Finally some good news! I was about ready to pass the Porsche torch but EVOMS and RaceCo encouraged me to push on. I relented and agreed to a few more rounds of troubleshooting. Once we reached the point where there were simply no more obvious mechanical issues I felt like we needed to explore the tune again. Ian at EVOMS seemed to agree:

My thought process behind this is that we may have made a mistake, or something may not be compatible along the way that is in your current file. This car was modified by us from day one for [the first owner], then modified a couple more times in his possession, then modified again for [the second owner], and finally again for you. We do our best to make everything 100%, but when the car has been touched so many times, something may have happened along the way. Imagine a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy… sometimes things end up blurry in the end. That is why I wanted Todd to start fresh.

Once the new tune was loaded and the ECU reinstalled I went up to RaceCo to do my usual breaking. They had driven it about 35 miles and said things looked pretty solid. I put on another 60 miles while running the car though driving patterns that usually caused the long term fuel trims (LTFT) to max out. The LTFT did rise a bit but they actually stabilized and I even saw them drop a little. The car ran flawlessly and there were no ominous foreshadowings present.

I took the car home and over the last few days I’ve put another 100 miles on it with no problems. LTFT are still stable! I think – knock on wood – the last issue is finally resolved. I wish the tune had been considered sooner, but I take comfort in the fact that RaceCo fixed a lot of little things (i.e. repaired leaks, new check valves, rebuilt blow of valves, etc) and I know the 911 is in superb mechanical shape. All things considered I feel like EVOMS had my back and really made good faith efforts to help me trouble shoot my issues.

But I do feel like the car should have been delivered to me in the condition it’s in now. If I sold it tomorrow the new owner would get a car in perfect working order and would experience nothing but pleasure. Unfortunately my experience has been tainted by all the stress and extra effort of getting the car to this point. I have a lot of other projects I want to work on and even with the Porsche back in commission I don’t think I’ll drive it much. The future is unclear right now; I don’t know if I’ll keep the car or sell it.

In any event, I was in a much more optimistic mood today so I did a bit of work on the 911. First I replaced the chrono gauge pod. The old one had some fairly extensive sun damage. Then I put on new carbon fiber side mirrors. You can see from the picture how yellow the previous set had become compared to the new housings. Both parts are from ROTtech and the fit and finish are excellent.

It feels sort of surreal to have the problems finally resolved. I don’t feel like we’ve crossed the finish line quite yet, but it’s nice to finally be on the right track.