Fun W/Fuel Injector

[911/Q45]

This is the perfect DIY story with something for everyone. Amusement, for those smarter than me; sympathy, from those as dumb as me; education, for those not yet exposed to the joy of replacing a fuel injector. 2 weeks ago I got the dreaded "check engine" light with rough idle and loss of power. After screaming "all is lost" a few times, calmer heads prevailed and I turned to a NICO search. "Check the ECU codes" said the search, so I did resulting in a bad injector code. But which one? Another NICO search turned up Daedalus' guide to injector testing with an ohmmeter. Off to Sears for a multimeter on sale and I'm in business. Of course, it's #6 under the plenum. So I order the injector and related seals from Scottsdale and gird my loins. Parts arrive and I dig in, first attempting a shortcut by unbolting the plenum and lifting it to the limit of the hoses to access the injector. It looks like it will work, if I just unbolt the small air pipe bolted to the bottom of the plenum and move it aside. I do so and it does work, dropped one little bolt, I'll retrieve it from the valley later. Get the injector swapped-they're both purple so that's good. Start rooting for the bolt, no luck even with the magnet and looking from all angles. Probably should have put paper towels in the intake holes, couldn't have gone in there-could it? Hours later, still no bolt-should I just put it back together and hope for the best? Penalty could be extreme, I ran the magnet down the intakes with no results, that would have gotten it wouldn't it? OK, I'll pick the most likely intake and remove the short pipe between the plenum and head, luckily I can unbolt the injector rail and move it aside without much trouble. Got the short pipe off, still some pretty deep holes there. Shine in the flashlight, I can see the two intake valves and one small bolt! Scoop it out with the magnet, button everything up and everything works like a champ. Brag to the wife that I would have just gone for it when I was 20, she points out that maybe when I'm 60 I'll know enough to paper towel the intake holes! Victory declared.

[Highway Q45]

You must have missed that post where you "flip" the Q upside down before working on the plenum...think of the time you could have saved not having to chase that bolt!

[AZhitman]

Rotisserie rack is only $4500 - Convenient and reduces wear on the suspension parts when car is not in use!

(some assembly required)

[DAEDALUS]

That's a hilarious idea. Where I work we do that with the satellites...put them on "rollovers" to access different areas. You wouldn't believe the kind of uproar that's caused when a tiny washer or bolt falls off during a rollover maneuver! The funniest thing when this happens is that they'll bring to an engineer this generic part, of which there are maybe 3,000 all over the vehicle, and ask, "where did this come from?".

[Q451990]

Great story! If you have purple injectors on your 90Q they've already been replaced once... Damn CA gas! Scares me since "Q2" is a CA beast as well.

Heath

[911/Q45]

It had a bad injector about 10 years ago, which was replaced under warranty. Could they have replaced all of them, or did I just replace the same one that failed last time? The purple only showed where the old one was covered by the cap, the rest was faded to tan.

[DougQ45]

Encouraging to see of your success. Was just in the same predicament as you, except the culprit down the collector tube is a small piece of plastic from the injector harness clips. Its been 2 weeks and I still haven't had the heart to go dig it out!

[911/Q45]

If you remove the offending short intake pipe that holds the injector, I'll bet you can snag it with inside out duct tape on the end of a probe.

[90Q45blue]

Glad to see you succeeded in your quest!

Speaking of fuel injectors, I was at the dealer last week ordering parts for my seat belts when some guy in a 92Q drives into the service area with a noticeably rough idle. Tech already knew which injector was bad so he literally popped open the trunk, replaced the two injectors and (no joke) 20 minutes later handed the guy a bill for 800 bucks. Crazy stuff. I'll take my two-sided duck tape on a probe any day if it'll save me 800.

Nick

[911/Q45]

I was talking about getting the lost piece of plastic out of the intake port, the injectors would be a bit more work. The bad injectors in your example must have been the ones you can access without removing the plenum. List price for the parts would have been about $500, I wonder how they justified $300 labor?