Hi everyone,
This may be a long post but to start off, I have 2 questions :
1. Is the
987.2
3.4L
Boxster S
PDK
(CG220) compatible on a base 2.9L
987.2
(which uses the CG200).
2. Apart from drive shaft coupling size at the tranny end, what other differences are there (physically) between the 2 trannys (CG200 VS CG220) ?
Here's the story of Sid (the name of my
Boxster
) so far...
I'm from Singapore and bought a used and abused 2009 base
Boxster
in January 2021 and love driving it.
Unfortunately, 6 months into my ownership of it, I got the dreaded Transmission Emergency Run (in white) on the MFD.
Did some diagnostics and found that the shaft speed sensor 1 was giving implausible readings and thew out faukt code P173D.
The car is still drivable albeit minus the pre-selection of gears making it very uncomfortable when leaving in "D".
I found a workaround which was to drive it like a stick shift, using manual mode and lifting off the gas pedal when I shifted up.
I recently got my hands on a used
PDK
tranny and happily did the swap.
The swapping processes went well until...
I found out that the gearbox came off a
2011 Boxster S
which meant that it was a CG220 instead of a CG200 (which the base
Boxster
uses).
Everything fit properly with the exception of the drive shafts.
The PCD of the coupling from the drive shaft to the tranny was larger and my perfectly working drive shafts from Mt original tranny weren't gonna fit.
In the end, I went back to the guy who sold me the tranny and got from him the original drive shafts from the
Boxster S
. One of them has been reconditioned but looked okay. The other didn't look like any work was done to it.
After installing the drive shafts, we started up the car and cleared all the previous fault codes.
The car is running fine now Except that when I took left bends at around 50mph, the car felt twitchy at the rear and didn't handle as it should.
The reconditioned drive shaft was mounted on the left side.
On top of that, there was an issue with the brakes in that the pedal travel was way more than before I had the tranny swapped out. I also found that on the left rear side with the reconditioned drive shaft, the brake disc/rotor was being scratched by a part of the caliper which sticks out (I don't know what that's called).
We bled the brake lines to make sure that any air bubbles which could have snuck in were cleared but got the same result. The car does stop but it just feels very different from before the tranny swap.
My
next
step is to order in a drive shaft to replace the reconditioned one.
I'll keep this post updated as its gonna take 3 to 4 weeks for the drive shaft to arrive.
Thanks for reading!
Two considerations:
1 - there is a known flaw with one of the temperature sensors in the early
PDK
transmissions. It can be repaired after removing the pan (and I'm not sure about the solenoid bank) - by soldering the connections.
2 - There is also an issue with one of the shaft sensors - where it misreads the position of one of the shift-shafts and put the transmission into emergency run mode. One of the sponsoring vendors has come up with a replacement sensor assembly (the entire thing) and this can be swapped out fixing that issue.
It certainly might be worth investigating these known issues on your old transmission since it appears swapping in the /S transmission is becoming an unending project of chasing modifications to make it work.
Hi Don,
Thank you so much for your reply.
I have actually gone through the post on this forum on the process in the repair of the
PDK
transmission and focussed on the speed and distance sensor parts of the post since the fault code I got corresponds to it.
Unfortunately, I have been scouring the interweb to find said parts and a vendor from China on Alibaba did have the sensor assembly available as a part.
However, I believe that it is a reconditioned part and they were selling it for US$3000+ which to me really was a no brainer to buy an entire used CG220 (with 6 month warranty - although doubius as well) from a local workshop which had pulled it and the engine out of a
2011 Boxster S
for around US$4000 instead.
That leaves me with my original CG200 which I can explore and maybe take my time to fix the issue while the car was still usable.
Basically, because of an annual road tax of almost US$2500, I have the incentive to keep the car out the workshop and drivable for as much time in the year as possible 😂.
What I was just trying to find out if there were any other external physical differences between the two gearboxes (CG200 - 2.9L Base and CG220 - 3.4L 'S') that I should consider buying additional parts for, and eliminating any other component that may be impacting the handling and rear left brakes of the car at this point.
But thanks very much for your suggestion.
Cheers!
Hi Vincent - here is the vendor I was referring to:
Displacement Sensor Install (gear position, distance sensor) for 911, Boxster, Cayman, 997, 991, 981, 982, 987, 718
Displacement sensor installation (gear position, distance sensor) for 911, Boxster, Cayman, 997, 991, 981, 982, 987, 718
t-design9.com
They have detailed instructions/video on how to install it (and calibrate it if necessary..)
Thank you so much Don.
I've checked it out before. 👍🙏
There is a listed workshop (I'm not certain if they're in any partnership) in Malaysia (
Hi-Tech Recond Sdn Bhd
) which can perform the sensor replacement and I've spoken to the giving them the details.
They got back to me saying that I'll need to do a core exhange with them and the cost is around US$2700 before shipping.
If I get a tranny without the core exchange, it will be US$4100 before shipping.
I guess my options are pretty limited.
Well, replacement drive shaft has arrived and installed. All I can say is, it resolved almost all the handling and brake issues I had.
Totally worth the moolah!
