Porsche 996 911 - Ticking noise on startup? Checking spark plugs and investigating carbon fouling on 2 of them.

 Bit fed up with this car... one step forwards, 5 steps back. 

After letting it sit for a week... tried starting it yesterday and hearing a ticking noise 🙄 and instant stall. Won't start it again!

Let's do a few basic checks.

Today got the mufflers off and coils/spark plugs out. Having done it before, only takes 30 minutes or less for both mufflers out, and same amount of time for coils/plugs.

Wheels didn't have to come off, but it was a nice day... gave them a real good clean - the three I could remove anyway, the front right will have to wait for another day.

Spark plugs out - wondering why 4 & 5 are carbon fouled while the rest look fine? Literally 0km driven and maybe 10 starts out of these plugs.  All were wet from fuel, which you'd expect for multiple attemps to start the car.

typically carbon fouled plugs indicate

• rich (too much fuel, not enough air)
• lots of idling/low speed driving (nope that car hasn't idled or driven for months!)
• faulty ignition system, retarded ignition timing... ???

Tomorrow is some borescoping with my $5 scope (don't know how well that will work) and a compression test.