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Fitting PSE on a 996.1 coupe

MisterCorn

Well-known member
Joined
8 Jan 2011
Messages
9,410
As a lot of people have found out, the standard exhaust on the 996 C2 isn't as loud as some might like. A common fix for this is the 'Gundo hack' which involves bypassing part of the silencers, this makes the car louder all of the time. The Porsche solution is the PSE or Porsche Sports Exhaust. This is a switchable exhaust which can be set to the loud or quite mode using a switch in the car. I wasn't particularly looking for one, but one came up for sale on the forum as a complete system.
I searched on the internet to find details of the fitment for this but couldn't find a decent reference so I thought I would write this up for anybody interested. I will split it up in to three parts:

1. Removing the old exhaust and fitting the new one
2. Fitting the vacuum tank / solenoid / vacuum pipes
3. Fitting the switch and relay

The instructions for this are covered in a Porsche TSB, whilst the data is all there, there is little detail so this a more expansive version. It is intended to be read in conjunction with the TSB. If you can't find it online let me know and I'll send you a copy.

Put the key in the ignition in position 1, release the boot and the bonnet and then disconnect the battery by removing the earth lead, place it where it can't accidentally touch the battery. Loosen the rear wheel nuts and then jack the car up.

Remove the rear bumper, at the back of the engine compartment is a strip with 4 screws on it, undo these and take the strip off.



At the front edge of the bumper is a screw at the top and three along the bottom, remove these.



There are another couple of screws underneath the bumper at the back, remove these.

With the help of an assistant, ease the front edge of the bumper out and then pull it backwards. Be careful to remove connectors for the number plate light and parking sensors (if present)

Remove the covers which are over the silencers, these are held on with four nuts along the top and one inside the wheel arch.





The front nuts on the outside edge of mine were corroded on both sides. There isn't much height on the nuts and they rounded off very easily. To remove them I had to resort to using a dremel to cut the sides off the nuts to weaken them and then drive them around with a hammer and chisel. I changed all the nuts and put grease on them when refitting them (photos above are with new nuts)



Remove the aluminium bumper. There is a single bolt each side to remove this, it comes off along with some heat resistant material.

The silencers can now be removed. Undo the clamps at the bottom where the entrance to the silencer attaches to the outlet from the catalyst.



The tips can also be removed at this point.

The silencers are held on with a long bolt at the front and a short bolt at the rear, these run vertically up through a mount. Undo both of these and remove the bolts. The silencers can now be removed from the car.



Here you can see the two silencers with the mounting brackets clearly visible.

The PSE silencers can now be fitted. The brackets on to which the silencers fit have a tube inside them, an 8mm bolt runs through this tube and through the anti-vibration mounts at the top and bottom of the mounts. On my car the tubes were missing front and rear, the long bolt had been replaced by a 10mm bolt and at the rear the short bolts had been kept at 8mm. Due to not having any tubes the bolts had picked up on the anti-vibration mounts and it made one of the rear bolts an abosolute pig to remove. The tubes are available from Porsche, I had bought the long ones for something like £18 each before realising they were nothing more than thinwall tubing. I made the rear ones myself from 1mm wall 10mm OD stainless tubing.



I bought new stainless steel nut, bolts, and washers and then fitted the PSE silencers



The PSE actuators are controlled by vacuum through a stainless steel covered tube. This tube must run through in to the engine
bay.

Drill an 8mm hole in the heat shield above the actuator and feed the tube through the hole in the engine bay, fit a 20mm grommet in the hole. The hole is shown in this photo:



The exhaust can now be clamped up and the tips installed. Tips might need adjustment once the rear bumper is in place but that can be achieved by loosening the bolt and moving them.

The heatshields and aluminium bumper can now be fitted. I didn't refit the plastic bumper until the rest of the installation was finished just in case anything needed tweaking.

Next, the vacuum installation.

MC
 
The main silencers are now in place and the two vacuum pipes will be in the engine bay. These are operated by a solenoid which opens to allow vacuum from a vacuum tank to operate them. The vacuum comes from the inlet manifold through a one way valve. This covers the fitment of these parts.

Firstly, remove the air filter assembly. Unplug the connector from the air flow meter and free the cable. Undo the large jubilee clip which holds the intake hose to the throttle body and undo the single 13mm head bolt at the rear of the air cleaner. Free the oil filler tube and the entire assembly will lift out.



The throttle body can now be removed. Manually open the throttle and release the throttle cable. Unplug the connectors from the idle speed control valve and throttle potentiometer, then undo the four bolts around the throttle body.



Next to remove is the inlet plenum. Loosen the four jubilee clips, unclip the air hose from the plenum chamber and then remove the chamber along with the rubber couplers. There are holes in the bottom of the hoses for small vacuum pipes, carefully pull these pipes out. I assume that these are for the fuel pressure regulators. This can be a pain to get out as it is obviously designed to be installed off the engine, but it was easy compared to what is next.



Behind the plenum is a joining tube which links the two sides of the main plenum. There is a valve in the middle of it which is opened and closed by the ECU to tweak the torque curve. This needs to be removed so that the rubber coupler on one side can be changed for one with a hole in it to fit the vacuum pipe, it will come out in the location shown by the pointy finger. On my car the jubilee clip clamps were round the back which made the a pig to get at. Once undo they can be removed, rather like for the front plenum but even more awkward.



Once out there are bunch of parts which can be cleaned and then put back, the rear coupler is changed for one with a hole in it (about £15 from OPC) and it then goes back together.


Shown here with the vacuum pipe now clearly visible at the bottom of the left hand joiner.

Run the vacuum pipe out to the right hand side of the engine.

The vacuum solenoid attaches to this bracket



There was no bracket with the parts I got so I made one up out of a strip of aluminium. The solenoid then attaches behind the +V connector:




The tank attaches to the bolt shown in this photograph, it is located behind the above bracket, the photograph is taken looking down on the top of the engine.



The bolt is removed and a spacer is then used with an 80mm screw to hold the tank in place. The spacer required was around 66mm, made from 10mm OD 2mm wall stainless steel tubing.



Shown here bolted in place:



This is the one section which I thought was least clear in the TSB.

The vacuum pipes can now be connected as described in the TSB.

Use tie-wraps to hold the pipes out of the way, hold off on refitting the air filter housing until the electrical installation is complete.

Next, the electrical installation.

MC
 
With the plumbing at the back of the car finished, all that is required is to fit the switch and wire it to the fuse board with the relay.

Remove the drivers seat by taking off the plastic covers over the bolts and taking out the four bolts. Tilt the seat backwards to undo the connector. This is released by sliding out the plastic retainer which is on the connector body on the seat, as shown by the pointy finger:



Remove the seat.

Under the dashboard near the steering column, pull out the air pipe which feeds air to the side vents, this makes it much easier to get in to the work, it just pulls sideways and out.



Next the relay board is removed. In the drivers footwell pull the cover off the fuse box, undo the four screws around the edge of the fuses and remove the cover. Looking upwards, the relay board is held in by a single nut on the right hand side:



Undo this nut and release the plastic clip on the other side:



The relay board will now drop down. You might need to undo a cable tie or two.

Using a trim removal tool, ease off the right hand side of the horseshoe around the stereo.



Then flip it over and remove the blanking piece for the switch.



From underneath the steering column, thread the switch up through to where the cables come out behind the horseshoe and push the switch in to place, replace the cover:



Remove the sill cover plate which holds the boot and bonnet release levers. Take off the three plastic covers:



Then use a 5mm allen key to loosen the bolts in the holes but don't remove them:



The heads are pretty deep and may take a bit of finding.

Lever the unit off with a trim removal tool.



Remove the rear quarter panel trim. Start by pulling away the rubber trim from the door aperture, not essential but it makes the job easier, then take off the coat hook. Lever it off at the bottom until it unclips.



Remove the screw behind there, take the plastic cover off the upper seat belt holder and undo the bolt underneath. The upper cover can now unclip and pull off.

Remove the screw at the top of the quarter panel cover:



Fold down the rear seat and unbolt the pin which goes through the panel. Pull up the rear carpet. Pull the panel away from the side to release the clips and then upwards, don't take it far until the speaker cable is unplugged. Remove the panel.

You should now see a large piece of sound insulation:



Very carefully remove this, then unbolt the inertial reel and the panel which the inertial reel bolts to:



You should now have an unrestricted view of the grommet which goes through the engine compartment:



A hole needs to be drilled in this to run the cable to operate the solenoid through. There is no way to get in with a drill, so I ended up using a pin chuck with a 4mm drill bit and a few extensions, it is only rubber so it goes through easily. Be careful to check the other side in the engine bay to make sure you aren't drilling in to anything.



The cable can now be threaded through to the engine bay. Ideally the connector pins are put on afterwards, but if like mine you have a system with the connector already on it was easier to cut the cable and then pull it through by using a stiff piece of wire. The cable runs alongside the existing bowden cable for the boot release and then along the sill to the fuse box and up to the relay board.

There are four wires which are used on the unit, mine were coloured like this:

Red/Blue Connects to 16/1 slot 11 Power
Blue/Grey/Brown Connects to 10/1 slot 27 Light for the switch
Brown Connects to 11 slot 28 Ground

Green/Pink Connects to 1 slot 23 Speedo signal

The numbers refer to connector blocks and the slots to numbers in the relay board, as shown here:




The relevant wires are pushed in to the connectors. I found it easier to remove the connectors from the relay board by pushing the holding tags out with a screwdriver from the front. Be careful to make sure that all wires are routing around the back of the relay board before pushing them in.



The standard system is designed to turn off at certain speeds, if this functionality is not required then the speedo signal wire can just be taped up out of the way and not used, this is what I did.


Push the relay holder in to a spare slot, not near the bottom or the cover won't fit, then refit the relay holder. The refitted relay holder is shown here with the new relay in place.






Refit the sound insulation and rear panel, being careful to make sure that the plastic tang at the bottom of the panel cover goes in to the right hole in the floor, otherwise you will have to take it all apart again when you realise...

make sure that all the cabling is properly secured and then refit the interior including the seat.

It is important to reconnect the seat before reconnecting the battery in case of any airbag / seat belt tensioner issues.

Try the system by starting the car and pressing the button, make sure that both actuators operate and that the light comes on. By default it is on the loud setting, when the light comes on it goes to the quiet setting.

If all is fine put the rest of the car back together and adjust the tailpipes as required.


MC
 
Thanks for this , ive been looking for ages to find how to do it .

:D :thumbs: :thumbs:
 
What a cracking write up MC. It's what makes this forum great.
Until people write a thread like this they don't realise the time it takes, what with writing all the text then hosting and linking photos etc.

PSE is the best sounding exhaust on a 996, period....
I've heard them all but none have been as good. Only issue these days is finding a non rusted out one.

Anyway, nothing useful to add but great post. :thumb:
 
Nice work.

Must have taken ages to put together. A good quality post like this would be great in a Forum Techwiki. The Lotus community "Seloc" mob have one on their site. Its a great resource.
 
Fantastic write-up and excellent pictures.

Should be on a tech sticky for easy finding.

Well done.

:thumb:

:bow:
 
Excellent write up, thanks. Was the exhaust you fitted from a 996.2? The PSE for the 996.1 is not switchable.
 
Thanks for all the positive comments. I don't honestly know which version of the 996 the exhaust was originally fitted to as I bought it secondhand. One thing I did notice though, which might be of relevance in this, was that the switch for the PSE was a matt finish and my other switches are gloss. I have looked for a gloss version of the PSE switch to get them to match and can't find one. If the matt versions were all 996.2 that would confirm it. I prefer the matt ones so will probably change my other switches over time as it is very easy to do.

MC
 
The 996.1 never received a (factory) PSE button.

Gen one PSE were auto-relay only (ie speed dependent), with no manual override, the changeover was the 996.2 MY

PET lists only a matt black option

If you see the "Oettle, Fister, Gundo ..." 996 FAQ (which I have linked to your thread too):

The PSE (switchable in most cases, although early factory and OEM retrofitted examples may not have the button or electronics fitted) allows some of the exhaust gases to bypass the muffler/silencer boxes and hence make a much nicer (deeper and louder), proper sportscar noise.

and

PSE = Porsche Sports Exhaust (99% are switchable, first early 996 batch weren't and on retrofits the switch is optional)

and

Early 996 were non-switchable from the factory, if it is a retrofit then switch was a cost option, so may have been declined.
 
Great write-up!

Just for info, my 2002 996.2 has a non-switchable PSE on (quietens between 30 and 45 MPH automatically). So maybe it was a year thing, not a model thing?
 
Does the VIL show XLF?

Possibly dealer fit
 

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