Midlife Crisis Unlocked

crxmike said:

I have thoroughly enjoyed my base 986 boxster and a 997 is on short list for future mid life purchase. Where did you find this one listed? I watch BAT but most of the 997 go for crazy money. I know they are likely only to appreciate if cared for, but I don't know that I can swallow the BAT prices. 

The flip side of "appreciate if cared for" is what my brother in law is facing. He has a 997.2 cabrio with full service records, so he feels he can only get it serviced at the dealer in order to maintain the value. Problem is, the nearest dealer is more than 250 miles away on the other side of two 10,000' passes. It's a bit inconvenient to say the least.

I drove his car before he did. I said at the time that a 2WD coupe with a stick would have been a much more engaging drive than his 4WD automatic convertible. PMRacing's car is probably a whole lot more fun.

Keith Tanner said:

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

That really is a lovely car. I did a variant on that. Bought a 2011 C63 AMG (The last of the NA V8s). My son gets to use it as his daily as long as he keeps his grades up, and his graduation present will be the pink slip. In the mean time, I get to use it just often enough that it feels a huge treat when I do. 

Nice! That was our favorite F1 medical car :) Too bad we never got the wagon here.

I think that I got it at the right point in the depreciation curve. Suspect this model will retain value like a well-kept M3. I love that car, and if my son sells it, I may disown him. ;) 

I only have one complaint about this car.  I can't drive it to its potential on public roads!

My wife loves driving it, and my daughter loves riding in it.  That alone makes it worth it.  I'm planning on passing it down to my daughter one day. 

PMRacing said:

Cars and Coffee this morning.  My daughter loves the frunk.

Michigan pretty lax on letting kids ride in trunks (frunks)?

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Automatic convertibles are at the bottom of the 911 curve of valuation. I won't say he's wasting his time....but he's probably wasting his time. 

In reply to spandak :

If your goal is to be seen while driving around in a Porsche, it's perfect. That's his goal. The badge on the front is all that matters to him. But he's convinced it's an investment. S'ok, he's an overall idiot.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Ah. I assumed he was one of us

I suppose the 911 has always been a status symbol but it has really taken off in the last 10-15 years. Shame too, they should be driven. 
 

back to the OP, lovely car and I hope it brings many smiles!

In reply to crxmike :

Also keep an eye on PCA classifieds I like buying from owners. 

In reply to crxmike :

Also keep an eye on PCA classifieds I like buying from owners. 

Minor updates.  The car is now in winter hibernation mode. 

Oil change and sample sent off for analysis.  I swapped out the engine mounts to the Torque Solutions Kit from FCP Euro. Much less clunking while shifting now.  I think I need to look at the transmission mount next though as there is still a slight thunk when shifting.   

30 minute job taking my time (with the lift was very helpful). I supported the engine with one of my rolling Husky cabinets.

Later this winter will be an all new suspension. I got a deal I couldn't pass up on a full Bilstein B16 Damptronic kit thanks to supplier connections. I also plan on adding a DSC controller, but that may have to wait till a bit later.  I need to see what the ride quality is with the coilovers first and rebaseline the car.  It has some peculiar quirks with the bad jounce bumpers and lowering springs.  

Other winter items include a paint cleanup (there is some ghosting from the crappy graphics) and some interior touch up of the soft touch plastics.  I also want to do the Gundo hack on the mufflers. Stock exhaust is just a bit too quiet.  We have some brilliant fab guys at work that can easily perform the mod.  

After that, I don't know what is next for the car other than just drive!  We put just over 4k miles from June to November with about 600 of that the drive home from the dealer.  That's more mileage than the last 2 year owner of the car did.

This is really awesome. I want one of these so bad. 

Yeah, glad to hear the experience is going well. 

Soon enough, it will be spring. 

Before being parked for the winter I did the seasonal oil change. After 3k miles, the oil analysis came back identical to the first one I had done, nice and clean.  No signs of any bore scoring materials.  Woohoo!  No oil smoke on start up either after sitting for several weeks (I videoed the start up to check). 

I've started pre-assembly of the coilovers but found I do need a couple of OE parts off of the current suspension.  Also, I ran into an issue with the front strut mounts and bearings.  The Bilstein spring seat will not fit over the new strut mount.  

So I'm going to borrow a friends lathe and trim a couple of mm off the the mount.  I do have a new bearing (not installed above). Once that is clearanced, the mount doesn't sit flush on the bearing, so I'll need to shorten the "hat" of the bearing as well.  

I have seen some people have issues with spring creaks with this kit.  I wonder if they have the same issues without knowing it.  I'll be documenting this for my Bilstein engineer friends, too.  Maybe they'll need to make some changes to their kits.  

Also I did check, there is no spacer or isolators that goes between the bearing and the spring seat.  

Out of hibernation this week and drove her to work today.  C&C at Porsche Ann Arbor tomorrow a.m.  I have next week off so the plan is to put the Bilstein kit in.  I love driving this car  😁

I've taken the week off for spring break and some garagetherapy / Porschtherapy time. Last year, I was able to get a great price on a full Bilstein B16 Damptronic kit and couldn't say no. The current suspension was stock PASM dampers with H&R springs and rotted/missing jounce bumpers.  When I was doing the test fitments (as seen above), there was some clearance issues with the spring seat and the strut mount and bearing.  My friend was able to machine a couple mm off of the strut mount so the spring seat cleared without any issues. 

The next issue was the spring seat didn't sit flush on the strut bearing. The "hat" of the bearing was too tall.  A bit of sand paper took care of that though.

Here's how much had to be sanded off.  Probably 3-4mm.

Aaaannnndddd....installed.

Thanks FCP euro for the great installation videos.  Rear will get installed tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday most likely.  I bought a Gyraline to align the car so I'll review that as well.  I have access to a Hunter rack at work so I'll align with the Gyraline and verify with the Hunter. 

I'll update later this week once the rear is done!

Nice car! I had a chance to back to back a Carmen S with a 997.2 Carrera S back when I wrote content for an automotive sales company. It was my first time driving modern Porsches, and my daily was an NA Miata.
 

I got out of the Caymen going, what's the big deal? It was good but not that good. And then I drove the 911. Wow! I was expecting the two to be similar, but the Carrera S was in a whole different league. Of course it had more power but it wasn't that. The clutch, shifter, steering we're all so much better. The whole driving experience was a revelation and I instantly saw what all the hype was about. 
 

Glad you got this instead of the Boxster.

Rear is done.

Old and busted:

New Hotness:

I didn't get as many pics of install as I wanted.  

I corner weighted the car first with some Ruggles scales I bought from someone on here a long time ago.  I got the car within 1.5% cross weight, and even ride heights, so i called it good enough. It's not a track car, so I'm not going for the last nth of setup perfection.  I did lift the car a couple times to check for consistency on the scales. They zeroed and matched weights after lifting and setting the car down again. 

As for the Gyraline - still not great with Android.  They say they're working on it. My phone wouldn't calibrate and when I tried it was way off. Also the camber and caster function aren't ready for Android yet.  Hopefully they'll have the Android version ready soon.  I tried to use my wife's old iPhone, but it was too old to update the OS on. So, I went old school and did strings and digital gauge for camber. 

To check camber I used a deep socket on the axle nuts and put my digital gauge on that.  Toe measured dead straight and camber was about -1 deg all around.  Not sure what specs are, but I didn't have to adjust anything after the install.  I triple checked because I was surprised at how it measured. Either way, it's straight enough to get out on the road for a shake down.  I'll try and get it to the alignment rack at work next week.

I did have a couple small issues. One of the rear spring perch set screws was jammed and I had to use an extractor to get it loose. A trip to the hardware store and I had a new screw. I put anti-seize on all of the set screws before tightening them. Also, on the front, the bolt that holds the brake line to the upright didn't go back in smoothly, so I had to run a tap to clean the threads out.  Other than those two things, the install went very smoothly.

I can't wait to feel how it has changed.  Once job stuff settles down I hope to get a DSC controller and do some of my own semi-active tuning on it.  

Today could have been a VERY expensive day.  Fortunately my wife is Awesome (with a capital A), and noticed before anything bad happened.  But let me back up a little bit.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed the typical crack forming in the coolant expansion tank.

So, one FCP euro order later, I had a gallon of coolant concentrate, new tank, and cap.

Out with the old:

In with the new:

.

Notice the large hose under the tank.  It has they usual german spring clip.  Well....I vacuumed the system, waited to see if there was any reduction in vacuum for several minutes, then filled the system.  Started the car, checked for leaks, drove it around, topped off, and all good, right?  

A couple days later, I drove to work and noticed the coolant was low. OK, must have burped a bit.  Got home and topped off.  Drove it again a few days later and burped again.  No biggie, topped off and called it good.  Today, my wife drove the car to work.  About halfway into her drive, she called me.  "I see white smoke coming out from behind the car. I'm pulling over. Oh E36 M3, the low coolant light just came on. I'm pulled over and shut the car off".  

berkeley!!!!!!!!  

I leave work and get to her 45 minutes later.  "Temp gauge never climbed," she told me, "the light was on for less than 500ft". I pop the bonnet. Tank is almost empty, but everything seems to be in place. I pull on the large hose under the tank and it pops out.  That berkeleying spring clip wasn't seated right. I start to look up road side assistance.  However, there is a reputable Euro shop (BIG shout out to Steve's European Auto!) two miles away. I give them a call. "Hey, I'm just down the street from you. Any chance you can bring some coolant out to us so I can drive the car to your shop?" 15 min later a porter comes out with a coolant jug and a funnel. I reset the hose and we fill the coolant. Start the car up, no visible leaks and head out to their shop. As we pull in, they have a bright red with gold wheels Lamborghini Countach parked out front, a Rolls, and a newer V12 Ferrari among the Audis, Porsches, etc.  I get out and pop the bonnet again, still hear a hissing. I wiggle the hose and it makes a squishing noise from the joint and there is coolant dripping from under the car.  Damn.  So I leave the it with them, drop my wife off at home and get back to work just in time for my meeting. This is about 9:30a.m. when I leave the shop.

I call them on the way to work as I was thinking through what I did and how this may have happened. I asked them to replace the hose for piece of mind and that when I was working on the tank, that clip may have pulled out more than it should have to remove the hose and maybe didn't seat properly.  I get a call around 1:00 p.m.  They got the car in and did find the spring clip not seated properly, so they fixed that. They pressure tested the system (I only have a vacuum fill tool, now I need to buy a pressure tester), and it held pressure. Topped everything off, drove up to temperature, checked for leaks and then called me. They said hose doesn't need to be replaced, it was in great condition, but we will if you want to. I was OK with keeping it if they were comfortable. So for the road side rescue and the fast service, the total bill was $150! 

Huge thanks again to Steve's European Auto of Waterford, MI for saving my butt.  

Phew!  

Lucky, you are !!!

Hey, 911s used to be air cooled anyway. You were just taking it t back a few decades! 

Glad it wasn't a big issue. After owning BMWs for years, I do not love those spring clips!