986 (987 Air Intake / 997 Throttle Body Mod)

[The return of Marty Wild]

Recently did the 987 Airbox, 997 Throttle Body and IPD plenum mod on my 986, it is fair to say it hasn't gone well, so far..... after getting the car back together, she point blank refused to start unless we pulled the MAF. And without MAF she would idle, but soon as you asked for throttle she'd cut out.

Process from my ownership thread:

Getting the 986 airbox out and the 987 one in. This was major missions, ended up taking the intake mani off and loosening the associated fuel rail. Giving all seals a going over with Gummi as we went. We ended up chopping quite a lot of plastic off the A/B as we knew we would. You also need to glue up the hole that is revealed when you remove the sound baffle from the A/B.

Painstakingly then crafted a new intake pipe to connect to the the larger bore piping from the 987 MAF housing. Stupidly bought a reducer pipe that wasn't needed, happy accident though, as we then trimmed it into a much needed sleeve. We took some of the 986 MAF housing and shaped it to provide support under said sleeve to keep the pipes from collapsing. Eventually fitted the IPD plenum and 997 TB. Took real care getting everything back together again, nailing all the cable plugs, vacuum pipes, trying to get the injectors nicely seated etc. We do now have 987 sized intake all the way from the A/B with BMC filter all the way to the 997 TB.

Then started her up, runs like a complete dog, well I say runs, engine stops after not very long at all. Doesn't sound like an intake leak anywhere from previous experience. Runs without the MAF plugged in, but not well enough that we thought she could be driven. No amounts of TB resets would help her learn the new parts. As the MAF was an unknown from ebay, we then decided to replace it with another new 987 one and still no joy. Slightly better values through my cheapy BT dongle and free App but still no cigar.

Resident genius is leaning towards the car needing to be trailered to a tuners for the new parts to be mapped in. My basic OBD App sees no errors, and the MAF signal, for the short period the cars runs, suggests the DME is not seeing anywhere near enough airflow. Had been in contact with Wayne, he's gone quiet now though. Turns out RPM doesn't tune anymore, which is a real shame as they are close to Mill Hill where she resides currently.

Tried to get 'Mobile Porsche Specialist' out to run OBD, which they agreed to do, job in place for 9 days, then cancelled 24 hours before the appointment. Avoid those jokers!

Massive thanks to my mate's Dad for all his help on getting all the mods in.

Worth noting that unless you have done the 987 Engine Cover mod, you may struggle to fit the old fibreglass lid back on after you have put the larger plenum and TB in. See Raggy's thread on my next page to see what I mean!

Updated with pics.

 

[martin t]

Do you have a scanner but just needed to see what piwis showed up?

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

I have a cheapy Amazon BT dongle and a free App. Been adequate to date, but not up to this job. It shows no errors ever since the problems began.

Hence I thought we needed to get proper PIWIS OBD out to the car. Which PWS agreed to do, then changed their minds, causing great inconvenience and lost time. Avoid these jokers!

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

Hey Marky, thanks for your post. Knew getting MPS involved was risky.

Spoke to Wayne just before we did the mods, I am aware of his feeling on the IPD plenum, he said go with 987 which isn't off the cards though.

That said, I was under the impression he would not take a non runner.

Current plan as of today is to get the car down to Iain and running. Then worry about the mapping after.

Thoughts? :?:

 

[Marky911]

Personally I would rather someone admit they didn't want the job rather than turn up and charge you to not be able to fix it. :dont know:

Hi Ady! :bye:
Yep that's definitely true as well. I guess admitting that they didn't want it a bit earlier though, would have helped Marty, but hey sometimes these small companies don't have the luxury of planning way ahead. Time is precious for all of us eh. Hope you're well anyway.


Marty you're right. I thought it was just running lumpy due the to new mods being mismatched. I didn't realise it won't even start now.
The car does need to be running for Wayne so your current plan is definitely the best. Hey, any plan that involves Iain is surely a winner. Good luck. :thumb:

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

I view it thusly, you can pay them to come to you and run diagnostics. They set a price, I pay it. They then run PIWIS and give me the data.

Whether or not I can then do anything with this data is my look out. To agree to the above and then pull out 24 hours before the appointment, is crap.

I'd not go near this outfit again.

So things coming together now to get car to Iain for his masterful touch. Oddly when I spoke to him, he said he'll start by running diagnostics for an hour. Who knew! :bandit:

 

[MisterCorn]

Do you think a Durametric would give you the readings you need?

MC

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

Martin, thanks for chiming in, I have considered dropping you a line for your view on the issues we are having.

I did also wonder if the recovery fee would better be spent on Durametric. I think my mate and I that share the car for TDs, we are at the point having spent days on it, where we just want it looked after by a professional.

Of course, there is an argument to say to be able to run decent enough OBD ourselves might pinpoint an issue we could fix ourselves.

We have spoken to Iain, Raggy, Tower Porsche in London, Phil 997.... all agreed the car should at least run with the 987 Airbox, IPD Plenum and 997 TB in place. We retraced our steps making sure we didn't have a hardware issue from our works, everything seems in order.

 

[MisterCorn]

I don't know if it will help or not, but I have a durametric pro you are welcome to borrow for a week or so to have a play and see it gives you anything more useful to look at. Ping me your address if you want it.

MC

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

That is really kind of you, let me speak to my mate (that is housing the car) about how he thinks we should proceed.

 

[kas750]

Personally I would rather someone admit they didn't want the job rather than turn up and charge you to not be able to fix it. :dont know:

Hi Ady! :bye:
Yep that's definitely true as well. I guess admitting that they didn't want it a bit earlier though, would have helped Marty, but hey sometimes these small companies don't have the luxury of planning way ahead. Time is precious for all of us eh. Hope you're well anyway.

I'm brill thanks Marky and putting some miles on my new knee.
Perhaps see you at RS day

 

[deMort]

Just to point out .. if you get a tester on it i can help to a degree with codes and values .. as we dont have the car at this point then its fine me talking to you .It's only after i have the car that i have to deal with you via work so that anything i say then work are kept in the loop .

I still suspect the fuel pump though but it will need a pressure gauge connected to be sure .

1 Hr diagnosis .. i will spend upto 1 Hr looking at the car .. mainly with a tester to see what i think then we will contact you at that point to say .. you have 1 hrs labour charge and no more and this is what we have found in that time ..

After that it's more work as needed if authorised by you basically .

This is standard practise for most garages .. we form an assessment of what we think and where we would like to go next then get authority from the customer to continue .

Btw .. get well soon young man .. been a rough 5 weeks for you from the sounds of it .


Obviously i can't comment on the company mentioned ... that wouldn't be right of me .

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

Thank you, kind Sir.

I've approached Martin about his extremely kind offer. Guess if he's still agreeable, we'll go with us running some OBD and letting you know the results.

Then if no easy wins, it's all lined up for the Boxster to return to her spiritual home :thumb:

Although in my mind, when in the past I had imagined her being once more at Precision, it had been a more glorious affair than dusty and broken down on a trailer. :grin:

 

[1marc]

Have you tried putting all the stock components back on and trying to start it again to rule the mods out. Doesn't sound like intake items would cause it not to run. You can run it without most of that connected (although not advised).

 

[The return of Marty Wild]

On the second sitting, we checked over all of our work to make sure we'd not missed anything. We also used borescope to fine check every injector was seated nicely.

None of that worked. So we then popped the 986 TB and plenum back in. Attached the 986 MAF to the loom.... No changes. Caveat, we destroyed the old MAF housing so the 986 MAF was freestanding and not having any air drawn over it.

Since we did the mods (987 AB, IPD 986 plenum and 997 TB) the only thing that got it remotely running was unplugging the MAF. We popped in a brand new 987 MAF from D911 to as the one with the eBay 987 AB was an unknown. Car will idle without MAF, soon as you pressed throttle it would die out though.