First valve adjustment on 82 911 SC..wow not good yet
 

Just did my first tune-up-valve adjustment on my recent 911 SC purchase...at least I thought I did?? LOL.. what an experience, not easy.. but, I can definitely see the reward.

Just completed it... Car was running like a beauty before.. First turn of the key, car was running bad. sounded like it was running on 4 cylinders, something is not right?

I've been adjusting valves on previous Porsche's 20 yrs.. owned 356's and 912's...this is the First 911 that I've owned.

I got all the literature from this forum.. Does the timing have to be checked after a valve adjustment on these cars, I'm not going to run the car like that.. I shut it off immediately.

I verified the firing order on distributor, rotor spins ccw 1-6-2-4-3-5. I verified the spark plug wires were good, with a meter.

I did remove the AC compressor and didn't put it back on the car. That's a project for later, if necessary.

Spark plug wires are all seated properly...All the valves, needed little too no adjustment... I have no broken head studs that's the good part.

What's next ? I have a very good car...I surely don't want to have it towed to automotive shop, to have them bail me out... at least not yet?

Thanks, any help is appreciated.

You said "tune up". Did you do any other work besides the valve adjustments?

Are all the plug wires seated on the plugs correctly? And all wires are on the correct plugs? Are the wires arching perhaps?

From my limited knowledge I don't think a valve adjustment would stop cylinders from firing.

Got a timing light? Put the lead on each plug wire to see if it's firing. Doubt it's the valves, unless you have some so tight they aren't opening (not sure that's possible).

Todd

If they're tight, they're always open. If they're loose, they make a lot of noise.

I'm in the camp that you disturbed wiring/vacuum or installed a defective/mis adjusted part.

Sounds like you may have been fiddling around with the distributor cap. Make sure it's seated properly. On my '88 I have to play with it quite a bit before it's seated.

On my 85, the distributor turns clockwise (cw), not counter clockwise (ccw).

The sc turns CCW.

What items did you do? Change plugs, fuel filter in addition to the valve clearance? I'd retrace my steps. Sometimes the distributor has been installed 180 degrees out but if you hardly moved the valve clearances, it seems that this is fine. I'd make sure that the leads are in full contact on both the d and the plug. Given what you've given us, my bet would be either loose leads or, leads set on the distributor either out of sequence or not starting on number one. Good luck

No timing is necessary after valve adjustment....I'm assuming she was running fine before the tune up.

The car was running strong and good before valve adjustment.. I'm starting to think a possible defective part?

I would try to determine which cylinders aren't firing. If you pull the plug leads one by one out of the distributor cap while it's running with an accurate tach hooked up, you can see which ones don't reduce the RPMs when you disconnect the plug wires. Be sure to use some insulated gloves when you do this. You can do a compression test on the suspect cylinders to see if the valves aren't closing all the way. My guess is that one or two cylinders weren't completely on the base circle of the cam when you adjusted them. My other guess was bad plug wires or terminals but you said that you have checked the resistance of the wires and they are all okay. Good luck and please report back.

Did not change my fuel filter, that was me next move after the tune-up. It's not the valve adjustment.. I re-checked number one spark plug wire on distributor cap and verified it was line up with the grove on the distributor body, so it is sequence.?

well it's definitely not the distributor rotor and cap... I put the old one back on and it ran the same

You might be running a few cylinder short... as I did once.

If you had removed the spark plug wires, remove them again and slowly plug them back listening for the metal sound when they connect. Once I though they were in and a full bank were actually not plug as the end wedge itself beside the plug but they feel like they were.

Get spray bottle with water or windex, with engine running, go under the car and spray the exhaust see which tube is cold. Cold is the water evaporating but not sizzeling.
Once you determined ne the cylinder you know where to look for the solution
Bruce

sorry, I'm afraid to run the engine too long with it running like crap...I don't want to run it until it gets hot

Thanks

Is it possible that you did not do the valve adjustment correctly and you now have some valves that are not seating correctly?

It's has to be, spark plug wires or a bad spark plug out of the box? The firing order is correct.

Well, finding top dead center isn't to hard.. Once I found TDC I verified that the rotor was pointing at #1 and the groove on dist. housing... Adjusted each valve to .004....

If you didn't move the adjusters much, [fraction of a turn]then i would also be inclined to think spark plug wires broken, if the tappets are too tight, then the valves will not close, therefore, that/those cylinders will not fire up, or they will miss-fire, i would first check the spark plug wires, make sure the metal connectors in the ends havent come out, then, as others have said, try and i identify which cylinders are not firing, you can check this by either pulling the plug leads off, [use a very well insulated pliers, or grips, and rubber gloves to be safe]one by one, and hearing if the engine rpm changes, or, check the heat of each exhaust pipe coming directly out of each cylinder, Warning! if the tappets have been adjusted way too tight, then there is a possibility of valve to piston contact, but you say you didn't adjust them by much, so i would suspect that to not be the case.
Hope this helps.
Anthony.