And I've tried giving it some pedal when cranking, so a stuck closed AAV shouldn't keep her from starting with me in there pumpping the pedal with absolutely no response.
I'm going to replace the trigger points, but I'm thinking it won't solve my problem, maybe I'll be wrong for once.

new trigger points installed, exact same response from the car,,,

Now onto bigger and better tests

I saw you checked fuel pressure before CSV, but what about the CSV itself? Is that thing stuck open and flooding the engine? It's like having the choke stuck on full open.

Like panda said, check your TPS if you have not done so. If that thing gives bad signal, ECU may think you are driving full throttle and is keeping your injectors open longer.

Double check and clean electrical connectors going to and from ECU and its sensors. If triggerpoints work mechanically, signal may still be bad due to some bad contact. And if your tach wire was disconnected/broken, that may mean somebody (or something - rodents?) may have touched the wires under the hood. Long shot, but who knows.

You may want to pull an injector rail and see whether the squirt pattern is what it should be when cranking the car. I don't remember if there is a test listed in the workshop manual for determining whether the ECU and injectors are giving the correct fuel amounts. I would not try to adjust these things, but perhaps a visual inspection may show something funny.

I would reread that Porsche 914 D-Jet website (I printed it all out one day, put it in a binder, and read it several times when I was messing with this stuff) and see what signals can cause the injectors to open longer, or give fuel rich conditions.

Tough problem.

Bert

I remember the TPS test, so I figured what if I disconnect all the injectors and only hooked one up at a time to see if it triggers, and to listen for a difference in sound. First go injectors 1, 2, 4 and 5 didn't fire, I cranked the starter, and now those triggered and the others didn't so I'm thinking that the injectors although one or two mighht be stuck open, they all sounded the same.

The ring terminal is the "diagnostic port" on this car :) . It gives a place where a mechanic's tachometer can be attached when setting the idle. That is really the only thing that could be loosely referred to as a diagnostic port. If you attach the lead of a dwell/tach meter to that, you should see your RPM, when you get the thing started. You may have seperate issues.

If you look into the online service manual I linked to in my first post, you can look at the electrical schematic. You can then see how the meter is fed. On a stock system, it is a signal from the switchgear.

The breaker points in the Dizzy only have a fairly low current voltage, used to control power transistors in the switchgear that pulse the coil. The theory is that the low current doesn't have the problems with arc pitting the contacts, so they will last longer. The power transistors in the box behind the drivers' headlight is what actually pulses the coil.

There have been reports of the green wire from the dizzy to the switchgear having problems due to age and heat. The insulation gets hard and brittle, then breaks either the wire inside (open. no signal to the switchgear) or shorts the signal to ground. You might also want to check the health of the connectors on the ends, as well as any other connectors you can find.

The engine can be rotated to TDC #1 on the harmonic balancer. The rotor should point at a mark on the edge of the dizzy, on the lip where the cap contacts it. On mine it's about 1 to 2 o'clock when standing in front of the car looking down on it.

You can rotate the engine by putting a 27mm socket on the harmonic balancer bolt with a 4" extension on a 1/2" drive. Only turn the engine clockwise, this is important!!

You can verify that you are at #1 TDC by opening the oil fill cap and looking at the lobes of the cam for #1 cylinder; they should be pointing straight up, like bunny ears.

Some people have been able to turn the engine using the belts on the power steering pump, but I've never had any success doing that.

Make sure the breaker points are clean. I about drove myself crazy trying to figure out a 'no start' problem until I ran some heavy paper (regular paper NOT anything abrasive) through them to clean off a film.

I eventually replaced my points with a Crane/S&S unit, as I have shaft wobble that was eating the rider pad on the points so badly that I couldn't keep a proper dwell setting. You would be OK with a Pertronix unit, which is cheaper, but that's a whole other story. There are some physical differences in the '75 dizzy that prohibit a Pertronix.

Have you set your Dwell? If you get the rider of the points on the top of the lobe of the distributor shaft, you should be able to set the gap of the points to .014". You can get it exactly to spec later when you get it running, using a dwell meter.

If you have a good switchgear and coil, this should get you to have spark at nearly the right time for nearly the right duration. Look at the procedures in the service manual to get the specs to set everything "right", once you get it running.

Hope this helps someone somewhere sometime,
scott

For the moment, I've ruled out spark problems.
My next test is to disconenct the wires going to the injectors, to see how the car responds when I start.
I have the inclination that there will be no change on the first start, but the change will be on the second attempt, as currently the second attempt totally fails (flooded from first attempt)
If the car behaves the same i.e. starts first time, runs for a few seconds doesn't start second time, well then I must have a stuck open injector.
I will over come the no run condition, as I am too persistent not to.

Pull the electrical plug to the cold start valve injector first and see what that does. Somebody referred to this once as the 9th injector and I read some post a while ago that the CSV can easily flood the engine if it is on too long.

Bert

I still think you have a trigger point /point issue or the distributor is off a tooth or two.
If everything else checks not much is left , I doubt, although possible ,that several of the injectors , are stuck full open, even with that is should run longer. I guess if several are stuck closed it may not continue to run once started
Is the fuel pump original ? if not there are only a few pumps out there on the market that will do what the pump for a DJet system needs to do. You need a pump that will deliver 1 litre in 30sec when voltage is at least 11.5V and fuel pressure is 2 - 2.1bar (29 psig)

Well now this is really interesting, When I was looking at the relays, I noticed that one relay hanging that has a big thick red wire going to it, well the connector was broken and the wire was just hanging there. It looks like the wire goes through what's left of the firewall, so I'm guessing this is the relay for the ECU. I have no documentation on relay numbering or location.

I do not know how long the connector was broken, because even though the wire was dangling, the injectors triggered when I did the TPS test, and the fuel pump kicks on for 1.5 seconds.

Another Ah ha moment. I found another connector and fixed it, Big red wire to pin 30, other 2.5 wire to 87 relay ground to 85 and relay power to 86.

Well same thing, start, run a few seconds, stall. grrr this is getting the better of me.

It's time to think outside the box,,, what could possibly cause a no-run condition? maybe I should look for a kill switch? If you were to put a kill switch in, where/how would you do it? a complete no start condition would be a sure sign that a kill switch is installed. But, a start, run a few seconds and stall would not.

there was a someone on here that found a kill switch under his dash after weeks of fooling with trying to start it, can't remember who but that is what he found :) lol

but I dont think that is your issue
according to my DJet manual a no start ( wih fuel pump /fuel delivery confirmed) points to the main start relays and power to the ecu or to the ground of the ecu.
Starting cold and then dying - trigger point circuitry

IIRC and that is a big IF. The second relay down from the top on the left side is the ECU relay on the '73. The hanging relay is most likely the rear window time switch.

I think I figured it out. Well maybe, reading the manual on how to remove the distributor, it states "Set engine to ignition TDC of first cylinder. complete with picture, well, that's not where my number one cylinder is on the distributor cap.

I'm a betting man, and I'm willing to put money on the following. Someone (prior to my purchasing the car) rewired the spark plug wires and each plug is off by one position. In the picture the rotor (I would imagine) is pointing to the number one cylinder, that's pointing to the number two cylinder on my car.

I have been questioning all along the placement of the distributor. get number one cylinder to TDC using a rod through the plug hole and remove and then set your distributor accordingly - watch for the timing mark to come to TDC. Set the distributor so that the rotor is pointing at the #1 position on the distributor, where the #1 spark plug wire would be when the cap is in place.

Insert the distributor into place and make sure the gear is engaged.

SUCCESS

450SL running on 2-12-12 - YouTube

Wow that was easy. Good work!