While I don't have a lot of in-depth experience working on engines, I have done quite a lot of basic maintenance on all different kinds of cars over the last 30 years and I witnessed something I hadn't seen before.

I was using a friend's starter on the 944 to see if mine was truly bad (it is). With my friend's starter in place, I started the engine and noticed it is misfiring quite badly. I shut the engine off and then looked under the hood and immediately noticed the #3 plug wire was completely off the plug. At first I thought I must have accidentally disconnected it or forgot to reconnect it. So I reconnected it and tried to start the motor again. This time, I left it running and looked under the hood. Sure enough, the #3 plug wire was totally off the plug again. So I tried to physically hold it on the plug. It felt like the plug was trying to blow the wire off every time it connected.

So is this a short of some kind in the circuit? What's the most likely culprit?

Loose/bad plug and cylinder compression maybe?

I'll double check, but I'm 99.999% sure I tightened all the plugs down after I pulled them to check their condition.

A few other points:

- The plugs are used. I don't know how many miles are on them, but they look ok. Center anode looks good and the gaps look ok, too. I'm going to order new ones now anyway, though.

- The distributor rotor is new, but the cap is original

- The plug wires are all new

Do your pretty red wires use the same kind of boot that fits into the head and has a pretty good grip on the plug? It might be the aftermarket wires. Do you have the original wires? Try one of Eric's to see if it will hold better.