[Sazerac]

Hello Everyone

As we know, electronics that get older have problems: capacitors start leaking; power transistors fail, etc. What are people doing to maintain the 6 channel amp?

I have seen some people that do recapping of this amp: https://creativecaraudioshop.com/
They have one on eBay right now for instance and have been mentioned in threads "elsewhere."

BUT, I'm a little hesitant to have a electronics rebuilt by people I don't know anymore. One reputable supplier's failed rebuilt fan amp had "cheap/bad MOSFETS" in them. This one was a specialist though in other non-electrical equipment actually. The MAF I had rebuilt by JDS/Louie Ott failed after only 1600 miles and no neither John nor Louis cared to reply to my request for redress.

Any recommendations for suppliers here?

Cheers, John

[worf]

Were previous mentions of them positive or negative?

[Stepson]

How long after the MAF was recalibrated did it take you to drive that 1600 miles? There could be a time factor involved there.

[worf]

How long after the MAF was recalibrated did it take you to drive that 1600 miles? There could be a time factor involved there.

Please explain.

[Stepson]

If he had the MAF recalibrated and then waited (exaggerating) 10 years to drive the car, that could be a factor. In addition, if he immediately installed the recalibrated MAF and then only drove 2 mile a day for 800 days, that could also be a factor.

[worf]

If he had the MAF recalibrated and then waited (exaggerating) 10 years to drive the car, that could be a factor.

If you know of a specific mechanism whereby simple passage of time could be a failure mode, I'm all ears.

I am not aware of any mechanism that could cause a well-rebuilt Mass-Air Sensor to die simply from passage of time. Electrolytic capacitors (etc.) do degrade with simple passage of time but, they should have been replaced during a rebuild. Right?

In addition, if he immediately installed the recalibrated MAF and then only drove 2 mile a day for 800 days, that could also be a factor.

I have some inside knowledge of this example and I can assure you that that was not the case.

[Rich928]

Creative Car Audio Shop repaired the Alpine radio in my 928 GTS on time, as promised. They also created a custom wire set so I could install the Porsche Classic radio/NAV system with no wire cutting. I do recommend them.

https://creativecaraudioshop.com/

Rich
928 Owners Club Membership Chairman
1993 928 GTS cover girl
1987 928 S4
1979 928 5-speed rescue cover girl
1979 928 Euro track beast

[Sazerac]

This is not a thread about MAFs. The only point to mention other electronic equipment was to point out there are some other factors in dealing with electronic items as opposed to mechanical items.

@Rich928: thanks for the feedback both on the post as well as by email!

Now, on to the next developments here. As I found no other alternatives to Creative Car Audio, I went ahead and bought a rebuilt unit on their site about 3 weeks ago. When rebuilding Creative Audio Shop updates "the various relays and capcitors" in them, or so they said.

Then about 5 days ago, I finally got some quality time in my 90' 928 with the mostly original stereo and wiring only do discover the stereo didn't work. Upon investigation, sure enough, the amp on the "booster fuse" kept blowing fuses. So I removed it, and it didn't exactly smell correctly either. Put in the rebuilt amp and all is well again.

Creative Car Audio seems to be a professional place at first glance. I got an invoice with a serial number on it which was a good start and they even provided some cables and things. Not that I needed the DIN speaker adapters. Well packaged too.

My subjective impression is that the amp sounds better than the old one. I have Hans Servaas' front speaker set-up and refoamed factory units in back. Generally updating all capacitors in the system seems to improve the sound. But maybe I just want justify the expense...