docwyte said:... Falken RT615k+ don't play well in snow...
That's the damn truth! I foolishly decided to move the S2000 from the alley garage to the driveway when there was 1/4" on the roads. Ended up needing to pull it with the Touareg to get up the street to the driveway!
Picked up my car from the tuner after having him set it up for the k24's. Also got a ride in a friends Cayman GT4RS, which is every bit as cool as you'd think, if not more. The induction noise in it is *insane*. It completely drowns out the exhaust, even though the exhaust isn't quiet by any stretch of imagination. Ride is extremely controlled but not harsh at all, shifts are crazy fast, power is quite good, it puts you back into the seat even though he couldn't rev it all the way to 9000 rpm since he's still in the break in period. Fabulous car, hopefully I win one in the PCA raffle, lol!
Onto my car, which I was dying to drive. I probably put 70 miles on it today, freeway and city as the tuner isn't that close to me. Unfortunately most of it was in traffic, so I wasn't really able to lay into it much. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that the low end feel around town is basically the same as it was before. It doesn't really feel any more laggy than the k16's. Yes, it doesn't hit full boogie as fast but in "normal" street driving it doesn't feel weak knee'd at all. It feels more progressive in spool and when it does hit full boogie, it's definitely boogie'ing harder and for far longer than before. Hopefully I'll get it out more this weekend and find some emptier stretches to see how it feels in the top of 3rd gear to 7000rpm.
That's going to be a riot on track. I wish we lived closer together to meet up at an event!
In reply to jfryjfry :
I can't wait! I'm hoping to break 2:00 at High Plains this season in it. I'd *love* to bring this out to California and do some track days out there with it, at sea level. Sadly I probably won't have the time until I retire tho.
Last thing for the turbo install project was to reinstall the driveshaft going to the front diff. Took off a ton of 10mm plastic nuts and some T30's to remove the belly pans. Then some 15mm nuts and bolts to tilt the "cage" down from the transmission. Slide the driveshaft yoke into the front diff, line it up to the transmission and install some 15mm bolts into the transmission side. It's installed.
Now reinstall the belly pans with all the 10mm plastic nuts and some T30 torx. Done.
That leaves two more projects for the Spring prep. First is to flush the brakes with Castrol SRF. I'll do that middle of April. Last thing is to fix the hvac blend doors. Porsche put holes in the doors and then covered them with foam, which totally degrades with time. Someone has 3D printed some plugs that you silicone into place on the blend doors once you've gotten to them. There are some YT videos out there showing how to do it, basically you remove the radio, slice open an hvac duct to gain access to the doors, then have at it.
Once I get that done, unless something breaks, it should be fully prepped for the season and good to go.
Had the front bumper cover off for something else and decided I should check the radiators to see how much garbage they've trapped. These cars really hoover up everything from the road. So I removed the ducting, then the bolts holding the AC condenser on. This is why you do it like this Tim Suddard....
Is that a....bird? Yes, yes it is. I still don't understand how it made it through the grill....
This is also the pile of garbage that came out in addition to what you see still attached
So this is from about 10k miles of driving. Good news is the radiators and condensers are fine but it's a reminder to check and clean them out every other year...
Brake fluid flush today. Finally, after I don't know how many quarts of brake fluid I'm not getting green fluid out anymore. All the residual blue dye from the Ate Super Blue is finally gone.
Need to reinstall my bumper after I install the Rennline bumper grill mesh inserts, that should dramatically cut down on the trash that gets into the radiators. Then it's fixing the hvac blend doors but that won't keep me from driving the car or hitting the track
Wow.... is this summoning some sort of evil P spirit to say there's only one more thing to fix??
In reply to jfryjfry :
LOL! I hope I haven't put the whammy on me but this car is really very solid. That said I am a bit worried that the clutch won't hold the additional power I just added and I still haven't addressed the coolant pipes, which can eventually debond and pop out.
IIRC You removed the front drivetrain for handling purposes. Was the handling gain not worth the extra wear on the rear tires or will the added power overwhelm the rears now?
In reply to CAinCA :
No, I only pulled the front driveshaft so I could get the car dyno tuned. I've always run it awd.
I've got what I need to convert to rwd but haven't done it. Now that I've got the rear diff apparently the awd doesn't help all that much
OK, so started here with the bumper off
Here's the back side of the bumper. The motorcycle lift makes for a handy work bench too
And with the Rennline screens installed. I was worried the clips would get in the way of the radiator ducts seating and they do. Rennline sent zero instructions with this.
Those should keep a lot of debris from packing into the radiators. It was hard to get the bumper to line back up, the ducts were pushing against the bumper. Eventually I did get everything seated properly.
I also flashed the "street/track" tune vs the "kill" tune that I had in it.
So I love those eBay aero splitters, they used to be ~$100 shipped, they're ~$125 shipped now. OEM aero ones are cost something stupid, like $800. They're wear items for me, I seem to break one a year. What I don't love about them is their mold is off and they're about 3/8" of an inch too short. I end up using my heat gun to stretch the end a little bit but it's still a struggle to put them on.
Of course going to the GT2 bumper would get rid of this problem, but that's a huge cost, no matter what way (aftermarket, Ruf, OEM) is chosen. Sigh, guess I'll keep dealing with these....
I like the way the screens look and I'm sure they will help keep the radiators cleaner. I'd keep an eye on your temperatures on the track though. I was seriously thinking about getting them for my car. Then I read a thread on Rennlist in the racing drivers forum about cooling on track. Someone stated that they don't recommend the screens anymore because they restrict air flow. I want to say it was Charles from LN Engineering but I'd have to dig up the thread to be sure. You've added more power and heat into the system. At the same time you might have put a little restriction on the air flow. I'm not trying to poke at your project. Just trying to be helpful.
I'm planning to clean my radiators next weekend thanks to your post in this thread. I don't think I will find any animals though.
Hmm, maybe? I find that unlikely tho, those screens aren't fine mesh. My car rarely moves the coolant temp needle off 185-190, even when ambient temps are close to 100F, so I'm not particularly worried. Plus the larger turbos actually add less heat than the smaller ones.
Had to play around with the drivers side fender liner to get it to sit right, then noticed it was missing a push pin fastener. Luckily I had some new ones in my work bench, so replaced that. Then replaced a few of the 10mm plastic nuts that I noticed were broken when I R&R'd the front driveshaft. After that it was off the lift and onto the garage deck for the season.
That wheel finish looks awesome with the silver paint. Have a great (and safe) track season.
When I installed the Rennline grills on my 987 had to do some serious trimming as well in order to fit the bumper back on. Had to go back and forth several times and was not fun trying to do it by myself. For what they charge for basically glorified chicken wire you would think that it will come cut to size and with proper instructions.
In reply to newold_m (Forum Supporter) :
Mine were cut to size properly, but it's clear that the clips get in the way of the radiator ducts. It'd be nice if they included instructions and showed you where they want you to place the clips and then tell you how to contour them to get the maximum amount of clearance...
Last thing to tackle on my off season list was the hvac blend doors. They have holes in them and Porsche covers them in foam, which degrades over time, allowing the air to mix, meaning luke warm heat/AC and the air not going thru the vents that you want. Apparently this is something that affects all 996/997/986/987's. I watched a few YT videos, there are two ways to tackle this, either thru the frunk, which requires quite a bit more disassembly, or thru the vent behind the radio. I decided to go thru the vent behind the radio.
Popping the radio out is super easy, remove the horseshoe, unplug all the harnesses for the buttons, remove 4 T20 torx bolts and slide out the radio. Unplug it. Now you're starting at the vent in question, which you need to slice open to get to the blend doors. This is where things started to get a little strange. My car is a 2003, most of the videos I was seeing were from cars that were 1999-2001. Their vents are definitely different than mine. Hmmm, not only in shape, but mine has a foam surround on the top of it to help seal it to the vents themselves that the older cars don't have.
Ok, decision made to cut a window into the vent and take a peek. So I do that and go to fold down the plastic so I can see in there. The plastic vent on the bottom breaks off, doh! Well, it broke off because on my vent there's a plastic reinforcement there that the earlier cars also don't have.
See it on the bottom right there? What do you also see? Yep, all my foam is totally intact! Not only that, but my foam looks like a closed cell foam that isn't going to degrade vs what everyone else is showing on their cars/videos. So I just put my cut plastic window back into place and used black gorilla tape to seal it all back up and put it all back together.
If that foam in my car ever degrades, I'm going to have to use the other method of going in thru the top of the heater box in the frunk, as there's no way my hands will fit through the opening in the vent I made and there's no way to make the opening bigger.
In other news, I'm supposed to hit the track next weekend for my first event but it's going to be 25-45F that day, plus my sons soccer team late scheduled a game that day. So I think I'm going to cancel, track driving is supposed to be fun and it's not going to be fun if I'm freezing my butt off out there all day...
Yes, I'd keep an eye on your temps at the track with those mesh grills on. An aerodynamicist told me that any mesh with the openings smaller than 1/4 inch act like a solid surface over 120 mph +. Which your car is certainly capable of...
When I put mesh in the grill on my RX7 race car, I used larger mesh (1/2 inch) and it didn't affect the temps.
In reply to RacerBoy75 :
Yeah, I'm not concerned about that. It's gonna be fine, lots of people use these grills and if there was an issue it'd be all over the forums.
Okay, glad you are so certain! Just keep on eye on the temps at first.
Brought the race wheels/tires up from the basement and put them on my tire trailer. Then swapped over to the track brake pads on the car. Basically ready for my first event of the season at High Plains this Sunday. Let mission 2:00 commence!
Bring it!!
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