Dan,

The 'potted' silver Permatune boxes don't whistle, at least not without a stethoscope!

I suggest a test of the Permatune and coil ... out of the car on the bench as I originally posted! It would be nice to rule out the Permatune ... if possible.

I got the permatune out and opened it up, suprisingly it is not potted. The 3 pin connector inside is loose but all the wires in the unit seem fine and nothing is burnt or corroded.

It lives! turns out it was a bad connection in the cds box, repaired it and it fired right up. Thanks to everyone who posted to this thread I hope it helps a lot of other people as well.

I gotta go work on my porsche now ! thanks alot!

Dan,

Glad to hear the good news!

I love a happy ending! Back last year ... a guy had a potted 3-pin Permatune doing the NO-OP thing, and happened to be using a test lamp on the trigger input while cranking ... and suddenly it fired to life, took off test lamp, it instantly died! Repeat test, same results!!! He posted the mystery here, and I immediately knew he had a broken connection inside to the 100 Ohm pullup resistor. He was able to mount another 100 Ohm resistor externally, and the NO-OP Permatune was resurrected!

Oh yeah actually I read that post not too long before I posted my questions here. You wouldn't know too much about MFI would you? Thats my next hurdle I think. Well after I do a compression check anyway. I somehow doubt this 30 year old motor will have much left but then again I'm suprised it even runs. I'll keep my fingers crossed.