Worried about new AirVent(snork) Whistling Noise!

Guys, After taking a friend out for a spin in the Cayman yesterday the car suddenly lost power whilst accelerating, then after changing up several gears, I noticed an exagerrated whistling noise from behind me (engine area). It is the same as the normal sound that we get when you hear a gush of air for a brief moment when you accelerate, except that it is much more pronounced and a lot louder. I drove for a few more miles accelerating and de-accelerating on my way home to see if there was a difference in the sound and if it would go away and it still sounded the same, in fact there was a constant whistling aswell which got louder as I accelerated. When I got home, I took a look at the air vent (snork) on my side of the car (drivers - UK car) and noticed that behind the air vent there was a missing section (almost like it had de-snorked itself) and there was a whole lot of heat coming out of the vent, even though the car had not over-heated (according to car instrument panel!) When I drove the car I didn't notice any rattling or a sound apart from the whistling and the original loss of power, but when looking in side the air vent grill there was clearlya missing chunk of black plastic. Please note this isn't the snork / air-vent that would normally have a blanking plate. I'm a bit worried about driving it at the moment incase I damage something, but apart from the whistling the car seems ok even though I've noticed the excess heat from the vent when I park-up.. - Has anyone had any similar experiences or does anyone know anything about what this maybe?? especially the guys who desnorked the snork / air-vent on the other side of the car. Thank you... Edited by - sjagota on 07/01/2006 7:40:13 PM Edited by - sjagota on 07/01/2006 7:43:13 PM

i am confused...one side is the intake and the other side is the air exit. intake has restrictor plate and air exit side has no plate. are you saying you did NOT do the de-snorked mod on the intake and a piece is still missing from the intake? because if you are referring to the air exit side...there was never a plate.

There is no plate on the engine venting side (driver's side in the UK), simply a fan up in there that you can see if you get down and look up the tube. Maybe your fan has encountered a problem and is making a noise, but heat coming out of there is normal. Nothing with that vent should affect driveability so I suspect if you have a driveability issue such as a loss of power it is being caused by something else. Could have even been just some bad gas, hard to say really.

Thanks for the feedback, but I think it's more serious because when detailing the car in the past I've noticed the difference between both vents, but when I look at the drivers side vent now, there seems to be an outline of where the dissapearing piece of the venting side used to be and the heat that comes out is pretty excessive compared to normal. The only thing I'm worried about until I can get it to an OPC is if the excessive heat will melt the exterior fin-like grill on the vent. It brings a whole new meaning to 'whistling when I drive!'

sjaqota - call Porche Assist if you are concerned and they will take it to theOPC FOC. On a warm day even in England there is alot of hot air blown out of the exit vent on thedriversside of my Cayman (RHD)once you stop and if you keep the engine running

Thank you ok will do that and will try and take a piccy aswell. I love the sound of the whoosh when you accelerate and I've always heard the fan sounding like a harrier jump-jet, it is the whistling sound that I can hear in the cabin now that wasn't there before and even though there was no blanking plate, there was a black funnel shaped area in that vent which has now disappeared. It's all new to me as I've had the car for over 6 months now - I'll take it to the OPC tomorrow and report the findings. It sounds like a kind of muffling device has broken.