The Boxster Gamble - Should I? I did - Progress thread!

[The return of Marty Wild]

Hang your head in shame, Sir! :lol:

Mine on the exact same mileage as it goes.

 

[½cwt]

Mine is 2000MY with 98k miles.

I did all the work myself but with all new arms (Spyder Performance, good service and very good pricing), camber bolts (all 4 needed cutting), shocks, bump stops and drop links (3 needed cutting so did all 4 anyway), front top mounts, a track rod and a pair of front springs (one was broken) still well north of £1600 on parts even using after market parts other than arms mostly came from Autodoc. The only OE bits were the front springs (from 9apart) and 4 camber bolts (OPC Silverstone).

Also I needed to get a more manly impact wrench, an induction heater to get the drop link/upright pinch bolts out and a reciprocating saw with good blades which set me back £400 in power tools was well. All original Porsche parts even fitted by an indy would be more like £4.5k. Took a long time but was rewarding and a very successful result. Made buying Geo Care at Kwik Fit (up to 8 checks in 24 months) very good value as I did it in two phases so tracking costs were quite sensible.

 

[MarkGolf]

Been a while, cars have taken a bit of a back seat, so much so I have even put off buying a long time dream car, probably just as well with car values but son and family life coming first at the moment and just no time/need for cars at the moment.

Anyway, have been up to small jobs here and there.

Never liked the black badge and it was broken, so bought a new one for an S which comes in Silver.

Shifter bushing for the SSK made by Alex on here. Helps tighten up the side to side wobble due to no bush being fitted to the ball on the ssk

Fitted Michelin PS4's all round, 1 of them wouldn't seat on the wheel which was a bit odd so they guys at the tyre shop strapped it up to push the bead out and on.

Shorter valves fitted

What a difference these have made to the car, rides much better and the grip has really highlighted the need for better brake pads and anti roll bars, more so the ARB's. I would have never said that the car needed them but with the noticeable increase in grip, faster into bends, I find the car is leaning more than I like. I'm not sure I will go as far as to replace them, I'm not that arsed as it's not that car but it was interesting.

However, I hear that all they need is a GT3 front one?

Grubby here I know, standards have slipped but fitted some Porsche 5mm spacers I had all round while wheels were off.

Hit 80k

I hear this is when the problems start.. 80k is actually when I tend to sell cars and I soon found out that the 80k milestone myth is true..

The battery was constantly draining, alarm going off, nothing seemed to be on, spent a while checking everything. In the end, turned out to be the alternator reg, easy enough to switch out.

Can't seem to find a pic of the alternator job, only this..

With that sorted, I had the car booked in to have a dent in the decklid and front bumper sorted.

Great job on the colour match and no more nasty dent

That 80k thing hitting me again..

Heading home from my friends bodyshop, 25 miles into my journey back, I dropped it down a gear to head off up the slip road (not trying to go for a top speed run, Junc8 M25, if you know, you know), as soon as I planted my foot, PPOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!! The biggest smoke cloud shot out from my car, so much so, I lost my mate and all visibility behind me, my friend actually slammed his brakes on as it was so thick and wasn't sure where I went!

During this, the oil pressure warning popped up and I just turned the car off and coasted over to the hard shoulder in a bit of shock.

Jumped out expecting to see oil pouring out of the car but all seemed fine. Exchanged stories with my mate and then wondered WTF! First thought was that the engine had just let go for some strange reason. Bore scoring, ring failure, IMS (even though I have the upgrade) etc etc.
Anyway, I figured if it's broke, starting it to have a sanity check won't hurt. Started up good as gold with the exception of HUGE amounts of smoke coming from it. Car sounded perfectly fine, so with my mate being a bit more cautious than me, he said it's best to get it towed home and not risk it.
Sorted out breakdown and while waiting, we were working out what it could be, I then figured that the smoke was coming from both tailpipes, which would mean it's not bore scoring seeing as each tailpipe belongs to 1 of the 2 cylinder banks. It had to be higher up than that, so intake related as it was feeding both banks, we eventually settled on it being oil in the intake and this then led to AOS being the favoured culprit.

Personally, with this being my decision, I would have just driven home and put up with the smoke embarrassment but my mate, rightfully so, said no, just get towed to be safe.

So towed home and once home, tear down..

Oil in the intake.

AOS was filled with crap

So clearly, the sudden pressure of me planting my foot, which certainly wasn't the first time in my journey, was too much for the failing diaphragm in the AOS which resulted in oil being sucked into the intake all of a sudden.

I cleared as much of the intake as I could, various vac pipes, hoses etc, awaited the new AOS and swapped them over. After this. I pretty much just had to let the car get up to temp and take it out for a bit of a blast to clear the remaining oil out.

After a few miles, it cleared up and all is now well.

Badge back on

That's all for now.

 

[MarkGolf]

I forgot to add, I recently tried a car with the console delete and it made a great difference, so I tried to get a blue one from Porsche but they can't get them anymore.

So I had to settle for a beige one which I plan on ruining by probably dying it the wrong colour.

So please, if anyone knows of a blue one, let me know! Otherwise I am going to kill this one!

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

Great to see a few new posts! Sorry to hear about the mishap! Mine hit 80 recently too!

Has had the AOS done according to the 'Precision' paperwork. Tracking her has seen me and my TD mate bang down quite a bit of cash on her this year though! :thumb:

 

[berni29]

I forgot to add, I recently tried a car with the console delete and it made a great difference, so I tried to get a blue one from Porsche but they can't get them anymore.

So I had to settle for a beige one which I plan on ruining by probably dying it the wrong colour.

So please, if anyone knows of a blue one, let me know! Otherwise I am going to kill this one!

The console delete is a great update. I got a Metropole Blue one from Type911 in Beckenham about a year ago.

All the best

Berni