Ol' Shatterhand

Collected new floor mats and front bonnet gas struts from the OPC today. I only needed a driver's side floor mat to replace the old one in which the carpet has worn away under the heels of my feet, but apparently you can only buy replacement mats in pairs, which is expensive and wasteful. You'd think someone would have anticipated they need to make three times as many driver's side mats and sell them separately.

I've just installed the new gas struts. Very satisfying! I've now got rear boot gas struts on order as well.

I've also got the plastic green shifter alignment tool on order as I am still having problems with cable tension in the side-to-side plane, although the shifter itself is much crisper since I replaced the old plastic bearings last month. Now that I've been driving it a bit I suspect I needn't have bothered with the bell-crank yoke. I now understand why Ebay short shifters don't bother with that bit. There is no slack in that part of the OEM mechanism to begin with. In retrospect I might have just used the longitudinal locator bearings off of an ebay kit, which would have given me the option of also reversibly swapping out my original lever for a short-throw one, out of curiosity more than anything else.

Finally installed the Function First Shift Right kit. Managed to scratch and puncture the handbrake gaiter in the process (did I remember to mask it off, as recommended on YouTube? Nope...), and put a couple of scratches on the passenger sill as I was stupidly wearing hiking boots. I chose the darkest Sunday of the year and started working on the car around 1.30pm, because I'm a moron. Went for a test drive in pitch black darkness, 3.5 °C outside temperature readings, greasy road surfaces and thick thick fog, of course. Then had fun putting the console back in with the aid of my smartphone's torchlight.

The gearbox now feels tight and precise, there's a pleasing rifle bolt action to it, the trouble I was having when trying to engage first gear at the traffic lights is gone, there's a bit of force required to shift from fourth to third (I adjusted the longitudinal plane cable to improve it as much as I could and went for a short drive round the block again before I decided to put the console back in).

A few hours of the battery being disconnected seems to have given me some grunt back, the engine had been feeling lethargic since that time I was forced to put 95 Octane E10 in it during September's fuel crisis.

What to tackle next, the cosmetics or book a dyno run at BDS motorsport? Decisions, decisions... 

11 minutes ago, Paul P said:

Anything but the turbos.  They play havoc with my ocd.  They look like you are going forwards fast on one side but on the other they look like you are going backwards fast.  I just can’t see past that. 

I'd never considered that! 🤯

I can never un-see that now. Aaargh! 

993 turbo twists all the way. They really suit the smooth lines of the 986 and 996, more so than the 993 which looks better on Cup 1 alloys in my opinion.

I really also like the 17" Boster S alloys that were on ½cwt's car before he swapped over to the GT3s (which are also fabulous, but look like they're worth more than a Boxster).

Sport design wheels look best on a 996.2 GT3. I don't deny they can look pretty smart on a Boxster in the right colour, but I wish they were 1-piece rather than split-rims, as the rim bolts make them look a bit fussy.

Never liked 996 turbo wheels. Not a fan of the 18" Carrera design as seen on facelift cars and the 550 anniversary car either, but there's no arguing with their light weight. But then again, 993 turbo twist hollow-spokes exist...

A previous owner put heavy 18" Turbo II replicas on mine, they're diamond-cut, easy to curb and impossible to clean. I would never have chosen them but they have grown on me.

20 years from the day it was delivered.

I've bought it a present. Should be fitting it tomorrow. 

https://postimg.cc/gallery/c4DvLgd

Hmm, as long as it doesn't look like you're pretending to be something you're not (an S, or a car with PCCB), then non-OEM shades of yellow or red could work fine. Orange calipers on an orange car, hmn, yeah that works too!

An addition to my long rant above: if a 986 happens to be silver on red, then a set of 964 split rims, painted gold, would look VERY cool on it, like a rather smart tribute to the 1993 concept car. Cup 1 alloys are a good choice too. 

Some mods are more sympathetic and discrete than others and do not necessarily detract from the car, compared to its original specification. The calipers on my S were faded when I bought it, so I had them re-painted red for around £30 at a local wheel repair shop. They even had Porsche decals to hand. I could not have brought myself to have them painted any other colour and certainly not yellow. 

A hood with a heated glass rear window is also not a garish or try-hard thing to do to the car, indeed it is a practical necessity as the plastic window inevitably perishes eventually. Admittedly the letterbox window doesn't look as good or offer the same visibility as the original, but I still prefer it to the 986.2 three-hoop canopy, or the hard-top.

I also have the Zunsport grilles, they are subtle, practical and removable.

When my Becker head unit display failed, I replaced it with a Continental unit which has DAB and Bluetooth. It was important to pick something that didn't look out of place in the car. Couldn't bring myself to install a double DIN unit, never liked the original PCM option either. 

I also had cruise control retrofitted, but I'm not sure that counts as a mod, if you didn't look at the option codes sticker you wouldn't know it wasn't installed at the factory.

I hate aero kits, gt3 bumpers, speedster humps, side skirts, spoilers, naff decals, retro letter badges and chintzy LEDs. I could take or leave the de-ambered headlights, but I don't like the clear rear lights. If I was to switch to clear fronts and sidemarkers, I'd paint the amber parts of the rear clusters red, like the 550 anniversary car.

Spacers and lowering kits should be avoided unless it's a track car and is being set up as such by someone who knows what they're doing.

Wheels should not be larger than 18". I would have preferred my car to have had 993 turbo twists, or the original 17" 'Boxster S' alloys, but I have grown to like the Turbo II replicas it came with. 9*7 lobster claws are OK too, I suppose, but something like classic 911 Fuchs or filigree cross-spoke BBS wheels are just wrong for this car. 

And any exhaust that doesn't look standard, drones on the motorway and actually robs the car of torque really cheapens a car in my eyes, no matter how much the owner has spent on it.

In the interior, if you need a loud aftermarket stereo system, you bought the wrong car to begin with. I wouldn't change the steering wheel / shifter for non-Posche items, but I can see why someone who doesn't have the three-spoke wheel or chromeline knob would want to upgrade. The seats, well, if you genuinely can't get on with the standard ones, I wouldn't blame you for upgrading to 987 or gt3 ones, if you can afford them. Me, I might swap mine for 9*6 sports seats some day, and add heater elements, but only if I can connect them to OEM switch buttons on the console with no visible evidence of non-standard wiring.

Now, under the skin, it's a different story. Appropriate upgrades to the ims, rms, thermostat, oil pan, cam chain tensioner guides, water pump, engine mount, brakes, suspension, shifter, induction, manifolds, engine map? Check... A slammed chassis, turbo engine / LS swap? Hell no! Get a different car, don't ruin a 986 just because you bought it cheap.

I'd be up for that, just as soon as I've sorted out my shifter (the Function First Shift Right kit arrived in the mail on Tuesday. It's my present to the car for its 20th birthday. Beats a cake with spark plugs on it instead of candles...). All I need is a quiet dry weekend and then I'm good to go. 

I'm on Koni SA's and the original springs, like ½cwt. All the drop links, tuning forks and coffin arms have been replaced, along with the front top mounts. Centre Gravity, who did my suspension rebuild, discouraged me from reverting to polyurethane bushes, for the same reasons ½cwt mentioned. But we did also take the opportunity to swap out my original 986 S ARBs (there wasn't much left of the aft one) for two-way adjustable Eibach ones, currently on their softer setting. If I ever make it to any meets east of the M1 I'd be happy to exchange 'reference' drives. 

Oh, and another thing, it's a bit stupid but I'll mention it: never trust petrol station air pumps, I thought my rear tires were inflated to 36 psi when I took it to CG but it turned out I was actually on 44 psi and that was destroying my ride. Shocking! Invest in a handheld digital pressure gauge. 

Anybody going? I'll be there on the 14th of November. 9Werks are restoring a 986, taking inspirating from the 25th anniversary model, and it will be on display. 

My car is on 131k, so here's my two cents: Budget around 2k a year for repairs and upgrades. Think of the car as a rolling restoration and in about 5 years time it will probably be in very good shape indeed. There will be expensive bills along the way, some of them for stuff that you can't even see and does not affect the driving experience. If the car has a good service history and the oil has been changed regularly, and you use it often and keep on top of servicing, you don't need to worry about the IMS until it's time to change the clutch, at which time you will also probably swap out the dual mass flywheel and get the rms replaced too. Other stuff that will be tired at this mileage include the air-con lines and condensers, the water pump, the AOS, the brake lines, the coolant expansion tank and the suspension. If your car rattles and clonks over bumps on the road, the rubber bushes in your coffin arms/tuning forks/ARBs will probably have perished. Top mounts delaminate, bump stops disintegrate to nothing, the rear ARB can rust, springs creep and break, dampers weep. The engine mount will also perish eventually. And halogen headlights melt on the inside, at which point they cannot be repaired, you'd have to replace them. Did I forget anything? Oh, the exhaust brackets will rust like the railings on the wreck of the Titanic, O2 sensors will be seized in place, your shifter will be worn out and feel loose by now and you will have oil leaks from the spark plug tubes, cam cover and the aforementioned RMS. MAF sensors may or may not live long, depending on the state of your air filter and where you drive the car (you should be OK as it's a second car. You won't be worried about roof leaks or plastic rear window degradation if the car is garaged either).  Maybe all of this has already been addressed, in which case you're good for a few years and a couple dozen k miles. Maybe not...

8 hours ago, ½cwt said:

Part number is 996 104 445 02 described as Heat Shield in the 996 parts catalogue. It is not handed so two the same and should cost around £23 to £25 from an OPC.  It is retained by M6x16 hex head bolts 900 378 163 09. Whether the holes are there and tapped for the bolts to fit into on a 986 cam cover I don't know.

Aren't the cam covers common to both the 986 and 996?

9 hours ago, map said:

My understanding is that they're fitted to the 99x because the coil packs are behind the rear wheels and get covered in road spray.  

On a Boxster the engine is in front of the rear axle so far less prone to this onslaught.

Likely to be seen as an un-necessary cost (materials and supply chain management overhead) instead of a cost saving as such.

By all means see if you can fit them but I wouldn't bother.

 

 

And yet, they crack on Boxsters too. I didn't ask the technicians which four coils were damaged on mine, but it's a good bet that the intact ones were the two furthest forward. Maybe the deterioration of the exposed ones is not as quick as on a 911 with the shields missing. Interestingly, on the 911 they are referred to as "heat shields", so road spray was probably not foremost on the mind of the engineers who designed them in the first place. 

Just had my Boxster S serviced and they found 4-off cracked ignition coils, which explains why the car wasn't pulling very strongly at 3000 - 3500 rpm recently. It's in rude health now!

Anyway, I was noseing around in my local specialist's workshop while they were working on my car, and they had a 997 on the ramp. I noticed that there are metal plates affixed to the engine, to shield the ignition coil heads from water and debris kicked up from the road. There are youtube videos from another garage that specialises in early 996s in which they also mention these plates mounted on those M96 engines.

Does anyone know if these plates are a bolt-on retrofit on a 986? Having the extra shielding would be worthwhile as it prolongs the life of the ignition coils and it seems to me that the only reason Porsche didn't fit them to our "entry level" Boxsters was to cut costs.