Project Boxster 987 R

[CliveH]

Stage 1: 987 Boxster Spyder lightweight wheels

 

[CliveH]

This should look the part:

 

[Lonewolfgjp]

Looking great and loving the way this is going!

[Menoporsche]

Impressive to get those wheels. At risk of being rude - how much?

[CliveH]

I have @89rallye and his eagle eye to thank for being able to bag those.

Not rude at all, £1,700 plus the refurb and new centre caps so about £2,000 all in. Cheapest I’d seen them up to now was £3,400 and they’re nearly £8,000 new from Porsche.

Edited July 1, 2017 by CliveH

[Sheppie_hill]

looking great. I cant wait to see the finished article, seats, door pulls, the works

[spyderman8]

Carbon race seats will be a fraction of the price of Porsche ones and likely quite a bit lighter too.

[mwmackenzie]

Hmmmm, Looking great!!   Whatcha doing with your old wheels??

[CliveH]

I was contemplating keeping them for putting winter tyres on but 18s would be more suitable for that I think, so I'm undecided especially as they are unmarked, have good tyres on the front, and almost new on the rear. But then what's the point in having a spare set of wheels sitting in the garage gathering dust (well they won't be as I have protective bags, but you get my drift)

 

[CliveH]

On 02/07/2017 at 1:14 PM, spyderman8 said:

Carbon race seats will be a fraction of the price of Porsche ones and likely quite a bit lighter too.

agreed but I want to remain OEM as far as possible

[Menoporsche]

2 hours ago, CliveH said:

I was contemplating keeping them for putting winter tyres on but 18s would be more suitable for that I think, so I'm undecided especially as they are unmarked, have good tyres on the front, and almost new on the rear. But then what's the point in having a spare set of wheels sitting in the garage gathering dust (well they won't be as I have protective bags, but you get my drift)

Face reality and sell them. 

Then discount the purchase price of the new ones by the recouped money, and tell us you picked up the Spyder wheels for £1200 the set.

At which point we'll all hate you psychopathically

[CliveH]

Great advice! 

WHEELS FOR SALE  

[89rallye]

good man i'm just sorry you missed the seats .

[CliveH]

Thanks to @Loz987, I’ve now gone a different route with the seats ??

Full update to follow...

[marseille]

Iike your project and will be taking a particular interest in the seats you get I've 997 seats fitted to my 986 at the moment but they still weigh around 40kg a pair.

I managed to get 318 hp out of my M96 3.4 with a custom 80mm throttle body and cat less exhaust but have had head work done along with internal balancing of the rotating mass.

[Saxosim]

Great project. Just read your thread from end to end.  Any more updates at all as I noticed last one was in July?  Those spyder wheels and black exhaust tips look excellent.  Look forward to seeing the progress.

[911-32]

I like your project a lot.  Nothing you can't reverse and you will be making it more "sports purpose" and more personal to you.

Please keep posting updates.  I will be looking at very similar mods with my 987.1S (as soon as I collect it).

[CliveH]

Thanks for the recent encouragements and my apologies for the lack of updates.

So this is where I'm at:

987 Spyder wheels refurbished and fitted (as per the pic above)

987 Spyder side grilles fitted (pics to follow)

987 Spyder exhaust repainted in black and ready to go on

With Spyder/R bucket seats beeing like rocking horse poo, I am currently running 997 sports seats until (or if) I am lucky enough to find the desired seats at a sensible price. In the meantime, these are very supportive and enhance the driving experience. I am very grateful to @Loz987 and @Harri986 for their respective courier/storage and "try before you buy" services

The search for a steering wheel has been somewhat of a disaster, which is partly due to my buying incompetence and impulse. I think I have now accumulated 3 steering wheels in the process and I'm still not happy so watch the Classifieds from my "out shelf". The impulse buy was when I found a genuine Spyder/R sports design wheel but then "discovered" it was PDK when it arrived - pay more attention! I then found a retrimmer in the US who remanufacture beautiful leather wheels with red stitching to a tailored specification. One of their USPs is that their wheels are thicker, which I'd not given much thought to until I fitted it but it doesn't really work for me. So then I found a gen2 wheel which was optioned on the Spyder/R and this looked and felt great so I found and ordered the corresponding round airbag that these later wheels use. All the electrics hook up and work fine. Just one problem: the wheel doesn't sit deep enough. Although you can get enough thread on it to secure, it can't be right and the horn doesn't function. It can probably be adapted with a gen2 hob/boss and this would of course also apply to the more desirable sports design wheel, so I'm pondering on this one pending further research.

I also bagged a pair of the red door pulls while in the US. They look great, and compliment the red seatbelts, but they're not OEM so they've come off (also on the out shelf). I'm afraid I'm a real stickler for detail and "OEMness" so just the knowledge that they're not Porsche is enough - so why the heck did I buy them I hear you say!? On a funny note, MrsH thought they were dangerous as she said she might grab onto hers when we go round a fast corner and the door could open!

The Carnewal modified GT exhaust is already on and making nice noises. The GT3 throttle body and plenum will be fitted as soon as the car is out of warranty next year which, combined with the freer flowing exhaust and remap, should bring power and torque close to Spyder/R levels. Now there's some potentially big news here: I've been thinking about going down the 981 Spyder/GT4 route in terms of performance by dropping in a 997 Carrera S 3.8 engine! Easily doable for around £5.5k apparently but then I could get a nice 986 for that.....decisions, decisions...

Other stuff:

Aluminium fuel cap - fitted and only seen when I fill the car with fuel!

I bought some LED fog lights, which looked OK, but they're not OEM so they're on the out shelf!

I have a genuine short shifter which will get fitted at some point.

I have the Boxster logo in black, still to be "fitted"

I'm still pondering the Spyder/R side decals - maybe I should start a poll on this.

and finally...black wing mirrors were standard on the R but body coloured on the Spyder - what to do? I think black would look good on my grey car along with the black exhaust tips and Boxster logo - another poll?

 

Edited October 10, 2017 by CliveH

[Boxster7]

Hi Clive

Good to hear you're back on the project.

Ive been contemplating a very similar thing with my Gen 2 BS.

mines already got the Design package including the Spyder wheels, black mirrors and side intakes and the aero front and back.

First job was the Cayman R style decals.

next plan would be Spyder suspension and new headers.

I think the stripes work a treat !!

 

[Saxosim]

3 hours ago, CliveH said:

Thanks for the recent encouragements and my apologies for the lack of updates.

So this is where I'm at:

987 Spyder wheels refurbished and fitted (as per the pic above)

987 Spyder side grilles fitted (pics to follow)

987 Spyder exhaust repainted in black and ready to go on

With Spyder/R bucket seats beeing like rocking horse poo, I am currently running 997 sports seats until (or if) I am lucky enough to find the desired seats at a sensible price. In the meantime, these are very supportive and enhance the driving experience. I am very grateful to @Loz987 and @Harri986 for their respective courier/storage and "try before you buy" services

The search for a steering wheel has been somewhat of a disaster, which is partly due to my buying incompetence and impulse. I think I have now accumulated 3 steering wheels in the process and I'm still not happy so watch the Classifieds from my "out shelf". The impulse buy was when I found a genuine Spyder/R sports design wheel but then "discovered" it was PDK when it arrived - pay more attention! I then found a retrimmer in the US who remanufacture beautiful leather wheels with red stitching to a tailored specification. One of their USPs is that their wheels are thicker, which I'd not given much thought to until I fitted it but it doesn't really work for me. So then I found a gen2 wheel which was optioned on the Spyder/R and this looked and felt great so I found and ordered the corresponding round airbag that these later wheels use. All the electrics hook up and work fine. Just one problem: the wheel doesn't sit deep enough. Although you can get enough thread on it to secure, it can't be right and the horn doesn't function. It can probably be adapted with a gen2 hob/boss and this would of course also apply to the more desirable sports design wheel, so I'm pondering on this one pending further research.

I also bagged a pair of the red door pulls while in the US. They look great, and compliment the red seatbelts, but they're not OEM so they've come off (also on the out shelf). I'm afraid I'm a real stickler for detail and "OEMness" so just the knowledge that they're not Porsche is enough - so why the heck did I buy them I hear you say!? On a funny note, MrsH thought they were dangerous as she said she might grab onto hers when we go round a fast corner and the door could open!

The Carnewal modified GT exhaust is already on and making nice noises. The GT3 throttle body and plenum will be fitted as soon as the car is out of warranty next year which, combined with the freer flowing exhaust and remap, should bring power and torque close to Spyder/R levels. Now there's some potentially big news here: I've been thinking about going down the 981 Spyder/GT4 route in terms of performance by dropping in a 997 Carrera S 3.8 engine! Easily doable for around £5.5k apparently but then I could get a nice 986 for that.....decisions, decisions...

Other stuff:

Aluminium fuel cap - fitted and only seen when I fill the car with fuel!

I bought some LED fog lights, which looked OK, but they're not OEM so they're on the out shelf!

I have a genuine short shifter which will get fitted at some point.

I have the Boxster logo in black, still to be "fitted"

I'm still pondering the Spyder/R side decals - maybe I should start a poll on this.

and finally...black wing mirrors were standard on the R but body coloured on the Spyder - what to do? I think black would look good on my grey car along with the black exhaust tips and Boxster logo - another poll?

 

Hi Clive it sounds like you have made some great albeit expensive progress but at least you can sell on the parts that you don't use.  Would love to see some updated photos, your steering wheel sounds great hope you manage to get it mounted deeper.  Did to have to have anything reprogrammed to sort the change in steering electrics?

A 3.8 engine would be an absolute beast and black mirrors would look great against the grey too.

Edited October 10, 2017 by Saxosim

[Saxosim]

Another suggestion Clive,  how about a black surround around the windscreen like what comes on an RS60 Spyder.  Here is a photo as it's hard to explain what I mean.

RS 60 Black around windscreen

[Joolzb]

Hi Clive - I did the black around the windscreen, along with the headlight black rings Cayman R style. I did it with gloss black vinyl and took about an hour for the windscreen (easy to reverse) if you do it, buy the 3M adhesive primer for the inside face where the hood meets the top seals otherwise the vinyl creeps and creases over time. Get good vinyl too. This looks great with gloss black mirror casings - will dig a photo out.

I’ve been looking at the 3.8 swap, is £5,500 just for the motor or fitted? I read that it’s a 40 hour job for a garage and isn’t at all easy but has a huge upside obviously. Another route is to go to 3.7 as it can be done with new liners and pistons apparently - that gives an opportunity to have the part balanced and use some forged parts if you want to go BHP crazy later on. Autofarm I believe do the mod and with exhaust, air, tb/plenum and remap: they realised 367bhp. Will find out the cost, probably the best part of £5k I bet on top of the other mods. The Parr turbo is an interesting route, whack that on top of a 3.7 conversion and it would be like time travel GT3 style - massive stopping power would be a must addition.

[edc]

£5.5k will barely buy the parts for a rebuild with capacity increase. If you just drop in a 997.1 3.8 then you've also just upped your bore scoring risk. 

[CliveH]

14 hours ago, Boxster7 said:

Hi Clive

Good to hear you're back on the project.

Ive been contemplating a very similar thing with my Gen 2 BS.

mines already got the Design package including the Spyder wheels, black mirrors and side intakes and the aero front and back.

First job was the Cayman R style decals.

next plan would be Spyder suspension and new headers.

I think the stripes work a treat !!

 

A beauty! That has given me much inspiration and the confidence to go with the black mirrors and decals Thank you.

[CliveH]

13 hours ago, Saxosim said:

your steering wheel sounds great hope you manage to get it mounted deeper.  Did to have to have anything reprogrammed to sort the change in steering electrics?

No reprogramming. The electrics plug straight in and I had no fault lights (other than the usual PSM and PASM ones which go away after a few seconds drive). The only issue was the functioning of the horn but I think this was due to the wheel not sitting deep enough in order to make contact. I need to read up on this but looks like it needs a gen2 hub/boss.