Start up and engine problems
 

1987 944 NA. When attempting to start it acts like the battery is weak, but it's not(brand new battery showing 12.7). The engine will start but the car has no power when in gear. After running for a few minutes the oil light comes on, but the dip stick shows full to the top mark. , If I shut the car off and attempt to restart the engine won't fire and there's a strong gas smell. If I let it sit overnight it will fire up the next day, but with the same struggle to start.

The volt gauge on the dash shows about 11 volts. Replaced the alternator and no change.

Any thoughts out there?

Check your battery connections, grounds, and the cables. The cables can deteriorate internally, and need to be checked for their ability to transfer a lot of electrons to power the starter.

The cables are all good and so the other grounding points. I did just replace the power steering rack. The new one didn't have the ground connection on the spring cover plate. So, I used one of 2 the existing bolts for the ground. I removed some paint on the rack so connection would be metal to metal and cleaned the connection point on the engine cradle.

Swap DME relay and let us know what happens!

I disagree on the DME relay or further attempts to start/run.

1st thing check to see if the engine can turn over via a wrench on the crank bolt. Take the plugs out if you have to but it should be possible to turn it over with some struggle to get over the compression strokes (just go slow and let compression bleed off when you hit compression).

If it turns over freely-enough try starting with the coil disconnected to see if you are fighting spark advance, crossfiring, miswiring, etc.

All the connections look good, the ground strap from the battery to the engine has a few cracks in the black plastic, the internal green wire looks good.

Can you post a picture of the "internal green wire"?

That wire isn't supposed to be green. The copper core is corroded.

Yeah, corroded wire will not conduct electricity because electrons actually travel on surface of wires. Hence multiple fine strands to increase surface area. If surface is corroded, this limits flow. Not to mention causing internal breaks along way. Measure resistance of wire end-to-end.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4515/...85789da2_z.jpg

The wire is correded. Picture attached I will replace and update