steel wide body, lots of pics

so I've been working on this for 2 weeks now and although I'm sure I'll get some guff for doing this from the Porsche gods... I'm enjoying it and having fun with my boy. so to the haters... please remember, it's just a car and life is short creating memories with my son that will never be forgotten.. and I get a cool unique Porsche out of it so attached is the car as it looked when I bought it this last summer before we cut it up lol also is the picture of the fenders I purchased off ebay for another project. My son is holding up the fender to see how it would looked. I did post this pic once before and it was labeled as ugly as an "uncircumcised *****" lolololol So after thinking about it for a bit and selling my boxster a few weeks ago I thought ... why not !!! I've always wanted one of the those eye popping exotic cars I see on youtube and this Porsche is going to be it... or it will get sold for pennies on the dollor because I'm to embarrassed to drive it around my buddies with nice cars on our cruises in the summer cuz it sticks out like a sore thumb lol we will see. Color is going to be synergy green, I bought the GT3 rear bumper, bought a GT3 style wing I'm going to custom modify to work with the areo wing on there. I also deleted the sun roof(weld in roof panel) and plan on doing a roof scoop.. yes a hated roof scoop. just save the judgment till the end I will post more pics and post following this post as I'm not sure how many pics I can load per post. I will also describe each pic in the post so others who go down this road understand what all I'm doing and why. I have not decided on the front bumper yet but it will not be the stock one. I might do something with the front hood as well... and fenders lol this is a work in progress. I am a little further along than the pics will show as I don't have them all on my phone but will update as work is completed. 1999 Carrera with manual 6speed, complete fabspeed exhaust, fabspeed cold air intake, my genius tune and a complete Memphis stereo system with subs... loudest and best sounding system I have ever heard in a car and I used to do systems as a younger guy. it was done before I purchased the car and who ever did it spent some SERIOUS money on the stereo system.. I mean wow guys the car sounds amazing. Brian PS. I'm putting this thread in the three Porsche forums I'm a member in ... I love constructive criticism or fun car talk.

So these pics are of the cutting of the fenders... yes I did shed a tear or two as I made the cut lol it went smoothly and I was able to cut exactly to my lines and was very happy with the alignment of the fenders wells to the body afterwards.

So now onto the welding. I started out with just a quick tac weld every inch or so as I wanted to make sure it was secure to the body but I didn't want to cause any warping. once it was tacked on I then went back and would weld about 3 inches at a time and let it cool down before welding again. I also made a return at the bottom of both fenders so they were not just flapping around toward the bottom of the fender and welded those on as well.

so just some quick bondo pics next and then some pics of the side skirts I'm making following this post.

Making some side skirts to blend into the fenders. I originally bought the GT3 side skirts off Ebay... wow they were quite flimsy and I did not like the look. I planned on moding them to make them work with what I was doing but decided it would be better to just make my own. so these are just the forms in the pics right now. I will be making my molds from these which I can then pop a part to attached to the car. Very easy process, just takes a little patience.

So if you have ever bought a Duraflex part you probably already know how thin and weak they can be. That's not a slam on Duraflex. I have used a lot of there stuff and I like using them. But for those who don't know... they can crack and break and alignment can be frustrating at times. The two pics attached show what I did to make them fit a little better. when I initially put the rear bumper on it was way to wide where it would attach by the rear fender. so much so that it cracked and slit apart at the rear passenger side corner about 3 inches long. What I did was measure the width of the car where they mount and drew some lines on the ground. forced the sides to those lines with the straps you see in the pics and then put some fiber/poly on the inside of the bumper to help with strength and to hopefully conform it a little more to make it a bit more narrow.... it worked and once I get everything fitted and finished before paint I plan on doing it again and pretty much coating the entire inside of the bumper with two layers of 1.5 chopped to help it. this will help with the sun warping it as well in the summer.. ask me how I know that lol Good stuff, you just need to be willing to add your touch to it and make it work. and that's it till I take more pics. thanks for reading guys.

Thanks for sharing your project with us! Im curious on how did you seal the inner metal fenders now that the outer layer is wider than the oem quarter panel (the part you cut)?

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Quote: I have not yet but will be doing that. I cut the underside to the radius where it turns downward toward the outer skin. so I will just have to cut some straight sheet metal and bend it f/aft and weld it in. so this weekend I tackled the sunroof. the gap that needed to be filled was roughly 0.200 so I had some sheet metal in my stash that I cut down to 0.175ish at 0.064 thick and fitted it into the gap. spot welded it and through out this week i'll slowly get it all welded in. like an idiot I didn't cover my front windshield to protect it from the weld splatter... ya need a new front windshield now lol oh well I was debating replacing that anyway.

not sure how detailed I should get with this build. some don't like the small posts some like every detail documented. for me I'm the latter but i'll try to stay in the middle last night I sanded on the drivers side skirt and got it about 80% to where the passenger side is. had to put a little more mud on it, so waiting for that to dry to finish. the passenger side I worked on the bonding surface to the car. not sure how to word this or explain it but i'll try. this is where the part/skirt will have a void outward but be 1 to1 to the car where I will stick it and then cover up the void with bonder/glass. This way I will have a seamless skirt. I'm not a fan of seeing the seams like I do on youtube for a lot of them so I'm crossing my finger that it bunds well enough and doesn't crack the paint or anything with flex of the car. I'm going to look into some 3m type glues to see if I can get a better adhesive than just bondo/glass to the metal. If anyone knows of a good product, feel free to throw it out there Picks attached are of the bonding surface I'm referring to. thanks

Just a little FYI from someone with a metal fab background. First off remove the paint at least a 3" from your cut for two reasons. First is breathing in heated up paint coatings can hurt you. Second how can you judge HAZ or heat put into panel if you can see metal? DO NOT WELD any metal when you don't know what is on it!! Do not use any brake cleaners on the metal. Welding fumes are dangerous take them seriously and at lest throw on a cheap mask. One of the big mistakes people make is not having a big enough gap between the patch and the 1/4. As a guide it should be the thickness of the metal being welded otherwise your welds are sitting on top of the panels. Turn the power up and slow the speed down. Best way to adjust a welder is to take a spare piece and just pull the trigger and do it by ear. You will hear it change as you go past the perfect adjustment. Most novices are so worried about warp they don't use enough heat. Your welds should be on the edge of burning through. With a mig welder you are warping the panels end of story. What you have to be worried about is when you grind the weld back. If that weld is sitting on top and you grind it back it can look perfect but a coupe hits with a hammer and you will see cracks. Try not to grind the metal before welding use a disc instead. A lot of people use a grinder not realizing they thin the metal they are welding making it harder to weld.Next time you need to fill a gap or hole get a small piece of copper tube and flatten it out. You can then hold it behind the hole or gap and weld it up easier. As far as heat use a blow gun after you pull a weld it cools the panel quickly. The problem with mig welding is the weld itself is harder then the metal and cant be flattened. If doing a flat panel get a cheap dolly and grind out a groove in it so the weld fits in it and you can hammer the panel flat. Be careful with that roof if that buckles on you your screwed unless you have some good metal finishing skills next time try some adhesive instead. Use a fiberglass body filler for your first coat as there are always pin holes in your welds and moisture will get behind there and you will start to see ghost marks in your paint and can actually rust and fail. It is also a good idea to coat the backside to also seal the panel. You can also shoot epoxy first and filler on top. Just had some free time and saw the pics I'm laughing because the first thing I though is he's going to get pops all over those side windows. Weld splatter and even grinder can cause damages. Didn't mean to invade your build just wanted to pass along some info. Cool looking project!!

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Quote: great info, thank you for that. always appreciate people sharing there knowledge

so I had my paint mixed up last night. its a cross between "antifreeze green" and "envy green" I like it and super excited to see how it looks on the car when I should have some color pics by the end of the week. finally finished up the forming of the driver side skirt and wheel flare for rr bumper. starting on molds for those asap. also started on dents that need some fluff. last but not least.... the scoop!! lol I plopped some mud on there last night and just did a ruff form to see if I'm going to like it.... I do but it has a long way to go. please chime in on opinions on this roof scoop.

So just a quick update. Last night I pulled off my first mold.. came out quite nice I wont have much clean up to do for it and will hopefully be making my first part within in a week. tonight or tomorrow i'll be pulling my second mold which is the driver side of the mold I pulled last night. one side of the skirt mold is almost ready to be pulled probably another week on that. the skirts are taking longer than I thought and turning out to be harder than I wanted lol laying the fiber glass on the underside is not easy, kills my arm, fiberglass sometimes wants to fall and its just a pain in the dupa. so the pics below have the mold mess, just want to say a quick comment on this for anyone who might be trying this stuff. using the drywall mud as my forming component when popping the mold makes this part easy. all I had to do was squirt water periodically around the mold and let it run down underneath over the span of about 20 minutes and viola... it falls right off. The drywall mud, once it gets wet just turns to mush. Run it under some water and clean off the mold and its done. way easier than trying to pop the wax layer that is usually done. I do put wax under there as well but mainly as a way to just be another barrier to separate the mold from the car. The paint pics!!!!! omg guys... this paint looks amazing !!! the pics do NO justice to how it looks. the pearl in this paint looks so nice. I've painted metallic over the years and this is my first time painting with a pearl and wow.. just wow it looks so good. the pics below are before I wet sanded and clear coated so it did darken up just a bit and show the pearl better after. i'll get some better pics of the paint another time. more updates in about two weeks.. hopefully

love that green

Thanks, I'm very happy with the color. I was to busy at work to post pics (they expect me to earn my wages ... crazy) yesterday so here I am today. I had a good weekend and was able to get a bit done on the car. first pics are the side skirt for pass side. squirted it with water and let it seep down behind the mold and.. presto, popped right off :rockon: very cool as I was very worried if they were going to come off with out any issues. now I'm cleaning up the mold and should be making my first set of parts by the end of the week. so as of now both rear bumper flare molds are made and off the car and the passenger side skirt mold. laying up the drivers side this week. second pics are of the calipers. they look good enough to eat lol love em!!! I took them to my brothers house where all my big tools are since this new house is to small for that stuff and sand blasted the calipers. primed them, 3 layers of paint, Brembo stickers applied and then 3 layers of clear coat on them. if you zoon in on the close up pic you can see they pearl in it. last pics are of the roof scoop. I've started sanding on it and forming it. I think I want it to be a little shorter off the top. any thoughts on it? Thanks Brian

so the pics show the rear bumper flares I glassed on last night. pic1 is grinding away the bumper surface so the glass sticks better also to make the part and bumper seem have a lower profile for me to blend and sand. pic2 is the back side of the part ground away to do the same thing as the bumper. pic3 showing how it blends together. pic4... success pic5 success x2 lol very happy with it, came out great. everything lined up and I don't think blending it will be to complicated. one side skirt part is made and the other side skirt mold is just about done. also the roof bump I'm making is taking shape and i'll have some pics of that soon as well. last night was a huge motivation for me. I finally have some parts mounted!!! super excited :rockon:

so just a quick update. 1-Rear bumper is pretty much done as far as smoothing out the blended surfaces. I just have to sand a little bit on the drivers side and cut our the under lying bumper where I overlaid the new which you can see in the pic of the inner view of the bumper. 2-my molds are still nice and sturdy after pulling my parts out of them 3-driver side mold is just about to come off, probably tomorrow. 4-working on the passenger side skirt while its off before I attach it so I can do the smoothing out and pretty work on the underside before it goes on.... sanding while laying on my back.. not fun. 5-few new parts came :thumbup: some mufflers I'm going to try, some steel braided brake lines and some lift pads for the car. I still haven't received my cats yet. but when they come in i'll start my exhaust build and post pics of it. 6-roof gelcoat has been applied. will be putting on a second coat tonight and then glass Thursday. Thanks for looking

just some progress of the build. coming along.

very cool!

list of pics 2 pics of rear fin in primer 1 pic of rear fin with paint but not sanded and clear coated yet 2 pics of rear fin after wet sand and clear 2 pics of rear fin on car ... just to see it 1 pic of drivers side skirt in mold 1 pic of drivers side skirt after being pulled from mold

so this post shows the start of the exhaust I'm building. I cut off the triangles thingies where the fab speed headers go into the rest of the exhaust... it was quite choked down. so I opened it up to be a smoother flow. you can see in the pics how much I had to take out to match it to the headers. the complete exhaust will be smoothly matched up 2.5 inch exhaust with quad mini sport mufflers. hoping to achieve a higher pitched sounding system over the previous fab speed system I had. fab speed has a great system, but I'm trying to get a different sound. thanks oh also threw in a pic of the control arm area as I'm taking it all apart to put in all new bushings and suspension.

long post/update, lots of pics.. I hope I'm not killing you guys with redundant and boring pics. just trying to be thorough So this post will go through the exhaust mods. 1 ok so first pic was just my second set of mufflers that finally came. you can see the yellow lines on them for where I cut them to shorten them up. as you guys know its tight in the rear and I needed them to be as short as possible. 2 two halfs of the x-brace 3 how I fitted each side of the x-pipe and spacing of the mufflers. spacer between the mufflers than rubber bands to keep them squeezed while I tacked them. 4 on floor ready to weld on the stainless side of the v-bands 5 stainless welded on. 6 bracing I welded on the mufflers to keep them together whenever I need to take them off so they keep there fitment 7 how the x-pipe came out after welding. had a horrible time welding this x-pipe together.. not sure why but I kept getting popping and inconsistent welds on it 8 stainless welds. this was my first time welding stainless... I thought it went .. ok. 9 length of the finished system 10 finished look 11 weight of the system. another post coming after this one with the new parts that came this previous week and progress on the car it self.

so this previous week I was able to get the driver side skirt mounted, bonded in and ready for paint. pics 1, 2 and 3 4 sanding on the door openings.. that's some knuckle busting stuff right there. 5 primed 6 painted but not wet sanded or clear coated. should have done/on by end of the week. 7, 8 and 9 wheel well paint. I have used por-15 in the past and JUST MY OPINION, that stuff is highly over rated. for the last few cars I've done, I have used the stuff pictured. it is oil based and seeps into every crack and coats extremely well. looks great, very durable and is intended for tractor equipment that sits in the elements year round.. great stuff!!! you can get it at TSC (tractor supply company) the remaining pics are of the new parts that came. hope you guys are enjoying this thread as much as I'm enjoying this project. having a blast and cant wait to get it back on the road.

finishing up last post pics

wow this thing is going to be wild. regardless of how it turns out, i've got great admiration for guys like you who can do this kind of work in his own garage. make those memories.

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Quote: thank you, life is short and its best spent with family and cars lol so I wet sanded and put on some clear coat. also fitted the exhaust in there. if I was going to do it again.. I'd go just an inch or two skinnier on the width. it was tight making these bends. I still need to make the exit to the tips for it but you can pretty much see how its going to be. the pic from the rear with the bumper on where you can see the exhaust hanging down was before I raised it a little. Its about an inch higher so theirs a little less sticking down.

exhaust pictures

hello, new member here. Thanks for sharing the write up. I am very interested in doing this to my 996. does the car need to be modified to fit the front bumper? I was advised by my local shop that the water coolers need to be moved to a different location? any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance

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Quote: Nope, not true. My water coolers are still in the same place. I had to take the rubber shrouds that are in front of them off but that was it. I had someone tell me I was going to have overheating issues by having those off but I have been driving my car for about two months now and have never overheated or seen temps higher than before I did this job. I was in woodward dream cruise this past weekend going about 3 mph in 85 degree weather and no issues. I also did the exact same thing with my boxster last year and same thing.. no over heating. Don't listen to know it all's, they are rarely correct. To add to that you can modify the rubber shroud to fit by just shaving some of the inlet openings if its still a concern. I haven't kept this thread updated because I received very few comments on what I was doing but over on this thread there is a ton more detail. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-forum/1041683-like-it-or-not-steel-wide-body.html mod your Porsche, you will love it lol I have people come up to me all the time asking about the car and taking selfies with it. it amazes me how many people drop there jaw over this Porsche now. Here are some pics of the finished car. [

front end needs more low!! Amazing work OP, extremely impressive. Love the back end. Whats the next project for you?

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Quote: ya when I took it to the local alignment shop I was going to have them lower it but the guy doing it was 18 yrs old and telling me how excited he was because it was the first exotic car he had aligned so I didn't ask him to do anything other that make it drive straight. This winter I plan on having the rims powder coated black and I might be swapping in one of the motors I have. when before it hits the roads for next summer I will take it to a reputable alignment shop and have them lower it down. 315/35/19 tires in the rear... I love the rear view on this Porsche. It looks so aggressive and the tire stances just looks amazing. everyone brags about there cars but I have had so many cool cars over the years and it truly amazes me how much rubber neck, cameras and conversations I have over this Porsche. I have even had someone chase me down with there 1 of 8 in the world 195x Porsche chase me down to talk about the car lolol its such a blast to drive and the sound of that exhaust I made... just wow. Thanks Brian

beautiful.. my car has the same rear wing as you (from factory). is that WB kit from ebay/Duraflex? a beautiful widebody body kit! i think there are two models on the market (exclud. the slant nose one). not sure which one to get. thanks for posting the pic of your beautiful cars

Sorry one more question - I guess your wheels are 11/13? Can you let me know the offset? The problem I have is that my country don’t allow spacers. So I need to get order custom wheels.

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Quote: this was not a kit unless your just talking about the front bumper? I bought the front and rear bumpers but I had to cut the rear bumper up to remake the wheel arches to match the wide body I made. the side skirts and roof scoop I made as well. If your going to by a kit vs making your own... prepare yourself for some patience. they do not fit well and it will need some creative tweaking to make them look good. That's not a negative thing, just putting it out there that your going to need to take your time to make it look good. Making you own like I did gives you the opportunity to make it fit and look the way YOU want it to. Quote: wheel... 265/35/19 in the front and 315/35/19 in the rear. as far as offsets... I think it was the same off set as the turbo model 996. I would have to check though, my wheels were custom wheels from "ccw" Thanks Brian

Thanks so much for spending the time in replying. You are a great guy. If you could let me know the wheel offset, I’d be appreciated. I was talking to the tire guy and asked him that I won’t place my order until you replied

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Quote: front rims were stock offset and the rears where 38mm offset. keep in mind I widened my wheel well by 1 1/4 inches on each side. so that offset was there to fit that new wheel well.

Thank you! Did you need a spacer at the back? Or have changed the brake? There is a 5mm Difference!

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Quote: no spacer or brake modification. I would strongly recommend doing your own measurements though and making sure you know what you buying. I'm NOT a Porsche guru and I'm pretty sure there are some variations between the models. I'm a backyard figure it out kind of guy and I did stuff that worked with my build. brian

Thanks Brian. Much appreciated it.

Great build! Thanks for sharing!

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Quote: yup Quote: Thanks

Have any of you seen this? I was doing a search here at work to browse other 996 custom cars and this article popped... to cool lol https://www.6speedonline.com/article...actually-okay/ So I have finished this car and am now on phase two lol nothing to crazy but adding some more performance mods and a few more small cosmetic mods. to be honest I documented this build in more detail on another site because it received a lot more traffic but non the less I don't want to leave this one unfinished. as of right now I'm adding a light weight flywheel, poly trans mounts, lightweight crank pulley, IPD plenum and going to try my hand at my own cold air intake pulling air from the right hand side of the car. For cosmetics I'm redoing those rims in black with green candy accents, installing some green horns in the front grill area, making a new speaker box with a green/black theme and few other small things. I've had a blast with this car and don't doubt an engine swap or rebuild is in the future plans. thanks for reading guys... and girls

Do you have a link or item name on the flairs ? I’ve been looking for something like this. Build is looking great ! Customizing and making a car our own makes it more personal.

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Quote: GPR, thanks for the comments. I found a set of steel flares from ebay used if I remember right. they were the same ones you can find on this widesite. https://clinchedflares.com/ They make quite a few different options and the quality seemed to be pretty good to me. I didn't give this thread as much love as the one over on the other Porsche site. The build didn't seem to garner much attention on this site so I slacked off of being thorough with it. If you want to see better pics you can see a lot more on this thread. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...wide-body.html The car is all done and I just got it on the road this last week.. amazing how much attention this car gets and how it drives now that I've done all the mods to it.... wow.. just wow.

went to the track with it this past Saturday... amazing!!! new respect for porsches and love for mine lol https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgh...able_polymer=1