ArtnD 996 C2 - Restore, Enhance, Explore

Hi! My name's Brian, I was never expecting to be a 911 owner but a cheap 996.2 C2 popped up that ticked all the boxes and felt tackle-able (as a Porsche newbie). So I brought her home. For context, it's far from my first rodeo building cars, but the world I come from is a little more rough-and-tumble: I love/hate the BMW - it's terrific fun and drives sideways everywhere but I've literally blown up an engine every season. After the 6th dead S52 came out, I threw the towel in and started developing an HPD K20C1 engine swap. While that's cooking, the 996 will be turned into the nicest car I can muster, which will be a new challenge for me as a product designer and engineer. As the thread title states, I imagine three parts to this: Restore : Tackle all deferred maintenance, fix native weaknesses (within $ reason), return mechanical and cosmetic condition to factory or better Enhance : Invent or install improvements to the 996's functionality or cosmetics (especially the interior!) Explore : Once it's all working, we go new places and meet new people! So, starting with the Restore part This is gonna be a theme I think, there were little annoyances with the plastics: One of the previous owners tried to fix a crack here using tape and cardstock. That obviously failed, so the cowl was flapping when I first drove the car home. I removed all the garbage and basically built up JB Weld until the tab was functional again. Not as beautiful as a brand new cowl cover, but not worth throwing away an otherwise fine panel that can be restored anyways. I encountered other broken plastics just like this (cracked fender liners and underpanels) but will replace them later instead - JB Weld doesn't seem like an elegant solution for large, load-bearing gaps. On the bright side, the suspension was refreshed very recently with receipts to prove it, so I've got myself a nice H&R/Bilstein/Eibach suspension package and really only need to grease the urethane bushings (pic from seller). Unfortunately, the last alignment was done to factory Porsche specs and lets the car down handling-wise: I have an appointment to rack this car up next week and investigate - those slots are begging for at least 1-1.5deg of camber, which should get the front tires to bite. As it is the front end washes out everywhere and I was resorting to trail-braking to get it to hunker down. I'm told that's unwise on a 911 so I'd much rather have front camber. Not -4.5 like my track cars, but at least give me a little bit! Moving on, the paint wasn't that bad on Day 1 but there were brown flakes impregnated into the clearcoat all around. Solution, clay bar and polish it all off, then apply two thick layers of Rocklear to replace the lost layer and further UV protect the silver underneath. It actually took two visits to get everything done, and a phone camera can't capture it all. On the first visit, we laid the Rocklear and gave it a week to cure - it's almost as thick as PPF and truly looks like clearcoat, just not smooth. Because of that, the second visit was for leveling and polishing the coating on the paint to get that deep, wet clearcoat look. We also wetsanded the coating on the rubber trims to bring back the original satin appearance. Headlights sanded, polished, sealed: The aforementioned cowl: The frunk: The engine bay wasn't fully cleaned up, which I OK'd as I'm gonna be in here dirtying it up soon. It almost looks like a new car again. Other basic maintenance stuff had clearly been deferred on this car, so: New Continental DWS06+ in 225/40/18 and 275/35/18 Transmission flushed twice with Porsche Tiptronic ATF (sheesh, this stuff is $$$) Engine oil flushed twice, first Driven BR30 then Driven DT40 Bottle of Techron Fresh engine air filter (Porsche) and charcoal cabin filter (Mann) Replaced broken visor mirror cover Nothing sexy here so no pics, but after doing all of it and going on a test drive, I literally called my wife to say "damn... I get it now". When I bought the car, the exhaust pulsed a bit - gone; injectors ticked a bit - gone; on cold start the engine shook and rattled for a split second - also gone. The Mercedes Tiptronic feels about as good as a 90s automatic is gonna get, buttery smooth going up and willing to be rev-matched going down. I feel successful cruising on the highway now, which I suppose is how Porsche sold so many of them back in the day. I'll cap it here for now before diving into the interior (pic from seller). It's overall been kept in decent condition, and being full leather it's already much better than it could be, but man, looking at the center console and the horseshoe just makes my brain hurt. I'm looking forward to 3D scanning this interior, and putting ideas to paper to make it legitimately sexy. More soon!

Congrats !! Looking forward to it...( as long as you don't start talking about putting a Honda power unit in there..lol)

A hearty welcome to you. It’s a slippery slope like canola on a Teflon-coated Slip-n-Slide. So much fun to tinker with these cars. I applaud your selection of the 275 rear. I found it protects the rim better than a pinched 265, has a taller sidewall than a 285/30 and improved my rake by a couple mm. Your Tip probably holds a gear longer with PSM off. At least it does on my Pepper. Always trail brake your 996. Push is designed into the car. With your suspension set up you can get -1 and -1.8 on the camber with stock links and tops. Wow! on the paint correction.

Very nice! Looking forward towards the upgrades! K20C1 swap in the BMW sounds like a fun idea

Very cool and love the paint correction, looks great.

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Congrats on the 996, looking good already! Subscribed to see a legitimately sexy 996 interior. IMO Seinfeld�s Classic Club Coupe is probably the best 996 interior I�ve seen. But that involved mostly nicer materials, not a reworking of the original design.

You car looks great and that paint is popping ! I have never heard of Icon Rocklear. How did you find out about it? Is it a west coast only thing? How does it compare to the nexgen ceramic/graphene coatings? Also, what did it cost to get your 996 to where it is now using this product?

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Thanks for the warm welcome! Honestly, if the M96 lets go, I am not a purist... The C1 is a phenomenal engine, just sounds like crap The tires are, uh, placeholders lol. I have a one-off set of 19" Titan7's on order, they'll pop the front end up 8mm and the rear 5mm (245/35/19 and 295/30/19). I checked the rake will be acceptable (~7mm, down from ~10mm now), so I'm looking forward to filling out the massive front wheel wells better. Went for a canyon drive today and yeah, I hate the stock alignment and frankly the Bilsteins too. Too stiff for the bumpy roads here, so the front end skips and pushes on every perturbation. I didn't plan on throwing out new dampers so we'll just have to live with it for now and enjoy drives at a slower pace. It's the only way I can keep all the luxury amenities (sunroof, A/C, radio, sound deadening) and still have the power:weight I want haha. >300whp, <3000lbs, >30mpg, and the ability to Sub-2 Buttonwillow carrying as many passengers as I'm allowed to. Yeah, most people update the materials and sometimes the seam patterns - it helps. I'm not sure how big the market is for involved interior mods, but to me the horseshoe and center console should draw a single line swooping down the middle of the cabin. For the "GT3 delete" gang, the horseshoe can still be updated with a sharper line, and it'll actually complement the abrupt bottom "cut" better than the factory blob shape. I'll spare you my MS Paint doodles, just know that once my 3D scan man is back from SEMA we'll get right to work making renders. My detailer is a former employee of mine, so I follow his development as a business owner and occasionally point out when something looks like a bad idea. He recently became an Icon dealer, so I got the spiel lol. It's not a panacea, but being thick and soft, it repels the day-to-day rock chips better than "traditional" ceramic coatings. Think "liquid PPF" rather than ceramic coating competitor. I have ceramic/hydrophobic coatings on my track cars, and the problem was that rock chips at 100mph would still go through it, so that square millimeter loses the coating. The mm's add up quickly if you regularly drive fast in dirty conditions, and you end up basically stripping the coating off. We'll see how well Rocklear holds up! Only a small picture update for today, I yanked the passenger front fender (old, cracked, missing the air guide) and just went for a brand new one. Coming from BMW's, these are remarkably easy to install! Noticeably less aero lift at 120mph too, I'm a happy camper. A Cup lip would really help with the lift, does anyone have data on the additional drag it contributes?

Starting "Enhance" chapter a little early - I received a render of the 996 NB-fitment Titan7 T-S7 I ordered before committing to forge -> machining. I asked Ed for an OEM+, conservative spec; these will be 19x9 +46 F / 19x11 +63 R. Once they're validated on my car, they should be made available on Titan7's website later. Hoping to make this the pattern with everything we develop for this car - I don't want 1-of-1 flex pieces, it's always better to share (and sell ).

Great looking rims but for the 996 18 inch should be max especially if you plan to track it I went from 19 back to 18 and my overall ride control improved as well as off camber changes

Word.

If the OP wants to run 19's... at least he picked a dope set. Plus, gives him a good excuse to throw a set of 380MM GT3 brakes on it, the stock ones gonna look teensy weensy behind those big *** wheels.

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I'm never tracking this car besides playing a bit at the PEC - have no appetite to ruin an M96 lol. With a 245/35 and 295/30 tire it's practically the same sidewall height as the stock 18" spec, so I'm not expecting any real change besides a higher ride height. As zbomb said though, the stock brakes will be swimming in there haha. Can't afford GT3 consumables so I'm looking at the Girodisc 340/325 upgrade kit. Seems like a well thought-out package to improve bite, thermals, and appearance. In the meantime, I... really dislike the Porsche Roof Transport System. I get that it's functional and that it's the only one that levels a roof box, but the bars are an old design, they're really tall, and the overall aesthetic is just kind of frumpy IMO. Roast me all you like. My other cars all use Yakima racks - quiet, pretty, and adaptable left and right - so I'm going to figure out a way to make my Yakima bars fit the 996/997 roof as well as, if not better, than factory Porsche. My daily driver wears a hacked-together Whispbar setup and I love it. No wind noise, super low profile, and somehow 25-30mpg with the box. Yakima specifies "Landing Pad 22" for the 996 so I eBay'd a set to test fit. They're 1) huge and 2) surprisingly ill-fitting. Again, I get why everyone just says to use the RTS. Still - the Yakima bars and towers themselves look great mocked up, so I just need to do the feet properly. Took measurements on the roof for an hour then came up with a first draft. From the screw hole already, you can see I'm trying to nickel-and-dime a shorter stack height out of this landing pad. The huge Yakima rubber gasket can be replaced by a much thinner, smaller piece like the Porsche RTS (basically just for paint protection), so I made a lip on the underside to stick a basic, 2D rubber gasket to (later). The landing pad can basically go as low as the 996's plastic flap allows while leaving enough meat for a screw to securely fasten the pad to the roof. There's probably a few mm left to optimize once I try to bolt on a physical prototype. The front and rear feet can use the same basic design, just different heights. I think I did a decent job reducing the visual weight of the landing pad compared to Yakima's. Next steps are to 3D print some protos and see how far off I am - if by some miracle I get all the dimensions right in one shot, I'll throw the box on too for a vibe check.

3D printing round 1! My caliper measurements did great - the Yakima towers clip in with the perfect amount of preload/friction, I probably have to tweak it a hair before transferring from 3D printed prototypes to CNC machined finals. But it looks so good. Fitment on the roof is also good, but to avoid astronomical machining costs I'm going to tweak the design at the roof interface and try to source an off-the-shelf, soft rubber gasket to squish in between our landing pad and the roof rail. Super stoked to finish this up and get the rack setup mounted!

Cool! They new wheels will look great!

Congrats on the 996. Nice E34! I used to have an S52 swapped E34 track car. Also had an E39 touring recently

very nice roof mount.

Ok, we are live! Still improving with each iteration. I went far too aggressive trying to lower the landing pad, so both fronts and rears are touching the rain rail in these pics - easy to fix. I'm trying a more universal approach to the gasket, using closed-cell EPDM foam to conform to the various curves on the roof without needing custom machining for each of 4 landing pads. I guess that automatically makes it cheaper-feeling than the Porsche RTS, but I believe I can keep the overall fitment tight still. And it's definitely possible to get the front bar lower than the RTS. Nice and sleek looking! The front towers are able to level the aero bar to a nice angle with no other tweaks, so I'm not gonna tweak its angle in a bid to keep the front landing pad as low as possible. On the other hand, the rear towers are leaned back 10deg too far, and about 1" too low to level a roof box. Rectifying those two, along with a few more tweaks, gives me the next revision of the parts: Printing with more infill and more care this time so we can do a functional test - can't wait!

Before diving into roof rack stuff: I finally got the car re-aligned the other day, and it was transformative. (Degrees) F Camber: -1.2, maxed out factory struts and tower slots F Caster: 8 F toe: +0.02 R Camber: -1.0 R toe: +0.08 Fuel economy gained ~1mpg, the steering no longer "cams over" during tight parking lot turns, and most importantly the front end doesn't wash out anymore on trail braking - I'm actually getting rear rotation which can then be planted with the throttle. Nice! Guess the "find a parking lot to hoon" idea can be put on hold as it finally drives intuitively enough that I think I can sort myself out in an emergency. That solves one of my biggest worries with this platform! Now on to roof rack stuff. Got the new prints installed, adjusted the Yakima bars and went for a drive. The new landing pads clear the "flap" in the rain rail, torque down nicely (function of the geometry + the gasket material being used) and held to 90mph in this initial test without any weird noises or vibrations. For further functional testing, I'm going to want to CNC mill the landing pads because I can't afford to drop a whole box and rack assembly onto some innocent motorist should be a 3D print fail at 100+mph. The front pads are about as low as they can be made - I've used a low-profile mounting screw, only 3.2mm of meat between the screw head and the flap, and lowered the Yakima tower such that it's practically scraping the screw head. There's comparatively way more design freedom in rear pads, so I just tried to make the cross-section (aka frontal area) thinner to reduce drag. A teardrop profile was considered but that would end up making these landing pads too long and not match the fronts aesthetically. Left/right pieces are symmetrical to avoid potentially stocking 4x parts instead of 2x, but because Yakima racks are more utilitarian anyways, I think it complements the looks rather than detracting. Let me know if you disagree, as I'm not just trying to satisfy myself with this development. I personally think this looks way better than the RTS, being slightly lower and significantly wider (ain't that just universal? ) than the Porsche rack. I cannot wait to throw the box on top and be able to lug stuff on road trips!

TBH I didn�t read every detail but the process is cool. What is the print material you are using? Do you trust it to be strong enough and withstand UV radiation?

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Do you plan to make the custom landing pads available to purchase? I'm a Yakima user as well. I have a set of landing pads I used on my old 2008 STI, and they will work on the 996, but as you stated, the rear ones are too low. Hence my interest.

OP - The car looks happy now. With the better suspension set up, you’ll really enjoy driving. Is the Tip downshift performance to your liking as you corner out? Love the rack mount mod work.

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These prints are ASA, but you'd be insane to rely on this to lug something like a roof top tent. I only use 3D prints for non-load-bearing stuff, otherwise it's only good for fitment checks (fantastic for that). I've shot an email to a prototype shop in China I'm familiar with, hopefully they can make me something Delrin or aluminum at a reasonable cost and then I can do real mechanical testing. Might just have to buy a copy of ISO 11154, but from what I can tell (based off other companies making roof transport systems and the like): Driving over 200km/h / 125mph with a 20kg/45lbs load Driving on the infamous Belgium block paved road with the rack loaded with 20kg/45lbs (I might have to settle for downtown San Jose) Emergency braking tests from 80kph/50mph - loaded with 20kg/45lbs Speed tests at 130km/h 180km/h 80mph/110mph 10 minute pulling force assessment with 645N applied approx 65kg/145lbs to the loaded rack. I found some companies offering to test roof racks for you; they claim to test for 8G crashes with a loaded rack so I think that means 8 * 45 = 360lbs pulling or pushing force to the loaded rack There's also the obvious static load test: At minimum, handle 165lbs of static load Realistically, should be able to handle normal roof top tent loads (150lbs of tent + 350lbs of humans) If it handles all of those things I'm pretty sure I have to worry about the rack itself as the weakest link and not the feet that I'm going to try to overbuild on purpose. If things actually test out well, yes! I don't really enjoy making things just for myself, I would've just lived with a Porsche RTS if I didn't think we could make and share a better product. Car's much happier now, probably more so once I give it clean injectors and new spark plugs. I never even thought about letting the Tip kickdown during actual driving, that seems scary. I ask it for a downshift before entering the corner and rev-match the downshift myself. Would be slick if I can make a little module that takes the Tip switch input and modifies the E-gas signal to auto rev-match, but that's something I haven't fully understood yet

If you have the Mercedes Tip it will learn from your driving style and do really neat things. Like, if you brake hard it will assume you are going into a corner so it will predownshift and hold that gear while the wheel steering is not straight. It quickly forgets that strategy if you start driving smoothly though.

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I noticed that, but the trans just downshifts without blipping the throttle, and the car winds up wanting to shift lock in the middle of trail braking. That's hairy IMO... erring on the side of caution, I just leave it in M and drive it like a "dumb" manual when needed.

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That's what I did when I ran mine on the track. Not relevant to your car, the Tip does a no-lift-shift to keep the turbos spooled; I have datalogs to prove it. I ended up manual swapping the car.

Development continues, I placed an order with a prototyping shop to CNC mill me some aluminum versions of these feet. I plan to run the gamut of load tests on the aluminum feet first as they better pass everything , so I can learn what kind of test setup (as well as car protection) is needed to check that everything's working. If the aluminum feet work, then it's time to see if there's enough demand to actually make a batch of these in (most likely) cast nylon. This was ill-advised but I really needed to see how a roof box looks on the rack, 3D printed feet be damned. The bar-to-roof clearance looks about right; plenty of space for these Inno hook mounts, and if you use a ski holder the raised rear bar already gives plenty of clearance for bindings. For obvious reasons this was driven around very gingerly... but it still did 45-50mph on city streets with no signs of fatigue or loosening up. A few more views. The rear bar can probably be lowered another 2-3mm. Most people run a little ride height rake on their cars, so I should account for that when trying to keep the box level for aero drag purposes. I think it looks pretty good. Can't wait for those Titan7's to come in, I have a few ideas for further tweaks to the C2 once it's on the right set of wheels.

​​​​​​​I'll be first in line!

While waiting for the machined rack pads, I've made a rough scan of the 996 interior to start putting pen to paper. New software too - Autodesk Fusion and Solidworks can't handle this point cloud on my mid-grade PC, so I bit the bullet on a Rhino license. (I know Blender is powerful too, but somehow I can't wrap my brain around its UI whereas Rhino has been intuitive for me for 20 years.) Now let's discuss: I think most of us agree the 996 interior isn't particularly well styled. There are lines everywhere, design elements don't match or complement each other, and the (front/upper) center console especially is both ugly AND takes up legroom. Brainstorming around that console is a head-scratcher: For modernization, we need room for a double-DIN (PCCM+ or other big-screen Android headunit) and the HVAC controls, so 2-3 DINs worth of space, depending. If we must have only 2 DINs (dashboard space only), then the only way is to reverse-engineer the HVAC controls and put them into a smaller package a la @Kaelstart Smaller HVAC controls would be neat though, you could fit them in a 993-like lower console and that would complement the tapered tip of the 996 lower console. If we keep 3 DINs, the HVAC controls need to be as out of the knee's way as possible for ergonomics. The visual weight of the center console assembly is important - the lighter looking the better, and separating the console from the dashboard will help. For easiest user adoption, it's better to make fewer pieces, each being usable independently from each other. That means finding a way to use the stock HVAC controls, sooo figuring out how to make them shrink away while actually keeping them within reach (no glovebox tricks). That's not a problem I expect to solve immediately, so for now I've put my best brainstorm idea into the renders below, basically flying buttresses that tuck the HVAC controls further down under the dashboard. One piece I'm firm on making, whether other people like it or not, is the horseshoe. I hate the factory horseshoe. It's such a missed opportunity that Porsche could've taken, but instead it's like they shrink-wrapped plastic trim around the air vents, radio and buttons and called it a day. IMO, it didn't take much effort to do better, and this is only the first draft. Front 3/4 view: the horseshoe can, and should , mirror the theme from the instrument cluster hood. That means a slight overhang, a small radius on a sharp upper edge, and if you have a leather cluster hood, the horseshoe should also get a leather seam right on the edge. I'm thinking that the flying buttresses should extend from under the dashboard all the way clipping into the rear console. Long, unbroken lines help make things look slimmer. Front view: the cluster hood curves convex just a bit, so to complement it, I've made the horseshoe curve concave just a bit. That's not possible to do at the seam of course, so the concave feature is within the face of the horseshoe itself. You can also see my idea for the center console here - make it as narrow and as light-looking as possible. In this outline the buttresses are about the width of a single-DIN, saving a few inches over the original center console which was the width of the horseshoe. Top(ish) view: the horseshoe now has a plateau to an overhanging cliff, just like the cluster hood. I want to adjust my cut lines in the horseshoe to clean up near the upper buttons. You can also see my idea for the center console kinda works - because the buttresses are set deeper underneath the dashboard, it provides some separation between the "dashboard" and the "center console" as two entities. Not as much as a GT3 console delete of course, but, if we wanted to be as light and airy as possible I'd literally leave the buttresses like this and install a GT3 console delete underneath. Otherwise, the space under the HVAC controls would be great utilized as a phone mount/wireless charger or even cupholders I'll have to disassemble my center console to know how deep the HVAC controls can actually be mounted, which then informs how much slimmer we can make the buttresses and how feasible it'd be to have real cupholders in that area. That's it for now, please hit me with all your constructive criticism and feedback! I'm gonna print a horseshoe this weekend just to see how good my reverse engineering is, but that'll be a good opportunity to test the aesthetics in reality too.

Interesting project. The only part I don't really like about the interior is like you have addressed, the the center console and dash doesn't really seem to follow each other. Looking forward to updates on this!

I don't dislike anything about the 996 dash (especially in full leather) because it is such a step up from the 993 interior it isn't even close IMHO....but I think anything can be improved upon given enough thought and creative effort and I keep an open mind so I'm looking forward to see what your improvements look like..

Excuse the picture quality, but the aluminum landing pads are here! You might notice the design changed a bit, I've got holes in the faces now - that was just a necessary evil for the transition from 3D printed concept to CNC machined prototype, it wasn't possible to mill the deep, narrow pocket that holes the Yakima towers, so I drilled a 12mm hole through the whole landing pad and that's how the towers clip in now. I upped the gasket material to 3/8" thickness and widened the overall pads 4mm, which has done wonders for stability and sealing. The "squish" as you tighten the bolt down preloads the foot more evenly so even at 3.5Nm of bolt torque (normal Yakima specs) the pads are solidly on the roof, no visible flex possible by hand. Bolted all four landing pads down, clipped the towers in and yesss it is rock solid. I can't wait to test it out, with extended drives first to check vibration, fatigue, or things loosening, then we'll try the actual load tests and hopefully I can protect the car well enough should anything fail. Can't drive at the moment though, I sent my steering wheel to Swedit for an overhaul. Aaron's helping me redesigning the leather pattern and modifying the base wheel underneath to improve the seam locations, and sourcing the nicest black leather we can find that matches the leather airbag. Almost exactly like this spec here but minus the red stripe: Not actually sure how much it'll cost but I'm sure it's gonna be well worth it.

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I just swapped my Renegade 350mm BBK(front only) for Girodisc 340mm front & 325mm rear. I'm extremely happy. The Renegade looked better, but the Girodisc weight savings are well work it. I can actually feel a difference!

I feel a bit bad taking up two threads with my design work, but we're finally back on the horseshoe today after getting the OEM piece scanned on its own. For this first draft, I'm just gonna 3D print a piece to validate my concept. I'm curious what the horseshoe area will look like IRL with all the "poverty buttons" removed - if it looks nice I'll try to move my door lock switch to the left side so the final product can be symmetrical.

That design looks awesome.

I’m impressed with your progress good luck

I love how active this forum is, that I don't post for a week and my thread's already on Page 3 of the list. I've been busy! First things first, chopped down the roof rack to its final config. 44" seems like the right bar width to me, little bit of overhang to not look too vertical (cough, RTS), but minimizes excess amount of bar to reduce drag and wind noise. Looks perfect to me now. I've done some load testing on it and feel confident that it can pass the full-monty "8G crash" scenario, but I need to stock up on padding before I attempt to risk my car over an ISO test that most rack makers for sure don't meet. The horseshoe project is going, although, our first print failed so I can't really tell if I designed it perfectly or not. I painted it black to get some preview to look forward to. The parts that weren't warped to bits fit up really nice against the original horseshoe, so I'm hoping the next print comes out straight and I can clip it into the car for real. One thing's for sure though, cleaning up the button pockets and sharpening corners makes the horseshoe look way more modern. In the meantime I also scanned the GT3 center console delete, I'm gonna be making my own with some fun features. Because I have a double-DIN radio to install, I'm gonna tuck the HVAC controls deep inside the console delete piece, and to hide it, add a trapdoor with a Magsafe phone mount on the outside. So during normal operation the HVAC controls will be invisible / hidden by phone, but no need to go into the glovebox to change settings on the rare occasions that I actually touch the panel Just the scan for now, but will have more 3D printing fun to share after the holidays. Now for my favorite thing of the week. Spoiler alert! I'll post all of the pics in the other thread. Long story short, I'm battling print warp issues (see zipties) but I can confirm I'm not too far off on fitment. The design of this spoiler came out good - obviously, not finished yet, but the contours I drew catch the light exactly the way I envisioned, and the window exposing the tea tray works too. I'll have to clean up and paint the tea tray, and source the right mesh too, but I'm so excited for the next revision prototype!

Put me at the top of your list for those "landing pads"!

Free bump to yet another 996 enthusiast helping to keep these cars awesome.

Awesome updates here Keep it up

Love the updates and design work. I�m a PDE also, and just bought a 3D scanner myself. I sold my old 3D printer and CNC plasma table to buy updated models and it�s been fun to watch someone else create similar projects. Keep up the good work! I�d also be interested in buying roof rack parts for my 996 from you. If you scanned the deck lid, I�d also be interested in that file, if you wanted to share, so I don�t have to repeat the work. I�ve been meaning to design a cold air intake for my LS swapped 996 and have been procrastinating. Lol

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Thanks! Making stuff is fun, making a business out of making stuff is not haha. I intend to make most of the CAD files I write available for sale later, or at least the ones where laymen should be expected to be able to build it at home (2D cut-and-fab stuff, 3D prints). Sharing scans depends on which scanner does it - sorry if this complicates things, but I basically have two scanners on loan. On the Einstar I'm allowed to share/sell scans, on the Artec I am not. Or, well, you'd have to pay the shop graciously letting me borrow the Artec. The OEM spoiler insert was scanned using the Artec as the Einstar struggles with certain lighting conditions and backgrounds. Do you have a Yakima or Thule rack? I've been meaning to borrow someone's Thule rack parts so I can make a proper rear-landing-pad riser (to level out boxes, baskets, and tents). For Yakima (heads up @merlot ), the landing pads I've made for myself are very expensive, so unless you'd like to mill them yourself using my CAD model, I think I need to make a cheaper riser kit like what's planned for Thule.

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You�re 100% right about business, it�s a pain. I setup mine in the pandemic and I underestimated how much time each component of a successful business requires. Marketing�sometimes 4-5 hours a day. Sales and customer support�8-10 hours some days. Design, if you even get to do that and it�s still fun�.all weekend. lol Lately I�ve been thinking of compiling a CAD library and selling the files. I�ve seen this in a few places recently and it appears to be a good way of offering a low overhead service with little customer dissatisfaction due to problems or issues with the product, IE not much time spent troubleshooting. If you�d be interested in joining, or even just discussing, let me know. No worries on the files and if you can�t share. I bought an Einstar myself and just need to take some time to really use it and understand the process. If you have some pointers, aside from the typical found on YouTube, I�m all ears. Adjusting the lighting on the Einstar seems to be common, I had that issue on my first scan. I�ll be researching higher end consumer to business grade 3D printers too, if you have suggestions there. Looking at the FormLabs Form 3L possibly, although it�s spendy. We use Thule racks, we only have 1 right now on the wife�s mk6 GTI. I could send parts or measurements, or maybe even a scan, to help you along the design. I also use Solidworks if you�d like anything drawn. Daily use is NX but used SW for about 6 years previously. Have you quoted the parts with protolabs or similar rapid prototypers? Is an industrial grade polymer not strong enough? I�ve seen some interesting material mashups lately that are very interesting, such as coating plastic parts with metal to increase strength and corrosion resistance. I was thinking 3D print the main parts in nylon or similar, then coat the parts in Nickel or something like that. Just some ideas for you.

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Yeah, I even like marketing (my flavor of it is just to build something very eyecatching, which is fun, see original post in this thread) but customer support is my weak suit. If I've learned anything about myself, I need to pick my clients carefully or else life is just extremely unproductive for everyone. CAD Library = GrabCAD, Thingiverse, Cults3D, etc, don't reinvent the wheel lol. I am slowly setting up a Shopify website for these automotive trinkets, but Etsy is also enticing as it can reach a bigger audience faster than a new site with few connections. For example, this horseshoe here would be great to sell as a 3D model once fully developed - whoever downloads it can print it, glue it on, finish it up themselves and enjoy. OR they can buy a finished part from me, where I can offer fancy stuff like napa leather and deviated stitching to match the instrument cluster hood. ^ I'm ready to test that btw, it's JB Welded to the original 996 horseshoe. I just need to sort out my double-DIN and HVAC relocate before popping the trim back on. About the Einstar... I float the part in space somehow (normally a stick on a vise), turn the lights off and roll up your sleeves. Sounds dumb, but the Einstar's sensor is just too susceptible to noise no matter what brightness tweaking you do. If you're scanning long expanses of uniform nondescript surface (eg. the slab side of a 996) you need to put something detailed nearby that the scanner can pick up and use as reference. I threw my jack under the car with a few jack pads and that seemed to do it. Two sledgehammers under my front bumper lol. You'll be seeing some stuff from there next I had some inspiration for a bodykit to match the "GT3 Touring" decklid and make my all-silver car more visually interesting. Printers are a crapshoot. So far I like Modix - the print head runs on a gantry like a router table or a plotter, so the bed isn't moving anywhere which is the cause of a lot of print artifacts as the prints get larger and wobblier. But the print resolution on that massive thing (48x96" bed!) is coarse and it's not great at printing large flat objects, which are bound to warp. I used to use a gMax which took a lot of negotiating with to print truly big stuff (66" long wing element), totally would not recommend. The "corporate" SLA printers like Formlabs, Stratasys, etc aren't worth it IMO, you can always pay for SLA service if you actually need it for prototyping. Maybe I'm behind, I'm not confident using SLA for functional stuff whereas FDM ASA prints we have now used in wheel-to-wheel racing with no issues (besides heavy). Thule has Fit Kit 183100 & Rapid Podium 30404 that I/you/we need to source; the two aft feet in particular are where I plan to modify with a new structural bracket and a cosmetic spacer. Thanks to another volunteer I've got a measurement already but need to scan the actual part to make the final parts. Lastly, I have a good number of connections within both automotive and manufacturing industry haha, so I don't have to get ripped off by Protolabs. Nylon or Delrin would be an optimal material for CNC milling my Yakima feet, but I do think that a simpler spacer solution is a better product than my fancy feet. Just gotta design it. I'll just keep the one prototype for myself as a memento unless someone wants to pay for a copy - I'll never know!

New year, new progress? Almost done with the steering wheel, one of the Tiptronic switches cracked on removal so getting that fixed delayed us a bit. In the meantime we still gotta test the horseshoe, so I tried tackling the double-DIN and HVAC relocate... Metra got me good. Their 996.2 dash kit is apparently NLA, so I was directed to "Please Use the 99-9605B" instead. Clearly they didn't test out their words, as there is no way the 996.1 dash kit actually mounts into the 996.2 bezel. Eventually you can see I figured out a solution using panel screws and washers to clamp the parts together and align everything. The Sony XAV-AX5600 looks fairly tidy in there, I can't wait to try it out as I've heard so many good things - and it was only $348. Took out the cupholder for a sec to 3D scan that as well. I don't have the bandwidth to do anything about it immediately, but this thing sucks and I need to fix it. Question is "how" - I think the slide-out plastic panels seem robust enough, so maybe they can be kept, and we just replace the (as you can see, already broken on mine) flimsy hinged plastics with metal. I'm not a fan of doing more than necessary haha, though if someone asks me to be extra and design an OEM-quality pop-straight-out cupholder, I'm also game...

My best results with the Einstar come when I lay down a white and blue striped towel on my counter top. I'll elevate the part over the towel via hockey pucks or other blocks, then I'll crumple up the towel randomly to create extra "features" for the tracking.

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I'd still be interested in what you come up with. Gotta be cheaper than OEM racks, right?

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If you already have a Yakima rack? Absolutely. A spacer in compression can be 3D printed, I'll try it soon after some of these other missions have been accomplished. Little bit of finishing work needed if you want show quality but should be strong enough since it's all just getting clamped. Admittedly I haven't been focusing so much on the rack stuff as I have received more interest in the other parts I'm making. Back to the interior, I took the cupholder apart: I had to buy another half-broken cupholder to have enough pieces to cobble together one good one, but it is doable at home with just a Torx driver and a good memory. Which means, I think I can make metal versions of the fragile plastic flaps/loops. That should be a helpful product as many, if not most, 996.2 cupholders I've encountered seem to have these pieces broken. Swedit steering wheel is here! I think the seam relocation went great, and the leather is so many steps up from the glazed-over-time OEM stuff. I bought a leather airbag to go with it as well, but it looks in rougher shape than the pictures showed. That sucks, but the crest can be transferred over and the leather itself refreshed/dyed. I'm in no rush to tackle that so I'll use the vinyl airbag for now. Unfortunately one of the Tip switches cracked during disassembly so here we are, JB Welding it back together... Almost ready to put the interior back together with the new horseshoe, no pics of that quite yet... in the meantime, tackling the HVAC controls relocation. I think I mentioned this before, but because I want both a double-DIN radio and a clean center console, I want to tuck the HVAC controls in an inconspicuous place that's nonetheless still accessible. This first test print is just to set dimensions and get an idea for how well I can integrate it with a normal GT3 center console delete. If it works, I'm gonna design the rest of the system where the HVAC is hidden by a flipdown faceplate that doubles as a MagSafe phone holder/charger. Car's gonna look pretty ghetto till everything is finished but I have the vision in mind, just need time to execute.

Very impressive so far!

Damnit! Printer tried to compensate for shrinkage and went too far, so the slot didn't leave enough room. Printing a second prototype now with some extra features - I think I figured out how to get a damped, hinged trapdoor onto the front face of this thing. McMaster sells lubricated cables that I'm gonna check out: I've made the trapezoid so small that there's no space for the normal gear + rotary damper combo typically seen in OEM "soft open" doors (see the cupholder pic for a perfect example). If a cable can do the trick instead, it can be straightened out right next to the HVAC controls and be super compact! I'll show and explain this better once I have print in hand to take pictures. In the meantime, breathing a sigh of relief on my steering wheel! The JB Weld from yesterday miraculously cured strong, so I bolted the frame for the Tip switch back into the steering wheel with no issues. Now the challenge was replacing the small delicate "catches" on the other end: Wasn't sure if it'd be even possible to glue these in "like factory again" to retain the original function of these catches - they're supposed to flex out of the way so you can push the Tip button cap down / pry it up without damage but the available surface area for gluing is just so small. So my next best idea was to fill in all the gaps and just don't let it flex anymore. The button cap will be secure, but I doubt it'll ever be able to come out nicely again. 4 layers of electrical tape cut real small sticks nicely onto the catches: Layer some epoxy into the original broken edge, then wiggle the two tiny catches in, and build up epoxy as a layer around the whole thing (of course, avoiding the axle of the button cap). It's been curing for about 8 hours now so I tried the button out, it works! I have the horseshoe in as well but I'll wait till the steering wheel is installed before taking those pictures. Excited to finally drive the car again after a month of just tinkering haha.

You'll have to excuse the paint color on my horseshoe prototype, I'm trying a bunch of things to see how best to offer these as a product and off-the-shelf rubberized paint is absolutely not it. Perhaps matte vinyl, but definitely going to try to do (real) black leather at some point. I ziptied the HVAC controls to a bracket temporarily so I could drive the car around for a bit. Man, it was not happy after sitting for a month. Fuel delivery was very spotty for about 10 seconds, but it eventually made its way to idling and I putted to the Chevron to throw in a bottle of Injector Defender then fill the tank with fresh 91. Immediately evened out the idle and I took it out for a few rips once the water temp hit 180. The transmission is definitely learning my driving style from scratch - compared to when I bought the car, heel-toe downshifts are way easier and smoother, but rev-matching downshifts when not on the brakes is inconsistent. Wonder why. While the Porsche was hot I went to the shop and picked up my best print of the year so far. Perfect fitment on this HVAC control enclosure. It's gonna stick onto the underside of the dashboard for now - I figure there's a market for a simple pod like this for folks who already deleted their center console. I got a PM regarding making a "full" version of the idea (aka integrate it into the console delete piece) so I'll be tackling that at some point too, excited! Underneath, I've shrinkwrapped the housing as close as I can to the HVAC control module itself so I don't want to hear a single complaint about legroom lol. This is the limit. My experimental "damped cables" are coming in on Friday, so I need to quickly design the hinge and trapdoor going over this faceplate. Super stoked to get this done, 3D printable products are orders of magnitude faster to develop than thinking about vacuum forming tools and smoothing out organic shapes with leather wrapping! Lastly, off-topic but on-topic... I stumbled upon a watch almost exactly like I stumbled upon my 996. Was so cheap I thought it had to be fake. (Don't ever let me gamble in Vegas) I bought it, leaning hard on PayPal buyer protections, and took it to the local Tag dealer for an authenticity check. Turns out it's real lol, however it wouldn't wind which explains the price. Then the kicker... while discussing next steps with the dealer, we accidentally finessed the movement into winding right at the countertop! Soooo that's a real Tag Heuer Carrera for the price of a mid-tier fake. Although I personally don't care for brands, the Tag Heuer / Porsche relationship makes this a great conversation starter and it's quite poetic that both Carreras have worked out for me by sheer dumb luck

Alright, great news. The HVAC controls can be tucked pretty deep under the dashboard, leaving plenty of room for mechanisms on top of it From the looks of it, the enclosure should be able to intersect the GT3 center console delete, I just don't know at exactly what angle as I didn't get a chance to install the delete panel before scanning the interior. But that's fine, I've just designed a delete panel that can be printed with a cutout for the enclosure. Doing this piece made my up my game in Rhino3D - the smallest details were stubbornly difficult to get right, and I'm glad I went through the exercise. The progression from scan (left) to surfacing work (middle) took 4-5hrs I think, and then another 2-3 to make the solid, trim edges, and make everything watertight and 3D-printable. Super excited as always! If this lines up (fingers crossed) I'll get the pieces carpeted and start working on that trapdoor up top. Edit: same-day service. I'm off to Home Depot in the morning for more primer and paint - can finally have a complete interior again once this is installed haha.

No idea how I missed this thread. so many cool things! Where are you located? I know you've mentioned some local SoCal tracks but I also think I saw something about NorCal...

Sweet. It's nicely sculpted.

Man that modern horseshoe with the blank removals looks fantastic. Great work going on here & look forward to more updates!

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Thanks guys! I'm in the Bay Area now but formerly an LA carboi. Was supposed to switch to a respectable career in tech but some things just die hard lol. Quick update today, I've got some paint fume smell in the cabin, worth it. We are looking good on the shapes. I've made one "mistake" with the length of the HVAC enclosure (it doesn't actually cover the prongs in the back of the HVAC controls) so that's why there's a gap there - the profiles all look like they'll fit so I'll print a longer enclosure, and get the console delete carpeted! Not pictured, I'm also working on a smaller, more sedate-looking revision of the horseshoe that doesn't need to be glued to the stock horseshoe. 1) No need to sacrifice a stock one 2) can physically reduce the dimensions of the print to be more OEM-like and 3) can make some grooves to allow for leather, leather seams and deviated stitching We're gonna find out if 3D printing is strong enough to sustain the forces that the stock horseshoe has to deal with. I'll update the spoiler development thread as things progress more. I scanned my tea tray, the geometry is a little different from what the external spoiler insert suggested so I am redoing all of the linework to make it perfect. Once I've got it all lined up, vacuum formed smooth spoiler as promised!

Awesome work !

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This is looking super impressive and kudos for putting time into developing it. I'd be beyond interested in one. Would be a nice touch to my 996 Touring build

Very impressive!

My cupholder feels super delicate and flimsy. It's functional, but I was looking to replace it and was shocked at the prices from the dealers. It's potentially going to prompt a full console removal job and the swap to a single DIN radio at this rate because I just don't trust it. Would love to know how you think it could be improved upon.

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Yeah, I really don't like the factory .2 cupholder design. A few Redditors suggested just making a more robust one in the typically-unused ashtray location, which makes sense from a usability standpoint as you just plop your cup/can in the hole and don't fiddle with any sliding or hinged plastics. With the horseshoe cupholder basically being dead weight, I could see value in using that space for something else. A translucent/backlit-at-night PORSCHE logo would be a great decoration there, as long as I don't receive a C&D. Working on more mundane stuff at the moment, here's a vanilla center console delete sized for 3D printing by your average home hobbyist, and keyed for easy assembly (you shouldn't even have to lift up the rear center console). As soon as I have a website I'll put this STL file up for download, or I can print and carpet it for you as well. Economical replacement for the OEM GT3 piece. And then for myself and @40th steve there's this version of it with both HVAC enclosure and the "batwing" integrated (hopefully, need to test).

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If you post it, it won�t take long to receive a letter.

Pretty good progress! I'm going to send these out to my buddy at Swedit for carpeting to match the OEM material. Getting so very close to production-ready. The batwing (seat heater switch panel) fits almost perfect in the slot I've cut, and thanks to the contours of the part, the "teeth" tuck right under the console delete so we just have a tidy little trapezoid under the HVAC controls. Couldn't have asked for better. A little nub I added to the HVAC enclosure keeps everything positioned. With that said, it's not the strongest system in the world (no console delete actually has any rigid mounting to the dashboard) so I think anyone wanting to do this mod with me will have to commit to 1-2 small screw holes in the underside of the dashboard. Safety first! Now then, something that I'm not making on my own for once My one-off set of Titan7 T-S7 have arrived! I guessed right on the specs: 19x9 +48 and 19x11 +63 fit perfect with my OEM+ suspension and alignment setup. No rubbing! Forgot to put the center caps in in my excitement lol, but a proper photoshoot has to wait till the rain stops anyways. Tires are Yokohama Advan Apex V601's in 245/35/19 and 295/30/19. Compared to stock 225/40/18 and 285/30/18 tire sizing, the sidewalls are 1/8" shorter in front and 1/8" taller in the rear - so this is a TALL wheel package since we're rolling 19's now. Acceleration penalty is minimal (granted, I don't race this car anyways) and the ride quality is actually better than my stock 18's on DWS06+. Somehow I don't notice the taller ride height, maybe because those fender gaps look so much better than before

@circuit.heart Appreciate the work you are doing with developing new ideas and parts for the 996. It gets long time 996 owners pretty fired up to see the innovation. On another note, while I am a fan of the 18 inch wheel on the 996, I like the look of what you did with the Titan 19s. From the two pictures you posted, your 996 looks like a brand new model. Love to see more pictures especially a few side shots if you have them. Keep innovating!

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Yep, had to wait for weather but I needed to shoot these for Titan7 anyways - hope my photography chops haven't degraded too far Last one at a longer focal length:

I finally had some time to improve the horseshoe trim prototype I made. Giving up on making a "shell" to glue to the OEM piece; instead, reverse-engineered all the original tabs, locators and clips and spent two prototypes getting the fitment right. My first proto was definitely too bulky looking, so for Round 2 I narrowed the face and softened the edges to reduce the frontal area of the horseshoe. Redid the pockets that hold the wiper switch and cigarette lighter - no reason why they have to be such long tubes that obstruct your access to the spring tabs. Test fit - all of my OEM switches clip in real nice. Aesthetically could use some work, the printer's use of support materials causes some cosmetic faces to get marred in these pieces so I can't print like this in production. The shape totally works. I'm very happy with this. Fitment by the A/C vent. Fitment by the dash trim strip. This was weird, the first proto I made had the correct design, but the printer somehow warped the tooth feature 2mm down. So I mistakenly compensated for it and the 2nd proto had the tooth feature 2mm too high up, confusing as hell. Put it back to where it was and the 3rd proto is perfect in this area. Next steps, I think I need to split this print into 2-3 pieces so we can change the orientation of the support material to improve overall face quality. Once the aesthetics are up to scratch, I'll send these out for leather wrapping like my center console deletes are currently being carpeted. The fit is so good already (and I tested that it survives install/remove cycles) I'm confident I can make these for others if interested.

Nice work and should look great wrapped in leather . Do you think you will have to adjust dimensions to accommodate the thickness of the leather ?

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This! I'm contemplating a leather wrap on a few pieces in my car and have been wondering about the openings. I know they shave the back side of the leather to thin it in places but it still will have some thickness.

I think the leather wrap will look great and will be more durable. A while back I purchased some alcantara fabric and have been meaning to try wrapping a few plastic pieces to see how that looks. Awesome job!

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I actually did already - the space around the buttons looks like it might need to be relaxed just a bit more (0.5mm?) but otherwise this piece is intended for ~1mm worth of leather thickness. I just hope that that 1mm doesn't ruin the shape. It looked fine in CAD but I haven't printed something so frivolous yet with our limited machine time. Gotta chat with Swedit about details, but I expect the leather to be shaved like you said to get around tight corners. I've designed it such that the leather gets sandwiched when you click in the wiper switch, oval buttons, and cigarette lighter; and of course, the outer edge gets sandwiched when you install the whole horseshoe into the dash. For longevity reasons I would like to not be relying on glue to hold the leather in place. More progress on my end, my scanner decided it would not scan the shift boot filler piece, so I got the calipers out and just reverse-engineered it manually. This piece is rife with opportunity to add features (USB ports, Airtag clips, gauges, cup holder, phone mount, ejecto seato cuz!) so let me know if you want an upgrade to the plain stock part!

Look up Renndition on Etsy. He's got a gauge pod version of that piece. If you're doing anything supporting addition weight (i.e. cup holder), you'll need to re-engineer the attachment from the base on up.

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Yeah, I actually got a few Renndition pieces to check out before deciding to roll my own. On the bright side, getting a secure attachment in the center console area is trivial because there are those studs in the tunnel that we bolt the console delete to. Printers are gonna be sufferin' for the next few weeks, I got invited to display the car/debut the brand at a local C&C so I need to get a bunch of pieces finished! Trying out a new front lip concept - I want to make the Carrera front end more beefy, but like the rear spoiler, the styling should be very subtle and elegant to contrast with the common GT3/Aerokit look. With a little inspiration from the 993 Carrera RS and E36 M3 GT/LTW, I think I like the way this looks without the "dive plane" crease of the GT3 bumper. At the same time, the height of the lip should roughly match the OEM Aerokit side skirts, of which I'm about to order a pair. Engineering-wise the air dam design should reduce lift and improve extraction from the side radiators; not sure what kind of drag penalty we're looking at as I've kept the height shorter than the OEM tire spats (see side view). Will test.

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I think Techart pretty much nailed it with their splitters. I asked them if they still had the tooling to remanufacture them about 18 months ago. Long since destroyed apparently :

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Oh man! Please sign me up for when these are ready! Either the part itself or the 3D file. Thank you for developing these items.

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Actually, thank you for reminding me about this. I think it's the lack of concavity in the front surface, but that's too bland. Dive plane crease it is. The non-upholstered parts are ready to go! I'm just dawdling because I haven't set up a website or branding yet, and ideally I would like to confirm that the pieces don't need to be redesigned to accept carpeting. They look good with just a coat of black paint, but in color-matched carpet with the HVAC console floating out of it is the level of quality I want to offer if people ask for it.

Pls don�t forget the Mk.1 people! The front fascia options available kind of suck IMO if you don�t go full aero.

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I think for 996.1 I'd design something similar, but with the center between the "mandibles" filled in. You can always commission me to do it once you see the results of my .2 lip Back on the horseshoe today, I finally got a good print but it had to be done in two pieces, so out comes the JB Weld again: Carlos @ Done Right Motorsports knocked out the fill/block/glaze/smooth in just over an hour, awesome stuff. Just a couple fitment things left to perfect around the buttons - the cig lighter/wiper switch surround fits almost as tight as OEM, I expect it'll be very tight once the leather is on. Left more space around the oval buttons because these of course need to move smoothly. Please ignore broken tabs for now - manual post-processing mistake - I took this pic to show off the pocket. Took a couple tries to get this fitment perfect but now the switches can be pushed in or out with the same effort as the OEM horseshoe. It's been a whirlwind 2 days iterating tiny details and fiddling with the printer till I got something usable... but we're almost at the final step! I've overnighted the horseshoe to Swedit to wrap it in an OEM-matching black leather. I am stoked to see this come back, along with the carpeted console delete + HVAC enclosure I sent him a few weeks back. I've been invited to display the car as a vendor at a local show on March 17 so really need to crank everything out. Gonna get my front lip printed by the end of the week or bust.

Couple quick wins already this week, but things are about to get really fun next week. The console filler piece I whipped up fits perfect, I'm optimizing print infill now to get the surface finish as even as possible. Threw a quick Magsafe pedestal onto the design for some proof-of-concept. This print didn't go smoothly, but I like how the phone sits on it. If the HVAC controls weren't there I would actually rotate the phone to portrait and make the center console look beautifully slim. I revised my front lip design a bit, it's now 3 pieces to make more of a horizontal line across the bumper. Took 2 days to print but it was so worth it. Fitment came out spot on on the first try. The look works, and I bet it'll really come together once my Aerokit II skirts go on. Like my "GT3 Touring" decklid spoiler also in progress, I want to square off and modernize the 996 but in a way that you could convince people was factory Porsche. All the bodykit parts should be painted by next week, can't wait!

Nice. 3 piece is easier to ship too.

Front lip looks great. But I'd tear that off going out of my driveway!

Nice! Can't wait for the 996.1 aerokit version

I'm not sure what the mirror is for other than looking up her dress.

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I think you'd be surprised at the clearance - my driveway it steep too so all of my previous aero products were designed either with clearance or flexibility in mind. I'm always happy to make you a custom version a little higher up, these lips are printed one-by-one anyways so it's just a little design time Alright, today was a big day! Got my carpet-trimed console delete back from Swedit, it looks great. The HVAC enclosure I painted for now, I think it looks more OEM this way even if it would be nicer leather-wrapped. The install process is much the same as installing a normal console delete (lift the rear center console, tuck the console delete under it, slide forward) but with the extra awkwardness of hanging the HVAC enclosure up top. I definitely suggest pre-bending the HVAC wiring harness so that it makes a spiral downwards, that will prevent it from wanting to pop out as you push the whole enclosure+delete assembly into place. So I first placed the console delete about 1/2" from fully installed, slipped the batwing trim into the HVAC enclosure, placed 3M tape on the HVAC enclosure, hooked it in (bottom first, then top) then slid the whole assembly forward. Smash the HVAC enclosure upwards to stick it to the dashboard and it is holding well so far (I've given it bump and acceleration testing). Gorgeous. 40AE owners will be able to keep displaying your factory badges, and seat-heater owners / Targa owners don't have to relocate switches elsewhere. Now for more sexy - modernized horseshoe has also been leather-wrapped by Swedit. Seam right on the edge, deviated stitching matching my instrument cluster hood. Installation of this piece was trivial like any OEM horseshoe, just click everything in and go. When I make these for customers I'll relax the margins around these holes 0.5mm - I want to keep it tight but some of my switches bind just a bit, others are perfect... It really cleans up the dashboard so much, getting rid of unnecessary lines and clutter. Next week, bodykit!

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That came out amazingly well.

I think the horseshoe looks great covered with leather . Nice tie in with the gauge pod cover . Well done 👍

My inbox utterly exploded after I posted the horseshoe and console delete pictures on social media. Awesome, but I was not prepared for 8hrs of inquiries from midnight till morning! So Saturday I basically died lol, recovered today and did some small things. Bought the kit from 914 Rubber, really impressed by the fitment of everything but the LCD panel isn't as dark as stock. Still better than the spiderwebs on my old one so I'll replace the whole HVAC controls sometime later. My Girodisc 340/325 kit came in! Very easy to slap in. Only caveat was that the PO apparently messed up installing the rear left parking brake shoes so I had to unbend the spring clip and resecure it. Never realized that's why I was getting a hot brakes smell at the end of every drive, even if I wasn't braking hard - now solved! I didn't find them noticeably lighter than stock, but they are not heavier than stock. In full admission these are just for show car points, the 996 is my cruiser/casual road rally car and will never see the kind of brake temps my BMW does. Looks really nice though so job well done Girodisc.

Quotes source post: 19322695

Horseshoe looks absolutely fantastic veered in leather like that! Bravo!

Well... after a bustling couple of days, all the new bodykit parts have been painted, coated in Rocklear, installed, and shown off at a high-profile cars and coffee effectively soft-launching my new brand. I'm gonna have to 1) sign up for site sponsorship soon I think and 2) get the title of this thread edited! I know some folks had doubts about the 19" Titan7's, but they pair so well with the new bodywork. The front lip came out fantastic, it actually fits better than the genuine Porsche Aerokit skirts. Doesn't hang super low like the TechArt lip either, haven't scraped it on anything. Those Girodiscs really pop from under the spokes, not super loud but clear as day this is a sports car. I'm also happy to report that the lip makes non-negligible downforce, as the steering weight gets noticeably heavier than stock as you approach cruising speed. The other original design was a lot more work to install - I forgot to pre-cut the mesh insert on a CNC waterjet so ended up hand-fitting it into the extremely tight confines of the rear spoiler. Worth it. I'll put more pictures in the thread dedicated to this piece's development, long story short I'm stoked. The stock louvre panel when raised always looked like a lid someone left open. The new mesh + ducktail looks like an intentional spoiler when raised and a subtle OEM+ accent when retracted. I love the distinct character shift now when the spoiler comes up. Still have more to make, but progress looks good enough that I feel ready to go out, meet folks and share some of this stuff! See you guys soon at a PCA or Cars&Coffee meetup.

Quotes source post: 19340469

This is next level. Happy for your build but I hope you can find a way to sell these parts to the community in a way that you find sustainable and enjoyable, because the things you�ve worked on so far go a long way to improving the car and many people will get enjoyment from them years from now. I await news on the custom rack mounts in particular, but it�s all excellent stuff. I hope it�s been as fun as it looks.

This looks absolutely fantastic. That car could have rolled off the line yesterday! Tasteful, elegant, and the stripe along the side makes it a nice tax write-off!

Amazing work and congrats on the new venture! Fair to assume artnd is the name? I guess I can add your car to one of my favorites on this site. Very well and tastefully executed on all aspects.

Bravo! You�ve stirred our imaginations with your craft and determination.

Unreal. Beautiful shots and great work. edit: these wheel/tire specs seem to accomplish multiple things. Aid in filling the fender gap, sit flush with fender, allows a more even appearance in F vs R sidewall (something that irks me regarding the 225/285 stock sizes). Also, in conjunction with some suspension work you can optimize handling performance without lowering too much since you�ve already handled the fender gap aesthetically speaking. I�ve got 18s that I like and my feeler always was 18s were the way on the car, but these wheels are something else.

Excellent !! That's the added touch to the articulating spoiler I have been looking for for decades.....glad you made it a real thing....

Great work!

Quotes source posts: 19340475, 19340635, 19340751, 19341250, 19341306

Thanks guys! I hope I can too, I really do. The custom Yakima rack mounts I sent out one last hail-mary RFQ for. If they're still too expensive, I'm gonna settle for a spacer underneath the "correct" Yakima Landing Pad 22 to at least give you guys something to work with. The Thule rack parts are coming in soon which will be a real easy extension, I'm excited to work on that and throw it up on the site. Funny story, I've stopped having the business own the car because then the business has to insure the car, and holy moly that is expensive. My reg + insurance on this C2 is only $400 a year as a personal leisure vehicle, the bump from moving it to the company is way more expensive than the depreciation value I could write off. Can't say I understand it. www.artndvehiclestudio.com is the new website, a little rough for now but it's at least a landing page to let us start email conversations Yup. The large wheel and tire spec does all the things you mentioned, as well as keep the undercarriage of the car further from these awful Bay Area roads (debris, speed bumps designed for SUVs) and frankly, just look more modern by filling in the fender gap from all sides. A slight bonus is the highway mpg bump from taller gearing, but honestly I've never gotten a chance to run a whole highway tank through this thing so we won't stress it lol. I'll trade you a bunch of pieces for a UIDS! Saves us both a bunch of tax money

I love that front lip so much.

I might be game on those front lips, but I'm trying to avoid side skirts

Quotes source posts: 19346521, 19346800

I can take an order for 996.2 My lip looks is holding up great to speed, weather and temperature (it's solid ABS, I expect no less). 996.1 bumper is a different animal, I'd love to design an equivalent for you but I gotta find a car to scan first. Wanna visit San Jose sometime? Couple quick updates, I need to be more diligent about taking pictures with the people I meet at local events. It's been great! C&C and PCA folks alike love the custom exterior and interior pieces and I have picked up some fun commissions to work on. Largely fixed the lifted-up corner of the spoiler, it has to do with how printed nylon shrinks with heat over time. The shrinkage pulls up on the corner of the teatray so I was able to sit it back down by dremeling my print to relax some tension. Not really worried about this as I'm printing ABS instead for production. Dialing in fitment and surface finish with that, hopefully find out next week! Starting to ship out prints of center console deletes to some fellow Rennlisters. The one on the left is going out to upholstery, so please ignore the layer orientation on that. Also whipped up a temporary Magsafe solution that looks decent, in case anyone likes putting their phone down here. IMO it's still better higher though, I just need a temporary place for my phone while I figure out the cupholder retrofit. @mchin @merlot I've got good news for you guys, I got a reasonable quote for the Yakima rack feet that I can actually break-even on if I make ~5 sets. Still need to design a production-quality gasket for the feet to absolutely avoid chipping paint on your rain rails; but will move forward with it once I figure it out!

Quotes source post: 19372382

That's great news, thanks!

Dang, it's already been two months since we updated this thread? I've been busy - started a new job in April (offer I couldn't refuse kind of deal) so building out the 996 has taken a back seat. I work, fulfill ArtnD orders, take care of my wife and baby, and do it all over again the next day haha. Still, I'm starting to get into a stride and products are looking sweet. The car itself, hasn't changed a whole lot except for me filling the inside of the rear spoiler with expanding foam. The nylon print (really, the geometry I drew in the underside) wasn't stiff enough for 130+mph shenanigans, so I've corrected that for the production spoilers. But until we can print them, my one painted prototype needs to last so that's why I foamed it up inside. After which, I foamed the outside too haha. Got out of my house to explore some local Cars and Coffee meets and it was fantastic! Met a guy with a lovely Datsun 510 who happens to be an architect and rendering whiz - so soon I will learn how to do photorealistic renders and be able to preview custom work for clients In other news, I'm setting up a showroom! It's a tight, Asia-like space, so I want to build a cozy hangout where friends and clients can come enjoy some espresso/beer/wine and good conversation. My wagon is already putting in hours hauling flooring, paint and plants: The interior concept is nothing groundbreaking, just clean, serene, welcoming, and offering drinks Cannot wait!

Man oh man !! I wish I had your young energy !! props !!!

Great work! Your latest prints look very clean and tidy on the layers. Showroom render looks amazing. Hopefully it pulls in some business for you and you can continue your 996 product lines and expand to others. Props on the hard work! It takes a lot of energy to get a business off the ground.

Couple exciting things after leaving the car to sit for a month. 1) Yakima CNC billet landing pads are in production! Still need to get the gaskets cut but I have a shop lined up and a total price target of not more than $250 USD. 7 sets are being made, one's for me, one's for a friend, so 5 will be available for sale. I'll ask more seriously once the pieces come back, are QC'd, and ready to box up. The machine shop offered to do finishing too which is nice, I've elected to have them etch my logo into the otherwise blank expanse of space on the rear pads: 2) I got cold-called by GaugeFaces.com to help them promote their stuff (<- there's my full disclosure), all of a sudden there are new custom-made gauge faces on my doorstep. Just like the other mods so far, I like nodding to past and present Porsches to tie this 996 to its "transitional" generation status. I had the team design me white faces with just the barest of thinner fonts, and starting from 4k, a ghosted version of the classic 911 tach rings/stripes. Literally half/half old/new looking down the center dial. I was excited till I realized how involved the install was. Unlike other vendors, GaugeFaces actually makes a 1:1 replica of the original cut, so I can't just dab some glue to secure the new face after ripping the old one away. Gotta completely disassemble the cluster, pop the stupid retainer out, and get everything back in afterwards praying I didn't disturb the needles... After cussing out whoever designed this cluster for about an hour, I got everything back together and it does look nice. Except the plastic lenses. Tried to polish these out, but whoever touched them last used some kind of chemical that thoroughly ate into the plastic. Dead as it gets, so I called LA Dismantler and they are shipping me a decent core that I should be able to save. 2 bad clusters --> 1 good one. An incomplete story for now, but not too far away either!

That reminds me I need to place my Silver gauge faces on Sally...Mine just all of a sudden bubbled up one summer...I took it apart and popped the bubbles with pin that helped, but left wrinkles that just won't lay back down... Porsche only sells the complete cluster....

Quotes source post: 19635600

At least you've got the skills to do it haha. Fumbling around with this cluster made me miss my E34 these last few days.

Quotes source post: 19635577

Looking good! Remember, please keep me on that list (found you via Reddit and we�ve exchanged a few emails) rest of the parts have arrived, looking forward to trying out the custom landers. Cheers, Matt

Update on the gauge faces - not winning yet. I received the dead cluster to scavenge the lenses from, polished said lenses, popped everything back together in the car, and all the needles work (yay!)... just to find out that the illumination masks on the backside were misprinted. You can kind of see the masking error in the gear indicator. I'm not gonna show detailed pics of this, nor tear into the company yet - as long as the next one works, it'll be water under the bridge. Sure does look good in the daytime though. On the other hand, the roof rack project is going awesome. I've generously been lent a Thule rack system for the 996 to make rear crossbar risers, similar in philosophy to my Yakima landing pads, but much less work because Thule actually knows how to design landing pads. Speaking of which, our aluminum Yakima pads are almost done, the machine shop sent me a progress pic of the fronts and they look fantastic. The rears are on their way too, I'm super looking forward to seeing the blacked-out, etched pieces in person. I also just picked up the bi-layer gaskets I asked a local machine shop to make. These were CNC waterjet cut from some rubber and rubber foam I spec'd to match the underside of the landing pads. Should look OEM when all stuck together, and the bi-layer prevents aluminum from touching paint unless you egregiously overtorque the M6 screw into the roof. And lastly a quick shop update, Milpitas is officially the worst city I've ever dealt with when it comes to permitting anything. But we've finally got some movement, so in the coming months we should finally be able to get the remodeling started. My friend/landlord/former employee likes the Mark Rober lightbulb on the door, so maybe that stays lol. Nobody's gonna see it up in the ceiling when the showroom's open

This is fantastic! Love the design of the center console and the horseshoe. I�ll definitely be picking them up when I get my car. Well done!

@circuit.heart seeing that display cluster taken apart gives me anxiety!

Quotes source post: 19692637

You're gonna love seeing TWO of them taken apart on the workbench then. lol I got my replacement/revision gauge faces from the GF guys, and proceeded to install them properly. Luck had other plans for me as always - after getting everything together I realized the tach servo didn't feel as stiff as it should. Lo and behold I turned the key for a test and the tach was dead. Good thing I'd bought a spare instrument cluster for parts; the servo sub-board was intact and perfectly functional, so, pull the needles again, swap the sub-board over and try again. This time everything worked. I think the "1" on the tach is right in front of the illumination LED, so I get to pull this thing apart again to put some Scotch tape behind the 1 for extra diffusing. But the letter outlines are good this time and the cluster finally looks presentable. In other news, I was able to borrow a Thule roof rack and whipped up an easy rear bar riser for this system. So much easier than Yakima, goodness, but unfortunately I've heard that the Thule system is discontinued? Might have to 3D scan the rubber parts I have on hand and reverse-engineer them to be printed in TPU or something. More options more better! I'm still partial to my Yakima system (shipped from China, yay!) but the Thule is easier and cheaper to modify.

Are the gauge faces ready for PrimeTime yet? I need to pick yp a set of Silver or White for Sally..

Quotes source post: 19698157

Happy to see my rack hard at work 😅 Sad to hear they�re discontinued but hopefully you can still make use of your design.

Quotes source post: 19635577

Count me in!

I installed a set of gauge faces stuff very good quality I wish I updated the lighting at the same time

Quotes source post: 19698516

If you're not a huge stickler about light diffusion at night, then yes. In the daytime these faces look amazing. It just irks me that we need so many tries to get even illumination on the tach, that I'm finding it difficult to recommend the company at retail pricing. After weeks of letting the car sit, I booted it up again and it was angry for a few minutes - puff of oil smoke from accumulation before settling down into a lumpy idle. So I gave it what I owed it, a nice drive through the mountains. The car feels nervous whenever there's a mid-corner bump even though the Eibach spring kit isn't that stiff. So 1) it's time to get rid of the Bilstein dampers, I hear Koni Special Actives work with Eibachs and 2) might be time for new thrust and coffin arms up front to address some intermittent but annoying steering wheel vibrations. Basically, above 90mph sometimes the steering will pulse, and sometimes it won't. My E39 is doing the same thing right now with its 350k-mile old arms (the front suspension layout is practically identical) so I suspect the 996 PO's choice of suspension rubber just didn't last. Gonna hurt the wallet but we should get more camber with the new coffin arms - anyone got recommendations or horror stories?

AOS is going out I think, got the characteristic plume of white smoke on startup. I'm gonna drive it around a few more days to see if it's just the stuff collected from the mountain run, but that's kind of disappointing. I didn't even push that hard thinking to avoid oil starvation lol. On the bright side, today's update is for the Yakima rack wanters. Pieces came back andlooking awesome. Making those bi-layer gaskets was a mild pain (waterjet cutting through two rubber things adhered together is sketchy) but now that we've figured out the settings, more can be made for batch #2. Here's what a kit of landing pads from me will look like: The shop did a great job carving out the bases, these lined up perfectly to my Skyline towers with no movement upon trying to click them in. While the details aren't 100.0% perfect, they are so close that I doubt it bothers anyone but me. Extreme diminishing returns if I go for anything more. The holes for the Skyline towers to peg in were spec'd a little tight - being that these are aluminum (not stretchy like plastic), I really don't want to know what happens if I had made the holes too loose and customers complain of a rattling rack installation. So please note! If your Skyline tower doesn't snap closed super easily, take some sandpaper to open up the diameter slowly until the tower snaps closed to your satisfaction. The rack is 3mm taller than my initial prototype due to the additional rubber gasket layer, but overall we're still lower than the RTS I think. At least it seems like it with everything installed. The rear landing pad had free real estate, so y'all are gonna do some advertising for me haha. Here's what it looks like with my roof box back on top. I'm personally quite satisfied with it. Hope you guys are too

Quotes source post: 19709632

Sorry to hear of your gremlins. Always something fun going on with these cars. Rack mounts look great, is batch #1 looking good to ship soon? We�ve been emailing the past couple of months about them, and I�m still itching to get them on the car. Ready when you are, but I of course understand if we�re not quite there. Matt C

I hope its just a puff of smoke and nothing else. Good luck. I'm still getting around to mailing you my leather samples for the horseshoe.

How's the rear Touring spoiler situation looking? I think you were close to moving to final production based on the last update.

Quotes source posts: 19698516, 19710363, 19710457, 19710593

So the GF guys are gonna reprint the tach one more time and we will pray that I don't break the tach servo again. I gave them very specific feedback to fix, if they can't do it, I will simply have to make them (I have a guy, as is the pattern lol). Shoot me another email, I'm ready! @merlot you too, I'm saving one for you lol. The startup puff seems to be subsiding, so I think I'm just not allowed to put oil up the cylinder heads for now. At some point please mail me that sample so I can make things for you haha. Yeah, I will post on that soon. Need to setup my jig (a spare 996 decklid), and learn how to do a little bodywork myself as my typical partner rejected the job this time. On the bright side, the layer lines and piece-to-piece fitment of the latest print is so damn tight that I won't need a ton of filler at all - just a method to stiffly, securely turn six pieces of plastic into one.

Quotes source post: 19709632

I know of an Eloquent and Robust fix for that !!

Quotes source post: 19711758

I'm saving up so when mine starts to go I can bite the bullet and give myself the peace of mind.

Quotes source post: 19709632

Looks fantastic! Sent you a PM.

Keep up the great work man! Love how everything turned out.

Quotes source post: 19711510

Excellent work! Unfortunately, more and more of CA is like Milpitas. I sent PM and email about spoiler, etc Interested to know if/when available. I don't know if the spoiler on WB 4S is the same as NB 2. I know the lid itself is different.

Yakima landing pads have been sent out, guess I should put up an official listing on my site and take pre-orders for Batch 2? Got the Thule landing pad risers finished as well, looking real good here. @Coussa can I keep the rack for a little while longer? A buddy of mine picked up a black 997 that would make a very good demonstration/photo vehicle for this kit; as soon as we confirm fitment and sturdiness I think I can call this project a go and list it up as well.

Quotes source post: 19734652

wow, looks amazing Brian. Feel free to keep as long as you need. Very excited to see them in action and looking forward to installing them on my baby

I think there's an optional design tweak left to do on the Thule rack, but it's all cosmetic so we can have some fun first. It snowed in California! I've tasked my media friends with taking my 996 and another friend's 997 to the mountains and play around a bit on video. Did a mini-shoot of the cars before heading out: Now, as luck would have it, I actually received some cool new toys the moment I got home from that rooftop lol. Yakima Skyline FX bars were on my list to test since they theoretically should sit lower than normal Skyline towers + bars, and boy was I right. The front bar is so low now the clamp for the Inno box grazes the sunroof. Compare and contrast to the earlier shots, you really can't see a gap between the box and the car anymore. Super excited to show this setup off in front of a professional camera lens because this height with an already low roof box is just sleek. Updates on 996 stuff are gonna be a little sparse for a bit; we've got some shop building to do, the cars are of course going to be out on a trip, and if things go well, I should have a 997TT in the next few weeks. Not for fun, but because 997's seem to have a ton of interior things to fix and that is what ArtnD is best at fixing

Quotes source post: 19698516

Finally, yes. They're ready. I've lost count which revision this is, all I know is that the blue connector on the back of my instrument cluster is about to fall apart. After hounding GaugeFaces for several months, all five dials have pretty great backlighting - it pops off even against a white face in the daytime, but we've controlled the evenness well despite the point sources actually underneath the faces.

Lol @ the blue connector. Those gauge faces are stunningly beautiful.

@circuit.heart , I am a 996 enthusiast and appreciate what you are bringing to the market. Keep it up!

Wow! This is a great thread to follow and excellent work, please keep it up. I know life gets busy with family and work, so we�ll all be patiently looking forward to what comes next! Your spoiler is exactly what I�m looking for, and once it�s available on your ArtnD site, I�ll be ordering one. Do you have any plans to make a 996.1 version of your front lip? Also, I�m inspired by your wheel choice. I was originally planning on buying some 18�s, but wanted to see how your experience with 19�s has been so far? Any issues or handling quirks? I plan on using my vehicle similarly to how you drive yours, so appreciate any input! thanks! -M8

Quotes source post: 19107154

not to get too political, but if you sent the specs to a firm in China you may add well post the files here. The IP cat is out of the bag.

Quotes source posts: 19812111, 19813230

Appreciate the kind words. I've taken off extra days from my day job in January to get some time to do more spoiler work. Fingers crossed nothing gets in the way lol. 996.1 front spoiler is happening with @2mAn so that should go up on the site pretty quickly too relatively speaking. The 19's have been great. I use the same sidewall height as most people's 18" setup so there's no ride quality compromise (the T7 are light too which helps). Highly recommend if you want to look good without being low. Let's talk about this. Chinese people aren't idiots, word of mouth reputation matters unless you are a fly-by-night operation. I also have eyes in China for various reasons... the three shops I work with have been good to me and my network for well over a decade. Funny enough the last person to try screwing me was in California. For my part, I also don't give all the IP to any one supplier because that's how you tempt someone lol. It's not like any of this work is rocket science either, if you pay me it's because you appreciate the design language and R&D I do to save you the time of doing it yourself.

Yea, I thought we had it worked out, but I will have to make another trip to get the car scanned after the holidays, but maybe before the new year!...

I really like the design tweaks you've made to the factory parts. I have an idea for a rear valance that maybe you'd be interested in tackling. I'll send you a PM with more info.

Quotes source post: 19813703

Happy new year! lol. If you're still planning a date with Nikita to scan your car, can you let him know to do the whole body including the rear bumper now too? It won't take him much longer if anything (they usually go once around the whole car to let the scanner align itself). I have tomorrow OFF off and we're even dropping my son off at daycare to buy me time, so I am gonna get some Touring spoiler progress tomorrow even if it kills me! In the meantime, I fixed up the shroud design for the Thule adapter to remove any last gaps, and adjust tolerances so it can be printed in matte black ASA for a better finish. The 3100 Fit Kit that 996/997 Thule racks needed is discontinued for real it seems, so I need to cook up a fit kit to let folks keep using the Thule 460R tower. Don't know if I can get reproduction molds (I've sent an inquiry) made to just copy the 3100 feet, or if we need to do something drastic like the aluminum Yakima feet I designed. Now for some dumb questions. I've been quite enjoying my 997TT the last few weeks, couldn't care less about the power or AWD but the updated Tiptronic S in that car is really well tuned! Feels almost like an early ZF8 in the way it shifts. A cursory Google doesn't give me any shops that tune the 996.2 Carrera Tiptronic TCU, but given that the 722.6 is a "dumb" (not ECU integrated) transmission, can we easily swap it out for a standalone? I found a few links to shops and info but I'm out of my depth here: https://ofgear.dk/ https://controls.is/shop/TCM2800 https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ontroller.html I would be a very happy camper if I can get the 996 to shift as crisply as the 997 does; it'd also segue nicely into my investigation of turning the stock Tip gear selector into a PDK-like "sequential". Any insight would be appreciated!

@circuit.heart , have you considered making a deck lid cover without the ducktail using your black mesh look?

EVOMS does a tune for the 996TT Tip. At least, they used to do one. I had one on my 6TT before I manual swapped it. I can't say it made much difference.

Quotes source post: 19823688

Sure thing, I feel like when he and I meet up we'll end up BSing for a while so might as well scan the entire car haha

Quotes source post: 19824225

I get asked this fairly often, and I don't really like the aesthetics of it, within the constraints that Pinky gave us. That hump in the factory louvres is needed to clear the brake light, and doing any kind of flat panel is 1) impossible unless brake light delete and 2) looks really cheap. A small hump like factory breaks up the long line that I think makes my current design look elegant. But as with any design work, if a client requests it and pays me to make the one-off, you're the boss lol. As a series product with my name on it, I think the decklid insert has to end in some long, continuous, concave surface, it's forced by the deep-set rectangular mesh bezel. I can reduce the size of the ducktail to just barely clear the brake light as long as I can still get a concave in there. Good investigation for a follow-up product after we get the first version perfect. Not much else going on with the car these last two weeks, I burned a whole tank of gas in one day putting my son to sleep, then carting a muffler to San Ramon for my 997TT. Said 997 has been a good car overall, but aesthetically it has me stumped. I don't want to convert to the GT2 bumper but the fog light area is pure messy ugly. Racking my brain in the shower trying to come up with something good. Maybe we just cover the whole silver/black cut line entirely to have more space for styling?

Lol, extra trunk space. That�s awesome!

Quotes source post: 19834595

Agreed,I have always thought those little fog lights were Fn hideous. They had so many other options.the front bumper would looks so clean if they were never there.

Quotes source post: 19835364

Well� I didn�t notice them before, but now I can�t unsee them, lol!

Quotes source post: 19837571

Haha, sorry. Welcome to the matrix 😀

Quotes source post: 19838836

I�d rather take the red pill and know, ha!

Quotes source post: 19761857

So, if y'all still remember this: I mentioned in a previous post that the discontinuation of Thule Fit Kit 3100 made my rear crossbar riser product a non-starter, since nobody could mount a Thule rack anymore. Well I sat my *** down and reverse-engineered the Fit Kit. I took careful notes of Thule's fastener arrangement, and the 80deg steel brackets I already figured out a long time ago, so we just need these rubber pads left to make complete Thule kits! I will print out of TPU unless anyone has any objections. Looking forward to starting a new thread for roof rack group buys.

Great thread! It's amazing to see innovation in action. Keep up the good work... I'd totally buy some of the artnd roof mounts for my 996.

I just saw the first post and the word "CHEAP" and after going through this thread....Is it still "CHEAP" ...Great looking 996.2 BTW I need to do this to my Targa

Great stuff! I found your website before I found your build thread. I think Ill eventually be in for some roof pieces. What about a smooth 3rd brake light panel, Id hate to say delete.. But I think this would make the tail panel pop & blend in much better.

Or maybe

Quotes source post: 19874820

I'm not entirely sure it's possible to do via printing. Isn't this piece spot-welded to the body? Making a mold to stamp sheetmetal would work, but that is contingent on a partner of mine getting his production line together AND enough demand to justify machining the tools to pull it off (basically replicating the Classic Club Coupe). Expensive unless we have volume. If there is space to use rivets instead of spot welds, a fiberglass or carbon replacement is viable and I can make the molds to pull that off much more easily. As with most fun engineering projects like this, if someone wants to commission me to look into it, I'm more than happy to problem-solve. Got plenty on my plate for Q1 already though

Quotes source post: 19873653

Missed this in my sleep deprivation... yeah it's still "cheap" as all of the money is my blood and sweat haha. Nice update from the printer, we've got TPU bases and vapor-smoothed risers now so it's starting to look like product. Should have all these bits in hand soon and it'll be testing time again, just like with the Yakima setup.

Quotes source post: 19874820

What about keeping the 3rd Brake light in the spoiler and moving it to your new "semi-duck-tail" add on piece. Not knowing how it is connected, but keep the original brake light, just move it. The spoiler could go Up/Down, brake lights work. and be OK. Thoughts? YMMV

Quotes source post: 19874820

Perhaps you could take the 3rd brake light that is in the OEM spoiler and make a "slot"? for it to fit in the back edge of the lip? I don't know if that could be done in printing process, or just an After-Printed step. While I like your added mini-spoiler piece, I would not want to give up the 3rd brake light when spoiler is up. Thoughts? YMMV

Quotes source post: 19915244

The 4th brake light lives in the original "teatray" moving mechanism and takes over the function of the 3rd brake light when the spoiler is up. I haven't changed a single thing about that - also one of the reasons why I won't do a completely flat non-ducktail version of this spoiler (gotta clear the 4th brake light).

Quotes source post: 19703136

Are the gauges your guys' custom build or another company? Are they available in black?

Quotes source post: 19915313

He bought them from https://gaugefaces.com/

Quotes source posts: 19915313, 19915436

Not quite. I partnered with them to fix their existing patterns and produce an original design for ArtnD. (Didn't pay for anything out of pocket.) So, ​​​​ @FlattestSix ArtnD faces are only available in white with the half-heritage tach, but you can buy from GaugeFaces.com directly and customize the design however you like! They should have all the lighting improvements we labored to make.

After looking at the gauge faces, I need to figure out why my oil pressure indicator doesn't illuminate.

@Porschetech3 were you still interested in gauge faces? I've been happy with mine since the last revision and can call them ready. --- 996 hasn't gotten a whole lot of love lately, being loaned out as well as me splitting focus between the 997 and my E34 almost coming home. But I've been working on other people's 996's quite a lot and I'm happy to report I've cloned the Thule Fit Kit 3100! It also took more forever but I've found replacements for all of the original Thule hardware, so I should soon be able to offer Thule rack adapters 100% interchangeable with the original - except I can also raise the rear bar to level it for box mounting Bonus, you can see I'm still working on reverse-engineering Nephrite Green to avoid paying thousands of dollars for a single roll from Porsche. --- Speaking of other people's Porsches, 996 Turbo owners should be notified - an acquaintance of mine partnered with one of my partners to make this very cool, Turbo-to-4S heckblende. They are looking for customers! Using this recent development as proof-of-concept, I've also got a job lined up to replace the lenses on @TheChunkNorris Spyder tails with 4S/Turbo-like white/red diffused lenses. I think that'll be quite nice, having the new LED tech but a halfway lens between classic and modern. I also roughly figured out how to cut my Carrera trunk to fit a similar heckblende, although I realistically don't have time for that right now haha. Hands way too full. More coming soon!

Thule rack update! I finally found all the fasteners I needed to replicate the OG Thule setup. Combined with laser-cut and 3D printed components I designed, now we don't need to hunt for the discontinued 3100 Fit Kit or taller towers anymore, and can go straight to throwing 460R Rapid Podium towers (ubiquitous) and crossbars onto the roof. My replica of the Thule 3100 rubber feet seems like it works. The degree of foaming is controlled, so I'll continue to optimize settings till the print matches the original rubber's shore hardness and overall structural rigidity. No paint harm allowed. Found an almost 1:1 replacement for the hand-thread-in M6 stud: And a 1:1 replacement for the 8.2 x 26mm spacer tube! After the tube is slipped on, the rubber feet goes over, and the steel bracket as well. Here I'm reusing a black OG Thule one because I have it, but it's easy to make a replacement for customers given I already make a taller one for the rear towers. The rear roof pad naturally lines up perfectly with the 996/997 rain rail, so torque down the foot-to-roof nut immediately and throw the cosmetic sleeve over the TPU foot to hide the bracket: Hang the bars on the brackets, thread in four screws, make sure your L/R measurements are even and gun the socket cap screws in. Do it again up front, except leave the foot-to-roof nut only snug until the four socket cap screws are already tight. Then torque down the TPU feet. Original Thule covers go back on the towers: Voila, a leveled-out Thule rack ready for a roof box. I'm not sure whether the Thule design has ever successfully been used with really heavy stuff like a rooftop tent - I might just have to try it myself, my neighbor has a RTT he's probably let me install for fun. It's not as low profile as the Yakima system I also make, but it is a lot easier to install. Since I need to evaluate both systems, you'll have to forgive me for using my 997 as the Thule testbed. I've moved the roof box from my 996 to the 997 so we can do some proper load testing at speed and with G's. Fingers crossed!

And an update on the shop too - we're getting so close. We fired the original contractor who was taking far too long to do... .anything, and the new guys went straight to work and banged out the floor, wall repairs and light hanging in 4 days. The tiles are structurally glued in so they can't move when we steer the front wheels on them Downside is they won't be replaceable once they wear, but my whole point was to find a worn-looking wood pattern to begin with, so more wear should just look like patina. The view from the inside with the new lighting is nice - should make for good videos/photos. Instead of building up drywall (issue with the city, can't get permits for any permanent wall construction in the floorplan for reasons) to separate my space from the rest of the warehouse, I found some used EverPanel segments no longer used after the emergency Covid vaccine centers were taken down. Cheap, strong plastic panels that can be clicked together into a (legally temporary) wall? Sign me up. The con of this setup is that the panel gaps need to be filled with putty, then the whole wall primed and painted as one lest we let the lines cheapen the look of the whole space. But the guys are on it, once they finish we can start moving in furniture, plants, cars, and my Breville and wine fridge

This looks awesome Brian!!! Can't wait to see the finished shop!

Damn dude glad to see it's moving along.

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I'm definitely interested in this! I'm getting ready to finish out my getty 63" wing decklid and this MIGHT look cool!

for circuit.heart : I like the heckblende thing for turbos and/or other 996s. It was one of the main reasons I bought a C4S. It's nice to see someone making something (new or "old") for 996. However, I don't like it on a red car. There is no clarity, no contrast, so it just gets absorbed by the car. Others may disagree, but OK, no problem. BTW I have the dark Aztec Gray and actually like the pumpkins, nice contrast. I think the clear ones get lost in silver wheels, no color to jump out at the eye. JMO. YMMV

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What color car it ends up on reaaaaaaally isn't the point lol. Here it is on a blue car. Anyhow, May has been rough, out sick for over a week and immediately flew over to NC to finish up the E34 racecar, which is now sitting quite pretty: But I've been working with contractors trying to get the last 1% perfection out of those walls, and after finding some new flexible "mud" to slap on before painting, they pulled it off! There's like zero depth perception on the white walls now, it makes it hard to park cars but the visual effect stepping into our space is very architectural, serious without being somber. I like it a lot. My 997's in pieces at home so you'll have to deal with an X-Type as the substitute in these quick and dirty pair shots. I can't find exactly the furniture I want either so will likely have to design and build my own, which will be a fun distraction from cars. After that, it's time to set up the Breville and wine fridge, go plant shopping again, and then we'll have a nice space! Should ask local Porschephiles to bring some books

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I�d be very interested do you have contact info you can share?

Is any of this stuff actually available/for sale or are they just academic excersises? If available, what sort of price points are we looking at? Good looking stuff, just wondering whether it�ll ever leave the �pipe dream� phase and enter the reality/retail phase (and how long it will last there) given the current economic climate� In any case I wish you the best of luck with it!

It's all on his website: https://artndvehiclestudio.com/collections/porsche

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As @binaryaudax linked, I've been making and selling pieces for a year now, not that many (I need to balance this with my day job and babycare) but it's establishing the brand hopefully in a good direction. Don't recall if I posted this pic before but this was one batch of customer work for example. I've been avoiding advertising as my body/brain physically cannot support making too many pieces at the moment. Which is fine, I want to spend more time fleshing out a more complete Porsche collection and be ready to scale up later.

Dude that looks fantastic! Balance what you can, good work is hard to come by and once the word is out... people will want to work with you more often.

Thank ye kindly. I'm tackling a few custom commissions already which kind of saps brainspace away from the 996 work, but I know I NEED to put these Thule adapters up on the website now as people have been asking. Foot test went great, no paint damage that I can see. And for the record this is on my 997 which has zero paint protection. I've upped the stiffness a little bit and that's it, these guys are ready to go. I figured out a little tweak to the Yakima adapters and I'll be able to offer a Batch 2 of those soon, but yeah I need to focus on getting customer orders out first.

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Looking forward to getting mine, need to figure out how I'll mount my factory Audi Q7 basket to it on race days to carry some wheels.

I'm a little late posting this as I received mine a while back but didn't have a chance to install them till recently. Thank you Brian for an awesome product(s). Looking forward to ordering the Touring style decklid next year.

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That may end up being a great solution to getting a set of hoosiers to the track.

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That seems to be about half of the folks emailing me about the rack setup. Not to fear, that's exactly what my friend is planning to do on his 997 C2S, I know it'll work but it should be proven to put folks at ease.

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What's the tweak? I have one of your first batches.

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I learned from developing the Thule adapters where to find a sleeve that fits over the bolt. That gives us an actual metal thing to torque down on to 10Nm instead of relying on "the Yakima way" of 3.5Nm on rubber. Should make it a better product - I'll buy a pile of sleeves once I get the correct size, and distribute them to Batch 1 customers like yourself upon request. Torquing on metal lets me use a single-layer foam gasket instead of the bi-layer rubber, which saves me cost as well. Win-win!

@merlot I've been testing the tweak for a few weeks now and it's good. Install is only a half-step harder than the original Yakima/ArtnD process, just place the tube in the gutter before putting the foot and screw in as usual. Being able to torque this bolt to 10Nm makes for way better peace of mind than the normal Yakima 3.5Nm spec (read: limitation). The sleeves and 5mm-longer screws do push the landing pads 1-2mm higher than the Batch 1 product, but for me at least that's a good thing since the Inno roof box clamps no longer touch my sunroof. Car's still happy about daily life, although having seen oil pressure dips before 1G lateral, I've completely sworn off spirited driving with it. It's just my son's favorite cruiser at this point.

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This saddens me very much.

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Nice! So I'll be receiving tubes and new screws at some point?

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Well... the 997 having a dry sump makes it the go-to choice for fun driving right now. Neither Porsche was really intended to be a fun car for me, just nice ones while waiting for my E34 to come back from its East Coast tour. That's happening November and I'm ready to have my rowdy car back Yeah, remind me your address again (via email) and I'll send out a baggie!

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Email sent. This is what excellent customer service looks like!

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I don't know how much time you have, but I'm taking a trip down to LA on 8/4 and could bring a new scanner I bought. Hopefully I can get it up and running this weekend since it's geared for non-professionals (Einstar Vega). Man it's been a busy month! I have revised the center console delete kits after a few customers encountered a failure mode I hadn't caught before - the HVAC box doesn't always clear the metal tabs behind the center console. I also added a more positive click lock for the HVAC box, and thickened up the console delete print in critical areas so that shippers can't break the piece in transit anymore (that's been really annoying). The stud holes in the console delete got opened up to slots - makes it way easier to install. The metal tabs in question. I had designed my HVAC box to sit right outside of them, but if the console delete doesn't go in perfectly centered, the box hits. That's on me, and now fixed. The HVAC box itself got slightly longer to give more cable space in the very cramped install area, and there's a cable holder now too. You'll have to notch your batwing to use it though. Bigger tooth (on both sides) for the HVAC box to lock in to the console delete. This wasn't super critical since the HVAC box is fine as long as it clears the metal tabs, but, we're already in there, let's make this thing nicer. Installed without tape. I drove around for a week like this before taking the console delete back out and shipping it off for upholstery, no funny noises even with the box just clicked in. I will still ship out kits with 3M tape though as the button presses don't feel solid without it Not directly working on the 996, we're starting to receive furniture at the shop, so we made a mess! I like how things are coming together here - just need to sweep the floors, put together a few more pieces and fill up some awkward spaces with plants. I'm debating storing my new laser cutter at the showroom as we could use it to quickly cut/engrave personalized things for visitors. But it needs to sit not on the floor, which means buying another table.......... <insert setting money on fire emoji>

The 996 got some action last Friday, and when it rains it sure pours . My neighbor really wanted a used overland rack for his G-wagen and the seller was in Vegas; coincidentally I had been trying to arrange shipping a Camaro trunk and a bunch of ArtnD commission work to an address just off the strip. I tried to convince him for a week to just ship the thing over, but seeing the weight and size (well over 100lbs) I capitulated and we decided to shuttle it ourselves. We needed a vehicle that could store all of those large items and road trip supplies, and perfect timing, my BMW wagons were down with torn bushings. I refuse to drive a G-wagen for 1000 miles, so we were originally planning to use my 997 (the Turbo would get us there fast ), but would you have it, on Thursday the rear right tire got sliced and instantly put that option out. By process of elimination we're left with the 996. To top it off?, I was also on-call at my work and he's a pilot on a schedule, so we had no choice but to make this an overnight, out-and-back 1000 miles. Alrighty, dear expansion tank/water pump/IMS/RMS/AOS, y'all better not fail me now. At least, gripes about the 996's cabin noise aside, it really is utilitarian with the Inno Wedge Plus on top. I could literally have fit two Camaro trunks in this thing and closed the lid, no preload. A few hours before our 11p departure time, I serendipitously received a pair of Thule Aeroblade Edge bars (7601B, 7602B), so why the heck not, let's make this trip a validation test for these too. Install was easy, just like normal Thule 460R/753's on our custom Fit Kit. Other trip prep was easy, fold down the seats and fit a solid-sized fridge in the back. Wifey wants pies from Casa de Fruta, wifey shall receive. And that's it! The first leg of the trip was nice, without traffic you can blaze through the 101 and 152. Refuel and status check at Casa de Fruta's Chevron: I'm so glad I started incorporating Thule's steel sleeves into my Yakima adapters. It makes it so much more solid and resilient against vibrations. The rest of the drive I took a few videos - long story short, we reached some silly speeds following Altimas, the roof box itself started buzzing/whining to tell us to calm down, and we cut nearly an hour off our GPS ETA to arrive in Vegas before sunrise. So, a little more time for filming cheeky clips and gorge on steak and eggs at a local diner. Once the rack's seller woke up, we went straight to his shop and got to work taking it apart. Threw all 100+lbs of it into the box and wasted no time heading back for home! Bonus, the seller's shop does customized Lambos for tourists to rent, so guess who's gonna get some commissions The drive home was far more uneventful, being stuck following traffic. We discovered that some random places like Barstow are surprisingly scenic, I never would've known as I have never driven through this area in the daytime haha. I think we stopped charging our phones and plugged in the fridge right about ^ there, as we needed the fridge cold before we got our butts back to Casa de Fruta. One banana cream and one lemon meringue (sorry for no pics) shoved into the fridge, and at 4:55p we were back home again to enjoy afternoon tea with both families. Successful trip! The M96 has earned its next oil change. Got more shop updates for the next post, I've finally received all my large objects (including another new Bambu system) so it's time to clear out the cobwebs and set up the furniture!

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I�m so happy to see the Edge Bars fit the adapter as I�m planning on upgrading my aerobars to these and was worried your adapter wouldn�t work. Keep up the awesome work!

Man, Rennlist never let my Youtube embed go through didn't it... here's a direct link to the video so my last post isn't just rambling. You Tube As promised, the showroom's really coming together! Last things I'm waiting on are a pair of wine coolers that will be used as table legs for the espresso/wine/whisky setup behind the lounge seating. I had to go and buy three different kinds of paint to get the concrete bar table and stools to match the alabaster theme of the lounge seats... this'll be a minor paint project soon, haven't had time to get to it. Kinda surprised how little it bothers me in these photos, but it bothers the crap out of me in real life. Behind the bar seating is a little manufacturing! Frankly, mostly "demo" making stuff for clients. A laser cutter and single Bambu isn't enough for all the stuff we actually make, and certainly doesn't encapsulate the sweaty business that is upholstery work. We hide that away My landlord (and former employee... yeah it's weird) enjoying a sit. My rent here's cheap as dirt as we have an agreement that he can use the space for occasional podcast/video guests. But yeah! Here's two of my latest pieces, one Metropol console delete with a Canchecked pod accessory, and one Grey console delete with the HVAC integration. Last thing for now, you guys probably noticed an abundance of whisky glasses... all purchased using rewards points from spending so much on furniture haha. Since my aluminum printing experiments have gone swimmingly, I assigned my new intern a fun introductory project to make whisky tumblers. These are modeled after a very early 901 piston I thrifted - chosen because 1) it's all in the family still and 2) the 901 piston has very distinctive features that a later DOHC engine just doesn't. We're designing some O-ring fittings now to make sure the final print doesn't scratch the crystal, but yeah I'm super looking forward to enjoying a sip in these

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Beautiful space, man. Where is it located?

How is the nice with the rooftop box on for long drives? I've been thinking about doing a drive from GA to CA and back (the long route) with a smaller rooftop box and a bike. From the video, it sounds like it's tolerable.

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Milpitas, CA - it's kind of a perfect diamond-in-the-rough area right across a freight railway but actually safe crime-wise. I think that depends on your tolerance level lol. I think the noise level is about the same as an S2000 with the soft top up, which is to say, completely not luxurious but you can hear each other if you project your voice. As a solo driver I don't notice as much.

Man, a ton has happened but not directly to the 996, just around it. 1) I've almost got the 996.1 horseshoe figured out. Getting the geometry just right such that you can click this 1-piece horseshoe directly over the OEM A/C frame is bloody hard! I have to design a perfectly even gap with just enough overhang such that the leather wrap gets anchored when you assemble everything together (otherwise, it'd be liable to get peeled off). But check this out, it all clicks in and looks so much cleaner than the original. The next prototype I make of this one will get upholstered and I jam it into someone's car for a test. 2) Latest revision of the whisky tumblers! Harry knocked this one out of the park. Unlike that "other" company that recently announced their retirement, we designed TPU O-rings into this latest tumbler so the glass doesn't need to be bonded to the tumbler. Easy to clean and vibration/knock resistant. I've already sent in my order for aluminum prints of this design, so stoked for them to arrive. 3) Working on new shelves for the showroom. I had an idea that the intrusive steel pole in the middle of my space didn't have to look so out of place... what if I turned it into the spine of a set of shelves? The design is just a simple cantilever, locked in place horizontally by the length and angle of the oval part. The oval part kinda looks like cut pipe, but it's actually designed from laser-cut sections (and the inside edges are sharp to "bite" into the pole when weight is rested on the shelf). My favorite part of this concept is that each shelf isn't bolted to anything - you can rotate the shelf around the pole just by lifting up a bit and repositioning the whole assembly. Not easy to fabricate but will look sick when done. 4) This isn't strictly 996 content, but a client of mine tried to fit my 996/997 Thule mounts to his Cayman and found that the heights weren't quite right. The flexibility of the Thule bracket design made this an easy fix, I will be posting to the 987 forums about this! 5) Anyone have use for a leather airbag? Turns out I'm not gonna need this anymore. Because... 6) I've "sold" the 996! Really the best deal that could've possibly happened - my landlord needs a promotional car for his business, I need to pay rent for the next few years. With the C2 staying in the family, I can finish developing my product pipeline (ducktail, bumperettes, center console improvements), but it'll be behind the wall come November rather than in front of it. So, don't write me off from 996's whatsoever, we're still gonna have fun making this car awesome. Starting with a UOAS, little bit of oil pan work, and some track time!

This isn't technically for my car, but since the question was asked in this thread, I'm still working on the 996.1 horseshoe. And I think I've got something this time! The back edge of the horseshoe is expanded vs the 996.2 product, which faithfully traces the outline of the original horseshoe. My challenge the last few weeks was to figure out how to allow an extra 1.5mm of gap for leather (so, expand the back edge 3.5mm total, that's a lot) without making the 996.1 horseshoe look any bulkier or "bubblier". While I'm still in the praying stage that this works, adding the subtlest of corners to the top left/right of the horseshoe gave it just enough extra squaring off that the bigger back edge doesn't look rounder. We will leather this guy up and report back! In other extremely exciting news, I'm also working on a wheel design of my own now, still likely to be manufactured by Titan7. Basically, I know that BBS RS, LM and E88 are popular in this community, but I'd also assert that their designs are 20+ years overdue for a modernization. By chance, I came across an E34 wearing an incredible set of ACT Type SC, reached out to the owner, and he was gracious enough to let me scan his wheels so I could learn about what subtle differences make the ACT look so much better to me. After playing with lines for a few days I'm of the mind that the flat, slightly conical face profile of the ACT helps visually lengthen each spoke, and the ACT's dramatic angled lip extends the face and makes it look larger and brighter vs the traditional BBS step lip. With those two things combined, along with other tweaks (more draft angle on the spokes, segmented ridge in the hub pocket to cast shadows around the lugs, etc) I think I've got something pretty on-brand for ArtnD. New, but old, but new all the same. Whether this wheel will make it onto the Carrera 2... I'm not sure, because it's really being designed for another 996. If my bid to acquire a 996 Turbo is accepted, let's just say there will be a new 935 Homage that needs an aggressive, retro-modern mesh race wheel

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Both projects are very impressive. The wheels are exciting..Correct me if im wrong, but it sounds like you're planning to make them for the wide body 996. I've got a 986, had a 996 and the wheel selection is much more limited for the NB's. I love e88s so I've always been looking for some, but the price is nutso, so I've been looking for alternatives for a while. Mind sharing what einstar/einscan scanner you use? I'm in the market and always interested what others are using successfully and any thoughts they are willing to share for a would-be purchaser. Cheers, love seeing all the updates!

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I have... choice words for BBS as a wheel constructor, so yeah, sounds like this will be the product for you haha. Offsets are easy when you're making 3pc wheels because all one has to do to make it a narrowbody vs widebody rear wheel is to change the lips and barrels. So, once we make an 18" or 19" wheel face, you'd just need to pick lips and barrels. I'm using an Einstar Vega, but this should be considered a "worth it at its price point" kind of tool. It takes a lot more finesse and time to produce a nice scan vs a true pro-grade tool like the Artec Leo I sometimes borrow. In theory, my Vega is sold, so with the proceeds I'm gonna pick up a Rigil and be able to scan details (especially dowel holes) with much more fidelity. That brings me to today's progress, I got the Spyder taillights cracked open and scanned. Unfortunately this burns up one whole set of taillights, as you sacrifice the lens to get the bucket, and vice versa. After scans were processed and reverse-engineered, now we have a model to play with! I'm gonna have to finish the Touring ducktail and ACT wheel face designs first, as I suffer greatly when there's too much switching between projects. But with these two models I can start building my idea discussed before, a "bumped out" set of taillights that blends into a central reflector/heckblende. It'll be a game-changer for 996 narrowbody cars and I can't wait!

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Really appreciate the thorough reply. For the wheel, any idea where we will see it offered for purchase eventually? I want to keep my eye on this. I've yet to fully understand the differences in the scanners vs what i actually need. I intend to do projects similar to yours in scope but for motorcycles and other car makes. Any computer spec recommendations? I started looking into building a laptop but its hard to tell what specs will truly matter, where i should focus the money, gpu vs cpu vs RAM etc. Cheers!

Spoiler Spoiler how is the leather horseshoe project coming along ?  

how is the leather horseshoe project coming along ?

Ready to give you money when the 996.1 horseshoe is available.

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We are close! Going to send this out as a known-not-100% test piece for a client. One of the clips broke so I will have to reinforce this, and maybe beef up the upper latches too so there's more force holding in the horseshoe. The 996.2 OEM horseshoe has more attachment points making it more secure, I don't like the way this sits in the frame even though it seems to line up perfectly. Revisions have been made to the wheel design too and I have submitted the draft CAD models for review! Model is drawn to a spec now, this is a 17x8 ET27, 5x130, 71.6mm bore. Intended for the rear of my 1974 911S (I picked up another one) since the aircooled narrowbody cars are another challenge to get any kind of significant lip on. Think we did well though since the initial scan trace, I've made the hub pad shallower and scrunched the details upward to increase the offset of the face / reduce the disk height. This theoretically will allow us a healthy 2" lip even with such a small wheel - even when we make a NB 996 fitment at 18x11 ET65 or 18x10 ET52 we'll be able to maintain that 2" outer lip without pushing the tire too aggressively outside the quarter panel. If I had any lingering doubts it would be the somewhat blank looking center pad when the lugs are spaced out to 5x130 (it looked fine at 5x120). Any suggestions? We'll be printing out a 1:1 prototype of this to actually bolt up to the car first, so now's the time to make all the changes. Thanks for your feedback!

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For the wheel question, i would look to the e88 or bcforged maybe to see how they manage to alleviate that asthetic. But I'm sure you're way ahead of me on that. Wheel in mind RANDY�S PORSCHE 996 911 CARRERA � 18″ MLE81 - BC Forged NA https://share.google/MivEV3pjI1i0S72A4

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That's kind of why I asked, neither BBS or other mesh wheel companies do anything interesting in this pocket area, besides adding a little bit of a raised lip for the center cap, and in the case of BMW fitments the five alignment-tool holes: I honestly think it just needed a few mm of offset for the "ridge" that cuts through the lug nuts. I like this revision much better already, going to email Ed now lol.