964 Newbie Questions

[indigowhale]

Thinking about a 90 C2 just turned over 100K miles, hope I can get some answers and photos:

Picture please: When ingnition is first on, what idiot lights are supposed to be on? This one seems to have all the top half off.

How can you tell if the leaky cyl/heads were fixed by a previous owner?

How can you tell if the original dual mass flywheels is still on? The clutch is soft and smooth on this one.

Can someone post a picture of their installed distributor vent kit?

The car has no receipts in it, but it was owned by a PCAer.

How do you set the idle on these, I used the air bypass screw and the idle mix on the AFM on my Carrera, but could not find an air bypass screw on this one. It stalled frequently in traffic.

TIA!

[DustinTarditi]

(readily available answers)
Idiot lights - there should be a lot of lights to indicate self checks
I've listed the lights (left to right) in their respective gauges (left to right)
Fuel gauge: [Bottom] Gas,Windshield washer
Oil gauge: [Top] Alert (!), Traction, [Bottom] ABS, Brake wear, Brake pressure, Park Brake
Clock: [Top] Battery,Spoiler, [Bottom] Belt

The clutch won't tell if the flywheel was replaced, but the fact that it stalled a few times is likely that it has the lighter version instead of the DMF (it's an unfortunate compromise). The stalling can be minimized by careful tweaking of the airflow, but this requires some patience, and I believe, the Hammer (special diagnostic tool... very pricey).

The distributor vent kit will look like a small hose coming out of the distributor - http://members.rennlist.com/dkwats/images/main_eng.jpg

Get a PPI on it if you're serious... 964s are great cars, but go in eyes-wide-open with any Porsche purchase.

Without records, it's hard to check if anything in particular has been done, unless a PO knows for a fact that it was... PCAers are good sources to buy from, but that's not necessarily a clean bill of health - get a PPI - even if you're buying it from your mom! :-)

[indigowhale]

Idiot lights - there should be a lot of lights to indicate self checks
I've listed the lights (left to right) in their respective gauges (left to right)
Fuel gauge: [Bottom] Gas,Windshield washer
Oil gauge: [Top] Alert (!), Traction, [Bottom] ABS, Brake wear, Brake pressure, Park Brake
Clok: [Top] Battery,Spoiler, [Bottom] Belt

Thanks Dustin:

What is the Alert (!) light, is it the same as the check engine light?
Traction? is that for the C4 only? another light that did not come on.

Also, you metion setting the idle, is there a screw for the air adjustment in addition to the idle mix screw on the AFM? I could not readily find it.

If I were to get under the engine and look carefully between the heads and the cylinders and notice a head gasket peeking, would that be evidence that the car was fixed by an earlier owner?

Many thanks for the answers, the search feature is almost worthless as it returns parts lists or it complaints of short words like years, C2, or model numbers. What a waste.

[DustinTarditi]

The alert light is simply a big red light with an "!" in it - this means there is something wrong somewhere, usually accompanied with one of the other lights - there is a ! button that cancels the warning light, incedentaly, in the event that there is a known issue and you haven't gotten to the mechanic yet, but don't want to be bothered anymore... :-)

The traction light may only be C4... I wouldn't sweat it. The only thing you really should look into (as far as lights go) is if there are any light bulbs removed that would otherwise illuminate to indicate a problem... this could be unscrupulous, but could also simply be trying to ignore a fault light for something minor that can't be tracked down yet. (spoiler light is a common one to remove when there is a 'problem' - lots of little sensors/switches in that system)

I couldn't tell you about the head gasket - your theory makes sense, but I don't know - I would ask the very Porsche-familiar technician that will conduct your PPI ;-)

If the car doesn't PPI well, don't worry - there are lots of good example 964s out there still.

There are lots of other good resources available, too http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/forumdisplay.php?f=59 for one, is pretty good and gets a lot of traffic. I like Pelican Parts, and am a customer as often as I can afford to be :-) also.