Lessons learned from exhaust removal and spark plug replacement

Seems like everyone is doing this job now that Spring is here! Last night I finally finished replacing my spark plugs and wow, I'm pretty proud of myself because this was the most intensive job I've done on my car so far...The car is a 2002 C2 Cabrio so it might be different for other cars. Let me preface by saying that I don't consider myself to be an expert mechanic by any means. Although my father owns an auto shop I didn't quite inherit that skill so this task was daunting but if I can do it I think anyone with a little patience can too! In total my car was out of commission for three days. But in real work time it probably took me seven hours. If I had to do it again I could complete it in 3-4 hours. Day One The first day I spent under the car thinking to myself, "How the hell am I going to do this?" and also "Maybe I should just take this to a mechanic!", but I picked and poked under the car and familiarized myself with where everything is. My first big issue was trying to figure out how I was going to jack up the car. I read and read on recommended methods and finally figured that I'm just going to do one side at a time. I chose this for safety reasons and because there doesn't seem to be one acceptable method for jacking up the whole rear of the car. I used a jack on the rear jack point and then placed a jackstand under the rear aluminum subframe. Then just for safe measure I placed the rear tire underneath the car as well. I then removed the heat shield from the spark plugs and essentially called it a night because I couldn't figure out how to get my hands or tools into the tight spots. Day Two I went to the auto parts store and purchased a universal joint for my ratchet. This will prove to be the most important part of my toolkit. Aside from that you need three different extensions too, I used a 3", 6", and 9". I attempted to fit these tools in without removing the mufflers but figured I had to go all the way if I wanted to get this done. Removing the mufflers was scary but actually ended up being pretty easy. I sprayed some liquid wrench on the exhaust sleeve bolts and they came off without incident. But getting the three bracket bolts was a pain at first until I figured out where to place my ratchet. Once the exhaust was loose I was shocked by how heavy it was. I felt like I was doing a bench press when removing that thing. Once out of the car I realized how HUGE these cans were. Also since mine is PSE I had to disconnect a vaccuum line to get everything removed. Now without the muffler the access to the driver's side components was pretty easy. Now I'm not familiar with the types of coils the 996 uses and didn't know how they really attached to the spark plug. So I pulled but was afraid I was going to damage them. But eventually I pulled a bit harder and they just popped off (after removing the allen bolt screws of course!). I did that for the other two and now had access to the plugs. The plugs are pretty easy to remove and I used my 9" extension to get to them. Here is where I had the first big issue. The extension kept popping off the universal joint socket and even got stuck in there once. So I used some duct tape to hold everything together. Once I did this I had no issue getting the other two plugs out. I installed the new plugs, reinstalled the coils, and figured I would turn the car on to make sure I did this right. It was about 9:30pm at this point so I was curious at to how loud the car was going to be. I turned her on, heard the engine without one muffler (pretty loud!) and noticed no check engine lights! Success had come upon me!!! I had to call it a night at that point though because the exhaust headers were too hot for me to work around. Day Three I'm Mr. Confident by now so I put the exhaust back together and put everything else in place. The little heat shield gives me some trouble but eventually I get it all in place. I head to the other side thinking I'm going to finish this up before the sun goes down! (I did this after work each evening starting around 6:30pm). Same process as the other side but now I realize there is slightly less space on the passenger side to access the rear-most spark plug. Even taking the coil out is a hassle! Eventually it comes out but when I'm trying to remove the plug my duct-tape tool invention comes apart! Now my socket, extension, and spark plug are stuck in the engine!!! I tried everything I could for about 30 minutes and FINALLY was able to apply enough pressure to get it reconnected and get the spark plug removed. Reassembly was again pretty easy except for that last spark plug where even plugging the coil back in was a challenge. It was one of the few times I wished I had "little people" hands. Plugging the ignition wire connection back into the coil even tested my patience. But I got it all back together and went for a test drive. The car ran just as well as it always had but now I know it's got new components in there so I'm happy. Oh and my coils seemed to be in perfect shape so no need to replace any of them. The one concern I do have is there is a slight oil leak on the passenger side, front-most part of the engine. In fact it created a little bit of residue on the first coil. It's not enough to even leak on the floor but I did have to wipe it down a bit. Anyone have any ideas where that is coming from? So in summary, it's a job that requires some patience but I think most of it was because I was still unfamiliar with this car. If I had to do it again I could cut that time in half. I learned a lot about my car and now have confidence to take on other projects. Okay enough typing, but if anyone has questions, let me know! I wanted to take photos but my hands were pretty filthy throughout all of this so sorry!

what a great run down, makes me want to try now.

Good job! I'm proud of you for having the tenacity to tackle and complete this job. Especially because you have little experience working on cars. One of my best friends and neighbor, a cardiologist, had never worked on cars and ended up overheating his car and warping both heads. He took me up on my offer to help guide him thru the job of fixing it himself. He actually found it interesting and rewarding, and offered to help me put the lift kit on my Jeep.

I just finished this job myself last night. 1/4" drive sockets/ratchets/extensions and a 5/8" magnetic spark plug socket I picked up for $6 on eBay were key to working in the tight space. No duct tape required. I used wobble socket extensions instead of universals in the crooked connections. I don't think the 2002 and newer have the spark plug tubes so at least you didn't have to deal with that mess. And the three nuts on the muffler bracket go really speedy if you have an air ratchet. I had no trouble at all with the two 17mm nuts on the clamping sleeve. The mufflers were a breeze to drop.

Good for you! When I get to the mileage (60,000) I think I may just leave this one to my shop!

nice work! thanks for posting that. now I'm sure I am never going to tackle that... cheers

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How did he manage to do that? (So I can avoid doing the same thing!) Go for it! I had a great opportunity to do it this week because the wife and daughter are at grandma's house so I didn't really have any deadlines or distractions. When I mentioned to my father that I was going to do this he brought up the magnetic spark plug socket. He told me he'll give me one next time I visit my parents in Colorado. And yes, fortunately I didn't have the spark plug tubes to worry about. As for those muffler nuts on the muffler bracket - that was a lot of wrenching to get those out! Since there's not a lot of space there you can only get 1-2 clicks on your ratchet so an air tool would have REALLY helped me here! Haha! I just drove two potential clients to their nearest mechanic! I think my lack of skill made this seem much harder - it is actually quite straightforward but I wanted to show others who aren't mechanical geniuses that it is feasible to work on a 996. If I accounted for my time in a dollar value it would have absolutely made more sense to take it to the mechanic. But I had nothing better to do at home this week so I figured I might as well!

When I wrench on my own stuff, sometimes it's about the money but not always. I know that when I do the work, it gets done correctly and I won't have a problem with it later on. But I have seen this movie before. I get a quote for $1,200 to do the 60K service. I say what the heck, I am short on time so I drop it off and let them deal with it. They call me and say, all your tubes are leaking and the tubes and seals need to be replaced. That will be another $500 for parts and labor. Or worse they try to tell me the leak was caused from something worse like a valve cover gasket and want another $1,000 to reseal both valve covers and replace the tubes. This whole service cost me less than $300 in parts, and would probably have cost me $2,000 at a shop. It took me 3 nights after work. This one was worth the time it took.

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Somone doesn't love its dealer Good job !

Yup, no love lost. I have only had one mechanic I ever trusted. Lyn Barber at Karden automotive in Walnut Creek. But he was my Alfa mechanic and I have never seen a Porsche in his shop, and I don't want t o teach him. But it never ceases to amaze me how stupid the shops must think their customers are. Last year I had some transfer case work done and I knew the shop didn't do it right. I saw silicone smeared on top of where a new O ring was supposed to have been installed at an oil leak. So I brought it to Macy transmission (excellent) in Concord for a second opinion, and they confirmed that yes the other shop didn't replace the gasket they just put some silicone on the leak. I filed a complaint with the CA BAR. The BAR investigated my complaint and cited him. Unfortunately it takes a lot of citations until the state actually does anything. Easy money for the shops. Although the state did make him refund my money. No, I don't trust the shops. Half the time I know more about the car than the mechanics do. That's not saying much. I had a PPI done on my Porsche one month ago before I bought it, at a well respected Porsche shop. They said the oil leak was caused by a leaky seal at the vario cam actuator. They wanted $1,500 to fix it. So I offered the seller $2,000 less and told him I would take care of it. It was actually leaky spark plug tubes. anyway it's fixed now.

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AMEN, It amazes me how they have most people snowed that this is rocket science. Most have at most a vo-tech education.

Thanks for the info....is saving $200 really worth it..LOL My mechanic warned me and I listened.

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I'd say no... But the experience I got from doing this was invaluable and it was a good way to "bond" with my car.

Spoken like a true warrior.

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We learn by doing! Change your own oil, change your own brake pads, change your own spark plugs, and next thing you know, you'll have the confidence to start making other repairs, too Really cuts down on the Porsche tax if all you're taxed on are the parts. I changed the plugs on my 986 a few weeks ago; was my first time for this car. Wasn't quite as easy as I'd been lead to believe, but really wasn't all that bad. Took about 2 hours, half of which was puttering about with the rest of the 60k maint while waiting for the engine to cool. (I just changed the oil 3000 miles ago, so skipped that part.) I did have access to a lift at an auto hobby shop at a local military base, though, which makes it a lot easier.

I do all the wrenching on my cars myself. It saves a ton of cash and you learn the ins and outs of the car. I figure the money i save in labor i can use buying tools and hopefully a small lift soon.

I never really thought about a lift in the past, but I am finding that a lot of the maintenance on Porsches is done from below, so I am looking at getting a lift too. This one looks pretty good and I think it will fit in my garage. It can be stowed away. http://www.maxjaxusa.com/ This one is a little chaper and simpler http://www.kwiklift.com/features-all.htm

Good work! I'm trying to grow the ***** to do more work. Baby steps I guess, but I know I'll get there. Thanks for the play by play.

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+1 I learned all of my wrenching capabilities growing up in my uncles truck repair shop. We serviced everything from ford ranger to a tri axle Mack, to a Komatsu front end loader. Coming home from 100+ degree summer days covered in heavy equipment grease was a real motivator to go to college. My car is at the dealer right now (car is CPO'd) for a coolant tank leak and to see if I need the markII version of spark plug o ring. When I changed my plugs, one of them was wet and the spark plug tube orings are accessed via removal of the valve covers on a markII.

Gentlemen - I did this job a week or two ago and for what it's worth I don't think it's worth the effort to remove the mufflers. I used a 3/8 ratchet, a 3" extension, a swivel joint, and a spark plug socket to remove the plugs. This was the easy part. A bit trickier were the coil packs. I used a torx bit (a little shorty thing like what fits in the end of a multi driver) and a suitable box end wrench to drive it round. My wrench was a ratcheting type which made it way easier, but it wasn't essential. In short.....there is an easy way to do this job, so don't get freaked out thinking it will take three days. I found the job a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, say halfway between changing oil and dropping the transmission. Don't get me wrong, I still took 4 hours to get it done (from 5 pm to 9 pm on a Friday night) and it's up to the individual to decide whether it's worth paying a shop $200 to save the agravation and skinned knuckles. For me I kind of enjoyed it Zen style.

A 2002 does not have spark plug tubes, and I needed to replace both seals on all 6 tubes, so getting the best possible access was important for me. Spending 20 minutes to R&R the exhaust was well worth the time. Another minor difference was the 1999-2001 cars use 5mm allen head bolts, not torx on the coil packs. My torx sockets are a lot shorter than my allen sockets so the torx would have helped a lot. Even with the cans removed I had to cut a 1/2" long piece of allen wrench inserted in a 5mm socket because an allen socket is too long to fit the upper bolt on 3 of the coil packs. For a first timer, spending 20 minutes to R&R the exhaust is a small price to pay to make sure you can clearly see what you are doing. The consequences of a misthreaded plug or an improperly connected coil pack aren't worth it. Considering how much better my car ran after I changed the plugs, I'll probably change them in 30k, and leave the cans in place. All in all it's a straighforward simple job. Although my plug change was complicated by a messy oil cleanup due to the failed spark plug tube O rings.

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I hope no one got the impression from my post that it took me three days to get the job done. It actually took me about six hours to do the real work including cleanup time. The first of the three days was spent studying the effort but not really accomplishing anything. And l split the work across two days so of course when you stop there is the time it takes to get "back in the zone." If I had to do it again, I'm pretty sure I can do it in the four hours you mentioned. I am curious as to how you managed to get it all done without removing the mufflers. I can't see how you have enough room to remove the coils. But again, I'm not the most experienced mechanic.

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The last inch or so of the coil backs are very bendy. At first I was concerned there wouldn't be enough clearance, but when it came time to get them out it didn't take much bending at all. It helps that I knew it could be done without removing the mufflers. Once you know it can be done, then it's just a matter of doing it. I'm a fairly risk tolerant person too, sometimes this pays off, and sometimes I end up paying.

Inspirational!!! I posted giving it a shot at changing out plugs a couple of weeks ago and the hint was to remove the cans. Last weekend I had the car up on ramps (so much easier than jacking the thing up - 2 seconds vs 10 mins) to do an oil change and spent sometime poking around while it was up... I gotta say, the mufflers were intimidating... Certainly if I could change plugs and coils without removing mufflers would be the preference... but the paws I have for hands aren't really made for tight spaces... It's a good thing the "analysis" I'm currently conducting doesn't go against repair time... or should it??? Congratulations and great job!!! I love to hear these accounts!!! Rudy

these are the only tools I used to change the plugs on my car: The vice grips were used to hold the allen wrench socket to get one bolt on the right rear coil pack where clearance was tight. I did not remove the exhaust. I had to bend the heat shield in one small place to remove it: Overall it was a far, far easier job than I had anticipated.

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Totally off topic but I always thought you had a 997 for some reason until I read your signature and saw it was a C2 with turbo bumpers and 997 wheels. Very nice! As for removing the mufflers, they look intimidating but really it's very easy. There's nothing tricky about it at all except for accessing the bolts on the upper bracket. But once you figure out where to put the wrench it is quite simple. Oh and make sure to use some liquid wrench to loosen the two sleeve bolts, those are the ones that get hot and tend to rust on. If this is the first time doing this, I would recommend removing the mufflers because it gives you so much more room. But possibly the next time, I'll try without it just because I'll know what exactly needs to be done. Wow! I'll make sure to refer back to this thread in 4 years/60,000 miles when it comes time to do it again. I used a LOT more tools, but again it was all trial and error - the next time I can probably cut the total number of tools to a much more reasonable level. I like the idea of the vice grips though, it makes sure the wrench doesn't slip and gives you some leverage.

I do all my own routine/repair work and very much enjoy it I think 996's are now entering the DIY zone and I will need to do plenty on mine around the front and back end to sort the car out. Just working on muffler removal with very rusty bolts... Lee

Been threatening for ages.. So I did the job as preventative Maintenance. I bought plugs and sleeves about a year ago. The car was running just fine anyway but decided to do them. I had no idea when the plugs and sleeves were changed. I did find out on the very first coil passenger side that another screw had been used in that part so obviously these were not the same plugs which left the factory in Stuttgart. Nothing at all appeared wrong with any of the old plugs or sleeves as I changed them. Here is a photo of them. This was probably the hardest DIY I have had to do on the car but I enjoyed every minute of doing it. I jacked the engine as high as the jack would go and used two stands. The back of the car was about two foot off the floor at the bumper. Removed back wheels and mufflers for easier access. Then using a crawler slid around under the car to complete the job. The marine plug on the sleeves worked for me treat. One big glitch and all my fault I tried for like Everrrrrrrrr to put a coil back into where I had put the new sleeve and plug . Oh for two hours before I realized that the plug extractor wrench had been left on the new plug down inside the sleeve. haha. Apart from a slight bump on the forehead I am unscathed. Aching, muscle weary and 6 pounds lighter than when I started the job. Loved it and the car is purring away good. I have yet to put the rear wheels back on and take it on the road. http://www.ex-lancs.com/web/plugs.jpg I have since ran the car and the response from the accelerator is awesome in comparison. Its a smoother driving experience all round. When I saw how good the plugs and sleeves seemed as I was removing them I didn't imagine that the new plugs would make THAT much difference but they have. Reading other pages I am not the first person to drop off the plug tool inside the sleeve haha. I am 72 years of age tomorrow. Probably the oldest person EVER to have completed this DIY. My wife was away for four days and I took the opportunity to do the job. I am so tempted to invest in a garage lift. Then again all the rolling around and sitting up and banging my head keeps me young lol. I need the exercise and that's my excuse. Truth is I am a tight swine when it comes to parting with money. lol. That's the hardest DIY I have ever done.

Well got the last 2 and hardest plugs changed today and the last coil was cracked (no others). Called O'reilly auto parts and they will have one from Imports direct tomorrow. Good news it's $47 instead of Pelicans $90. When on Partsgeek web site just to see what they looked like and it looks identical. We'll give it a try at that price.

Parts Geeks is a great priced store. Pelican Parts prey on the 996 owners IMHO.

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I also pray that my 996 doesn't break, and leave me prey to the Porsche tax parts vultures.

I just got lucky. I went to a Porsche cup team speed shop and they recommended a guy who just left their shop. He did the 60k tuneup with belt, filters, plugs and mounted two new tips for $600. Did find a small leak and suggested brakes but didn't think they needed attention immediately.

Wausau - Glad you got that plug change done, I'm sure it'll run great when back on the road! Curious as our Beru brand coils range $40 - $43 depending on year of your Carrera. Sounds like you're all set though! Mark/Pelican Parts

Pelican doesn't prey on anyone - you're welcome to shop around and buy parts wherever you see fit. In addition to often being lower than competing legitimate sites, Pelican often carries OEM-but-not-Porsche-branded parts, which can be dramatically lower than the same part in a Porsche box.

Imho.

I've only had good service from Pelican, but there are several decent venders online.

I have had good parts from Pelican. Brake pads, beru plugs and tubes. So I retract my last statement. In fact after checking Parts Geek again, Pelican can beat them on price for the parts that I bought. My Apologies to Pelican Parts.

Wow I've learned a lot in the three years since I started this thread. I could probably do this job in an hour now For the record the car is still running great!