Thanks from a forum visitor - Clogged SAI ports

Don Plumley · Don Plumley's Garage

Received this message, wanted to share it with the forum (and Rick Lee):

Quote:

Dear Don,

I’d like to personally thank you for your forum and the posts on that forum. And there’s also another individual I’d like to thank, but don’t know how to reach them, so I thought I’d contact you in this manner.

I have a 1997 Porsche 4S and my husband has a 1997 Porsche 2S. About a year ago, his ‘check engine’ light went off and we ended up paying $12,000 to get the engine redone to be able to get her through smog certification in California.

It was my turn this year, despite the fact my car had only 52,000 miles and according to the computer check she was running cleaner than a Prius overall. My husband got fed up with the lack of answers he was getting as to the ‘why’ of the problem, and he started browsing the internet – this from a man who literally and figuratively hates computers!

He found a thread on your board in which several individuals were discussing the problem and found a reference from you about a check valve, and another response from Rick Lee in Arizona

Quote:

(From the SAI CEL Thread) A lot of the Rennlist guys have had success with the flush method. I think it runs about $200 in parts and tools. Some guys have built a pretty cool template tool for blocking off the exhaust ports on the heads (heat x'ers removed) so you can blast each cyl. individually with compressed air, while the other five are blocked. I get about 1800-2000 miles to a quart of Mobil 1 and have 56k on the car. So I'm not too worried. But I will definitely do the flush method before I tear into the top end. For you LA guys, I think Hergesheimer pioneered this fix and they do a lot of them. Not sure too many other Porsche shops would know about it.

talking about Hergesheimer in Irvine, Ca. Bless both of you! The individuals at Hergesheimer’s were fantastic. They tried the ‘shorter’ version first, but nothing helped, so we finally had to move to the flush technique. It ran about $1200. Tubby (my car) is now flushed and smogged! My husband is going around to a number of the Porsche repair places in our area passing out the Hergesheimer business cards. I just hope the mechanics will take the time to either pass the information along, or learn to do the technique. The places around here either don’t know about the technique, or do not pass that information along to the Porsche owners.

Thank you and the others on your site for your help!!

Sincerely,

(name removed)