2003 Porsche 911 Turb-OOOOH

Ah man, that is a bucket list car right there. You are making it even better!

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Thanks!  Next up is replacing the factory radio with a double din Apple Car Play unit and when the brake rotors are worn out I'll upgrade to the larger 997 Turbo 350mm discs.

Spent a little time today dialing in the ride height.  I wanted to get it as close as possible to where I want it before I take it in to 3R Racing for the alignment and corner balance.  That way they don't have to spend a ton of time messing with ride heights.  I'm taking it there this Friday am, so in 5 days.

My goal was to lower the car 3/4" all the way around and the car was basically 26.5" from fender lip to the ground all the way round, except the right rear, which was 26.75".  So I was shooting for 25.75".  Bilstein has a very specific adjustment range they want you to stay in.  You can go above it but definitely not below it, as then you'll ride on the internal bump stops.

I was also curious to see if my BBS wheels would clear on the front without the 15mm spacers I needed with the stock suspension due to the enormous size of the stock spring seat.

So onto the lift it went and I started with just the front.  When you play around with ride height messing with one corner affects all of them.  So I crept up on this, doing a few turns on the front, putting the wheels back on and the car down on the deck and re-measuring, then back/forth.  Within a few times playing with the front and back I got to the point of diminishing returns.

I'm within 1/8" of where I want to be in the front, one corner is 1/8" lower, the other 1/8" higher.  I'm close to the bottom of the Bilstein recommended range on the back and both the backs are basically at 26".  I'll let 3R play from here on the scales.

I did check the front BBS wheel fitment and it's close but it looks like I'll clear the Bilstein spring perches by 1/4-3/8" without the spacers, so win!

Got the car back from 3R Racing at the end of the day yesterday.

the rear toe eccentric bolts kicked their butt too, so validation that it wasn’t just me.  I’ll upload the alignment and corner balance sheets later.

my eye and tape measure did a good job with the ride heights and corner balance, rear alignment was spot on, front alignment needed work.

today I did an autox and had a great time.  Weather sorta stunk, it was cloudy and cold.  Balance of the car was good, my 7 year old R888R’s are holding me back.

did a 45 flat, my friend in his gt3 did a 43.99.  I just couldn’t find enough traction to go faster.  Car is a hoot, pretty loose but very controllable.

i test fitted the bbs wheels again to make sure spacers aren’t needed.  It’s close, but they clear, so I bolted them on.

then I checked out the elephant racing  locking toe plates.  See the bronze color?

Pic of the car with the BBS wheels after I lowered it.  Lowered it 3/4" like I wanted, so it looks nice but its not slammed.  Still plenty of bump travel.

next up, boost leak testing and fixing.

Did pretty well at the auto-x, did a 45 flat.  My friend in his GT3 with much newer race rubber and $$$ triple way adjustable coilovers did a 43.9.  Car is lots of fun, power oversteer on boost, woohoo!  I may back the rear swaybar down from it's current middle setting to full soft and see what happens.

My 7 year old Toyo R888R tires aren't doing me any favors.  I'm on a mission to annihilate them this season, lol!  I've figured out how to wire in a tach signal for my Traqmate that's removable.  Everyone was saying to tap a wire off the DME harness and I don't want any part of that! 

Instead I can grab pin 9 off the OBD2 port, so I'll buy an empty ODB2 plug off eBay and wire in only pin 9, then I can just plug that into the OBD2 port and then into the Traqmate when I need to.  Totally removable and no tapping into wire harnesses.  Slick! 

I want to wire in my garage door opener, somehow my $120k 911 didn't come with Homelink as an option (none of them did back then!) while my Audi's of the same era did, which cost 1/2 as much.  So I popped open my remote to see how I can solder in wires only to discover that my remote won't really work.

Argh!  Gotta spend another $40 for a different remote, then $50 for the OEM switch.  Almost $100 for this seems excessive...

Well, sold the GX470 so the 911 is now my DD while I wait to get something new, probably a Golf R.  Had a free day today so I started to work down the list I have for the 911.

When I bought the car it came with a new drivers side rocker panel as the one on the car was damaged when it got lifted at a shop.  I hadn't put it on yet, but todays the day!

Let's get the car on the rack, then lifted up off the rack.

The rocker panel is held in by 2 T25 bolts in the front, 4 T25 bolts underneath and 3 T25 bolts on the back.  I found it easier to remove the wheels to get at the front/rear bolts in the fender wells.

Here's the new rocker panel

And installed.  There are plastic clips that snap into the body, I found the back 4 of them broken on the old rocker

Crack in the old rocker panel

Ok, job done!  Next up was pulling out the airbox and replacing the serpentine belt.  The belt looked good still but I have no records of when it was changed and given the low mileage on the this car and the fact it sat around so much, I suspect its the original 16 year old belt.  Since it runs every single accessory, including the water pump, I thought it'd be a good idea to replace it.

A new continental 6PK 2285 belt was under $25 from RM European.  Using a 15mm socket on a breaker bar I released the tension on the old belt.  Getting it off of the water pump took some doing but the new belt routed on surprisingly easily.  I didn't take off the power steering pump pulley like some people recommend, found I didn't have to.  A friend popped the belt back on the last pulley with me detensioning it.

Last up was a bit of fun.  A friend gave me an EvoMS intake to try.  These, and all intakes for this car, are kinda lambasted as being "hot air" intakes.  However this does seal up to the stock air box feed vent and uses weather stripping to mold to the decklid, so I'm not sure how much worse compared to the stock airbox it really is.  Since it was free, I figured I'd play with it.

My friend said he saw + 0.1 bar of boost with it, which makes sense when compared to EvoMS's claims of +15hp/torque.  That's not a lot on a ~500hp car, so I kinda doubt I'll be able to feel a difference but, well, it was free.  I had to run to the hardware store to get some bolts to hold the MAF sensor into the EvoMS intake tube as you don't reuse the stock ones and my friend hadn't given me the bolts.  However a little over a dollar later and its installed.  I haven't taken it for a drive yet but have started the car and confirmed it runs.  Pics and impressions later...

Well, my Golf R won't be here until at least early next week and a friend and I want to go mtn biking this weekend.  I'd picked up a usedOEM roof rack a year ago but never mounted it.  It's got "aero" rails so I need to adapt my current bike trays from square bar mounts to aero mounts.  I picked up the necessary kits from Rocky Mounts and decided to go to it this evening.

Lots of head scratching until I realized I was missing some parts.  Then I turned my garage inside out looking for them, knowing that I'd just seen them last week.  I glossed over a bag multiple times as I just looked into it from the outside, not actually opening it.

I'd resigned myself to having lost the pieces when I decided I'd go look on more time, my eye fell on that bag, I opened it up this time and Hey!  there are all the parts I needed!

Mounted the racks to the car, then spent *hours* converting the bike trays to fit.  Finally got it all done...

Looks easier when you have a solid roof.

In reply to Dammit :

Definitely easier on a hardtop!

So the other day the key kinda stuck in the ignition.  I got it to turn but could feel something break, then I noticed that the AC blower fan wasn't working.  Hmm.  A little googling reveals that both are a symptom of a broken ignition switch. 

Porsche won't sell you just the little module anymore, they want to replace the entire assembly for $380.  No thanks!  You can buy just the little plug from an off brand for as little as $5.75 but the OEM replacement is $25-35.  My go to place, RM European was out of stock of the OEM one but they managed to find one for me and over night it to me.

No pics as I was contorted up underneath the dash.  Mine was the original one as I had to chip away the red sealant covering the screws.

First stuff yourself underneath the dash, then remove the hvac vent tube.  Look up to your right and find the purple harness plug and pull it off.  Now chip off the red sealant covering the two small flat head screws.  Back these off but don't remove them!  They're a real pain to get at but I managed to get visibility on both by having my head near the dead pedal.

Now pull off the old ignition switch and pop in the new one.  Reassemble and you're done!

I will probably never own one, but I appreciate the detailed DIYs you post.

Well, I've been lamenting the fact that I sold my euro GT3 seats to buy the miata, then sold the miata because I don't fit in them.  So end result, no miata, no euro GT3 seats.  Boo.

Truth be told, the condition my old euro GT3 seats were in didn't match the rest of my car/interior, they were nowhere near as nice as the rest of the car and it bugged me.

A friend had a nice set of Euro GT3 seats that I thought I'd be able to buy but he ended up selling them with the car.  Bummer.

Then another friend of mine, who owns a german auto shop in Ft Collins called me and asked me to come up to their social event the PCA club was having.  I wasn't planning on going because it's a 1.25-1.75 hour drive each way depending on traffic.  Then he told me he'd de-trackified a 996 Turbo and had all sorts of goodies available but only as a package deal.  Buy one, buy them all.

So I went up there to see him and some other friends, eat, drink and check out the goods.  What I found were a set of euro GT3 seats in almost new condition, with the Brey-Krause sub strap bars, Brey-Krause fire extinguisher mount and extinguisher, 6 point Schroth Profi harnesses that are still in date and a GMG rollbar. 

Hmm.  I don't need the rollbar/harnesses right now as I need to keep the back seat usable for my son.  I could, however, sell the harnesses now while they're still in date and worth a decent amount and then toss the rollbar in my basement.  Once my son is too big to fit in the back seat I could then decide whether or not I want to install it. 

He gave me a good price for all of it, so we shook on it and I'm going,to send him a check today as I stupidly forgot my check book.  Of course now I have the issue of how I'm gonna get all that stuff down to me in Denver now that I no longer have a large SUV since I sold the GX470.  I know I won't be able to fit both seats and the rollbar in the Golf R.  I may have to borrow my friends Tundra and deal with the 11mpg that thing gets to be able to get everything in one trip.  I'm trying to see if one of my friends up there is heading down to Denver sometime soon and can bring the stuff to me...

In another update, I was driving to work last Monday and hammered on the gas, got a huge throttle cut and the CEL/ABS and PSM light lit up.  Code was for the MAF.  Argh.  Ordered one overnight and Fedex F'ed me and didn't deliver it the next day.  Took the Evoms intake out, stock airbox and new MAF in, all is well.  Sold the Evoms intake, couldn't feel a difference in power or sound and don't wanna blow up a MAF again.

In reply to docwyte :

Ok, did a parts raid today.  Was going to borrow my friends truck to bring it all home, but did a little thinking on this.  I'm not going to use the rollbar for several years since my son easily fits in the back seat and I'm not putting it in while he can ride back there.  I'm not even sure I'm gonna put it in at all.  So rather than have it sit around in my basement, I decided to sell it.  A friend who conveniently lives in Ft Collins bought it from me, so no need for the truck.

So I popped in the Golf R and drove up this morning and grabbed the seats, fire extinguisher and harnesses.  I'll sell the harnesses and end up with what I was after, which were the seats.  They're in great shape, much better condition than the set I recently had and sold, I'm quite pleased!

They're missing the lap belt blocks but luckily I kept those from my previous Euro seats.  I do need to buy the Brey Krause side plates again, once I get those, I'll toss in the drivers seat and call it good.

In reply to docwyte :

Harnesses sold this morning, I’m quite pleased with how all this worked out!

Got my Brey Krause side plates yesterday, lets get the Euro drivers seat installed and swap the fire extinguisher mount from the passenger seat to the drivers seat.  Since I already did a DIY on how to mount the seats, I'll just do a pictorial here of what I did.

I'm not sure I like the fire extinguisher mounted there.  It just barely hits the back of my calves.  It won't fit on the stock passenger seat, so I'll run it for a bit and then see.  Totally removing it is a huge PITA, not only do you have to pull the seat but you have to take the seat out of the side plates. 

So if I decide to remove it, I'll just pull the extinguisher and it's small mounting bracket, which I can get to with everything in the car and leave the larger mounting bracket installed.

Love these seats!  Fit SO much better in them, I sit IN them, not ON them like the stock sports seats.  These are also WAY nicer than the last set I had.  Much the rest of the interior quality much better.

Iconic seats, that one looks great in there. 

In reply to Dammit :

Thanks!  These are highly sought after here as Porsche never offered them in the USA.

Does the lap belt go over the side to the buckle or through the hole in the side to the buckle??

In reply to jfryjfry :

You mean on the receptacle side?  On the outside I have the lap belt routed through the hole in the seat.  On the inside, where the receptacle is, it goes over the side of the seat.  The receptacle is actually flush height wise with the top of the seat there.

Haven't done a lot to the car besides drive it lately.  There has been one project I really wanted to do tho and that was the garage door opener project.  Basically you gut your clicker visor mounted garage door opener, solder in some leads to create a harness, then use an OEM button to actuate it.

It absolutely kills me that an Audi of the same vintage, which cost less than half my 911, came with Homelink stock but my 911 didn't.  Wasn't even available on the 911!  WTF!

Anyways, my friend came over to help me with this but while I was rewiring my garage refrigerator (a mouse ate thru the wiring harness going to the control board and I spliced it back together.  It works now!!) he ended up knocking it out.

He used an old window switch  to make sure it worked but I ended up not using that.  Since I have a GT2 rear decklid, which has a fixed wing I'm not using the button on my center stack that you can use to manually raise/lower the stock wing.  So I decided to just use that button for my garage door opener. 

Here's the contraption you have to build...

The only bummer part is I have three single garage door and the button can only actuate two doors.  Oh well, still a lot better and cleaner than having a huge garage door opener stuck on my sun visor.

Next up I hope to finally fix the boost leaks on the car.

I've known the car has had a boost leak for awhile.  In the winter I took it to the dealer but their testing methodology is to pressurize from the air intake, which doesn't really catch all the vacuum lines, etc where most of the leaks are.  I boost leak checked it again and they'd missed some. 

So today my plan was to remove the Y pipe and see about finding this boost leak, then ziptieing all the vacuum lines in place, plus replace a few check valves. 

Getting the Y pipe off was a bit of an adventure, there are 3 10mm bolts, a sensor, two large hoses/clamps and then two hose clamps to remove.  Complicating matters was the factory used one time metal hose clamps to hose the vacuum line from the N75 boost solenoid onto the Y pipe, so I had to cut those off.

Eventually, though, success!

Now I started to poke around for the other vacuum lines and came to the realization that this won't be a short project.  Access to them is very challenging, the motor needs to be dropped a bit on the mounts at the very least.  I want to use the car tonight for my wedding anniversary plus tomorrow morning to the Porsche Breakfast club meeting. 

I decided to button it back up again and just have my indy take care of it, just don't feel like scarring my hands up on this job.  However, I did notice something on the little line that went from the N75 valve to the Y pipe.  What's that?  Yup, a hole!

That's easy enough to replace, although getting the other end onto the N75 valve and then zip tying it on was a PITA.  At least that's fixed, I wish I had red vacuum line because as you all know, red means more horsepower!  Of course I was an idiot and didn't bother to recheck the system by doing another boost leak check.  Oh well, I'm gonna drop it off at the shop anyways.

Quick little project today.  I have an old Traqmate that I kept from my E36 M3.  I had it completely wired permenantly into that car, rpm feed, etc, etc, etc.

I've been using it in this 911 but never hooked up the rpm feed.  When I first looked into it, people suggested tapping into a wire from the DME plug.  That didn't sound all that attractive, I want something easily removable plus tapping into the dme wiring harness seems like a great way to make the car not run.

A little more research yielded that Pin #9 on the OBD2 port outputs an RPM signal.  Cool.  So I bought a right angle OBD2 plug that had bare wires on the other end from eBay for a whopping $12 and I had what I needed to build a rpm signal harness.

I want something that I can unplug easily, the wire attaches to the Traqmate using a small flathead screw, it just pins the wire into place.  I don't want to have to screw/unscrew that everytime, so I decided to splice in male/female spade connectors on the wire.  That way I can leave the wire attached to the Traqmate and just unplug the other end that's attached to my OBD2 plug.  Then unplug that in/out of the car.  Easy.

I bought some of those heat shrink/solder things and I love them!  Much better than a typical butt joint connector. 

Hopefully this all works, I'll try it out at the auto-x that's at the end of this month.

So the car went to the shop yesterday as I wasn't sure my N75 line fix had completely fixed the boost leaks.  Turns out it had!  Shop pressure tested it and all was well.  Perfect!  Yeah, I shouldn't have been an idiot and I should've pressure tested it after I fixed that line but at least the pros have double checked my work and pronounced it passing.

Bonus!  When I went to the shop to pick up the car, not only did they not charge me anything, they also gave me a hoodie with their logo on it!  Sweet!  So, allow me to plug the best VW/Audi/Porsche Indy shop in the Denver area, Autobahn Premier Service.  Been using them for the past 12 years, always fixed right the first time, for a fair price.

Cool stuff. I like seeing how this has gone. I always contemplated getting one.

Well, decision made to update the radio in the 996.  The old single din CD player with a 6 disc changer in the frunk wasn't cutting it anymore.  I wanted hands free bluetooth calling, bluetooth music streaming and apple car play.

So ordered up all the adapters I need, stereo surround with hvac head unit relocation, wiring harness adapter, antenna adapter and MOST/Fiber optic adapter.  That last one lets me retain my Bose amp/speakers and use the OEM fiber optic cabling.  It's coming from overseas but I got notification that it hit LAX 3 days ago, so hopefully it'll show up this week.

Today I ordered this data:

A Sony XAV-AX100 Apple car play unit.  I picked it because it has an actual knob you use for volume and functions.  It was $370 shipped from Amazon, so not too bad.

I also ordered a Rennline phone holder, mostly because its specifically designed for the 996's.  Hope to install everything next Friday...