psperl

Don't confuse the radio remote with the immobiliser transponder pill. The radio remote will unlock the car, but you will need to transfer the glass immobiliser pill from the donor key head to the old head. I did not realize there were two separate components. I do remember seeing some sort of pill, and I think I transferred it. Either way, I will check. Thanks for the tip! Oh boy do I feel stupid! The best kind of stupid, the kind that doesn't cost me any money! Thanks for the suggestion Richard. I had not transferred the tiny dark glass immobilizer pill. There were no fault codes because everything was fine. I didn't notice that little guy before when I swapped the radio. Thank you so much! The Canadian brain doesn't seem to have affected the car in any way, so that's good. Now I just need to find and resolve the leak. I have donated a small amount to show my thanks for this forum. I had maybe two posts before this issue and you guys still gave me sound timely advice. You guys are top notch. Thanks.

Don't confuse the radio remote with the immobiliser transponder pill. The radio remote will unlock the car, but you will need to transfer the glass immobiliser pill from the donor key head to the old head. I did not realize there were two separate components. I do remember seeing some sort of pill, and I think I transferred it. Either way, I will check. Thanks for the tip!

Thanks Loren. I'll try to find a private shop in NY that has the right tools. Maybe formula motorsports or sonny's shop if its still around? I'll search around these forums for a respected shop in NYC.

Thanks Loren. Clutch switch? (you can bypass it to test) --> I put a multimeter on both sides of the switch, pushed in the pedal and saw connectivity. I will bypass it this weekend. Do you have a crankshaft sensor signal? --> The engine doesn't even attempt to crank (unless I bridge the starter relay) so is this even a possibility? Do you have gas? --> Same as the crankshaft sensor signal Is there something I don't udnerstand? Does the fuel system and crank signal need to be reading some nominal value before the DME signals the starter relay that we are ok to turn over the engine? Anyway, the one thing I did not try is to plug the seat back in and clear the airbag code for the belt buckle. This implies it is not possible to start the car without driver's seat. Is that right? Oh man I hope plugging the seat in and clearing the code will make this work, I will have worked myself up over nothing! Thanks again. -Pete

Thank you very much for the help guys. The part number of the both alarm units and DMEs are the same. The alarm unit says M535. However, Durametric does report a different country code and order number for the canadian DME and my original DME. I am not sure if that is important. The order numbers are both '996<something>'. The air bag unit does show a fault in the driver's belt buckle, but I assume that is because I have the driver's seat removed from the car. Do you think I need to plug the driver's seat back in? I tried this once two weeks ago before I had the Durametric cable and it made no difference, but I hadn't cleared the codes at that time. Sorry I don't have a screenshot, but I can say that the Durametric shows a green checkmark next to DME unit, a yellow exclamation point (but no fault codes) next to the alarm, and a red error code on the airbag unit for the driver's belt buckle. About further water damage, I'm not sure where to look. There are no fault codes to investigate. Do they take some time to show up? I feel that the starter relay bridge test rules out the ignition switch, starter, and solenoid. I can read codes and actual values off the DME/Alarm/Airbag units, so its not like the cpus aren't firing up. I'm slightly worried that the canadian units aren't the same as the US units, but then I find it hard to believe that would be the case considering the part numbers are identical. Do you guys think it is a valid idea to get someone to program my original US DME to bypass the immoblilizer? I read this was possible in another thread on here. If I wasn't at work I would dig it up.

I bought the DME, Alarm Unit, and key pill from a (canadian) donor car, so they all match. I can't personally prove that they all match, but the provided key does unlock/lock the doors with the alarm unit installed. My original key pill does nothing, so that seems right. Conventional wisdom is to get someone with a PIWIS or PTS2 to program the DME to the alarm unit, but I am trying to avoid the dealers. Those guys have done such dirty things to me in the past that I have a hard time going back.

Long time lurker here. Could really use some help. I've read most of the posts here (and on rennlist) about this more common than it should be issue, and have tried most of the suggestions. A month ago I woke up in the middle of the night during an 11 inch rainstorm to the sound of my 1999 non e-gas 996 alarm going off. I had to disconnect the battery to get it to stop. The rain flooded the cabin and corroded the alarm unit under the driver seat. After doing some research and learning that the alarm unit, DME, and key are a matched set, I decided to purchase a set from a guy on ebay pulled from a canadian 996 (my car is US, I wonder if that is ok). The guy on ebay was helpful during initial debugging and said he tested the units in his car personally before shipping. I have no reason to suspect he is being dishonest. I installed the new alarm unit and DME, and the interior effects are working again. Actually, the only thing that isn't working is that the car won't crank. The key remote unlocks/locks the door, everything seems good. If I bridge the starter relay and turn the key the car cranks but doesn't start. The clutch switch works if I measure across it with a multimeter. I figure the ignition switch is good or it wouldn't crank when I bridge the starter relay. My OBD-II reader showed no codes, so I bought a Durametric cable. It showed a slew of alarm and DME codes, mostly related to their being a loss of power, and some immobilizer codes as well. I cleared everything to get a fresh diagnosis, but no codes came back after a week of trying to start the car. I did get a W lead disconnected (or something llike that, I32 W Lead) almost immediately after clearing the alarm unit codes, but I cleared it again and they haven't come back. So I've got no faults on the durametric, and my only guess is that the DME is immobilized quietly. Do you guys think I could be missing something? Would programming the DME to ignore the immobilizer be helpful? I read this was possible in another thread. I have NO fear of the car being stolen. I really fear going to the dealership, those guys always get the best of me. Thanks in advance guys, I have reached the limits of my knowledge. -Pete btw: The original motor suffered an intermediate shaft failure, and the new engine bent a valve 200 miles out of the shop, which porsche refused to cover the labor on. Now this water damage/immobilizer nonsense. I am not lucky.

You know, before I posted this, I was thinking about how I should probably do a thorough search before posting... yet I didn't. I'm not surprised that it has been covered. Sorry for my negligence and Thanks for the heads up!

I installed a Pioneer AVG-VDP1 Vehicle Dynamics Processor in my car a few months ago and it informed me that my speedometer was about 7% fast via GPS. Recently I bought an Innova 1303 for clearing CELs and checking codes, and I noticed the "Live Data" feature is able to read some engine info. What surprised me is that the MPH readout from the OBDII port is correct and matches the GPS reading. Why would the speedo (both digital and analog) read out different values than the OBDII computer? Is there some calibration step? Thanks! -Pete