I changed the throttle body on the 996t this afternoon. Very straighforward if you are not intimidated by the digits 9,1,1. Acting on comments, as opposed to firm advice, from RH, I decided to go back to the paper air filter, as from what I could see through the inlet slot, it has had a performance air filter fitted. Imagine my surprise when I removed the cartridge to find out that it has had a filter for a 996 carrera with the cut away section; I carefully prised out the coarse plastic mesh from the filter housing, and removed grass seeds and other assorted debris from the fragile mesh that protects the MAF, and snapped the plastic mesh back in place. This might explain the problem I have had with erratic/high idle speeds. It is entirely possible that a small speck of debris has been ingested by the throttle body making the butterfly stick. Now that the new one is in, it idles at about 820 rpm, slightly high I know, but the engine revs drop immediately when you change gear whereas before there was about half second delay; the tiny, barely perceptible hesitation has gone, and when I floored it in second it made me tingle for the first time in a long time. I've only done 5,000 miles this year and the summer has been particularly wet, so internal marking due to ingesting dust laden air will I hope be neglible. I have done about 1,500 miles since the oil change but it still shows over half way up on the level tester, so the engine does not appear to have suffered, and actually it sounds nicer because with less induction noise I can hear more of the typical 911 background sounds. Roll on Monday!
