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12 years an owner (nearly)

Dexterich

Well-known member
Joined
6 Sep 2010
Messages
156
Been on and off this site for a few years, recently been taking more interest again and thought I would give a summary of mods and a few other items that have occupied me in almost 12 years of 997.1 ownership. BTW I am still as enthusiastic about 911 ownership as I was then, still cannot quite believe its mine and cleaning it is a hobby/illness :oops: Plan is to keep it for the foreseeable, chipping away at a few mods. It is my regular drive but I also have a bike (dry weather only) and am sometimes away with work and I also have access to the wife's car. Headlines: Basalt black, C2S, grey interior, Tiptronic, 81,000m, was serviced at Porsche Nottingham for 4 years, then a local indy, now on the service plan with Hartech, who also fitted the low temp thermostat (I am across the bore scoring and IMS issues but life's too short and the cars too good to write any more about those).

Pictures first . . . .
 

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12 years an owner (nearly) - Wheel & Suspension

In 2012 it was lowered on Eibach springs (prompted by an OEM spring failure). I spent a full day with Chris at Center Gravity (written up here on a separate thread) when he tested all the dampers, fitted the springs and replaced the front top mounts and ball joints and after 2 test runs set it up. The ride height is now more or less GT3 so I do scrape the front sometimes.

Just had the wheels refurbished for the third time (full strip and paint at The Wheel Specialist near me in Notts who are flexible and do a great job). This time all black base with chrome silver front and spokes but spoke sides darker giving a full chrome affect from side on and a darker affect when viewed from an angle. Stainless steel bolts - with polished heads, 3mm spacers (not much I know but at the time I could not get the stainless bolts any longer for a reasonable price and I wanted a subtle arch fill combined with the lowering, and not an overblown aggresive stance - I may go wider in the future). One of my favourite additions are the wheel centres which are stainless steel with a glass inlaid porsche crest - I really paid too much for these from the USA - Eagle Day, but I love them.
 

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12 years an owner (nearly) - Lighting

Replaced all interior lamps inc. engine and boot, with LEDs. Replaced rear light clusters and front side lights/indicator units with LED units. Electrician in Derby wired them for me for daytime running, fronts are wired for centre 'line' and all LEDS on with ignition (DRL), centre 'line' and 2 LEDS on with side lights and dipped and main beam (see pics).
Recently removed the headlights and used wet and dry (1500, 2000 grit) and my machine polisher (DAS 6 Pro+) to refurb the outer lenses which had various scratches and stone damage and general haziness. Now look fantastic. Also replaced Xenon bulbs with Osram Xenarc Nigh Breaker Unlimited D2S - yet to use at night (I know there are alternate views but I have never been impressed with the lighting). I recently received STi-r clear lenses so will be splitting the headlight units to add these (good link on 6speedonline about this mod). Incidentally, when I removed the headlights a couple of months ago (I have done this in the past), the drivers side cranked bar that releases the headlight unit sheared off about 15mm from the end :sad: This left the headlight locked in the car with no way to turn the crank :? I managed to 'worry' it out using my interior trim tools and fingers around the edge of the light - took a lot of messing about but eventually came out. Root cause was corrosion on the cranked bar so I replaced these on both sides - see pics.
 

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Lovely car great deep mirror shine , liking the rear spoiler and the upgrade LEDs, DRLs, side lights also looks like its been lowered , tell me about these wheel centres they look different :?: :dont know: I like seeing things I have not seen before. what else is on the list as modding is a slippery slope.
:thumb: :grin:
 
12 years an owner (nearly) - Rear Spoiler

I really like the gen 1 turbo spoiler but after some research discovered that fitting this to a non turbo car requires various mods to the air box to allow the mechanism to fit in - so I decided against it. In the end I went for a GT2 style which I bought on ebay, had painted (Chartwell in Derby who are a) near work and b) do a top quality job), and then fitted myself including an alternate wiring harness (from Porsche), stainless steel mesh in the top vents and making a rubber gasket to protect the paint on the car where it mounts. Hartech updated the car so I dont get a spoiler lift error. There were issues with the spoiler which Chartwell had to correct and being suspicious they then baked it to force trapped air out of the gel coat (which would have ruined the paint otherwise) - so I had to persuade the seller to discount it for me, which to be fair he did. Looks mint and 2 years in no signs of cracks or damage from the inside.
 

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12 years an owner (nearly) - exhaust

I bought a set of the so called gundo hack boxes on ebay (basically a welded connection between inlet and outlet to short circuit the silencer all the time). Spent a few hours mirror polishing the faces and then fitted myself (you can just see the polished face in the pic below). Was a total bxxxxh getting the clamps off the exhausts under the rear bumper, the bolts for which were corroded to hell and had to be ground away which required a few hours on my back in the garage. I do however love the sound the car makes with these!
It has now become a yearly task to remove the exhaust tips (although it doesn't really get any easier!), which are the standard stainless steel items, and clean/polish them on the bench with a drill mounted polishing kit. A few years ago I had them shot blasted inside to remove the corroding black paint (which manfully resisted all attempts to remove it by hand - including paint stripper).
 

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12 years an owner (nearly) - Induction

Fitted a cold air induction kit with BMC air filter - had all parts from Sideline Design Ltd. Was not looking for or expecting power, just noise, and it really delivers, especially past 4000RPM :thumbs:
 

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12 years an owner (nearly) - Number plates & Grills

I currently have pressed aluminium plates (with raised letters) - legal colours and size. I used double sided tape to attach these so that there are no visible fasteners. On the front I removed the standard plinth and went direct to the front bumper. It looks ok but I am not totally happy with it. I am now thinking I will attach it lower down when I do the aerokit (see below) - I've been looking at pictures on line but haven't yet seen a front plate position I really like :?:
Anyone got a square, two line front plate?
I made and fitted the front grills. Taking off the front bumper is a good excuse to clean those bits you can't see :wink:
Fitting the grills was quite tricky as the shape is very awkward. When I do the aerokit I an planning to buy some :grin:
 
12 years an owner (nearly) - centre console

The console was looking a bit tired, the rubberised paint finish was scratched and no longer cleaning up very well. I always fancied the carbon console but wasn't happy to pay the price - then I discovered carbon dipping a couple of months ago and this spurred me into action. I found a guy in Leeds and proceeded to remove the console using instructions from the McCarbon site (very good). Once out of the car, stripping the wiring and parts off the console for dipping (it gets immersed in water) was ok except for the cigarette lighters which defied my attempts. After much searching I found a post on here (thanks :worship:) that indicated you need to 'drift' them out from behind. I didn't quite believe the description at first but it worked fine - see pic. You don't need such a large piece of wood, that's just what I had to hand. The tiptronic surround was tricky as the silver plate (with P, R, D, etc) cannot be removed, it's trapped in the unit. The guy dipping it was able to mask this off - but it's not easy. It also turns out that you first rub down and paint the items and the colour is important as this shows through the carbon print. I really like how these turned out and am planning to have a few more items done the same. One nice thing about dipping is that the items are lacquered so you can polish them to remove any scratches etc. :grin:
 

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Great looking car, particularly like the wheels, nice finish.
 
12 years an owner (nearly) - General Maintenance

Apart from the regular maintenance which is now by Hartech I have done some work myself over the years as follows:

Generally replaced the black torx fasteners in the wheel arches and across the top of the rear PU (in the engine bay) as they were showing signs of corrosion.

I recently removed the diagonal body tie/cross bars on the underside that run from in front of the rear wheels towards the engine (see pic). These were quite corroded, especially where they run in front of the rear wheels and at the bolts. I prepped them on the bench using a drill attachment and then undercoated and top coated twice with good quality metal paint. The pic isn't my car, just one I found that shows the part.

Last year Hartech advised me that the front suspension units were corroded (below the springs). So this year I put the car on axle stands and spent a couple of days rubbing them down (tricky on the car but with a dremmel and the wheels off not too bad). Then a couple of under coats and top coats with plenty of drying time in between.

I am on my third windscreen, I feel sure that the replacements don't wear as well as the original did, showing minor chips more easily - or maybe its just me?

Last year I removed all the wheel arch liners and cleaned behind checking for any corrosion - it's surprising how much dirt collects behind these - see pic.

Others that I recall: air/oil separator had to be replaced; recently developed a terrible and worrying noise when running so was low loaded to Hartech, turned out to be the inside of one catalytic convertor had failed and was rattling around :eek: ; both the condensers replaced, various ignition coils, battery . . . .

The rest is pretty standard cleaning and polishing (standard for the sort of people on here, mental according to my family) - although to be fair to my family I do have a home made water purifier just for the car as out of the tap its full of limestone around here and that doesn't go well with a black car!
 

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12 years an owner (nearly) - Coming up?

My current plans are as follows:

As mentioned above I have the STi-r clear lenses to fit, looking forward to getting to grips with this job when time permits.

Splash guards in front of rear wheels. These need replacing as one is split and the other has corrosion on the clip that secures it to the wheel arch return edge meaning it doesn't sit 100% flush (I know this as I have had these off a couple of times when cleaning the arches).

Front bumper aerokit: I have been looking at doing this for a couple of years, just about ready to bite the bullet, waiting for the toy fund to get topped up first! I am a little worried about the height and scraping (especially since I have the eibach springs), but not enough to not do it. Design911 look to have the best price for a full kit I reckon.

Replace engine mounts: I picked this mod up for the forum (of course) and although mine is a tip so no gear change benefit I still think the increased stiffness will be noticeable and worth it :?:

A few more interior parts carbon dipped: sill trim (the inner one that gets scuffed easily), ignition surround, light switch surround).

I think that's it for now ;-), hope you like the pictures :thumbs:
 
Thanks for comments.

Phil, the wheel centres are a bit special, I just looked on http://www.eagleday.com/ which is where I had them from but could not see them - maybe buried in the menus? I recall that I only found them on that site at the time which was a couple of years ago.
 

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