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Craig's Ownership Thread - Project 996

Hi HSC 911,

Yes it was a lucky find, couldn't believe my luck !! Especially the whole set in one place. The listing for all the items even ended "reserve not met" too :thumbs:

I honestly can't remember the guys name now from the wheel specialists, total amateurs though, won't be using them again, never mind handing over any cash to anyone until i'm 100% satisfied :hand:

Thanks

Take it easy

Craig
 
Ok, here goes 2015 -


Another aspect of Mark's GT3 that I liked, was the centre console that was painted body colour. I decided to do mine too as it just made the interior look so much better.


I didn't want to strip the car down, send all the parts away and have to have the car sitting there in bits while they were away for paint though. So on the 1st February 2015 I purchased second hand centre console, both side air vents and radio surround and as I bought these as a bundle, I sent the whole lot away.


This way I could send those away for paint and when it was time to do the job it would just be a straight forward strip down and refit in one go. So off they went for paint.











Then it was just the job of fitting it all.













On the 20th March 2015 it was due a service (89,094 miles)


Because of the miles I was doing we agreed that the service intervals would be 2 minor then 1 major. This being the major, a full service was carried out and all the jobs from the last service were completed, AC re-gassed, new crimp on PAS, replaced rear pads, wax coat all brake lines, fit 2 new rear toe link arms and a brake fluid change. The system fault memory was checked and no sign of the previous MAF fault. (The tyres were fitted when the wheel 'refurb" was done).


As my car has the MK2 deck lid fitted and previously had the GT3RS wing on, I decided I had to find one for myself. After searching for a while, there just weren't any available second hand.


I wasn't prepared to pay the stupid amount that Mr Porsche wanted for a genuine new one, so when a replica one came up for sale from Austria that looked good and was reasonably priced, I decided to take the risk.


As usual though, there were problems. The wing took over a month to arrive for starters. I kept messaging the guy asking where it was, he'd say it'll be there in the next few days, it never turned up, this happened multiple times.


I contacted him and said if the wing hadn't arrived by the weekend I wanted a full refund. Eventually it turned up around the end of May, and the postage stamp was dated just over a week before so he was obviously full of crap. Anyway, it had arrived and that's all I cared about, for now at least.


However, when I opened it up I was very disappointed with the quality. It looked like someone had rubbed it down with wire wool! It was very misty and scratched. Gutted.





Straight away I messaged the guy and sent him this picture of the wing, he didn't reply for a few days, then said that it wasn't like that when posted and he even had the cheek to say that I'd done it myself! I was happy in the knowledge that luckily I had paid with PayPal!


But after talking to Mark and telling him the situation he agreed that I had two options, start a dispute with eBay to get my money back, but then it would cost me the return postage to Austria, or send it away and have it sanded back and then buffed up.


The wing looked a very good copy apart from the damage, so on the 5th June 2015 decided to pay the £140 to have it repaired.





With having had the wheels refurbed and new rubber fitted, I wanted new centre caps as I'd realised that the ones on the car weren't genuine. There was a brand new set of Black GT3 'RS" centre caps up for sale on eBay.


Whilst still having the wrap, Cobra RS stickers etc at this point, the caps would have fitted in quite well, so I bought them. I also purchased a new set of Black wheel bolts and locking nuts to make everything look nice and new. It was the only thing that wasn't new so why the hell not. :wink:





After having had the service in March when the rear toe links were done, it felt horrendous to drive. The rear links obviously adjust the rear 'toe".


They were put back to where they were set to beforehand but it just messed up the whole feeling of the car. It just wasn't right when going round corners so was going to need a full Geometry set up.


Now this is where Mark came up with the idea 'Hey, why don't you get a little camber dialled in on the front, like my GT3?" Which I thought sounded like a bloody good idea.


So on the 11th July 2015 I took the car in for the setup. I said I wanted standard GT3 settings, which is Camber Negative 1.5 degree's front and rear amongst other settings.





Myself and Mark sat there nearly the full day while the mechanic tried to set it up, the rears came together nicely, all in the green! But with the fronts, he tried everything, but there just wasn't enough adjustment on one side to get them to match up.


Now normally most people would have just set it somewhere near, so at least both sides matched up and left it there. Nope, not me. Mark had laid a seed. I must have at least Negative 1.5 degree's! Ha. So it was back to the drawing board.


After having talking to a few people I was told about the 'Powerflex" camber adjustable poly bushes that fit in your standard bottom arms. And at £170 the pair, it was the cheapest option, when compared to the adjustable bottom arms.


So on the 14th July I purchased the 'Black Series" camber bushes and while I was on I ordered the matching centre poly bush too, might as well have the whole arms poly bushed for the sake of another £60.


I had these fitted on the 19th August 2015 buy a friend of mine who trained me to be a mechanic in my younger days, plus he had the hydraulic press to push the original bushes out so it was a no brainer really.


Everything came apart relatively nicely with the new bushes going in perfectly well, so we built the car back up. We set the bushes about the same on both sides and when the wheels went back on they seemed to match up pretty well. It was good enough to get me down to the alignment place anyway. Job done.


On the 29th August 2015 I returned to the garage for another Geometry setup. This time I thought to myself that there'd be no problems, I was wrong! The new camber adjustable bushes wouldn't adjust, the metal adjuster seemed seized, it bent the 'c" spanner till it nearly snapped in half. The way these are designed they need a really thin 'C" spanner to fit in, but it just isn't up to the job.


So after another half a day wasted, it was time to tighten everything back up and head home.


On the 4th September 2015 I popped back in to see my friend to get him to have a look at why the bushes wouldn't adjust. After removing the bottom arms and inspecting the bushes, we couldn't get it to budge! We had to knock out the centre metal adjuster with a hammer and punch. After this we re-greased the plastic bushes and inserted the adjuster. It would now allow us to spin the adjuster. We built the car back up again ready for another trip for setup.


I contacted Powerflex about this on the Monday morning and explained the situation, so they sent me out another 'c" spanner thinking that it might have been a faulty spanner.


On the 12th September 2015 I returned to have yet another Geometry setup done. And again, the bushes wouldn't adjust. They seemed to be seized solid! What the hell is going on here? The car was 'again" put back together.


On the Monday morning I rang powerflex first thing and told them that the bushes were just no good. After speaking to one of the guys there, who in turn spoke to the technical department, he assumed that the tolerances they were working to must have been too tight and they were being too over cautious with them not spinning round whilst they had been tightened, so they agreed that I was to get a refund, he then contacted the supplier who I bought them from to issue me a full refund.

This was only for the parts though it had cost me another £220 on setup time.


At this point I was pretty sick, but not accepting defeat I decided to do the thing I should have done from the start, I started looking for some proper adjustable bottom arms. After looking at the options available, I ended up wanting the Elephant Racing arms.





So with a little bit of negotiation I managed to get a pair of them for £850.00. Fitted them myself as everything had been off so many times, it was an easy task to do.


Now it was time for yet another setup! This time I knew for sure that I'd be leaving with the negative 1.5 degree's I was after.


Even the garage that done the setup didn't charge me this time, it was F.O.C for the trouble I'd been through. Very decent of them.


And finally, with the front under tray being on and off so many times, the clips already being quite rusty and had seen better days, I treated the car to a new set. In all, a job well done.


Thanks for reading, next part will be along in no time – From the start of 2016, not long to go now before I'll be up to date.


Thanks

Craig
 
Hi again,


So, the year is 2016, lots of things still to do and buy.... This was a very expensive year....


It starts with an item I'd been waiting to come up for sale.


With the 'Cobra RS" decals on the car, someone had taken the standard stainless steel sill covers off and had them powder coated black, then had the orange Cobra decals fitted. However, these had not been refitted properly to the car. They had been fitted too far towards the back of the door where the curve goes up towards the striker plates. This meant that the covers wouldn't stick down properly as they didn't have the slight bend in them.


Only picture I have with the old sill cover on.





So on the 26th January 2016 when a brand new set of black 'Carrera" sill covers came up for sale I snapped them up straight away.


As the stainless steel ones had obviously already been off before and stuck down again with double sided tape, they didn't take much getting off. After getting the old tape rubbed off and glue removed.






The new ones were stuck down in the correct place this time. These are some of the little jobs that look great when complete and just give you a little bit of satisfaction that you done it yourself.







I knew this year that I wanted to get the oil leak from between the engine and gearbox sorted. This is one of those things where the 'while you are in there" saying comes up, with the gearbox being off I might as well fit a new clutch, the one in there had only done 25k miles so had plenty meat left, but there is also the problem that some clutches don't like to be fitted more than once and can shatter very shortly after being refitted, so when on the 2nd February 2016 a brand new Sachs clutch kit came up for sale at £90! yes, that's £90! I bought it.


It was apparently old stock that they had bought it in for a customer who never returned to collect it. Lucky find that turned up just in the nick of time!


The next two items were just too cheap to let go really, so on the 17th February 2016 I won a Genuine 'Carrera GTS" rear engine lid badge. The thing with this was that someone had lost the 'G" from the 'GTS" which didn't make a difference to me as I didn't need that part anyway and the Carrera badge is the same size as a normal one for my car so I just threw the 'TS" part in my man draw, most likely never to be seen again.





And on the 11th March 2016 I won a brand new albeit a 997 replacement service book, as my service book is nearly out space for service stamps it just made sense to buy this rather than stamping a piece of paper or something.






It's now almost service time so I started to gather the items required. Thing is, for once all I needed to sort out was the 10 Litres of Millers Nanodrive as I'd already got the clutch. But before it went down to Nelson Porsche, I had to sort out it's MOT first.


On the 8th April 2016 it went down to Jamie's for service, to find out what the oil leak was, coming from between the engine and gearbox. It turns out that both RMS and IMS were leaking.







So Jamie ordered the newer style IMS cover and RMS. There was also signs of a possible leak from the sump, so I had that removed and resealed too.


While the car was away, I was browsing eBay and the guy I got the clutch from was selling a few sets of brand new Dansk Sports Boxes. The price listed was already ridiculous but I made him and offer which he accepted! So I bought one set for myself at £200 and shortly after talking to Mark, ordered a second set for him and got that set for £180!





I also got a complete Dansk fitting kit from Euro Car Parts for a smidge over £25. Bargain!


With the Dansk boxes, they used a standard style exhaust tip which I did not have. I started to look around but struggled to find any that I liked. Mark told me about a set on Gumtree he'd seen, so I had a look at them and they looked quite good actually and for a mere £40 delivered I couldn't say no.


When the tips arrived they looked even better than they did in the advert.


There was a number stamped into the bottom which read 'EP4110" I had no idea what this was but decided to google it to see if anything would come up. Turns out that these were the Tequipment large bore tips! A £500 option! Couldn't believe my luck, nothing better than Genuine parts! Especially at such a low price.







Time to fit the exhausts










There was a local show on called the 'Fastlane Car Show" which is relatively local to me, so a few friends and I decided to have a run up, somehow my car had developed a 'Creaking" when under heavy-ish breaking. This to me sounded like something had rusted on the pedal or what was connected to the pedal. I didn't think it was too serious though so thought it would wait till I was next down at Jamie's.


At the show.





After the show, myself and 2 friends had a nice drive back on some 'B" roads. Actually it was a bloody excellent drive back. Myself in my car, Mark driving one of his friends Ferrari 458 and another of our friends in his Cayman GT4.


We got back close to home and decided as the weather was so nice, to pop into a local café out in the sticks for a cuppa and piece of cake.






By this time the creaking had got a little louder, so after refreshments we headed off, I had to drop Mark off so when we got to his we tried to find out where the noise was coming from. We removed the plastic guards from under the front trunk to see if we could see anything, but couldn't locate where it was coming from.


I then just took a slow drive home to do some investigation work to see if anyone on the good old Tinterweb had had a similar problem that could point me in the right direction of things to check. Turns out no one seems to have had this problem. It would have to wait till next weekend so I had time to strip it down further to try find the fault.


The following Saturday I got in the car to pull it out the garage, I pressed the pedal quite hard and the creaking was still there, I thought maybe it was heat generated.


I called on a friend who lives a few doors up from me to see if he could help, he was a fully qualified time served mechanic and is bloody good at what he does. Only took him 10 minutes to find the fault.


Turns out that at some point the bolts that hold the calliper onto the hub and had been stripped. These had both been drilled out and helicoiled. Problem is, they had not been drilled straight. Because of this the calliper was not straight, so when braking the calliper was having to bend slightly to put both pads against the disc. So all the time I've been breaking, the calliper has been bending and had weakened the aluminium which is where the noise was coming from.





After assessing what I needed, such as new hub and calliper etc. I'd have to remove the complete strut too. Now although the KW suspension had only seen about 25k miles, it was in a sorry state of affairs, I had noticed this when I first had the wheels off to clean them along with the inside of the arches and wanted it refreshed at some point anyway, so while I had the strut and the hub removed, I could send the spring away for powder coat and get the shocker cleaned up. Problem was I didn't want to send each side off on its own, I'd rather send the full set.


Because my garage is only big enough to fit the car in and to squeeze my skinny ass out of it,





I needed a rolling chassis so I could pull it in and out when I needed to work on it. Back to good old eBay, and what do you know? Soon after a second hand set of suspension off a C2 was listed. The starting bid was only £9.99 but the guy wouldn't post it. I messaged him asking if I won the item would he package the stuff up so I could send down a courier, to which he replied yes. So I let the auction run its course. The bid hadn't budged the whole week, I was sure it would go for around the £80 - £100 mark, and to be fair I was willing to pay what it cost to get it as I needed this to get the job done!


So when the auction ended and I'd won it for the starting bid I was pretty chuffed! I then checked on Parcels 2 Go and got a price of £15 for postage next day delivery. So that's a full set of shocks and springs for £24.99 delivered. I messaged the guy and told him that the parcel would be collected on Monday before 12pm. He told me that he was not going to be in so would leave the parcel down the side of his house. I checked with 'P2G' and they said it was fine as long as I put a note on saying where the parcel would be.


Now, this was meant to be delivered to me on Tuesday. It did not arrive. I got in touch with 'P2G' and they said they'd look into it. On Wednesday I get a message saying they had no idea where it was, they told me it had been collected but never made it back to the depot. Bloody excellent, just my luck. The parcel was only insured for £10! I couldn't have cared if it was insured for £100, I just wanted the suspension.


Eventually after all hope was lost, the parcel turns up at my work! The box having been opened but all items were present! Thank God!


I then had a little winge at 'P2G' about what had happened and as an apology, they refunded me £10. So a full set, albeit used, delivered for £14.99. Beat that.


Now that I had everything I needed to remove the KW's, I got started. First removing the KW and then replacing with the standard items.






















After I had all struts removed I made a list of things I'd need, first was a tool kit to strip the kw's down into individual parts, I did not get anything with the car so got on to the UK supplier and they had a nice little tool set which included 'C' spanner, pre load adjuster and allen keys for the rebound and one for locking the height adjuster plates.





Once the tool kit had arrived I stripped the struts down into individual pieces.









Next I needed to source some parts as a 'while I'm in there" kind of thing, I wanted:


Front stabiliser drop links
Rear stabiliser drop links
Front track rod ends
New Sachs strut top mounts
O/S front hub
N/S front hub
Front Powerflex Black Series anti roll bar bushes
Rear Powerflex Black Series anti roll bar bushes








Because of the O/S hub having been helicoiled I was worried that the N/S might have been done also, so seeing as both sides were going to be stripped down, I bought a pair. One of the new hubs was missing the ABS sensor and the two that were in my old hubs were seized solid, it even tried angle grinding around them to free them off, but it was just too much hassle so bought a new Bosch one off eBay, when it arrived it actually had the Porsche part number stamped on the side.


I then removed all arch liners front and rear and then the rear anti roll bar. I removed the front callipers so I could send them away for refurb complete and new seals. I made blanking plugs to cap off the front flexi pipes so I didn't lose all the fluid and leaving the rear callipers on meant that I had some braking when rolling the car back in the garage. The rear callipers also needed a refurb but this was to be sorted after the new year.














After that, I sent the springs away for powder coat along with the rear anti roll bar and a few other little things I wanted done. One of the plastic dust boots on the front struts was damaged so I purchased a new pair of them.
While I was cleaning the shockers up I noticed that the fronts weren't returning to the fully extended position when pushed right down, I took all the settings down for each shocker, then set the front two the same, but still wouldn't match up, the rears were fine. So I contacted the KW dealer to enquire about getting them serviced, he said to send them down so they could bench test them, so I did. The test came back that one of them was quite weak. I needed to have both front shockers stripped down and rebuilt with new seals and refilled etc.


I've heard that you can get bilstein's serviced for £85 each, or there abouts. I was told it would be expensive to have the KW's serviced as there was only one place that does it in the UK, but when I got a bill for £406.20 + return postage for the fronts only! I was still a little pee'd off. Absolute ripping B'stards. I'll never buy a set of KW's again. (Not that I bought these obviously).


On the 6th October 2016 I was again, shock horror! Surfing eBay when I can across a listing for a set of front Brembo brake disks. It was a pair for £52.30. I thought that couldn't be right, so I done a quick check on Google and sure enough they were genuine Brembo discs, I then rang Mark and told him about them and he said at that price he'd have a pair too. There were only two sets available so I bought them both.


When they arrived I noticed that they weren't sided, what they had done was send me 4 O/S Front discs, obviously I needed two O/S and two N/S.


So I messaged the seller, Euro Car Parts, and told them what they had done, I was told to go to my local 'ECP' and they would change them over for me. When I got there all hell broke loose, turns out that they had sold me a pair of discs for the price of one. My local 'ECP' weren't prepared to swap them for some reason as they said they'd lose money? Anyway, after 4 - 5 phone calls to head office they were told to just exchange them for me to let me on my way.


ECP also had for sale a set of Brembo front and rear brake pads at a good price so I bought those too, and later ordered a set of Brembo rear brake discs and handbrake shoes. The rear discs alone cost me three times what the front did, but I'd saved so much on the fronts that I couldn't complain, now the whole braking system was Brembo. The callipers, discs, shoes and even brake fluid.


Mark and his wife had been away to Florida to spend Christmas holidays over there, when he came back he had bought us both a brand new pair of Rein engine mounts that he got from Pelican Parts while he was there, he got them for about £70 each. Luckily, he managed to sneak them through customs to save the import tax! Ha.... Nice one Mark, thanks a lot! much appreciated.


While he was away he messaged to tell me that Opie Oils had a sale on the Millers Nanodrive, so I was straight on to the website to order 10 litres needed as I knew there was an upcoming service in March.


Now with the miles I do I was told that the oil did not need changed every year and I was just wasting money so I decided I was not going to change it this year, especially as I've only done about 600 miles as the car was in pieces. But it had been started and stopped a few times just pulling it in and out the garage to work on, and doing this, petrol can seep into the oil, so thought it best be changed.


That's the end of 2016. I had a lot to do to get the car back together, boxes of bits just waiting to be fitted, Couldn't wait to get started!


Hurry up lighter nights, I have work to do!


Thanks for reading.


Take it easy

Craig
 
Craig,

Your progress thread is inspiring! So much work done, and all so well documented... Well done! Makes me want to do one. Ow.


Car is coming along nicely, and I love how positive you are even ahead of some unlucky news with the various leaks and the bolts etc.

Keep it up!
 
Great thread, good work and nicely detailed.
I've been waiting for some months to get the lighter eves and warmer weather, helps things progress a bit faster.

Do you have a pic of the upgraded ims cover plate? What are the differences?

:thumb:
 
Hi guys,

@Jay, Thanks mate. Things never go right for me so i'm kind of used to it by now, but if everything was easy then i suppose it wouldn't be as much fun.

Get your own started, i didn't realise how much my car has changed until i started posting on here. Makes the effort worth while. Take it easy.




@Harv, i'm so happy the lighter nights are almost here, can get loads done!

I don't have a pic of my exact new cover but here is the difference between the two.


Old one, notice the black round seal.





And a pic i got off the internet showing the new up-rated orange ribbed seal.





As far as i'm aware this is the only difference. I'll let everyone know in due time if i get any leaks. Thanks.




@Baz661, thanks mate, the next post brings everything together, the suspension refresh, powder coated bits and cleaning all the arches out! Plus other parts i've even not mentioned yet, new 200 cell sports cats, new valvetronic back boxes and only just today i've ordered the large bore stainless manifolds. I really need to stop with the spending though :dont know:



Thanks again for the comments guys

Craig
 
Hi People.


So here we are, pretty much up to date now. Hasn't taken too long really, 4 years in just a few months. So, this is from the start of 2017 when everything starts coming together and all the hard work becomes apparent.


The rebuild begins. I now have a boat load of parts that need to be fitted and still have things to send away for refurb.


One thing I'd read on here was a post about the centre console delete, at first I wasn't too bothered about this, didn't seem necessary to me, but after reading that it apparently gave the 'taller" gentleman a bit more leg room (I'm 6'5") I thought it's probably worth looking in to.


I'd seen the odd one come up on eBay, but always just let them go. But as I now wanted one, there was none to be seen anywhere. The last one I saw for sale, listed four parts, the carpeted console delete, the 2 carpeted side trims and the plastic cover to fill the space in the console in front of the gear stick, the others on eBay only had the carpets and side trims. I'd waited for a while and got sick. Decided to just ring Mr Porsche and get a price from there.


The whole lot came to a little under £145 with a little bit discount so just bought it. And what do you know, three days later one came up for sale on eBay... Sods bloody law.














I really like the look it's gave the car, kind of makes it look like the old 964 dash board. But as for legroom, it hasn't made a blind bit of difference for me. In all though, for the interior looks alone I'd say it was well worth the money.


It was still early January at this point but luckily for me I have a decent sized shed I can work in, to keep out of the cold.


I had all the parts ready to put the suspension back together, springs, struts and top mounts etc. I'd already cleaned all the struts previously.


















Before





After





The next sunny day job, regardless of how cold it was, was to clean in all the arches as they were filthy. (some of these pics have been in previous posts but are just to show the comparison)


Before








After









The other side came up just the same. The rears were filthy though.


Before











After











Then remove the old suspension and refit the new. Powder coated rear anti roll bar and new powerflex black series anti roll bar bushes.


Anti roll bar pre powder coat





After





I took the old rusty brackets off and gave them a good clean up and sprayed them.





Fitted to the car






While the car was up in the air I removed some more parts I wanted powder coated.







I'd got the arch liners front and rear cleaned up the best they could be without buying new, gave them a nice coat of plastic trim shine and refitted them with new plastic nuts.










I'd been on to Mr Porsche again and ordered the 997 'upgraded' front air ducts, new bolts and bottom nuts for the new engine mounts I'd had bought for me. Again, thanks Mark! New speed clips for the bottom of the rear bumper (as they always rust). I also bought the rear air ducts, I would have used the word 'upgraded ducts' but its apparently something the 996's didn't have, mine didn't! and also new speed clips for the front arch liners and wheel spats.






Having bought the front Brembo brake discs I decided that I wanted the rears to match, so after a few days of searching I managed to get a pair, obviously more expensive than I paid for the fronts, three times the amount actually!


Now the next bit might be seen as a bit nerdy, but I actually bought 5 litres of Brembo brake fluid too. I mean, what works better with Brembo parts than Brembo parts.


Time to get the suspension back on the car.







Even got my friend to make the part number stickers for the springs. Why not.








I'd already sent the front callipers off for powder coat, he sent me pics of the state of them when stripped down. All the seals were heat damaged, was getting new genuine brembo seals fitted anyway







Got them back







Whilst out tinkering on with the car I noticed something with the "RS" centre caps, I bought new genuine caps in black with white script. But the white script was coming off and revealing orange script underneath. While I have no doubt that the caps were in fact new, the seller had painted the script white for some reason. Or Porsche just painted over the orange ones for some reason?


So these were going to need a refurb. Now the caps were a gloss black and my wheels were a satin black so just made sense to repaint them that colour, and why not paint the 'RS" script in body colour 'Arctic Silver' Took me 4 attempts to get this right, and to be honest their still pretty bad.









Still got plenty to do, but that'll have to do for now, running out of steam.


Thanks for reading, if you got this far that is. Ha


Craig
 
Fantastic write up as always , and great attention to detail :thumbs:
 
Nice work! Thats all looking great and very impressive with the amount of effort going in.

:thumb:
 
Lovely thread!

Nice to know the whole tale about this car. I've seen it for the past 4 years often when I've been in to see Jamie at Nelsons. Even though all the 'cobra' wrap etc wasn't to my tastes it always looked like it had been well done unlike a lot of other cars you see.

What have you used on the wheel liners to get them looking so clean? Whenever I try it they always look ok but when they dry they end up looking naff...

:thumb:
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks, just need to get out and enjoy the bloody thing for now, or at least till the next big project starts, front end off, fit new rads, water and air con. later in the year for that though.

@ragpicker, thanks mate, yeah the wrap wasn't the best but needed to get to a point before taking it off in case the paint work was bad underneath. All gone now though !!! looks so much better IMO. :thumb:



As for the arch liners, I just washed them with car shampoo and water, dried them off then covered them in "Turtle Wax" Wet an Black Tyre Shine. after 10 mins wiped off the excess with blue roll and job done... :thumbs:


Thanks

Craig
 
Hi Guys,

Had a lot on lately, but managed to find a bit time this afternoon so here's just a little update.


Continuing straight on from the last post. So, now the suspension has been refitted to the car. It was time to fit replacement hubs, track rod ends, stabiliser links, new ABS sensor, brake discs and callipers etc.


















Next was something I'd had on my mind for a while, once when I was following Mark whilst he was driving my car, I spotted something I wasn't happy with. The catalytic converters, just looked like two horrible rusty lumps hanging down past the bottom of the bumper and really spoilt how the car looked. Long story short, Hello Top Gear and some 200 cell X-flow sports cats! Lovely piece of kit that looks amazing when fitted and really cleans up the rear end.









While the cats were off I took the opportunity to replace the engine mountings.











Now, the reason for the cats. I found that after fitting the Dansk 'sports' boxes, it sounded like a hairdryer. There was no Porsche sound there at all. I mean, it had standard manifolds and standard cats so how could it sound so bad. I thought that a set of x-flow cats would sort this problem out for me. It actually did to an extent. It gave the car a slightly more 'raw' noise with very slight popping on overrun. This however still wasn't what I was looking for, I wanted something in between the cherry bomb exhausts I'd previously had fitted and how it was now. Back to the drawing board!



For now, I had formulated the next little shopping list:


New genuine rear support bar bushes
New genuine rear brake flexi to brake pipe brackets
New OE Bosch Lambda sensors x 2
Brembo handbrake shoes
New powerflex gearbox inserts (I'll discuss these later on)



The next item I came across was a little strange, whilst on eBay I came across a newly listed Bosch coil pack. This coil pack was listed as brand new but the price didn't reflect this! I got the part number and searched google to see if this was in fact for my car, turns out it was! So how could a brand new Bosch coil pack be for sale for £3! Yes, that's correct, £3!


I thought what the hell, it's only £3 so I bought it. No sooner had I paid for it using PayPal, I'd received an email from eBay saying that the listing had been changed. They had changed the price from £3 to £38.50!


At this point I was waiting for the email to tell me about the mistake they had made and would have to refund me my money, which I'd have accepted as it was obviously a mistake and I'm not one to rip anyone off.


This email however, never came. So after a week, it hadn't arrived. I messaged the seller to find out what was going on. They replied telling me that the Bosch coil pack was in fact out of stock at the suppliers and could only offer me a replacement or a refund. They said they had an NGK coil pack on the shelf which will fit my car and would be happy to send that one out, so I accepted.


This arrived a few days later and all was good, surprisingly! Ha. The thing is, even though they said it was out of stock at the suppliers, the listing was still active for the Bosch Coil Pack three weeks after!


So, back to the exhaust problem. I decided to call on a good old welder friend of mine and ask him if he would do the Gundo Hack on my stainless Dansk boxes. He said he'd be more than happy to sort it out for me so I removed them and dropped them off.


Three days later was like Christmas day, got all the parts back from the powder coaters and later that evening my mate turned up with my Gundo'd boxes.











Now the next bit was a bit sketchy. I'd heard that 1" pipe was far too quiet but 2" pipe was on the loud-ish side, so I asked my friend if he'd get some 1.5" pipe and try that. So when I got the boxes back and he'd used 1" pipe I was a little bemused. But anyway, it's not like I could complain as he only charged me £40 for the whole job done!


Plenty more still to come.



Thanks for reading

Craig
 
I had a 1.5" hack on a set of standard exhaust back boxes for a while... I came to consider it a bit coarse/unrefined for how a Porsche should sound, so I think you'll end up coming back round to feeling like the guy actually did you a favour.......... but that this will take a few weeks and initially you'll be lamenting the extra 0.5" you'll feel you're missing... : )

I ended up with a "mid-range" volume set of Cargraphic rear boxes, standard 3.6 headers (on a 3.4), 200 cell x-pipe cats and GT3 "large bore" tailpipes in the end, that finally gave me the end result I wanted...... and then had the headers plasma ceramic coated (primary black) by Zircotec... which quietened everything down a bit more from my "nirvana" point, but I actually like having the Jekyll & Hyde split between low and high revs back again......

FYI - don't go "equal length" stainless headers - Porsche got it right in the first place... the end result (feels like) less torque somewhere in the mid range (weirdly!) and is just too high and strident to feel sufficiently "Porsche" in combination with the 200 cell cats...... in my opinion.....
 

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