2003 Porsche 911 Turb-OOOOH

Oh, ok no worries - I didn't realise that this was a known thing.

Surprising that Porsche would design the mounts in such a way that it puts the driver higher than the sports seats, I've been to Germany fairly regularly and they're not exactly a nation of midgets.

In reply to Dammit :

To be fair, I had no idea either!  If I had, I would've ordered the Brey Krause side brackets and installed them before I put the seat in the car.  I only figured this out after I had them in the car and they were too high.  Then I searched on Rennlist and went "Oh...."

The issue really is that they're fixed back seats and everyone is going to need them at a different height.  The mistake Porsche made was not putting any adjustment into the side plates.  If they'd had two front holes and three rear holes to choose from, people could set the seat up how they liked and needed it.  Instead it's one position only, unlike *all* the aftermarket seat plates, which have multiple places to bolt the seat down to.

Oh well, at least Brey Krause has a solution for me, looks like it's $200...

Doc,

You didn't happen to be at the Hyatt downtown Denver last Thursday, where you? Parked out from in Valet was a silver 996 Turbo just like yours and it made me think of this thread. 

In reply to bmw88rider :

Nope, that wasn't me.  With the GT2 decklid and GT3 wheels my car will stand out a bit now tho!

docwyte said:

In reply to Dammit :

To be fair, I had no idea either!  If I had, I would've ordered the Brey Krause side brackets and installed them before I put the seat in the car.  I only figured this out after I had them in the car and they were too high.  Then I searched on Rennlist and went "Oh...."

The issue really is that they're fixed back seats and everyone is going to need them at a different height.  The mistake Porsche made was not putting any adjustment into the side plates.  If they'd had two front holes and three rear holes to choose from, people could set the seat up how they liked and needed it.  Instead it's one position only, unlike *all* the aftermarket seat plates, which have multiple places to bolt the seat down to.

Oh well, at least Brey Krause has a solution for me, looks like it's $200...

I think I worked on those when I had my summer internship there...

Ok, just got off the phone with OG Racing.  Those Brey Krause brackets do lower the seat 1" and allow for rake, so I ordered a set.  They should put the seat down to the same level it was before, perhaps lower with the rake.

Here's the link.

https://www.ogracing.com/brey-krause-r-9079-driver-seat-side-mount-adapter-porsche-gt3-seat

great cars...had a 2003 996tt x50 with K26 twin turbos, tune, exhaust, suspension, etc. Put dopwn ~650 to the wheels.  Lovely cars and quite quick. Stock suspension is for the birds though, get some nice springs and drop about an inch, be sure to do it right though.  Enjoy!

Honestly not going to lower the car.  Right now I have the stock suspension with a rear H&R swaybar and the car handles really nicely.

I need the ride height to get in and out of my driveway and clear the bridge jacks on my 4 post lift.

Ok, BK side plates showed up, so time to remove the seat and swap them over. This time I did not remove the negative battery terminal, no ill effects happened.



Yeah, that looks like about an inch or so. Take the seat out of the brackets by removing the two 13mm bolts on either side. Then pull the sliders/bracket assembly off and take it to your workbench.
There are two 13mm nuts and two T40 torx bolts you need to remove to pull the stock side plates off. Be extremely careful with the Torx bolts! The torx head on them is very shallow and at least on my brackets there were on there really, really tight!





The torx bolts are held in place with a threaded plate that's underneath the slider. You need to hold it up in place with your finger so you can start the torx bolts...


The middle slider piece just slides into these two plastic bushings, pay attention to where these tabs go, they have to be on TOP, or else you won't be able to move the sliders back/forth...


the above bit goes into the below bit

This is the correct orientation...


Ok, everything is blown apart, lets see how much space I'm really going to gain here with these BK plates...



Ok, looking good. You may notice that the stock side plates are NOT symmetrical! The inner plate isn't as wide as the outboard plate, which makes getting to the bolts a little harder. The BK plates are symmetrical, but the seat seems to sit in the same place as stock. Hmmm. Anyways, let's get everything put back together. BK handily has mounting holes on both sides of the plates, for either harness lap belts and/or the stock seat belt receptacle. Reuse the hardware from the Euro GT3 mount except the plate, don't need that.


Let's get the seat into the car now...


Here's a shot from the back showing how close the BK plates put the seat to the floor of the car. This is about as low as you can go...


Ok, well that was a little bit of work, is it worth it? Oh yeah it is! I'm definitely sitting lower in the car and with the seat in the front upper hole I have the amount of rake that I like, so I now have thigh support I like. I can easily bit my fist between the top of the sunroof and my head now, so plenty of space for me with my helmet on.

Result!

Most important mod of all, a properly fitting booster seat for my son!

nicely done!  

Good work - makes a big difference being at the right height in the car.

I initially had this:

Which was no good, had the seat base scalloped out so that I could get to this:

As you can see in the change from trousers to shorts, it took a while!

Much more reassuring when you can see all of the instruments though.

In reply to Dammit :

Yup, I felt like I was sitting on a perch the way the seat was before.  I also intensely dislike not having any seat rake, I really want the back of the seat to be lower than the front so I have some thigh support.

Now that I've pulled this seat twice I've been able to inspect it closely, it's definitely a "driver" quality seat.  Has some wear marks here and there, etc.  I was thinking about getting the cover/cushion kit from Carnewal for ~$550 USD but now I'm not so sure...

So when I had my M3 track car I also had a Featherlite 3110 aluminum open trailer.  When I sold the M3 and bought the 911 I also decided to sell the trailer.  I debated keeping it but it was a PITA having to go get it from the storage yard and bring it back.  Plus the GX470 I have now was barely adequate to tow it.

Plus, simplicity of just driving the car to events.  I've been putting the race tires on at home and driving the 911 to the track with them.  So far I've been lucky and haven't gotten caught out in the rain, as some of my biggest white knuckle moments have been driving to/from the track on race tires. 

A Willwood hidden hitch popped up used on Rennlist for my 996, so I bought it.  These aren't made anymore and are impossible to find.  It's sandwiched between the car and the bumper beam and is completely hidden.  The license plate gets mounted on a hinge, when you want to use it, you flip up the license plate which reveals the receiver.  Unfortunately you have to cut a small square hole in the bumper cover tho, which is giving me pause.

This morning I went and picked up the last part of the equation, a tire trailer.  I've had two other tire trailers in the past, both based on the Harbor Freight trailers.  They worked fine and I used my last one for ten years, only sold it when I got my full sized trailer.

I found a South Sport tire trailer locally, much nicer than the Harbor Freight ones.  Greasable zerk fittings for the wheel bearings, integral tail lights, detachable tongue so you can stand it up and hide it into a small corner of the garage.  Also has the large wheel rack that I need since I have the wide body wheels.

Still unsure about cutting a hole in my 996 Turbo rear bumper cover but that's something I'll deal with later I suppose.  I have to take the bumper cover off to replace my spark plugs and coil packs, I'll make the decision then.

If the hole is behind the registration plate then presumably it will be invisible when said plate is in residence?

The other option would be the Porsche roof bars and a tyre tray type affair. 

In reply to Dammit :

Yes, its entirely invisible with the license plate in place.  I suppose its more of a mental thing with me, just seems wrong to cut a hole in the bumper cover.  Part of it is me wondering what future owners will think, "What moron cut a hole in the bumper cover?!"

I do have the Porsche roof rack bars, not so sure they'd support the weight of a full set of wheels/tires tho.  Just seems sketchy in comparison to using the tire trailer.

My RTS has a maximum weight of 85kg I think, I honestly have no idea how much a set of wheels+tyres weigh however.

Honestly, I'd just cut the hole - my car is on it's second front bumper after a car/deer encounter, they're sacrificial items.

Gotta figure each rear wheel/tire weighs well over 50lbs and the front wheel/tires close to that.  So over 100kg for the entire set.

Plus the PITA of having to load/unload them from the roof, tying them down appropriately, etc, etc.  End of the day, I'll cut a small hole in the bumper cover where nobody will ever see it so I can use the tire trailer.

I'm just waiting as once I get the bumper off I want to replace the spark plugs and coil packs and maybe upgrade to the 997 GT2RS intercoolers.  It's also the best time to swap out the exhaust...

Ok, well it guess I made the right move selling my M3, trailer and moto to get the 911.  Ostensibly it was because I foresaw the lack of time to use all of those things at the track.

I have one more track day this Saturday at Pueblo Motorsports Park and one more auto-x October 27th with the PCA that I was hoping to make.  My son plays soccer and the fall season is in swing, his games are on Saturdays.  So that means no track day at PMP this week.  I was hoping his season would be finished before the PCA auto-x but no such luck.

Oh well, there are worse things to have to do, he's really put it together this season and is playing well, really fun to watch.  As with most 5 year old soccer games its the flying feet of fury, good thing I got him a big set of shin guards, lol!

In other news I've got something coming from Soul Performance, soulpp.com.  Really excited about this, its supposed to arrive Friday evening, so hopefully I'll get it installed before the weekend is over!

Holler if you ever need a hand with anything. The moving van is coming tomorrow and I'll be in CO starting next week. 

In reply to bmw88rider :

Thanks!  Are you moving to Denver?

Well, woke up this morning and excitedly checked the UPS site to track my package.  If it was going to be delivered today, UPS would show it arriving in Denver late last night and being out on the delivery truck early this morning.

And, it's delayed.  They don't even show it arriving in town yet.  So I don't see how I'm going to get it today.  My plan was to remove the stock exhaust this morning while the kids were in school, then put the new one on tonight after they went to bed.  

Now, not so much.  On the bright side this will give me time to order the studs that go from the turbo to the catalytic convertors.  Nobody had them in stock in town, only the nuts.  One of the studs is missing from when the previous owner took his aftermarket exhaust off the car and went back to stock, so I want to replace that.  Plus have a few extra studs in case one gets damaged when I take off the stock exhaust now.

All the nuts look good tho, not rusty or rounded over.  I hit them with PB Blaster yesterday, I'll continue to do that everyday until my new exhaust shows up...

Living in far north Colorado Springs and working there in Centennial by you. I'll be up there 2-3 times a week when I'm in town. 

In reply to bmw88rider :

Nice!

Our engineering base is halfway between Denver and Boulder - in the Interlocken business park.

I'm out roughly once every three months, I leave an old Serotta Colorado in the server room of the office for when I'm out there.

I've got a great deal of affection for Colorado - tried to get a transfer over there pretty hard for a while but the timing never worked out and now I'd likely end up in California if I did get transferred over.

If you like the outdoors then it's hard not to fall in love with Colorado, I think anyway.