts are fine, or exact match of P-$$$-parts, (like Bosch, Beru) and lower cost. Some others are bad right off the bat - Chinese switches, URO Filter housing (or used to be). and so on. On 1st startup, disconnect fuel pump - you just want new oil to get where it is supposed to be. Ask questions on RL or possible Porsche Club America folks, they may be able to help you with a specific problem. Good Luck. You are probably going to need it. cheers. YMMV

Thanks for all of this! I got lucky and the Bentley Manual was in the car! I mistook it for a Chilton as it had the same colors but had never seen a Chilton in hardback so I looked closer and saw it was a Bentley. Today's post will have some good updates. Thanks for following!

Wow what a great project. If you have time on your side and space to work on it, this could be a great fun project! Yes, it'll need a bunch of things but you can find everything needed either here or other forms (Ebay, FB Marketplaces) for pennies the dollar in some cases. I would start by removing the seats and looking at the ECU under the driver side seat. Drop the oil, drain the gas, replace the brake fluid and antiFreeze first. As long as your under there do the plugs and eye ball the belts. All those items are fairly cheap and you can do yourself.

Day 3 Updates Lots of updates today. Still going backwards a little but I think today is the last day of that. Pulled the sending unit and fuel pump. Yeah that was a complete mess. Both pump wires were stripped bare of insulation and just copper wire in there. It looks like someone had been in there and used a bunch of screw clamps and put in some regular fuel line hose in there. Everything was bad including all the accordion fuel hoses that ran to different places including down into the saddle tanks. I was able to pull 10 gallons out of the tank and all the junk that was broken and laying in the bottom of each tank. I then used a mop head to clean the bottom of the tank. Checking the prices for fuel pumps for a C4 and it's actually crazy. Until I know the engine works I'm not spending $1400 on a fuel pump, sending unit, and gasket. I've ordered a $50 closeout Continental pump for a C2 from Rock Auto for testing along with the gasket. Unfortunately I'll only have access to about half the tank with the C2 pump but will give me a chance to see if the motor is good. I'll use the fuel sending unit I have but use only the top part and remove the lower section that had the float. Everything should be here in a couple of days. Photo is of the mess I was dealing with. The case is so bad and brittle there is no way to save it and install another pump motor. Along with the fuel tank cleaning I've also flushed the pressure and return fuel lines and installed a new fuel filter. Everything from the tank to the fuel rail should be clean at this point. I'm not going to worry about the fuel rails as it looks like I might need to lower the motor to clean them out. The fuel in the lines was bad but no garbage in them. I expect the rails to be the same. When it's time to start it I'll use a little starting fluid to help ignition on the bad fuel from the rails until it can idle itself. I drained the oil and caught a sample to send off tomorrow to Blackstone Labs for analysis. Hopefully it gives me some useful information of how the engine was prior to me working on it. If I get it running I'll do another after some miles and compare. Removed the oil filter and cut the ends off an laid it out. I was actually very surprised to see that there was no metal in the pleats. I fully expected to see some fine dusting in it but it was clean. I did find maybe 5 carbon flakes and also what appears to be a few specks of dark brown plastic. It looks very similar to timing chain guide rail particles I've seen on some 4 cylinder cars with VVT engines. I'll keep an eye on it. New oil and filter went in. Next up I removed the coils and plugs. You guys should have warned me about the top bolt on the cylinder 4 coil. Maybe I don't know the trick but 1/4 turn movements took forever. I bet money there are lot 996's with that bolt missing due to mechanics not wanting to put it back in I'll never complain about changing a Cylinder 8 plug on an LS. If you know you know. I then squirted kroil into the all cylinders twice today. Once eariy and then later in the day. On the plugs, it was running richer than Elon's baby Mama's. Given how long it was sitting it's hard to say if they are oil foiled. All were identical and none looked different than the others. Also for anyone interested coils and plugs were all Beru. Never heard of the brand but looks like an OEM product. Now the immobilizer. I spent a few hours last night cleaning it in Iso and scrubbing and finally reflow in the oven. I then spent a few hours with a magnifying glass going over the entire board looking for corrosion, shorts and anything that might have looked blown. Other than corrosion gapping some areas everything looked really good. I cleaned up everything with a pick that looked suspect. I got everything back together and in the car and ran a test today. I'm happy to report that more things are now working. Doors now lock and unlock from a button on the dash which did nothing before. The passenger side door now lowers the window slightly when the handle is pulled up and the drivers door activates the locks when you pull the inside handle. Unfortunately I still have the same issue with the drivers door not opening. Something in the lock is not clearing correctly after the lock is unlocked either manually from the key or the electric locks. No worries easy fix with a new latch but that's an issue for another day. I also noticed the lights on the sunroof panel were lit. I have no clue if they were before. The one thing that is not working are both keyfobs unlocking the doors from the button. I suspect the security key has gotten out of sync. I need to research it but it's not an issue for me currently other than the fear the immobilizer is not recognizing the keys. I have no clue if it will crank or activate the coils yet which will be the test for the security system. Until I can get the rings soaked for a couple of days I don't want to risk cranking anything. The first cranks will be with plugs out and by hand then will need to crank the kroil out of the plug holes. Thursday should be our first shot at that test. This is still an open item that can hang us up but a zero dollar fix if it works.

So today was pretty low key. I think I have a good understanding of what is not working and needs to be replaced. The immobilizer is still the largest question mark. it will either work or not but will not know until I can crank the engine. I'm pretty well stuck waiting on the Kroil to do it's magic on the cylinders and rings until tomorrow. Fuel pump is on it's way but will not be here tomorrow so we likely will need to start it from starting fluid just as a quick check and see if we get it to start. This will at least confirm the immobilizer is good or not. I'll try and capture live data for the few seconds it's running (hopefully optimistic it will start) Here is what I got done today. Worked on validating some key electrical items. Tested some key relays related to must have systems to start it like the fuel pump and radiator fans. validated voltage to the fuel pump connector by bypassing the relay. This one threw me for a loop. Normally a car will prime the pump for a few seconds when the key is in the on position. Looks like the Porsche requires RPM either by cranking or start condition to apply voltage to the fuel pump. checked all fuses cleaned a bunch of connectors with contact cleaner (DME, Mass Airflow, all coil connectors, fuel pump, etc) I had two oil leaks. One from the bolt for the cam tensioner. It was loose so retorqued to 59ftlbs and the leak is solved. The sump was also leaking. I retorqued the bolts but it needs a gasket. It's damp and not dripping fluid. No oil is coming down higher than the sump plate. When I get this home I'll remove the sump plate anyway as part of my full inspection so no big deal. Put more kroil into the cylinders. Photo today is from the fuel tank cleanup. It was bad. That is the float from the fuel sending unit I found in there. Look at all that debris. That doesn't include all the broken tubes i was able to pull out manually. I think this is everything. For this being my first Porsche I have some observations. I've never seen a car that has taken so much water for so long with zero rust. I've not found any rust. I haven't pulled the carpet out but looking under the seats in the exposed areas and lifting the carpet to look back in the wet areas there is no rust. IDK what kind of paint or sealant they used but it must have come from submarines. Also, the body panel gaps are so perfect. I've seen brand new cars that don't have panel gaps as uniform as this car. The car is solid and fit and finish is really good. The doors are very satisfying to close. Like an old 80's Oldsmobile Delta 88. The car is incredibly simple mechanically but heavy on electronics. They really stufed a lot of engine back there. Not a lot of room to work back there but simple. I think for 2001 it was very modern. I've worked on many newer vehicles that are much more difficult mechanically and electrically. I guess I say all this because I'm impressed with the engineering around it.

Very nice work. Great planning before touching anything. It looks like you�ve hit all the major points. Any evidence of rodents or damage from them? Can you get a borescope? As you hand crank the engine, you could take a look at the cylinders. Certainly not required, and not conclusive, but would be more information. Its lookin pretty good from your posts. Continued good luck!

Just a note - these engines don't have nikasil cylinders unless they have been rebored and replated. They have either alusil or lokasil plating which is not very durable. I feel your pain on stuck rings; I had a Honda 650 bike that had the rings seized to the cylinders so badly I had to beat the pistons out with a sledgehammer.

Quotes source post: 20758119

Keep in mind the major weak point in 996 are its lokasil cylinders (and defective lubrication system for a sports car pulling 1 g). Rebuilt engines cylinders are fitted with aluminum nikasil sleeves in all proper rebuilds. Some have used iron sleeves with some success and much failure. Good luck with your record low cost 996, its a great project.

Quotes source post: 20757035

Oh boy, I concur. 10.5k for the car, everything good. 3 weeks later the bottom fell out. Rear axles replaced, sunroof inoperable, CEL, and some internal electric issues that cropped up. I'm restoring mine to original specifications. Currently I'm about 6k over budget due to the unexpected issues. I have roughly 40k in it. Other than the CEL, I will be good next week after the sunroof cassette is replaced and just drive it. I am now, but I bent the throttle cable and it sticks once the pedal is pushed so far. Cables on order and it's drivable

No rodents have been in the car that I can tell. Just a ton of water. I honestly don't know if one is worse than the other. I suppose with water you are not going to have chewed up wires in inaccessible places so that is a plus. I have a borescope with an articulating camera. I purposefully left 2 things at home on this trip, the borescope and my trailer winch. Since the car was free I really wanted to drive it onto the trailer. Both would get in the way of that I have found that the borescope is great but will have you second guessing cranking an engine you likely will end up cranking anyway and if I brought my winch I knew I might take that option and just bring it home. Thanks for following

Quotes source post: 20762901

I did some more reseach and yes I learned something new for sure. Thanks for following!

Quotes source post: 20763035

Thanks so much for all the great information. This was extremely helpful for me. Thanks for following!

Once you are ready to crank and start, Jake Raby of flat 6 innovations fame has found that oil pressure is built up quickest by: -NOT prefilling the oil filter -start the engine and once it catches, switch it off. -repeat until you see pressure building on the oil presssure gauge in the instrument cluster. -start and run engine, select first gear pulling the gear selector/steering wheel buttons and drive off immediately to get it up to temp quickly and thus limit the fuel enrichment regimen on a cold engine to the shortest time necessary. -keep revs between 2k and 3k rpm by changing gear manually. -oil temp follows coolant temp pretty closely/simultaneously up until coolant is at 180F, so use that as an indicator for.oil temp. My personal advice: if you can't drive then keep revs at/above 1500rpm to keep load on the cam lobes low and get the engine up to operating temp (if you must) by blipping the throttle. .