2003 Porsche 911 Turb-OOOOH

Got the calipers yesterday, to my delight, the seller had thrown in the zircon pucks that weren't in the pics for the front calipers.  However the rear zircon pucks look destroyed.  I used some compressed air to pop out the pistons to measure them for which rebuild kit I need and here's where the trouble started.

The piston sizes were all wrong for 996 pccb calipers, which is what the title on the eBay auction said they were.  A little research and measuring the caliper bolt mounting hole distance revealed that these aren't 996 pccb calipers, they're 997.2 pccb calipers, which won't fit onto my car.  On the 997 they're ~230mm apart, on a 996 it's around 140mm.

Argh!  So I've started a return thru eBay for these, hopefully that goes well. 

On other news the MOST adapter box for the stereo is still cutting out and I started a PayPal dispute a few weeks ago, vendor asked for a video of it, which I posted, then never heard back from them.  So I escalated that with Paypal yesterday. 

So the eBay vendor has accepted the return for the calipers, just waiting for them to send me a shipping label.  I've got them all boxed up and ready to go back.

The stereo MOST adapter company wants me to send it back to them, which wouldn't be an issue except they're not sending me a call tag and they're in China.  So I'll have to pay shipping and wait around a month for them to get it back.  I pointed that out and asked them to either refund me now or send me a warranty replacement first, we'll see how that goes.  Hopefully Paypal steps in and just refunds my cash. 

Still haven't gotten a shipping label from the vendor for the calipers, so I sent him a message. He responded wanting pictures of the part numbers on the brake calipers.  Ok, guess I'll unpack them all and take pictures, at the same time I'll pop out the pistons and take pictures of the measurements of those to make sure I drive my point home. 

Paypal approved my refund for the MOST adapter box but I still have to box up the adapter.  I'll pull it this Sunday and send it back USPS.  I bought another one off Ali Express that looks identical but was $50 cheaper.  Hopefully it works, it'll be here by November 9th.  I'll also order a noise suppressor as I'm getting alternator whine now, might as well install it with the new box.

All the 997 GT2RS intercoolers showed up a few days ago, in two MASSIVE boxes.  I was worried they wouldn't fit into the Golf R and still leave room for my son!  Luckily they just squeezed in, times like this make me miss my old GX470, which basically swallowed anything you wanted to carry, without having to fold down the rear seats. 

Auto-xed yesterday but forgot to bring my GoPro, so didn't bother to set up the Traqmate.  Beautiful day, sunny and 75 but really cold in the morning.  Left my Azenis on vs swapping over to the spect R888R's.  Challenging course, lots of people DNF'd, in the afternoon I finally figured the course out and dropped 3 seconds off my time.

I racked the car last night when I got home as today and the next three days are snowy.  This morning went out to the garage and pulled the faulty Seicane MOST adapter.  Luckily we'd put it in a pretty accessible place.

Remove the trim

Pull the radio forward and unplug the box

Seicane box out.

Need to pack it up and mail it to China tomorrow.  Already ordered a new one, it should be here in ten days or so.  Will install it when I get it.

Offseason projects are installing the 997 GT2RS intercoolers, figuring out the RPM feed for the Traqmate, upgrading to 350mm brake rotors front/rear and maybe swapping the fire extinguisher mount back over to the passenger seat.

Finally got a shipping label for the calipers but a message came from the seller saying it had an incorrect address for him.

i told him to call eBay and fix that and send me another label.  Some

back and forth ensued, along with my calling eBay for advice and I ended up using the only label he ever provided and advising the seller to go onto usps and reroute the package to him.

a few days later I get a call from a nice elderly lady saying she got a package I sent and there's nobody by the name on the package there.  Sigh.  Told her to give it back to usps and I called eBay.  Apparently the seller hadn't lived there for 5-6 years!

they said to wait two days and if I don't get refunded call them back.  So I called them back yesterday and now they're going to refund me.

I may also end up with the calipers too, as apparently they're getting sent back to me.  I'll send the seller one last note after I get refunded telling him to send me another label with the correct address and I'll send the calipers to him.

otherwise I guess I'll have a set of 997.2 pccb calipers to dispose of somehow as they won't work on my car.

what a mess but at least eBay seems to be on top of it.

OK, eBay update.  I called them on November 1st to say I hadn't been refunded.  They took a few days to look into the case and refunded all my money.  I've checked my credit card and the credit is there.  So that's good.  I have no idea where the calipers are, I haven't received them back yet.  If I do, I'll ping the seller and see if he sends me a label for them. 

I put in my new MOST/Bose adapter box the other day, so far so good.  The tunes work without cutting out and as a bonus I no longer have alternator whine.  Waiting to see if I get refunded for the first box but I'm not holding my breath given it's a Chinese company.

Next up, install the 997 GT2RS intercoolers.

Got the calipers back.  Sent the seller a message saying if he sent me a shipping label with his correct address I'd happily send them back.  No response.  So now I have a set of 997.2 PCCB brake calipers I can't use.  I've posted them for sale, so far no real bites.  They're currently sitting in my basement.  Oh well.

Ok, let's install some intercoolers!  This, while not a difficult project, is a time consuming one.  I probably had something around 8-10 hours into this.  This isn't a complete DIY, I'm assuming you know how to take off your rear bumper.  If you don't, look it up.  If that looks like something you don't want to do, installing these intercoolers is something you definitely don't want to do.

Tools needed:

3/8" drive rachet, with extensions

T25 socket or driver

10mm and 13mm sockets

Screwdriver, phillips and flat head

Dremel with cut off wheel and sanding attachments

Rivet gun and rivets

Weather stripping

Patience, lots and lots of patience!

Ok, time to kick this off.  Remove the rear bumper.  That leaves you staring at the intercooler assembly.  Porsche designed this to come off as one big piece.

There are various 13mm bolts/nuts holding this on.  Two on the front, two on the back, two on the bottom attached to the heat shield and one vertically mounted one on the top front.  Don't forget to pop the two retaining clips off the boost hoses and pull the boost hoses free.  Now remove the entire thing and you have this sitting on the floor.

Car looks like this now

Now you have to seperate the bracket from the shrouds/IC assembly.  They're held in place with clips, 4 total, 2 on the top and bottom each.  Once you've done that, pull the bracket free.

Pop the retaining clips off that hold the two halves of the shrouds together, after you've marked the orientation and sides of the shrouds so you know how to put them back together.  These pop off easily with a flat head screwdriver.  Mark the clips for inside/outside, as they do differ.  Set them aside, we'll be using these later.

Now let's compare the stock IC to the GT2RS ones.  You'll notice that the stock ones are longer, but the GT2RS IC's are thicker and have more rows to them.  Research has shown these to cool 65-70F better than stock and recover quickly.

Width of GT2RS IC

Width of stock IC

Ok, time to start modifying the shrouds.  You don't need to modify the GT2RS IC's themselves at all for a 996 Turbo install.  Modifying the shrouds, frankly, was a huge PITA.  Be really careful as the plastic is brittle and to replace them is costly.  I got a lot of help here from a pwdrhnd, a local 996 turbo owner who'd done this before.  He let a friend and me borrow his already modified shrouds so we could measure them and copy his design. 

There are several modifications you have to make, beginning with cutting off the inner lip from each shroud.  Do this with a dremel/cut off wheel, then smooth it down with files, sandpaper wheels, etc.  Now you get to start to cut notches in the shrouds.  Here's where you do it, with measurements. 

Here's the shrouds sitting on the IC's so you can orient the above pics to make sense

Now you have to add an extension plate to the shroud to make it fit the shorter GT2RS IC better. You only need to do this on the inlet side.  Some thin aluminum sheeting works well here, then rivet it into place.

Put weatherstriping all around the perimeter of this shroud, as it's the inlet side.  I used this stuff.

Ok, now you have a decision to make.  How do you plan to hold the two halves of the shrouds together?  The stock clips are too short to fit.  You can either modify the clips, or use heavy duty zip ties.  Either will work, your choice.  Zip ties are easier, clips are more secure long term.  I decided to modify the clips. 

You need to cut the clips in half, then use 4.5cm length piece of aluminum to extend them.  Drill holes in the clips/extension pieces and rivet them together using 1/8" rivets with a backing plate.  These are the rivets I used

Your clips should now look like this

Ok, time to start putting all this stuff back together.  Put the IC's into the shrouds, making sure you're orientating them correctly.  Pop the clips on.  This is how I felt at the time

Put the assembly back into the brackets.  Note that only three of the bracket mounting points line up now.  Getting those clips back in is a total PITA if you're solo.  I recommend lubing the snot out of the bushings and using a wood workers racheting clamp to squeeze the assembly togther so you can drive the clip into place.  Once that's done, install them into the car.

Hook everything up, put the rear bumper back on and you're done.  You've more than earned your favorite frosty beverage!

Do you have a post somewhere on your lift?  Would be interested to hear how much you like it for working on the car? 

Yes, I made a thread about the installation of it.  Had a few hiccups but the install company and Bendpak took really good care of me.

I love having the lift, I couldn't go back to rolling around on the floor.  I have two air powered bridge jacks, so lifting the car up off the deck to do wheels off work is super easy.  Best of both worlds I think, I'd buy it again.

Well, cars is currently sleeping.  For the off season I want to figure out the Tach feed for the Traqmate and I may upgrade to the 350mm 997 Turbo brake rotors.

Just in time too, cause we got over a foot of snow this past Tuesday.  Sucked because the first inch or two were slush so my snowblower couldn't handle it.

I did add another P-car to the collection tho! 

Love these, my 6 year old son and I build them.  Small enough that he doesn't lose interest and they're fun.  Cheap too, around $13.

Forgot I also picked this up on trade from a friend.  It's a leather wrapped Porsche Teq Equipment rollbar.  I'm not sure I'll keep it as I'd really like a BBi rollbar.  The BBi one mounts to the rear shock towers, fits my Bose stereo subwoofer, has a double X crossbars design and is modular.  It bolts into three pieces, so installation is much, much easier.

Since I have no plans on running any rollbar until my son no longer fits in the backseat of the car, which will be a few years, I think I'll just see if a BBi bar pops up used.  If so, I'll buy it and resell the Teq bar.  If not, I'll run the Teq bar as its definitely a cool, period correct OEM+ part.

If you do decide to sell the Teq bar, it'd look great in my C2.

In reply to AnthonyGS :

I'll let ya know but shipping it isn't something that sounds like fun to me...

On a good note, the pccb calipers sold yesterday and I shipped them out today. 

So my two friends who bought these intercoolers with me have had issues putting the assembled intercoolers/shrouds/brackets back into their cars.

apparently the brackets aren't lining up with the mounting studs on the car.  One of them had to further modify the shrouds the other is waiting for me to get back home and check out my car.

It looks like cutting the flanges off the intercoolers to make the stack height shorter may be necessary after all.  Or even more cutting on the shrouds....

Well some patience seems to have paid off.  I just found the proper set of 996 gt3 front calipers and bought them.

Waiting for them to be shipped, hopefully they show up in decent shape.  Will pair them with 350mm rotors.  Last oem+ upgrade for the car

Nice!.

With my boxster fiasco (self inflicted) I've been eying 996 and 997 turbo's.  

Last time I looked these were 30-40k for good condition. I'm seeing 2002's in meh condition for 55k (asking).  Quite astounded.

So question i have, I love the sound the NA cars have.  Do you find yourself craving that sound? or do you prefer the torque monster air induction machine? 

(every video i find even with exhaust mods the turbo's just sound like they are inhaling as much air as possible, quite a different sound entirely.) 

Unfortunately a good 997 turbo is more like $65-75k, and a good 996  turbo is $45-55k.  I think these sound awesome with an exhaust.  Mine does with the Soul Performance exhaust, as does my friends with the Unobtanium exhaust.  Pretty sure I've posted a sound clip of mine...

Issue is they're L O U D!  There really isn't a good sounding exhaust that's still civilized...

There is a higher mileage 996 turbo for sale near me.  I'm afraid if I go look at it, I will buy it.  

I just finished installing an aftermarket exhaust on my 996 C2 and oh wow.  I'm wondering if I can capture decent audio on my iphone.

GT3 calipers showed up!  Proved the old adage that good things come to those that wait.  While their cosmetic condition leaves a little to be desired, with numerous chips and scrapes in the paint, they have it where it counts.

All the zircon pucks are present and totally undamaged and the piston dust boots show no signs of high heat, so it looks like these calipers were never used on the track.  I don't think I'm even going to rebuild them they look so good.  I'll replace the bleeders cause those look a little crusty and I'll get the "spider clips" from Demon Speed so the zircon pucks don't fall out.  One has already popped out in fact...

Plan is to buy the rest of the stuff I need in March and install them in April.

Nice bolt-in upgrade there, and an advantage of the turbo/C4S platform is that the bolt-centres of the GT3 calipers are the same as your uprights. Are you going to fit the GT3 master cylinder as well?

I'm not using these calipers but these are the bells+discs I'm going to be using:

In reply to Dammit :

From the research I've done you only need to upgrade the master cylinder if you put on the larger 997 rear calipers.  Apparently the 996 GT3 front calipers have the same bias as my stock ones. Plan is to run the larger 350mm rotors on all 4 corners, using my stock rear calipers with caliper spacers and longer bolts.

I really don't want to have to upgrade the master cylinder, there are issues with having to use special lines with proportioning valves in them so the PSM ECU won't freak out.  I'll put it together as is and see how it all feels.

Two piece rotors are awesome!  I just can't justify the expense, 997 turbo rotors are direct bolt ons and are cheap, so I treat them as disposable...

Yeah, it's an indulgence tbh, but getting the bells made by a local firm (BG Developments) does mean that we can control the disc offset, which in turn means that we can position the new calipers very precisely with regards to the BBS LM's.

They work out cheaper than the equivalent Giro discs, which has contributed to my man-maths.

In reply to Dammit :

The Giro discs are nice but are serious money.  I can't justify the costs when I compare them to how many "regular" discs it takes to make the same investment.

My car is a full street car, saving a few lbs on the brake rotors is irrelevant and the increase in braking performance undetectable, even on the track.