I have a customer that worked on his own car, shame on me for taking on the job! He had the head off the right side of the engine. Cyls 1-3. It immediately throws code P0341, which I believe is the Cyls 1-3 camshaft position sensor 1. Compression check 1-3: 115-120 lbs, cyls 3-6: 150 across the board. Installed new NGK plugs, car tries to start, but sounds and feels like only firing on 3 cylinders, I do not get a misfire code. My position is the customer still does not have the cam timing right on cylinders 1-3. Any other ideas? By the way, lots of stripped/rounded off bolts on cyls 1-3.

 

What's the old joke: $20/hour labor; If you watch $30/hour; If you help $100/hour.

What's the hourly rate to fix what the customer did?

Not the biggest worry at this time but be sure the right plugs are installed. In one case I know of a cross reference chart indicated a plug that proved to not be at all suitable. Mistake on the chart? Or just some very loose referencing? Who knows? The customer removed the new plugs and installed the correct ones and the symptoms went away.

My advice would be to source a set of the right plugs, genuine Bosch or Beru -- which ever brand/type is called for -- and install those.

The bigger problem is since the compression is down on the 1-3 cylinders this points to a cam timing problem.

If you have a Porsche diagnostics computer you could work the two solenoids and see if the cam timing changes as expected. This might provide you with a clue as to what's going on.

Absent the computer thing, since the customer had the head off all you can do is I guess remove the head, check there are no deeper problems, then re-install the head -- along with a new gasket -- and then check the cam timing and insure the solenoid/actuator are installed correctly then button the engine back up.

Almost certainly the head gasket should be replaced and of course the camshaft cover properly resealed. My info is the camshaft cover bolts should not be reused so these get replaced along with any other fasteners which were also damaged by the owner, which lets you then address the stripped off heads.

A possible issue could be the solenoid or actuator are bad in which case once you button up the engine it could still run poorly, trip the CEL and with an error code pointing at the solenoid/actuator. The problem is I know of no way to bench test these items. The tech that replaced the solenoid/actuator on my 2002 Boxster told me the SOP is when there is a problem with the solenoid/actuator to replace both items. Too often just the solenoid is replaced but after the engine is buttoned up the symptoms come back and the actuator has to be replaced. This actually happened with my car as for some reason the tech didn't follow this SOP and the dealer ended up eating the cost of the labor to replace the actuator.

But replacing these items is expensive. The parts cost -- solenoid and actuator -- can run nearly $1500. Labor -- dealer rates -- can have one facing a $3K bill, which is about what I paid. 'course, the engine was no good the way it was running and a new engine was out of the question.