Hi everyone, I've been reading this board for quite a while, but have never posted before. I'd like to thank you all as it has been really helpful in getting my 2001 Boxster in better shape. However, there is still one issue I haven't been able to figure out. It's a long story but I'll try to make it short. I hope you can help me.
I bought the car 2 years ago for a decent price knowing it had a few issues, thinking I would be able to fix them. One of these issues is the engine running very rough when cold. From a stand still, if I press on the accelerator more than half-way during the first 10 minutes of turning the car on, it will lose power and backfire. It does this even in neutral. When the engine is warm, all of these issues go away.
I took the car to several different shops, and none of them could fix it. They ran smoke tests to check for vacuum leaks, checked fuel pressure, replaced the MAF, temp sensor, AOS, spark plugs, ignition coils. One of the shops discovered it had hollow catalytic converters, and that the ECU might have been tampered with. I sent the unit to ecudoctors.com and they replaced it with a new one. After I installed the replacement, the car runs better than ever when the engine is warm, but still stalls when cold.
I don’t know what else to do. Could the hollow catalytic converters be causing this? Anything else I should check? I have spent what I would consider an inordinate amount of time and money trying to fix this and I still can't get it to work properly. My excitement about having this car has almost disappeared now that it's turned into a money pit