Search is over - 996 40th Jahre!

Finally pulled the trigger! As a point of reference, here's the original thread during the search phase, in case it's useful for someone in my shoes - https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...questions.html Huge thanks to the folks that reached out to me via DMs and offered help and guidance! Much appreciate it! I'll start with photos (because these threads are useless without them) and a bit of a timeline of the trip. The car was purchased at a small local 2 man operation of a dealer that also does consignment work and that's how this 911 was acquired. This was super easy and I didn't have to deal with any of the dealer fees and other BS associated with the purchase at a traditional big lot dealer. I'm not making the final call just yet but so far this experience is a step closer in restoring my faith in that you can have a positive experience at a dealership. PPI was completed and included a check for bore scoring. This being a FL car all it's life I was optimistic and the images came back clean. Some very minor scuffs on #4 but nothing that had me worried. I had a chance to speak and work with Bob at Vortex Motorsports and that proved to be a great experience as well. He gave me a tour of the shop which gave me additional confidence seeing what was inside and that these guys know their stuff: Fully track set up with a $50k built motor! 2 GT3 getting some work done as well as a beautiful air cooled C4S Some more track toys as well as a 996 with about 15k miles in for some maintenance But let's get to the main event.... the PPI came back with a few things. I had a set of new tires put on, 235/40/18 and 295/30/18 and loving the set up. Turn in is perfection. Also, a new oil cooler needed to be installed due to a leak as well as oil pump gasket and a new clutch slave as the clutch was super stiff before. I picked up the car from the shop as they needed to re-bleed the system as the temp would wonder a bit. Appreciated the attention to detail. I took it for a bit of a rip after and temperature stayed solid. Overall, the experience with Vortex was very good. Bob made himself available via cell and spoke with me a bunch and I never felt like he was trying to upsell me on work that needed to be done. First impressions of the car were good but not perfect and I prepared myself for that knowing it's a 16yo car. Visually, interior was in mint condition and the hard back sport seats had very little wear. For the age of the car I'd give the interior an 8-9 probably. Exterior maybe closer to 6-7. Small scuff on driver side mirror, very small ding on top of driver side fender (not sure how that got there), plastic lip had some scaring but intact and the original polished BBS wheels had some early stages of corrosion in a few small spots, mainly around the center caps. Headlights will also need to be redone. I do car detailing for fun and paint was original and in decent shape but it will be getting a full correction and ceramic coating. I might play with PPF and maybe do the front bumper. None of this was a deal breaker but it is what it is. Mechanically things looked good and I have some investigating to do which honestly I'm looking forward to. Engine dry and no leaks. Coolant reservoir was off white (not the faded yellow you see sometimes) and didn't show and cracks but I think I might need to update the cap to the newest revision. One of the previous owners had to install some sort of short throw shifter. It was pretty notchy and race car like but in a good way. Very positive feedback but requires a bit of effort. I kind of like it and will probably pull the center console to investigate. After replacing the clutch slave I was told the clutch felt much better but to me still pretty stiff and springy. Kind of like a stage 1 clutch with a stiffer plate. Given the work done to the shifter someone might have put in a more aggressive clutch. Required more effort for sure but felt great when driving more aggressively and shifting quickly. On my trip back to DC over 2 days I drove a bit over 1400 miles and the engine didn't miss a beat. No check engine lights or other funny business. Early in it's life, mid 20k miles, the car suffered an engine failure, most likely the IMS and received a new motor from Porsche. The engine code didn't point to the motor being an X51 but visually it does have the all aluminum intake manifold and the X51 exhaust manifold. I highly doubt there were parts swapped from the old motor to the new one so my guess is that the code might be wrong. Who knows. When doing oil change soon I'll take a peek with a scope inside the oil pan to look at the oil baffles that the X51 had. Either way, I doubt my butt dyno could tell the 20hp difference and the engine ran so well it wouldn't bother me if it wasn't. Records with the car were few but flipping through the car booklet I saw several service records and shop stamps, with one of them having a written note saying that LN IMS was installed! It was a while ago but that's definitely great news. That along with the cam deviations being .48 and .51 made me feel good. With all this, the car ran great and still returned around 26mpg cruising around 80mph most of the time. I was quite surprised with how comfortable the ride was in the sport seats....comfortable to the point where my girlfriend was out cold sleeping several times during the trip! Here are several photos from the FL Polytechnic and the Tail of the Dragon: As for what's next? I'm letting my car detailing nerd run wild to get the car looking the best it can. I've also already ordered an oil service kit from LN that will be getting done soon. DT40, magnetic drain plug, filter and the injector defender. Because I can do the work myself I'll also replace the plugs and coils as I don't know when they were done last. Cheap insurance to me. New cabin and engine air filter as well. If there is anything else that I should keep an eye on in terms of preventative maintenance please let me know! I have plenty of experience of working on my own cars but will seek out a decent local shop for the bigger stuff. Might do a test run with transmission fluid service and see how that goes. Thanks again to those who have helped through this search and look forward to contributing to this community and driving the wheels off this car!

Congrats, love the AE cars! Make sure to check the date of the IMSB replacement as it may be time to do it again. Unless it was the IMS Solution that's the only one and done fix from LN.

Yeeeeeah buddy! Welcome to the madness. I'll say it again - your diligence paid off on this one. Now you've got nothing left to do but drive and smile. (And it reads like clean it twice a day )

Congratulations. Sweet 40th. your buying experience is almost exactly like mine 2 yrs ago: Consignment shop in Tarpon Springs Fla PPI @ Vortex Motorsports

Love it! I've been casually looking for 40th AE cars since 2016. You're in DC? Maybe one day we can meet up. I would love to check out the car.

Absolutely stunning, great first post!

808 Bill - Thanks! IMHO I feel like they are the first iteration of a GTS trim with all the goodies thrown at them. i was thinking about the IMS. If I look at it by age, then it's probably due; by mileage then I still have about 20k miles to go. I may reach out to LN to find out if there were revisions and improvements made over time (probably) and replace it when I do the clutch but I don't think it's something I'll rush to do. I think any failures LN had with their bearings happened soon after the install so I'm not sweating it. Adam - for sure and like I told you I should be buying you a brew! Thanks for your help and looking forward to getting my hands dirty, hopefully on my terms! 85eurocarrera - what a coincidence! Love the aero kit on yours. Bob was great to deal with like I said and I'd recommend Vortex for anyone needing work done or a PPI at a reasonable price. Prelude Guy - I am! Glover Park. Happy to meet up sometime Ratchet1025 - thanks and look forward to keeping this thread going as a record of ownership, if anything else.

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snap a pic of the S / N on the engine, a regular replacement engine from Porsche will have an A / T in the S / N not certain about a replacement X51 others will chime in should look like this = the S in the 7th position denotes X51

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Thanks! That's the goal for when I do an oil service Friday morning and hopefully we will know more then. FWIW I did contact the Porsche dealer where the engine replacement was done. They confirmed it was done there but could not tell me anything more as the records were "archived" due to age. Apparently they do that if a car is not serviced there for 5 years or more. They have a one liner that gives some info but no details. I wonder if there is a way of getting more details from the HQ? If this was a warranty replacement I'd imagine it runs through HQ that approves it and issues a replacement engine. That's my guess here. In other news, I just popped off the shifter boot and to my surprise it looks like the car has a 997 short shift kit installed. This explains the very short throws! That's a nice $571 piece of kit. I'll probably pull the console at some point and apply fresh grease in there and check the cables.

from across the pond - more about the X51 http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=60293 for reference again, I'd be interested in the S / N - did they swap the whole motor or just swap in an M96 block with pistons / rods / crank as those parts are shared with ' standard engine ' wonderful cars, I'm heading into 7th year of ownership, mine is anything but stock anymore miles of smiles - see 911user, he's approaching 440,000 miles

Congrats! I remember your first posts, you took the time, gained some knowledge, and walked away with what appears to be a very nice example. You did everything right, and now you get to reap the rewards. Miles of smiles!

I love seeing the 4oths with the original sport seats (I can't understand why most of them here in US were ordered with the confort ones option...)

Thanks Billup! I tend to go mental with research on just about anything I buy and enjoy the process. I guess this goes double for a german sports car! Looking forward to racking up many fun miles! parris - I 100% agree! It wasn't a must for me but definitely a huge plus. I didn't come across many examples with those seats and I also don't get it why. They are super comfortable and I had zero complaints during my trip. Surprisingly, lumbar support is very good out of the box with no adjustments. Come to think of it, I don't get the 18 way adjustable seats. I literally hopped in the car, slid the seat forward a bit and slightly adjusted the back forward and haven't touched it since. The driving position is that good!

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Thanks for that link - good info! I had to step outside so just grabbed the SN from the engine since it's easy to see. This is what I'm seeing: M96/0366318756 . So according to the SN it does not have the X51 pack but the all aluminum intake manifold is there as well as the improved headers. I'll know about the oil baffles Friday when I change the oil and poke a scope camera inside. So you could derive a few theories from this. It could very well be what you're saying, a short block was swapped in and all other X51 parts were moved over. I don't know if that's the trouble that the dealer would typically go through but if the engine went boom with only 20k some miles and a replacement X51 motor was not available I could see a demand from the owner being made and dealer complying. It does seem to add up. The X51 power pack was also available on motors that went into a standard Carrera although that is not that common. I think the SN would still indicate this. The only other theory I see here is there was a standard M96 put in at the dealer and someone went through the trouble of swapping over the parts from the old motor, which to me seems less likely. When Vortex scanned the computer I was told that the original ECU was still there with the X51 maps. To me the first theory seems most plausible but TBH I'll be enjoying the car regardless! I did see the high mileage thread and it's definitely a pleasant thing to see amid all the IMS and bore scoring talk! Yeah, it's out there and can happen but you could also rack up some serious miles with proper care. At that point a new motor is a no brainer as you definitely got your moneys worth of driving pleasure!

Congrats! I've got you updated in the Registry. Enjoy the heck out of that car! Ted

In regards to your engine sn: Is there an s stamped on yours? I understand This was SOP if X51 Power kit was dealer installed.

Congrats on the new car! Looks good.

Do you have any mods planned for it? The shifter is a must, so you are lucky to get it!

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Thanks Ted! As I noted, there is no S at the end of the SN. Perhaps the dealer didn't bother to add it? At the end of the day it's not something that will bother me and I think seeing the X51 parts on the motor will triumph over a missing S at the end of the SN that may have been omitted by the installing dealer. Either way I look forward to putting on miles on the thing motoo344 - Thank you! Prelude Guy - I definitely lucked out with the shifter! Other than that it will be mostly preventative maintenance. DT40 oil service w/ magnetic plug, filters, updated coils and fresh plugs, fresh transmission oil. Not a high priority now but the IMS and clutch will get done too. As for actual mods I'd like to get the PCCM Plus but it's a damn pricy piece of kit. I'll see if I can get a better deal around the holidays and perhaps make it a Christmas or bday gift. Despite the interior being full leather there are still some pieces of plastic that have the typical 996 wear. Mostly on bezel around the radio, vents and door sills. I was considering playing around and wrapping it with suede/alcantara - I think it would match well with the headliner. The suspension rode quite well actually and didn't beat me up so I'd like to maintain that, although some parts, like bump stops are on their way out. Ideally, I'd love to install a set of Ohlins RT set up and lower the car a tad - nothing major. It would be good to get a ride in a car with this set up as the last thing I want is a rough ride - and I know that's subjective. Speaking of rough ride, I love the look of the 19" lobster claw wheels on our cars but I know they would affect the ride quality and are heavier then current wheels. Only other thing I can think of at this time is perhaps a fister mod to the exhaust. If anyone has done this I'd love to hear how the sound is on a highway at speed in terms of drone.

The SN on your engine designates the engine is 2003 996 engine that is not a Factory Replacement (AT)or an X51 variant (S). Was taken from a 2003 car. Since you have verified the X51 intake and headers have been installed, and will soon verify the X51 baffles, you should also verify the X51 heads are also installed. This and the cams would complete the Power Kit. The X51 heads would be easy to verify by just removing the center plenum behind the throttle body and using a bore scope inserted down #4 runner, verify the intake ports on the heads are "CNC" machined.The standard heads have just a cast port, while the X51 are beautiful CNC machined for more flow, quite easy to tell the difference, and safe to assume the X51 cams are also used. If you also have the X51 CNC machined heads, you have a complete X51 engine, although not original to the car.

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That's fantastic - thanks for sharing this! I knew about the heads but didn't know how to verify and sure as heck I wouldn't tear the engine apart just to see. I may do this when I replace the spark plugs and coils and report back.

Do you happen to know who did the engine replacement? Receipt?

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great info. 👍

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The replacement was done by a Porsche dealer. I actually spoke with the service manager and received the confirmation of the work being done, however, details were not available as the record was "archived". Something they do if the car doesn't get serviced there for 5 or more years. They have access to a service interval but not the details of the service itself. How true is that I don't know but at least I know if was done at the dealer. I may dig into this more at some point but for now I won't loose sleep. I changed the oil and filter this morning. Smooth process. I'm not sure when was the last oil service but the oil looked pretty dark so it was time. I'll be keeping to the 5k/6mo interval with DT40 moving forward. Filter was pretty clean once cut open. A few tiny aluminum specks but nothing alarming. The magnet didn't pick them up. Took it for a brief spin after and the car seemed to run better immediately Engine idled very smooth and zero knocking noises. I tried to use the scope to look into the oil pan but just couldn't get a good view of the baffles. The mirror didn't help much. Perhaps during the next oil service in spring I'll just drop the sump and look then. Again, not something I'll loose sleep but it will be nice to know. I might give the intake scope a go when I do plugs/coils and have more time on my hands than this morning.

Thought I'd keep this thread going as a digital record of my ownership, if anything else, and hope I'll be able to contribute to this board with it as I progress with the ownership. With that, got quite a few updates to share! Heavy Clutch - I think I mentioned that my clutch had a very heavy feeling - very race car like. I had several theories, one being previous owner removed the power spring, another being some sort of stage 1 / GT style clutch with heavy pressure plate, or clutch and throw out bearing slowly on their way out. Driving around I didn't feel like the clutch was slipping and when upshifting and releasing the clutch quickly I'd hear the thud of the disc grabbing so I felt like that wasn't the case. I did see the housing of the power spring installed but it looked loose. I thought that maybe it was left there and just the spring was removed. The pedal also had a bit of slop at the very top. Either way I ordered a new one. Last night I went for a brief drive and during a full throttle acceleration and shifting from 2nd to 3rd I heard a crack during the shift and something fell into the foot well. Below is what I found. Spring in 3 pieces explains why the part wasn't working and the broken plastic tab is what broke during the shift as the part was loose and not seated properly. Hopefully the replacement will restore the light pedal feel. Oil Service - this was super easy. I used DT40, OEM filter and LN magnetic plug. I cut the filter open and didn't see anything besides a few tiny specs of aluminum (checked with a magnet) and a tiny speck of what looked like plastic. Very minor and nothing that had me concerned. Obviously the dip stick reading is superior to the onboard computer but it seems like those readings are all over the place and that the car is super sensitive to not being on a perfectly level surface. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've read somewhere that there were some minor variations in oil capacity over the production years when doing oil/filter change? I'm at full 9 quarts and reading about 60% - 70% on the dipstick. No leaks anywhere. Spark plugs and coils - I had no record of that being done and the coils looked OK but were the original 996 part numbers. As many have suggested, upgrading to the newer 997 chunkier style coils and new plugs was what I did. Because old plugs and potentially failing coils can cause poor fuel economy, misfires and poor performance it was a no brainer when it comes to being proactive. Here is what the old Beru plugs looked like. I did not find any oil on the plugs and they just looked old and covered in carbon deposits. They definitely seen some miles. The original coils seemed ok with no cracks but since I'm already here..... Also new longer bolts came with the coils. New Bosh plugs went in It all came together pretty easily but I will say this, whoever says they can do this whole job without removing the mufflers has hands the size of a 5yo and can bend them in ways that are not natural. There is no way I was able to remove the furthest back coil and plug on both banks without pulling the mufflers. Luckily, that wasn't too bad after soaking all bolts with some PB Blaster. Nothing broke and I had a pleasant surprise. Looks like one of the past owners did the Fister/Gundo mod! Didn't look too pretty but the car sounds fantastic. Also, the stock heat shields clear the new coils just fine. I'd love to remove all that rust on those mounting brackets. Any tips other then just grinding it away with a drill and some sort of attachment? I'd probably want to replace the bolts holding the mufflers in place as rust got them too. They all came loose but they are not getting any better. Wheels off cleaning - Come spring, the car will receive a full 3 stage paint correction and ceramic coating and with limited space and time it will have to wait till then. In mean time it's gotten a regular clay bar and wash but since I like to let my OCD run wild sometimes I decided to take advantage of the 70's in November and give the wheel wells some love. Cue IK foamer, Brake Buster, wheel cleaner with iron remover and a power washer.... This and a six-pack made for a stupidly satisfying afternoon. I'm testing a particular tire shine on the insides and will report back with some after photos once I see how it does over some miles. Radiator & Condenser cleaning - if you live in a place with seasons you probably had to do this at some point and if you did not it's probably time. The idea is that as the junk that flies in through the vents gets trapped and wet it will expand and contract with temps up and down and cause rust and eventually have the radiators fail. I learned that the 40 Jahre cars came with Turbo radiators so that's pretty cool. Pulling the bumper was pretty easy but you need to watch for the wheel liners and some parts as it's old plastic and can crack on you. Here is what I was greeted with on both sides: I don't have a compressor which would have been great here but started with a stiff bristle brush and got most of the junk out. I separated the condensers and gently lifted them away to get better access. Radiators were in good shape. After that I user a power washer and a 40 degree nozzle to wash and blow out stuff stuck in the fins. Everything cleaned out pretty well. I also took and cleaned the plastic covers that direct the air at the radiators. Nothing dirty that can be easily cleaned goes back on this car! Last but not least, I wanted to do something to prevent this mess from reoccurring as much as possible. I decided to fabricate something from a steel mesh. There is a seller out there that has these available all ready to be installed but at $250 I thought I'd give this a try myself first. Total parts for the 2 pieces of black gutter guard and a small hot glue gun was less than $15 from Home Depot Racing Because of limited daylight I only had the time to do the center vent, which somewhat ironically doesn't lead to anything as there is no center radiator there . I basically did what Nakai does in those crazy RWB builds. I think it came out good. I removed the stock black plastic piece - it pops out easily. I'm a bit undecided about the side vents. I may try to remove the silver grilles and do the same, mesh only, sort of like a modern GT car or keep them in place and use the mesh behind them. I'll give it a go to see what it looks like. I've read somewhere that these mesh pieces may have a negative effect on cooling. Would love some feedback here. This is what's used on GT3 and GT4 cars out of factory so I'm not sure how valid that claim is. I also don't track my car so I do not generate as much heat as I would going full gas for 40 minutes over multiple sessions. Also, I feel like a bunch of junk in the radiators has a far greater negative effect than this may have but I'm open to suggestions!

I have a NOS new front wheel for sale if you want a spare.

for comparison - I used the Rennline Grilles and painted the AE bumper grilles black trying to add a layer of depth to it after market front lip - an eBay special

Thanks for sharing this! I do like the bit of contrast it brings and I've been looking at various lips that are available as mine has seen better days.

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same look with a painted lip - here's a tip, looks cool but the paint doesn't stay on I used an adhesion primer but no flex additive in the paint

Small big update. Had a pleasure of experiencing one of the joys of owning a 996, aka my first big bill I have installed a new clutch power spring and the clutch started to feel light again. I knew the clutch was towards the end of its life and somewhat coincidently started to slip pretty badly on my way home for Thanksgiving. I tried accelerating coming out of a corner, maybe half throttle, and the revs went up but the car did not go faster. At that point I just took it super easy and made it home with 0 issues. Soon after I booked the car for a new clutch, flywheel (if needed, which I did), IMS and RMS. Went with the OEM clutch/flywheel and RMS. I was told the one in there was not leaking at all, just some very minor moisture but we replaced it with the newest revision. IMS was replaced with the LN Retrofit. Old IMS bearing out. The car had the EPS bearing installed. No leaks at all. New LN IMS unit The bearing came out easily. The cam deviation that was checked prior was something around 0.43 and -0.52 LN bearing installed! The EPS IMS was in the car for 10 years and looked perfect when it came out. Spun buttery smooth and didn't leak at all and got no grooves anywhere. The mechanic and I were pretty impressed. It technically could have been left in place but since we already had the LN one in the shop we put that in. It's a cylindrical bearing with thrust control, per EPS. Take that for what it's worth, the bearing looked impressive after 10 years and almost 60k miles. Below are some close up photos: Because it's part of the process, the car had a fresh oil service with Driven DT40 and upgrade to the spin-on filter. I've also had a random CEL come up. Durametric tells me it's P0442 Porsche fault code 97 - Tank vent system (minor leak). I've already replaced the gas cap. Not until I read the Pelican article did I notice that I sometimes hear a faint whistling noise as if you blew over a top of a bottle neck. This seems to be pointing to Fuel Tank Bleeder Valve. Seems like an easy job but the damn thing is $150 - $200 We shall see soon! Besides that, gave the car a wash and went to a track for an intro to track session, lead/follow type of set up. Good times!

Way overdue for an update here! Car has been an absolute blast to drive since the IMS and new clutch/flywheel combo. Since the job was done I'm coming up on 5000 miles driven and the next oil change. The only issue or low point for me has been oil consumption at about a quart per 800-1000 miles. I recently replaced and upgraded the AOS to the UAOS so hoping this will solve that issue. I also replaced the injectors at that time. I'll track oil consumption closely again after the upcoming oil change. I wrote up a detailed DIY with photos for the install. You can check it out here - https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...l#post17404197 Since, I've done some following upgrades and some fun trips/drives: Custom made door puddle lights. These were made by a nice gent from UK that's part of a facebook group for the 40th Anniversary cars. I think they looks fantastic and provide a nice special touch: Worked a week from a beach house and drove the car on the beach. Good times Drives like these is what it's about! In February I realized that just heated seats were not going to cut it and I need to fix the no heat issue which manifested itself in the vent flap looking like swiss cheese. All the foam was gone. Thanks to a DIY on here I took advantage of an unusually warm day and got that fixed. In March the oil pressure switch failed causing the gauge to drop to 0 and my heart to my stomach. Luckily it was just the sensor which was quite easy to swap if you have a 19mm crows foot wrench. New belt went on too for good measure. Then I went for a little rip on some country roads. I plugged the resonator in the intake box and with the fister modded exhaust, damn does this car sound fantastic! Exhaust video. About half throttle. You Tube I like the MY02 wheels but didn't 100% love the finish that came on the 40th anniversary cars. Mine were in a "meh" shape and will need to be refinished at some point. I decided it was time for a new wheels day so cue Apex SM-10 wheels: Right after the install I ceramic coated the wheels. I also ordered the Rennline stud conversion kit that's been delayed a bit but hoping to get that on soon! I think the wheels look just about perfect on the car and the anthracite works well with the GT Silver paint. The fitment is just about perfect too with no spacers needed. With the General G-Max RS there is the tiniest amount of tire poke in the rear running 295/30. Personally, I'd like to get some more sidewall in the rear so will look into option come new tire time. During the UAOS install I also replaced all the injectors since I had easier access with both intake manifolds out. With Skip's UAOS I'll never have to do this job again and you shouldn't either, although at this point I can have both intake manifolds out in under 2 hours During the reassembly, one of my engine mounts decided to puke out the stinky hydraulic fluid so new engine mounts were in order. This is a super easy job. After some reading I decided to give the RS engine mount upgrade a try. I went with the URO mount option because $200 vs $700. So far so good and no complaints. No unwanted NVH and car feels tighter. I feel like the engine does not have any secondary motions, especially when going over bumps and etc, thus tightening up the suspension feel. What's next: In no particular order I'd like to address a few things like suspension, PCCM Plus, maybe a ducktail and some kind of a lip. Suspension - I'm leaning towards the Ohlins R&T. Many people seem to love them although one member ended up switching out the spring for something softer. I'll try to get a ride in a car with these before pulling the trigger. If I'm not happy I may look into Fortune Auto or Feal. I know they would both be cheaper but I really like the Ohlins shock technology. PCCM Plus - it's kind of expensive and doesn't have an option for a reverse camera which stinks but nothing else really looks right in the car. Maybe I'll keep my eyes open for a sale... Ducktail - as much as I like the lines of the 911, there is something about the ducktail. I wish the car came with it from the factory like the 997 Sport Classic. I think it really gives the car a more unique look. Came across this option on eBay which I may consider. https://www.ebay.com/itm/32459102919...hor000b2n00004 Front lip - the lip has seen better days. A new one will be around $300ish with shipping which I think is nuts for what it is. I'm considering the aero lip which I think would look great with the ducktail. Thought? I do like the front end but would need to evaluate the scraping situation too. Example:

Gorgeous photos! Really glad to see you're enjoying your car. There's some magic in these 996's. Wishing you many more happy miles.

Great update and admire your approach and execution, and mother of God - for all the trash I'll talk on the M96... does it sound ****ing glorious. Keep up the updates ! I'm going to do those RS mounts on mine I think - thanks for the inspiration. If you're ever up my way - I'll take you for a rip with the Ohlins, although - my setup is a little different and I'm not sure how much it would help or hurt my advocacy for them... they are the best mod I have done to my car (CAE up there too) - the baseline really for what everything else is built upon...But it will be FUN !!!

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Thanks a lot and partially thanks to your help! I won't lie, reading about all the bore scoring stuff and all other "issues" had me a bit paranoid at first and took away from the ownership experience but I'm past that. Just doing what I can and driving the snot out of the thing. It's just that much fun. Thanks a lot bud - much appreciate the words! These things really do sound like nothing else and the last 1k of revs takes it up a notch. Now I want to experience the the 9k redline - not in this car of course....might be an expensive experience I think you'll like the RS mounts and I think they might be the perfect middle ground between stock mounts and going into something stiff polyurethane. I think they actually enhance the suspension feel of the car. Speaking of which, there is a local rennlister to me that has the Ohlins so if he still has the car I may need to pester him for a drive/ride before pulling the trigger. Once all this pollen nonsense is gone I'm hoping to do a full paint correction and ceramic coating so that's probably the next big project. Photos to come of course! Like following your track build so keep up the good work!

Some more boring maintenance stuff happening here. Did the next oil change at about 400 miles shy of 85k. Spin on filter + DT40 5w-40 again. I also dropped the sump and found absolutely nothing. I'm also using a magnetic plug which aside from some typical light mud on it was very clean. Forgot to snap a photo for records I haven't opened the spin on filter yet as I need to either buy or make the tool. With the UAOS installed and fresh oil I will start to track oil consumption again to see if it remains at ~ 1 quart per 800-1000 miles. This would have been my 3rd change with DT40 so it's safe to say that whatever oil was in there from previous owner is now gone and there should be no cross contamination. With that, I also sent a sample to Speed Diagnostix so curious to see what info comes back for my first analysis. Based on consumption data, I may consider switching to Driven FR50 5w-50 to see if this helps reduce the consumption. I'll reach out to SD/LN/Driven to find out more if the additive packages are similar as compared to DT40 but open to feedback if anyone has used this oil. (Not an invitation to turn this into another oil thread ). As Porsche now offers their classic oil with 5w-50 weight I feel there should be no issues there. I always felt my shifting was good coupled with the 997 short-shift kit but could be better, especially going from 2nd to 3rd I felt a bit of an extra notchiness. Not knowing the last time fluid was done this was the next job. The car came with LSD from factory so I decided to go with the factory fluid. If you can get your car elevated on a level surface this job is as easy as an oil change and there is no filter to change! Remember, you always want to brake that fill bolt first! The snap loose so it almost sounds like you broke it but you didn't. Both fill and drain bolts are a 10 allen heads. I was lucky enough to have access to quick jacks which made this job a breeze. Old fluid looked like earl gray tea The transmission is filthy from years of driving and I wish I had access to a dry ice cleaning machine....but I don't. So I used a drill and a wire brush to clean up a bit but with limited space and the size of the drill this is the best I got for now. But I'll be back with something smaller to do a better job. Last but not least, the new center caps came in purchased from the marketplace. Color match was perfect. Stud conversion is done too! Next big job will be suspension. Front shocks are starting to leak and make a "tsss" sound when going over bigger bumps. I'm kind of set on the Ohlins but still waiting to do the test drive before pulling the trigger. Hopefully sometime next week.

Approved !!! Break fill plug before drain ! Factory gear oil Wheels and caps look awesome. You know what I’m going to say in the ohlins already You may want to try giving driven a call - I called them for kind of a random question and ended up chatting with the customer service dude for like an hour... from what I can tell - good peeps ! ETA - you got to feed me some glamour shots of the car... don’t be stingy... sharing is caring.

Hah! Yeah I know I have your blessing with the Ohlins. Just doing my diligence and trying not to repeat my hotboi days when I lowered my manual 1991 Honda Accord Wagon on some coils and almost rattled out my fillings! Damn miss that car sometimes - fit two and half kegs in the back with 0 issues Also, good call on the Driven guys! Will probably take advantage of that! Glamour shots? Ask and you shall receive! Although I'll get some more better ones post paint correction and ceramic coating.

DUDE ! Come take pictures of my car so it looks good !!! Those are awesome... that 1st one going on a desktop 2.5 kegs ? Wagon... strap another 2 the roof... Ya know.. if you want to party, and, let everyone you pass on the way to the spot know... you party.

Party people in the car, kegs in the back and the ones that clicked "maybe" on the invite get the roof I probably passed by you on my way to Maine a while back but I don't think the track mobile was what it is now at the time! But if I'm ever up that direction a photoshoot will be in order!

Really nice work. The car looks great. I don't think I'll ever be able to post a picture of mine again... I'm so far behind everyone on exterior maintenance. I'll settle for super clean headlights.

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Very nice pics! What camera setup are you using?

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Thanks! Believe it or not, I take a lot of my photos with my phone! I think the Pixel line of phones offers probably the best camera on the market. You can start to pixel peep and dissect photos but for getting quick quality photos with good color, dynamic range and contrast Pixel is one of the best. I'm using the Pixel 4 and will upgrade to 6 when it comes out this fall. I used to shoot a good deal in the past but sold all my DSLR gear due to bulk. Besides my phone I shoot with Fuji X100V. Incredible camera that looks like a $10k Leica but does not cost that much and produces incredible results. I really prefer the look Fuji sensors produce and the camera is small enough to go everywhere with you.

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Wanna sell the old wheels?

They are keepers At least for now.

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pm'd regarding a set of these

Few new things to report on: Suspension: quite a few folks provided very positive feedback regarding the Ohlins R&T and that's what I've been leaning towards but was hesitant to fully commit before I actually try them out. My hotboi days are way past me so I was not interested in rattling my fillings out! This weekend, I had a chance to meet up with a fellow RL-er that lives in my area and has these installed on a 996 C2 and take the car for a spin. I did part of the test as a passenger and got behind the wheel on the leg back home. I was not sure where the settings were but the car saw a track day recently so was quite sure it was not a softer street setting. Hopped into it blind and was positively surprised...but maybe I should't have been. Although the car did have a firm ride I thought it did a fantastic job taking short but sharp bumps. We hit some small to medium pot holes on purpose and I did not feel any more uncomfortable than in my car with M030 sport suspension. There was no bounciness in the car either which was very welcome. Taking a sharp exit ramp felt quite confident and the car seemed to hold its line very well. I will, however, partially give that to aggressive street tires. Looking later they were 255 in the front on OZ wheels. I don't know if the ride quality changes in those over time but they did have a decent amount of miles on them and have not been serviced. Later on we checked the settings on the rear shocks and found that they were in the upper range of the "winding roads" setting which means they can go even softer, which made me quite happy. Seems like I'll be putting in an order for those sometime next week. I'm heading to Hudson, NY for about a week this Thursday so will probably order them while there so I don't miss the shipment while away. Used Oil Analysis: During this oil change I decided to do a UOA with SpeeDiagnoistix. As mentioned above, this was my 3rd oil change with DT 5w-40 so there should be zero contamination from any other oils that were used previously. The goal here is to start creating a trend and get a base reading to see if there are any warnings and if something could point to why I'm seeing oil consumption. 1 quart per 800 to 1000 miles is more than I'd like and more than I'm seeing from others. Recently I've the the UAOS as well as new injectors. Dropping the sump has shown zero debris of any kind. I will probably be giving Driven a call to see learn more about their FR 5w-50 oil and see if that would be a suitable replacement and help combat oil consumption. Below is the report:

Don't worry bro... not going to say I told you so on the Ohlins I want to, believe me I do, but I need to keep it in....

I TOLD YOU SO... Couldn't do it

But but but there was no data to back it up! You right, you right though! I'll be doing a very mild drop with my set up. It sounds like getting adjustable end links is what most folks do or would non-adjustable stock work? I'll be replacing mine either way. Also was curious if the top hats can be used from the stock shocks or if they take enough of a beating to warrant getting all 4 new ones.

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Hehe... I could point to lap times... but street feel - well, that takes a calibrated *** My first iteration was stock top mounts and adjustable end links in the front - Worked awesome at the Ohlins recommended ride height settings. I'm actually still running the stock top mounts in the rear

Currently channelling my inner #996roadtrip and racked up about 1200 miles since last Thursday and the car is running peachy. Still burning that oil though! I'll be getting off my vacation *** soon and doing Skip's engine health test to check for blow-by. I recently checked a few values for injectors after watching the Tony Callas video on the topic and everything looks to be well within ranges. UAOS is still providing healthy readings of about -3.6in H2O. Speaking with some folks at Driven and LN I received two suggestions which I may try and report back with findings. I haven't seen anyone take this approach so should be an interesting datapoint. 1, is to try running 2 400 miles cycles of Driven break in oil with filter changes. Goal is to drive the car harder during those periods. Then switch back to the current DT40 oil. 2, is to switch to FR 5w-50. I'll probably do one of the two soon with an early oil change and do another UOA to see if the fuel dilution is lower with the new injectors. Also, Ohlins are now ordered! Look forward to doing this install soon, just need to figure out if I need to buy new top hats or if the current ones can be reused after 86k miles. I'll probably need new end links and looking at adjustable options. They are all fairly similar and currently considering the Torque Solution units. Quick photo update. I'm currently staying at my girlfriend's friends house which is basically a definition of what happens when a museum architect builds you a house. Completely sick and a perfect setting for some new shots. Here is two from the morning: I'd be remiss if I didn't say how much of an amazing road trip car the 996 is. It simply eats up the miles at a healthy pace and returned about 24-25mpg while cruising via country roads. Mix in some city driving and more spirited drives on twisty Catskill area roads and I'm still at almost 22mpg after 1200 miles. Plenty of room for a carry-on bag, overnight bag and 2 backpacks. If you haven't done a long trip in your 996 - DO IT!

I have a set of front gt3 front upper mounts if u want to upgrade.

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Your girlfriend�s house is stunning.

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Will be passing by you on Sunday so will shoot you a text. Her friend's house, but yes, it's quite the spot Only 3 bedrooms, surprisingly.

Some shiny new bits showed up today! Still need front adjustable end links but really looking forward to getting these installed. Should be a fun project. Goal is to keep the height around GT3 spec - nothing too low as I need to be able to clear my parking spot which is at an angle and those plastic front lips are not cheap. While waiting I might play around and make some rubber covers for the end links to protect them from dirt and grime. If my attempt stinks I think there is ones you can purchase although I don't like the idea of spending around $80 for 8 pieces or rubber There is also a case of FR50 5w-50 oil sitting near by that will be going in. Lets see if that helps with oil consumption and maybe increase oil pressure a tad. I replaced the pressure switch not too long ago but it's already showing signs of failure. Idle pressure is fine and I hit 5 at cold start but once getting into deeper rpms (above 4k) I have a hard time getting oil pressure higher than 4 bar. Even at 6k rpm. Could be the sender unit again or my car just doesn't like 5w-40. Who knows anymore...

Finally had an opportunity to install the new suspension bits: Ohlins R&T + Tarett adjustable end links. Doing this in a 100F heatwave was a questionable decision but with multiple breaks and plenty of liquids I got it all done. Got to love AutoZone and their free tool rental too. I ended up grabbing the spring compressor and ball joint puller which both came in very useful and made the job that much easier. Combine this with quick jacks and an impact gun the install was not hard at all. Everything came apart and went back together quite nicely. All shocks were dry except for the front driver side one. It was leaking BADLY. The coffin arm was super oily and covered in grime that stuck to the oil. That shock was completely shot. All bump stops were super brittle - not surprised after 17 years. 2 front shocks - the bad and the ugly. Rear shock with the spring compressor in action. You can see how cracked and brittle the bump stop is. If fell apart once I took it off. New front coils assembled. Pre adjustment. I ended up finding out that there were some discrepancies between the set-up measurements provided in the box vs what was available on-line. The on-line directions and measurements is what you want. Front coilovers installed. I marked the upper three mounting points with a marker to get things as close as possible to how things were. Fit and finish on the Ohlins is top notch. I applied a coat of ceramic coating to them to hopefully help from dirt from sticking to them and make it easier to keep them clean. Front end links installed. I did tighten then lock nuts before lowering the car Rear coilover installed. The rear was super easy. 3 nuts on the top, 1 bolt on the bottom and the whole thing drops out and installs with zero fuss. For both front and rear you reuse the top hats. Mine were in good shape. Rear end link installed. The instructions that came in the box had the attachment point on the shock sitting much higher. Right below the Ohlins logo causing the end link to not be able to reach. Following the on-line instructions fixed this. I was very happy with the height according to the out of the box settings. I know things will settle a little bit so a bit of adjustment may be necessary. I have a bit of an incline going up to my driveway so want to keep things functional but also aesthetically pleasing. Here is what things looked like upon lowering the car: After a few brief drives around town the rear settled in ever so slightly and I think it will be fine as it sits. The front, however, settled a bit more so it will need to go up a tad before an alignment. The rear wheels sit perfectly flush and love the fitment. The fronts have slightly moved inside the fender so I'm giving 5mm spacers a try. Initial impressions: I set the dampening somewhere in the street range to start. About 12-13 clicks from full stiff. Despite the springs begin much stiffer than stock the shocks really do a great job absorbing sharp bumps and recessed manhole covers. Don't get me wrong, you still feel them but they are not jarring making you feel like you're about to loose your fillings and call your chiropractor. I haven't driven the car at highway speeds yet so can't comment on how they feel at speed yet. Driving around town, I did feel a bit of a slight bounce at times so I think I may need to give it a few more clicks to soften things up perhaps. I want to get the car aligned first before any more adjustments to dampening. Overall the fit and finish of the coils is wonderful and installation was very easy. Out of the box they felt already more comfortable than my worn M030 sport suspension. Currently I'm looking at shops in my area to do an alignment and learn more about corner balancing. I may do it now but not necessarily as this will be mostly a street car + back roads fun driving. Is there any preference out there when it comes to aligning these cars: alignment shop vs Porsche dealer? Seems like the price would actually be quite similar.

R these guys close enough to u? https://3dmmotorsport.com/ i got my ohlins from them and they know their suspension stuff.

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Thanks Aaron. I couldn't find their address on their website easily but there was a notice that they are moving from their VA location to a larger warehouse location in North Carolina so that would be a no go. AutoSportSystemsGroup (ASG) is local to me and seems to have a good reputation so may give them a go. Waiting for them to call me back to see what availability looks like.

It's been about a month and half since the Ohlins install and everything is great. It's unrealistic to expect a stock level ride from these coilovers but I think they really do live up to their name. I have them set quite soft at this point (15f and 17r) and am quite happy with the ride quality and the level of dampening the shocks provide. I ended up calling a few local shops around but the wait was 2-3 weeks. I ended up giving a local dealership a try and they happened to have an alignement special to boot. I have my fair share of skepticism to dealing with dealers but this was a very positive experience. The waiting area had a shop view through a huge window which was cool but the cooler part was that the tech doing the alignment called me down to hang with him and talk shop. Walked me through all the options and what each setting will do and went out with me for a test drive after. We set things up fairly conservatively to blend tire life and good handling characteristics. Toe it pretty neutral with -5% camber in front and -1.5% in the rear. The rear was maxed out and dialing anything more out would require adjustable dog bone arms but the rear likes a bit of camber so all good. Height wise I'm around GT3ish spec. Form and function, especially as my driveway has a bit of an incline. Also, a few minor changes to the interior. I like the look of the stock shifter but never been a huge fan of how it felt in my hand. Cue in RaceSeng Circuit 100 shift **** and new alcantara shift boot with silver stitching. This combined with the 997 SSK that was installed by previous owner should make the shifting action just about perfect. The Circuit 100 shift **** has a pretty similar shape to the newer style 991 shift *****, which I always liked. Oh and this showed up the other day.... 350mm Momo Mod07 should look awesome and stop me from hitting the steering wheel with my left leg every time I shift. Just waiting for the hub and few other bits and pieces to complete the install. Did a smoke test with my DIY machine and could not see any leaks that would cause the engine to run lean or rich. So, still burning oil at same rate as it has. Will still chase this for a while until I take it to a shop for further diagnostics or just make piece that the motor will just burn that quart per 1000 miles because that's what it does.

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Nice. I'd like to get my mod 07 in soon. Speaking of interior, how much of an AE interior is leather?

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Thanks! My hub should be here Tuesday so hope to have mine in by end of next week. As far as the leather goes, it's really just about all of it minus the alcantara head liner. Dash, steering wheel, door cards, all pillars and sides of the rear seat area are all natural leather. It's called natural gray but looks more like charcoal to me. I really like it. I lucked out with having paint matched sport seats which are leather too.

Kick *** thread id also be keen to see pictures of the Honda, as someone still avidly posting on H-T

The sports seats in the 40AE were heated as well. Pretty rare to find that combo otherwise. Post some pics of the seats, especially the painted seat backs when you get the chance.

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Thanks man. Not clear on the Honda comment though. My last Honda experience was years ago. 1992 Accord Coupe that I bought for $300 bucks with an engine producing smoke screen. Swapped in a JDM F22B - overnighter from Japan They are indeed and partially was what made me pursue the car initially. I'm sure they're out there but quite rare and haven't seen any AE cars with them. They're fantastic and did me well on 1500 mile road trips. Beyond me when people got the comfort seats when they're not very comfortable at all. Updated interior shots coming once the Mod07 is installed.

You said you had an accord wagon, I'm a big wagon fan. And H-T is Honda-tech, although I don't think I'm proud of posting there lol

Ah crap... sorry missed that. Did a 65 mile and close to 7000ft of elevation bike ride in the mountains today so oxygen to the brain is not quite there yet hah. 996 can be a one car solution! Wagons are the sh*t though and I'd get one in a heart beat over an SUV or a minivan. Mine was a pretty rare 1991 Accord w/ a manual with burgundy red paint with some metallic in it. Took this shot on the top of the Philly Museum of Art. Yup, you can drive up there Wagons have plenty utility and the Honda hot boi days were pretty fun and thought me how to wrench a good amount. I used to spend some time on CB7 Tuner which was a great forum with many great resources. I basiclly lerned there how to swap an engine. I still have a photo somewhere of me standing in the engine bay!

Pete, Great thread. Like your approach and what you have done. Car looks awesome. Great wheels, gives the car an incredible look that means business.

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Thank you! Hoping to get it out on the track this fall and definitely more once Skips UIDS passes all testing and is out!

Dude the stance is perfect! Love the set up.

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lmk if its gonna be at njmp.

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Thanks bud! Beyond happy with how it all turned out. Recently I added 10mm of spacers in the front and now the stance is perfectly dialed in. Took it on some twisty roads around Shenandoah Mountains today and it just ate up the turns. Coffee and doughnuts at an overlook of Blue Ridge Mountains - highly recommended!

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I�d love to make a trip in that area in the 996. Florida is flat as hell.

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Man... I am just loving the look of your apex wheels. Tell us about your apex wheel specs and what you did with spacers. What would you do differently regarding the wheels/spacers after going thru the process?

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Picked up my car from St. Pete's so I feel your pain! Having said that, I'd encourage you to take a trip to north of Atlanta. I hit the Tail of the Dragon on my way home and there are many fantastic driving roads there. Highly recommend it. Your build is top notch as well and will be right at home on those roads. Just open Google Maps and look for squiggly lines Thanks! I knew they'd look good but with the suspension done, it's safe to say they turned out great! It was a decision between the silver ones vs anthracite OR Victor Equipment Zuffen wheels in silver. In the end the Apex ones won for their motorsport-y look. The current specs are as follows: Front: 18 x 8.5" ET50 with 10mm spacers. Tires: General GMax RS 235/40/18 Rear: 18 x 11" ET60 - no spacers. Tires: General GMax RS 295/30/18 45mm Rennline wheel studs on all 4 corners. With the 10mm spacers I'm maxed out on the front and would need longer studs. At proper torque the nut has about 2 threads showing. Rear is fine. The Ohlins R&T are set according to the out of the box directions with slight adjustment to the front as it sat a bit too low. Looks GT3ish, looks good and clears my driveway. Rear camber is -1.5 and Front at -.5. At this point I'm very happy with how it all turned out and would not really change anything. I could potentially add some adjustable arms if I want to go with more aggressive alignment (have adjustable end links) in the future but I drive the car a lot so trying not to buy new tires every 6 months. For my next set I'd like to try some PS4S to see what all the fuss is about. Tires can and probably will slightly change the aesthetics as some, like my current GMaxRS, have more of a rounded profile, especially in the rear, while others tend to be more squared off. I REALLY wanted a set of Lobster Forks before these but couldn't find them in the narrow body offset. I'm glad I went with 18" wheels though and would probably pursue the lobster forks more if they were made in 18" and not 19". I think 19" works with our cars but 18" looks proper and I like more tire sidewall. Having said that, besides the Fuchs, the Lobster Forks are the most Porsche wheels IMHO. Rest of the bits should be coming in today for the Mod07 install so updated photos of the interior are coming. After that, I have a quart of FR50 left so once I burn through that bottle I'll do another UOA to see if the fuel dilution of 1.81 dropped with new injectors that were installed during the UAOS job It was still marked green but that's close to 2%. After that I'll do a 200 mile flush with BR30 and give Motul Xcess 5w-40 a try and continue to monitor the consumption. BTW, here is a short clip of little tunnel ripper.... You Tube That sound is primo!

Thanks for the info. I have been running 2 sets of Carerra 5 spokes which are light and durable, one with track tires and one with street. They have done their job well over the years. But it may be time to put the 5 spokers up for sale and get a new look with the Apex wheels as I get my 996 set for the next 20 years of ownership. Agree with you on the 18 vs. 19 wheels. Something to be said on about the look of a wider 18 inch that fills the wheel well with the car at GT3 specs. Just looks good.

The interior of your car is very sharp. You've found a really great balance between silver and black judging by the framing of your video. Loving the new shifter as well - cheers man!

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Thanks Doc! It's all in the details. To keep the theme going, I may look into covering the yellow 12 o'clock marker on the Momo wheel with gray/silver leather and fill in the yellow logo. Need to also get a Porsche crest horn button. When there's nothing else left to do, which may be never (hah) I think gray/silver seat belts might look cool. TBD.

This past Friday, Oct. 15th marked my first year with the car. 1 year = 13k miles driven and currently sitting a few miles shy of 90k. During that time via a combination of elective and required work I sunk about $11k into the car. Yup that sounds like a lot but given the purchase price and the current market I'm sitting at right about the current value, I think The number is definitely inflated by things like Ohlins and wheels which would definitely knock that number down by several grand but I wanted to do the car right. Also, DIYing vast majority of things saved me quite a bit of coin. The interior is just about finished, I think... Still need a Porsche crest horn button because details.... so I guess I'm not finished! Car is pretty much dialed in at this point. Below are some updated photos. I'm still deciding what I want to do for the front lip, which has seen better days. I think I may end up paint matching it to the car color... Next up is just an oil change and another UOA. Trying something different after speaking with some folks so I'll update on that once I have some results. Car is still a total blast to drive. I guess this is explained by 13k miles driven. It's been my only car with no issues and first car I find myself jumping into and drive for the sake of driving. Next up is track time! Looking forward to seeing the finished product from Skip re oil starvation to add that on. I think I'll also do the water pump and low temp thermostat soonish too. Thought about adding a center radiator too but may hold off for now to see what on-track temps will look like. The 40AE cars came with turbo radiators and bumpers so curious to see what temps will look like with just that.

Let me know when u decided in your track events. So far i have not picked any weekends for next year.

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I'll most likely start out at Summit Point as that's a fairly close to me for my first time. I'll let you know what I have a date narrowed down. I think I can also get to the track in NJ at some point.

At njmp lightning today.

90k miles and another oil/filter change + UOA The silicon value had me going yikes, but the below comment makes sense. I did remove the sump cover during that oil change and installed a X51 baffle which had rubber/silicon pieces attached to sharp edges. I responded to Lake and he confirmed that's definitely the reason for the spike. Has there been something bad happening with the bores we would also see elevated Iron and Aluminium values, which we did not. They actually dropped by half, which is a good thing. Total metals and wear has dropped too. Also, happy to see the fuel dilution drop since replacing the injectors. Onto another 5k miles...

Got my hands of a free drone from work via a rewards system they have and had some fun on the top of a parking garage. Ended up with a quick video...hope y'all like it! You Tube

I think I might have figured out why my oil pressure has been on the lower side, especially while under load. It seems like the pressure itself was probably fine but the URO oil pressure sensor crapped out after about 9 months of service time. It showed proper pressure of 5 bar at cold start and ok pressure at idle once oil was hot, although it would sometimes dip to .9 - 1bar at idle, but under load and high rpm I struggled to see anything above 3.5bar. Ordered a new Porsche unit from FCP (lifetime warranty), quickly installed it and went for a spin. No more bouncing arrow and 4.5ish bar pressure at anything over 3k rpm. Lets see how long the Porsche one lasts, but at least with the lifetime warranty I never have to pay for it again! Still burning that oil though! :|

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Pete, good to hear.

Sneaked in a quick rinse-less wash on one of the warmer days.....right before weather got crappy again. But she cleans up well. Slowly getting ready to purchase a few maintenance things to be installed once temps get a bit warmer. On the docket are: Water pump (composite impeller) Low-temp thermostat Oil + Filter change New front lip to be color matched to GT Silver and installed. New brake pads will be needed soon. Will examine rotors to see if they need replacement too. Hoping to find a decent street pad that doesn't dust so damn much but also has good feel for daily and spirited driving. I think some folks use Akebono ones? Open to suggestions. Besides I'd like to remove all plastic undertrays to examine all lines that run back to front and clean everything up I have some small seepage coming from one side of the sump cover. Hoping I can delay fixing that to when the UIDS comes out so I can do that with an oil change all in one shot. While on a bike ride, I ran into 2 guys with clean 964s that I happen to recognize from instagram and the cooled collective. Looking forward to going on some fun mountain runs with them come spring.

GREAT shot of the 964's ! Those guys are doing it right, great looking cars. Your car looking fire as well.

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Thanks guy! I like what's cooking up in your garage too. If I find myself going up north again we need to shoot some proper photos of that thing!

I had this idea I was kicking around to create a better phone mount then what the Rennline unit provided. It works great but I find the phone sitting too low which causes me to take my eyes off the road when I need to glance at the navigation etc a bit more than I'd like. Also, anytime someone rides with me the phone gets knocked off. I'm loving the 3d printed idea another member is putting together but I wanted to un-obstruct the hazard button and have the phone somewhat centered over the vents in horizontal position. Reusing the magnet from the rennline unit I came up with this little contraption that I think will work great. Some backyard engineering and here it is: I used some double sided gorilla tape on the TOP of the bracket. That way it attaches to the top of the cluster surrounding. There is just plastic there so no problem and good adhesion. Used a steel L bracket with a hole to mount the magnet. Since the bottom rests on the leather dash I applied some soft carpet like velcro to not scratch the leather on the dash. Super easy and centers the phone nicely over the vents. Depth wise, the phone rests on the top of the vent for some added security in addition to the fairly strong magnet.

Parts are slowly starting to pile up so soon I'll be looking to get a few things done. I have a new front lip that's prepped to be color matched to the car's GT Silver. Have been looking forward to getting this done. Got the new water pump and low-temp thermostat recently. The one from FCP came pre-installed in a new flange for less than LN. Working on my friend's C4S recently installing a new exhaust I realized how much rust there is on the exhaust. I picked up a new product I learned about to see how it does with treating the surface rust all over the cats and piping. The results were surprisingly good for not that much effort! Here are some before and after photos: Pretty stoked with the end results. Will need to do some more testing on other metals. Once the bumper was back on it was time for a proper bath before the weekend UIDS is ordered too! Should be in right in time for the oil change with some FR50 5w-50.

Car update / photo dump! This is how the car sits today but the front end is about to get a small cosmetic update... I recently did front rotors (Sebro) and pads all around. Dust has been a major PITA. One drive was enough to have a coating of dust and filthy within 100 miles. I decided to give the Akebono pads a try and boy am I glad I did. Significantly less dust. I'm talking 90% less and it's a much lighter color and less visible. They are a great street pad. I did a proper bed in procedure but I feel like there is less initial bite. Perhaps the rotors need to be run in more. Under hard breaking I can still trigger ABS and they do stop well but it feel like more pressure is needed initially. I think for track driving I'll get some dedicated pads and keep these for street. Pretty happy with the choice so far. 996 brakes are stupid easy to work on. Also took some time to clean out all the drains. They were not horrible but on their way there. Also pulled the battery tray to clean off some surface rust and repaint black and stumbled upon the fuel pump, which I often wondered where it was located. As for the front end update, it's out with the old, slightly broken lip and.... In with a new OEM lip paint matched to GT Silver and clear coated! Pretty stoked with how it turned out. I always liked this look on the 997 Sport Classic and wanted to replicate it. Photos of car with it on coming soon! Since I needed to pull the bumper it was a good opportunity to inspect the radiators. This is what the looked like in November 2020 before I cleaned them and installed the DIY mesh grilles. Some said that the grilles don't do much and will affect the engine temps. Given that many GT cars use them I thought I'd give it a go and test it on my car. It may or may not make a difference but the 40AE does have the turbo bumper with larger radiators. After 20 months of driving with them on I have not had any temperature issues. This includes hard driving in 100F degree weather in North East and mid-Atlantic with very high humidity. Below are what the radiators looked like after 20 months of daily driving the car: Way better in my book! Did some small stuff get through? Yup! But nowhere near what I found when I first cleaned them. Some minor stuff mainly on the lower part of the radiator that was easily blown away with compressed air and a brush. In my use case, they passed the test and are staying. I also like the look, but that's personal. Hope this serves as a data point for others considering as I have not seen any hard data and photos posted previously - just statements. More to come...

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Sweet Pic and nice looking 40thAE

Wow man the car looks great and good to know about the Akebonos, are they noisy at all?

I can second the Akebono�s relative lack of brake dust as compared to what what�s on my car originally. I�ll be using them again!

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Thanks! Akebonos have not been noisy at all for me. They do come with the dampeners and I was sure to install the backing plates that pop into the pistons, which I'm told help. I also did a proper bed in with the new rotors.

Finally had an opportunity to clean the car and get some updated shots with the new paint matched lip. I'm beyond stoked with how the front end looks now and the car now has a clean and even visual line when looking from the side. Seems like a lot of my recent photos are done at a parking garage... I also had an extra day off on Tuesday so it was a good opportunity to finally install the new water pump and low-temp thermostat. Both looked to be original and never replaced. This had to be the case as the water pump gasket was still in one piece and needed to be cut away from the part sealing the other coolant galleries. The whole job took me about 4ish hours and was not hard. One bolt on the water pump was slightly harder then others but it all went pretty smooth. Once you separate the engine support plate there is enough room to work. A small 1/4 ratchet and slim 10mm is the move here. In the process I drained 3 gallons of old coolant, which was replaced later with some new pink stuff. The old pump seemed pretty solid with no play in the impeller but the composite piece still scored the block a bit. Besides that everything looked fine. This is the old pump. All impeller blades were intact except for some scratching that touched the block. Never had any funny noises and temps were always good. Old vs New New water pump installed and torqued to 10nm. The 4th top bolt to the very right is nestled in there. Once I got it loose I was able to spin it out with my fingers. T-stat and pump in. From there it was just connecting the hoses and bleeding the system. The gaskets sealed up great with 0 drips of any kind. I didn't use the vacuum fil system since I didn't have it and you need to completely drain the system. I had the car lifted from rear only elevating the expansion tank to the highest point of the system. I used the manual bleed valve with good results. Heat was running hot and temps stayed in check during a 20 some minute drive around town. After coming back and system cooling down I was able to add about another 1/2 gallon to top off the system. Will monitor it but it all looked good. Up next: UIDS and oil/filter change.

the previous pics looked like something was ' off ' - but the painted lip really ties it all together like the carpet in TBL

hah! Well said and I know what movie I'm watching tonight!

The car is looking great. I love the way those rims look on the car. The gunmetal brings the perfect amount of contrast in.

The painted lip is *missing chefs kiss emoji*

The only chef that matters

Glorious looking machine, with nice technical pics and good commentary. Great stuff...

Pete, car looks great man!

Late summer update: Car has been running really really well. As of this weekend I'm sitting at just shy of 96k miles. Should be getting into the triple digits by end of the year! The UIDS is on along with 10qts of Driven FR 5w-50. The last UOA was in October and I'll probably do another one at next oil change at 100k. I've decided to do one at every other change, unless I have a good reason to. Last numbers with FR 5w-50 looked very good and filter was very clean at this change so that's my decision there. Lot's of talk about UIDS and UAOS out there. I don't have the drain back *yet* as I have one of the earlier models but the unit has been working well. I opened the accumulator to see if there was anything. The light never came on but I was curious. Nothing. Not even a drop. The plug looked dry and last manometer numbers looked great. Something like -3.8in H2O. Not sure what that means but it can't be bad! Remember my old manometer reading? -60.9in H2O My track time has had to be pushed back, unfortunately, but UIDS has not caused any issues for about 800ish miles so far. Seeing great oil pressure overall. 3 bar at 2.5k rpm; 3.4 bar at 3k rpm; 4.5 bar 4k rpm till red line. Have not noticed any dips on tight back road switchbacks I like to frequent where you're able to push the pace a bit. So far so good! Hooked up the Durametric during a recent drive and the fuel trim values along with cam deviation numbers are perfect. Despite car running great and all positive numbers the oil consumption hasn't been letting up much. I wish it was one of the usual suspects (bore scoring, AOS, 0w-40 oil, leaks or excessive fuel dilution) but I've eliminated all of those so the search continues. I ended up meeting the owner of one of the bigger sops in my area, who happened to be in the only other 996 at a recent C&C. He suggested I pull the plugs to see if they're fouled with oil and stop by the shop to check it out and chat. You got to love pulling spark plugs on these cars. 2 plugs are really hard to reach, especially if your hands are on the larger side. Rather than struggle and curse I've just decided that it's easier to pull the rear bumper and remove the muffler boxes. That way I get easy access and it's a smooth job. All my exhaust hardware has been treated with anti seize so it all comes apart with zero fuss. You got to love the look of terror on my neighbors face as he drove by Here are all the spark plugs, one by one. I didn't find anything out of place. They all looked mostly the same with some carbon deposits and "white frost" type deposits. I've seen this before. Zero wetness or oil. Bank 1 - 1 through 3 Bank 2 - 4 through 6 I brushed them off a bit with a gentle nylon and copper brush and put them back in and went for a drive. Again, car ran beautifully. Temps outside were reading as much as 107F with around 78% humidity. AC blew cold and temps held as steady as they can. Arrow planted between 8 and 0 of the 180F marker. The bumper screens did their job as I picked up a lot of bugs and insects. These are the things that get imbedded in the radiators and are not visible to a naked eye. Vacuuming these out does nothing. Came across this random thing though...

^^^Quite an advancement in technology right there! 😃👍

With the plugs out you could run a leakdown test. That would help pinpoint where the oil is coming from. I'd suspect worn rings based on what your pictures show.

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Thanks, I did think of that but didn't have the right tool or compressor for it. Might ask the shop to do it. When I did a compression check some time ago, all numbers came back pretty even with exception of cylinders 3 and 6 but well within range. Very little difference. Assuming it's rings, a rebuild is the only way to address it. What are the repercussions of running with worn rings, assuming proper oil level is maintained. I've had someone also suggest valve seals... I'm having a hard time thinking it's rings as I don't have any blue smoke at all. Occasional puff of white that goes away quickly but nothing more than that. Over last 2 weeks, zero smoke on start up from cold after sitting for 2-3 days...

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Were you seeing dips in oil pressure before the UIDS?

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I did not the track previously and I did not push it hard enough on public roads to experience any. On some backroads with tight S turns, I might have seen something but nothing major. What I did notice is that now, the car achieves better oil pressure and does so with much less effort. Nothing else has changed besides UIDS. Previously I would get a max of 3.8 to 4 bar at 5k rpm. Now I'm at 4.5bar by 4k rpm and it seems to get there with much less effort. When installing UIDS I did inspect the oil pick up neck and it was clean!

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Good to hear you see a higher max oil pressure with the UIDS as this point has been in question elsewhere. plpete84, your car looks great and I have enjoyed this thread. You have a talent for documenting, in this thread and others such as the UAOS install thread, and I think you and Justin76 are competing for best photographer.

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Thanks! Appreciate the kind words. Justin and a few others have very nicely put together cars and build threads. It's nice to see the progression with solid photos and details. When I was a young whippersnapper I completed a full engine swap on my CB7 Accord with a JDM Prelude engine I purchased from an importer. The biggest job prior to that was brakes. Probably the only reason why I felt on somewhat comfortable taking this on was the fact that someone on the CB7 forum did a great job documenting the process of removing a motor from that car. The UAOS install guide and anything else I can provide that's of value is a way of just paying it forward

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I feel like this needs more exposure. Many people criticized the EPS bearing because of it's design and that it's inventor/builder didn't provide enough details on this forum. Mine has a little over 10K miles on it, and I plan to reuse it for my rebuild.

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Not looking to change anyone's mind as that's a hard thing to do once it's made up. I just found it as an interesting and a valuable data point that's rarely seen and posted. Lot's of talk and discussion but few photos. Just imagine, if every person that replaced their IMS bearing provided some detailed photos of the outgoing bearing and their oil change interval history - we'd have some real compelling real world evidence. At the end of the day, I'm a firm believer that you can have multiple solutions to a problem but the solution doesn't end with the product. The owner needs to do their part. Not treating your car like an investment piece and thinking it will melt in the rain goes a long way. Actually, saw an interesting video of a Camry, which is dubbed as the dependable car, with bore scoring and destroyed rings. Guess what, the owner followed the manual service recommendation for 10k mile oil changes religiously...

One of these days I'll get my act together and start a thread. I have every service record since the beginning of time but unfortunately no pictures of parts and service being done with the exception of the last 2 years. In the meantime, I will enjoy your posts!

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You definitely should! You're in a unique position having owned your car for so long. It's been used as a car and on the track which I think would provide even more value around what you've done. I tried to make it a habit of snapping photos with my phone of most things when working on the car, no matter how insignificant it might seem. More than a few times it has saved my butt.

Had me some solid driving therapy and a road trip this past weekend! Total of 725 miles over 3 days. DC to Charlottesville and back. I drove the entire Skyline Drive and part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Loved every mile, turn and shift of it. Save for the oil consumption the car ran like a peach and felt very good at and above 4k rpms. I took Friday off from work and headed for the Skyline Drive. It's only about 65 miles from DC. I've done a portion of the drive on my bike, about 35 miles out and 35 back but always wondered what lurks further out. The entire thing is 105 miles long and then transitions to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Weather was perfect and it was a bit cooler up there - about 3800ft at the highest point. There is no such thing as weather in the mountains so I did hit a small storm. Such an amazing drive and highly recommend it for anyone in the DMV area. The reason for the trip to Charlottesville was to attend the VA Festival of the Wheel. Day 1 was a Hagerty's C&C while Day 2 included a concourse show with a special guest. If you attended the C&C you got a free entry to the concourse event, which was a great deal! There was a pretty good fired egg turnout and met some nice folks. It was cool to see 3 grays next to one another and watch folks scratch their heads wondering why my Turbo is a narrow body and is missing the side air scoops hah! Happens more often than you'd think. Please name a better 2 car solution. I rest my case. This 964 was so tastefully done. Definitely one of my all time favorites. After the C&C I went out to explore some of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Drove about 100 miles total of it. It's actually free, unlike the Skyline Drive (just buy the annual pass if you plan to go at least twice a year). Very nice roads but watch out for the authorities. Quite a few drivers provided the friendly high beam warning which was helpful! VA Troopers are not known for being reasonable or lenient. I do not have any data logging equipment, however, I did push the car quite hard in the turns. Some were quite sharp and keeping you in the turn for a few seconds at speeds of 40mph and up. With the revs at about 4-5k rpm my oil pressure reading was pegged at 4.5bar with the UIDS. I'm not a huge concourse type of guy but it was fun to see some quite rare cars ranging from an 18HP Ford from early 1900s to a bunch of modern Ferraris with the cherry on the top being the F40. The owner is actually fairly local to me and I met him the week before and that's how I found out about this event. This legend of a man drove his F40 from the DC area to Charlottesville and back. This is not a garage and trailer queen. It's his first Ferrari. He purchased it new in 1992. It was just sitting in the showroom and wasn't moving! He spec'd it with factory buckets and has tracked it at Summit Point and few other tracks racking up a total of around 29k miles to date. Seeing this thing on the road with its straight piped Tubi exhaust was a sight and sound to behold! He was smoking a cigar at 7am and it's his wife's favorite car. The man is living the dream! Hurley Haywood was the guest of honor. He won 24hrs of LeMans 3 times - 1977 (in 936), 1983 (in 956), and 1994 (Dauer 962). Sadly he never won it in a GT1 with the greatest headlights of them all so I didn't listen to a word he said. Kidding! Before heading back home, I had an opportunity to link up with one of my "Instagram car friends" and now a real life friend. They own a 996 cab but brought out their new Spyder. Beautiful machine with quite the presence. Look forward to driving it in near future. After late lunch I hit the road home via Skyline Drive again driving the 105 miles in reverse. After finishing that, I took the longer route home via Point of Rocks and MD country side. Added about an hour to my driving time but sitting in potential traffic on I-66 was not an option after so much great driving. The next morning I saw nature and my bumper grilles at work. Caught a huge dragonfly which served as breakfast food for a wasp which really went to town on it! If you haven't done a longer roundtrip in your 996, ideally avoiding highways, you're missing out! More to come soon!

What a nice thread chronicling the journey of this car and your latest post @plpete84 looks like great trip!

Anyone selling a 996 AE? PM me!

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There's a dude on IG that is. I'll try to find his info and DM you.

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Thanks brother Just keep your eyes pealed to here - https://www.40jahre911.com/40-jahre-911-listed-for-sale . Ted does an amazing job keeping the registry up to date and the for sale list. I've seen some models pop up here and there. Low mile examples are fetching around $50k ish asking price. Maybe get one and put your new engine in it! I secretly, for nothing more than vanity reasons, want a 4.0L motor in my 40th AE

I finally had a chance to refinish the headlights...for the second time. I originally used one of the headlight restoration kits. The results with that were good but long term, it did not pass the test. About a year later, the headlights began to develop a subtle yellow hue despite using the UV protecting spray paint and the surface seemed to have some light scratching from general use and driving. I decided to give a the clear film route a go as it should do a better job protecting the headlight. It was a choice between Lamin-x and Xpel. I ended up getting the Lamin-x kit. The film came as a part of a kit with everything you'd need to install it. I mean everything. This even included an xacto knife. The film was pre-cut. You need to be sure to choose the right one as they come in a version for headlights with washers and without. The fit was very good! There was a small amount of overlap which you could trim and some extra film tabs that you can hold when installing. I can't speak for the fitment of Xpel or what comes in the kit but I think the biggest difference between the two is the installation process. Xpel uses a water and alcohol solution where you soak both surfaces, slide the film into place and begin to squeegee the solution out. Installing the Lamin-x film requires just some water on both surfaces but the film is a lot more tacky. This made it pretty easy to install for me as I would tack the film in one spot and then gently stretch it into place. You can undo and re-do it as many times as you want till it's perfect. Then just squeegee to remove the water. Some water spots and cloudiness can appear but it goes away after a few days of the car sitting in the sun. Before I got to the film I wet sanded both headlights with following grit sand paper - 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 and 2500. Seems like a lot and maybe it is but results were worth it. After sanding I used my orbital polisher with a 3in orange pad with some finishing polish to bring out the clarity. Each headlight took about an hour.

fantastic work

Tomorrow will be a 2 year anniversary with the 40AE so a quick photo update and other ramblings.... It's been 2 years and a little of 21k miles driven over that time. Turning the key with the left hand and hearing the cold start still feels like a bit of an occasion. You Tube It's been my only car and has hauled everything from 2 bags of mulch in the frunk to my road bike on its roof and eaten up thousands of miles during road trips without skipping a beat or leaving me stranded. It took a good amount of preventative work to get there but it's been solid otherwise. Over the time, my favorite mechanical mods have been the Ohlins R&T coilovers along with the Momo Mod07 steering wheel and the Raceseng Circuit shift ****. The combination of these 3 took the driving experience to the next level for me. I have very little desire for more power, believe it or not. Between 5-7k RPM the car is a joy to whip around in. I haven't done much visually besides the wheels, which I'm mega stoked with, and the new paint matched front lip. I think the lip really tied it all together, like the carpet in Big Lebowski. A duck tail is still a consideration though. I've been working with my shop and Lake Speed re. my oil consumption and we have a theory and a game plan in place. I'll provide an update on that once I have more data collected and more miles driven. How it started: How it's going:

Pete - I wouldn’t sweat the oil consumption much. If you drive in the upper rev range often, like you should, you’ll burn some DT40. I had some issues with injectors and AOS’s that caused more issues/consumption. Once those were taken care of, mine used a quart every 7-800 miles on DT40 and a little less (~1,000) on Porsche Classic 5w50. My motor was rebuilt to 3.8 with ring gaps the shop uses for proven endurance. So I fretted like every good, paranoid 996 owner. I only consume a liter every 1400 miles on current Millers 10w50. Your wear trends are very good. You’ve done all you should, so that engine is showing good health by the UOAs. If you were smokey on starts or your fuel contamination was higher or your wear started spiking? Then maybe worry. And each time I see anthracite Apex wheels with GT Silver…mmmm.

@hatchetf15 - thanks for your feedback! I usually don't sweat this stuff but just like to understand the "why" part. Since I've eliminated all the common causes and replaced things like the AOS and injectors to name a few, I'm at the point where some "outside the box thinking is needed". Just trying to get to a point where I don't have to add 5qts of oil between changes, but in the end, if all other things remain the same, I will. I've been using FR50 5w50 for oil and am happy with the oil pressure and UOA I'm getting so will stick with that. Your feedback is useful and hope to have more updates of my own soon!

This weekend the odometer turned to 100k miles. Saturday was a warm day, around 60 here, so a perfect opportunity for an oil change. Such an easy service to do - takes longer to drain the oil than everything else put together. Magnetic plug was clean. Last oil change I realized I didn't have a filter after I drained the oil and ended grabbing a KN one which fit well onto the adapter - no leaks. Cut the sucker open and found nothing, which I prefer. Quick wipe down of the UIDS, date and mileage on filter and time to pour 10 quarts of oil. Poked around underneath and everything looks pretty dry - no leaks. One thing I did notice was the coolant hose with the plastic T fitting visible from the bottom has a crack in the plastic portion. No leakage at all but will probably replace come spring. Went out for a bit of a ripper on Sunday afternoon to see the clock turn to 100k. Some people say that's a lot of miles on a car but to me the fun is just beginning! I did install the PCCM+ over the Thanksgiving weekend. I'm still dialing in the install and hiding things out of sight. That GPS antenna and microphone being double side taped to the dash and steering column is not going to fly. So far I was able to hide the GPS antenna under the plastic piece that also houses the red alarm light and route the cable through the dash. I think I'll be able to remove the microphone component from it's housing and install it in the OEM location, to the left of the gauges. Also need to get my hands on a new storage shelve above the HVAC unit as the one I had won't fit. It was a lower specific one. Speaking of HVAC, new LCD screen is arriving soon so I'll swap that out as the current one is pretty much gone. Tires are next I think. Will go with Michelin PSS4S to see what the fuss is all about. 235/295 sizes and I think they will give me a more squared off look in the rear that I want vs rounded as it currently is with General RS MAX's. The Generals have been a great tire, for the price. The fronts still have plenty life on them after about 23k miles so I might try to sell them cheap locally. Rears, however, are close to finished, mainly due to inner wear. Rears have about a -1.5 degrees of camber and the adjustment was maxed out. Fronts were able to be dialed in to -5 degrees which produced pretty even wear. With that it looks like I should think about adding some aftermarket adjustable arms for the rear to allow for more camber adjustment. I don't think you can do anything from the top. Open to suggestions here. It looks like I could either do the lower "coffin" arms which would allow for some additional camber adjustment OR the upper adjustable arms "dog bones", which should allow camber AND toe adjustment. I do want the adjustability but one of my concerns is added NVH as most of the options include spherical bushings instead of rubber ones. This car sees a lot of miles annually and will only see the track for no other reason than fun. Not looking to chase lap times and modify the car in that direction. As such I'd like to preserve as much of the ride characteristic I currently have as I can. Open to opinions and options here. Are there any lower or upper control arms that allow for adjustability but have rubber or similar bushings. Similarly, if someone has installed them with the spherical bushings, was there a noticeable change in NVH? Yeah, I know that's subjective.

You can get plenty of camber in the rear with the stock stuff - you do need to add adjustable toe arms to correct for the camber - that’s what will chew those insides.

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Thanks - that's a good call. I thought about toe being an issue but looking at my alignment settings didn't think it would have been the thing.

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Sure, I�m talking about when you go up to 2 (estimate) or more degrees, the stock toe eccentric may not be able to get to spec.

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What do you have to have for toe in the back to minimize inside shoulder wear?

Roger that. I'm a noob when it comes to alignments and just know some basics so that makes sense. It's better to have some additional camber and get the toe as close to 0 as you can as toe will cause more tire wear and perhaps other issues than some extra camber.

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if u cant get the toe in spec with the eccentric bolt u will need adjustable toe arms.

To clarify here, I CAN and have gotten the toe in spec but at the cost of negative camber. Per zbomb, the stock suspension has enough camber adjustment available but once you get it there, it will throw my rear toe adjustment out of spec at the eccentric bolt does not have enough adjustment in it. As such, adjustable rear toe arms will be needed in my case.

Winter sucks but days are slowly getting longer and it's been relatively mild for winter here. Some more hardware has been coming in so time for a quick update. 2 months since last update, I'm sitting at about 101,400 miles. I tried OilVue for UOA and have mixed reviews. The report is pretty easy to read and everything came back "green" but it did take a bit longer to get it back and the report did not include fuel dilution reading. Not sure why. I emailed and followed up with them but never got a response. A bit of a bummer there. Per Lake's recommendation, I've been using an injector cleaner that's very high in PEA and to my surprise have seen oil consumption go down from 1qt in 650 miles to 1qt in a little over 1000 miles. What gives? No clue but a positive improvement. FINALLY, got rid of the airbag light! I've read all the threads with bunch of conflicting info and all kinds of resistor suggestions. The answer is 2.2Ohm +/- 5% resistor to be installed in the airbag wiring (orange plug) . Let me know if you need one since I got 39 more as I had to purchase a whole box from Amazon for few $. Sitting on 1000 various resistors now so holler if you need any I also got the PCCM+ all buttoned up. Yeah it was pricy but I saved a few bucks getting it on black Friday and tax free in DE. The install was plug and play for me and as mentioned previously, the mic is now wired into the OEM spot, in the gauge cluster on the left side. The supplied mic can be easily removed from the provided housing. If I was paying few hundred bucks to have this installed by the dealer and they plopped it on my steering column with a double sided tape I'd be pissed. Royally pissed (cue black republicans skit from Key and Peele ) The black box is hidden behind the center console and I have a cable running from there to connect the phone and using the other USB port as a power source for my dash cam. It works really well as it turns on and off with the radio so I don't have to think about it. Picked up the 4pc Rennline pedal set for a steal in the classifieds. Pretty surprised by how much they brighten up the footwell and match the overall aesthetic of the silver bits in the car. Because it's my do-it-all car I've decided I don't want the track mats and will come up with a solution to integrate some sort of aluminum heel pad into the OEM mat. I've got some ideas brewing. Also, picked up some new mufflers! I like the current set up but because it wasn't executed too well and I get some strange resonance between 3.5-4k rpm. Because I may not always want to be making all the noise and I haven't seen them being used often I ended up getting a set of valved mufflers from DesignTek, which is the inhouse brand for Design911 from UK. I came across a video with them installed, surprisingly on a 40AE, and really liked what I heard so I decided to give them a go. The price was very good too so no reason not to. Each came in at exactly 17lbs, which is about 5lbs lighter than OEM boxes. I think they are about 22ish lbs. After a bunch of reading they look remarkably similar to that of TopGear stuff and few other brands I've seen. All the welds are super clean like their other stuff and the electronics look exactly the same as those used by TopGear, SOUL, FabSpeed and most other manufacturers - down to the remotes. By default, the mufflers have the valves open. I'll need to figure out how to get all that wired in neatly to the stock vacuum system and come up with a solution to integrate the remote into an OEM sport exhaust button. I've seen something similar on the 997 forums from UK that might potentially work. Because the Porsche Gods noticed I picked up these new fancy mufflers they thought it would be a good time for my car to start throwing the Catalytic Converter efficiency codes. :| I've seen bank 1 pop up 2-3 times in last 6 months but now I'm seeing the code for both banks. Fantastic. Looks like I'll be adding new cats and I suppose 4 new O2 sensors while I'm at it. I'll be likely getting the TopGear 200 cel cats that cross over - not the X pipe. I want to keep the low end torque as much as I can for the type of driving that I do. I have also been looking into the cats from Dansk. They offer a sport version which is about $600 more. If I recall correctly, Dansk actually manufactures Porsche sport exhausts and have a reputation for good quality as well. I might call around and see if I can sell my old cats to a scrap yard. I've heard of folks getting anywhere between $200 to $400ish per cat. I'd be happy with that! Braking system will be getting a small upgrade with the braided lines from Goodridge. After the install, I'll probably put in some track appropriate fluid as I'll be doing HPDE in not too long. Does anyone know the total amount of fluid needed for a flush? Last but not least, I finally came across a tool box that will work well for me, keep all my stuff organized and easily fit in the frunk. I picked up some plexiglass and made appropriate dividers to keep things organized. That's all for now. More to come...

Awesome update!!

Those mufflers look very nice !! I suppose the key fobs are to switch the sound remotely and not hard wired ? Sweet..

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Those are identical to the TopGear valved exhaust -- except for the addition of that nameplate tacked onto the pipe. The blue silicone vacuum lines, the remotes, the black packaging -- all the same. I just installed the TopGear exhaust in my C2. Connecting the valves to vacuum was quite easy. I simply tee'd off the input line to the resonance flap valve that is located on the driver's side intake plenum, right above the alternator.

I use 2-3 half liters when u do a full brake system flush. I pull all the fluid out of the resi with a turkey baster, fill with the new stuff then i pull 10-12 oz from the inside bleader and another 6 from the outside bleader. Then every 6-8 track days i pull another 4-6 oz from each bleader to bring new fluid into the caliper. Im using Endless 650.

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Thanks Skip! And you're correct. There is a separate controller that will be nicely hidden away that communicates wirelessly with the remote. I know this is different from the factory set up that I think is indeed hardwired. Thanks for confirming. Aligns with everything I've seen so far and looking forward to getting it installed and getting some footage of the exhaust note. If I have it correctly, you tapped in to the line as in the photo below, right? And curious where did you tap in to get the power/ground for the controller box? Thanks Aaron! I'll get 3 bottles and get that done soon.

Wow, those mufflers look like they'd go right into place on a car with PSE. Interesting...

I don't see why that wouldn't work. The main difference is the electronics but I think the actuators are still triggered via vacuum. And you loose 10lbs of weight. More if ditching the stock cats.

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You want to tee it _before_ the electronic valve for the flap. I modified the diagram below. For the controller, I didn't use the TopGear-supplied electronics since I intend to hardwire it like the OEM PSE system... but after hearing the exhaust I'm less motivated to even bother with the valves... with the valves open the exhaust note is quite mild. I've been driving it for a week now, and I don't see any need to make it quieter -- it's not obnoxious at all. From what I've gathered it seems like the factory PSE system only closed the valves based on speed (between 50-70kph) to abide by noise laws in Germany.

Good stuff - thanks for the correction! I might not wire it up immediately and am also curious to see what things will sound like with 200 cel cats.

Mid 60's in February means that the previously mentioned parts made their way to the car! Hope people like photos because this one is heavy on the visuals. I purchased new mounting hardware for the mufflers because there was no way that anything could be reused. I mentioned before that one of the previous owners added a poorly executed fister mod to the stock mufflers. You can see here what I meant. A tiny piece of pipe was jammed between the inlet and outlet and welded to the part that should detach with the muffler tips. What made it even worse was that the hole that was made was pretty small and uneven. It looked like someone drilled a few random holes in a circle and punched out the middle.... Somehow it all sounded somewhat decent but introduced a weird resonance around 3.5k - 4k rpm. There was no graceful way of getting the muffler tip pipe off so a bit of a struggle ensued. After some time with a dremel and a few reinforced cut off wheels I was able to get things separated. I was able to salvage the pipe and reuse it with the new mufflers. I had both stock mufflers off in under 45 minutes. This took longer than I'd like to admit. Lot's of space in there! I was able to remove and install the new muffler by simply sliding them off from the bracket. The pro move here is to always install the long bolts head down for easy removal. Some anti-seize was applied to all bolts. Your mechanic or you will be glad you took this step next time you need to remove them. Next day, once I rescued both exhaust tip pipes, cleaned them up and hit with some silver high heat paint, I finished up that portion of the install and tackled the part that will allow the valves to operate. Right behind the heat shield, there is a round opening where you can route the vacuum hoses into the engine bay. Great stuff. On the driver side you need to snake it from behind the SAI pump - it's doable without removing it. One the passenger side it's wide open for access with the intake box out. Also, thought this was a cool shot With the taillights out, I noticed a small unused hole that I thought would serve great as a mounting point for the vacuum switchover valve. I liked how it would be out of the way. I didn't want to attach it anywhere on or near the motor as there is enough stuff jammed in there already. From there I routed the two vacuum lines from each muffler to a T junction and then ran the 3rd hose to the switchover valve. I'll probably get some plastic clips that attach to the body with double sided tape to secure the hoses and make it look neater. The controller box was attached with velcro to the side, right below the switchover valve. It has a little antenna for the key fob that operates the valve operation, a plug that connects to the changeover valve and a power + ground wires. The other hose with a check valve leads to another T connection that feeds the vacuum for this whole thing to operate. Ideally, I'd like to wire the power connection somewhere else, like some other connector but not sure where yet. For now I have it connected to the + power terminal and the ground to the unused plug on the side. It all seems to work well but I'd like to clean it up a bit more. I thought about tapping into the O2 sensor plug but not sure if that's a good idea or not yet. I'm not a huge fan of chromed exhaust tips and have been contemplating of switching up the color. I had some extra black vinyl sitting around so I wrapped both just to get a better visual. Also, I love how our cars look with the bumper off and the exhaust exposed. This looks even better with an X pipe or some fancy titanium exhaust. Last but not least, I was able to swap out the old brake lines for some new Goodridge ones and flush the fluid with Motul RBF600. The old stuff was green which tells me that it was due for a flush. I used some silicon plugs that worked like a charm to plug the hard lines and prevent from extra fluid from leaking out. I had the correct tools for the job but still feared some of the connections giving me a hard time. This wasn't touched in 19 years. I sprayed all connections with a bit of PB Blaster and luckily all broke free with zero fuss. Awesome. From there on it was all pretty simple to install the new lines. You just need to pay attention to route them correctly and not introduce and unnecessary bends. Bled the brakes and I was off to the races. Next up are the adjustable rear toe arms. I might hold off with this till after my HPDC on March 5th. The car also now sits on Michelin PS4S tires. Same size as before - 235/295. I like the shape of the tires a lot more, especially in the rear. I haven't pushed the car yet on them so can't speak to any performance but the first thing that jumped out at me was that the ride quality has improved slightly. I believe this is down to the softer sidewalls on these. I think this also affected the steering feel a bit. Car still turns in fine but it doesn't feel as direct as is did on the RS Max tires, which surprisingly are basically Continentals. Hoping to get some good video/sound clips of the exhaust and post impressions soon.

Great eye candy! Can't wait to hear the exhaust.

That looks amazing.

Very nice !! I love the switchable exhaust with wireless remote....

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I've seen two flavors of PSE. My car originally had what you describe -- valves always open except from ~30-50 MPH, because some European nations have urban noise rules and the open valves didn't meet them. (That can be defeated by cutting a resistor in the PSE relay.) It did not have a PSE switch in the dash. I added the switch, which enables me to have the valves closed -- be in quiet mode -- all the time. To my ears the PSE sounds glorious! But may be a bit loud in a neighborhood or urban setting. I use the PSE switch to keep the sound down in those environments, and revel in the noise the rest of the time.

I've had a chance to do a bit of driving and capture some audio. With the valves closed the sound is very stock-ish. Maybe a tad louder but really not by much. I'd still classify it as stock sound. Once the valves open the sound changes a good bit and the change is noticeable in the cabin and outside. Much more throatier with more bass with a good amount of additional volume. I don't find it obnoxious but if you accelerate next to someone you will probably make them look. When driving around town and applying more throttle at lower revs, below 3k rpm, you get more boomy (is that a word?) sound into the cabin which may not always be welcome but it goes away past 3k rpms. I wouldn't call this drone but more deeper volume. The good part is that you can hit a button and close the valves if it bothers you. The one thing I do really like is the little burble that you get when deaccelerating in gear at lower speeds. This is all with failing stock cats which need to be replaced anyway. I already have a set of crossover TopGear cats and new O2 sensors en route so I'll post another video of what that set up sounds like. For the price, the set up is a no brainer for me. Fit and finish was perfect and the install was very easy. There isn't too many valved options out there but I'm glad I took a chance on this one. Hope folks find this useful. The video has a few clips from my driving loop with footage rom my dash cam and audio from a GoPro mounted on one of the bumperettes. You Tube

The long weekend provided an opportunity to get the new TopGear 200 cel cats to be installed. 4 new O2 sensors arrived just in time to get everything done in a day. I supplied myself with a blowtorch and a 3lb hammer expecting to battle the studs connecting the stock cats to the header. Luckily hammer was not needed and I only used the torch on another bolt that helps to secure a clamp that holds the cats in place. Except for 2 or 3, all bolts snapped off but since the studs were pressed into the cat flange this was a non issue. Here is a cold start up of the new mufflers with stock cats - valves were open. You Tube Then it was out with the old and in with the new. Forgot to weigh the cats as compared to the stock ones but there was a decent difference. With the new mufflers, I'm sure the new exhaust is saving at least 15lbs off the rear if not more. 10lbs of that was mufflers alone. The overall fit and finish on everything was great and it was a pretty simple install. I've had the rear apart enough times that at this point I can have the rear bumper and both mufflers off in about an hour Anti-seize on all bolts again so I don't have to battle them in the future. Cue the first cold start after everything was installed and buttoner up, minus the heat shields and bumper. Valves were open. You Tube In this short video you can hear the difference between the valves being open and closed, as I toggle the switch. You Tube With the valves closed, the whole system sounds a bit louder than what I had before but it's not obnoxious or unbearable in all driving conditions. It's probably a bit louder and meaner than OEM sport exhaust. With the valves open it gets pretty loud and rowdy. Pretty close to what no mufflers would sound like probably. It's drivable with smaller throttle applications around town but once you get on it more it does get pretty loud and aggressive. I like that the difference is big enough to make me want to keep things as they are. I'll try to get some driving footage and sound in coming weeks.

Pete, sounds and looks great! Good throaty sound. Enjoyed the video of yii driving around the back roads. I sure do miss the curves and rolling hills of the east coast. I plan on driving my 996 to Phila from Chicago to visit my family over Easter to get it some long distance exercise. Hope the weather will be good because I only have summer tires and track tires.

Great thread, beautiful car and please keep the pictures and video coming... Your setup looks great and sound awesome; very clear difference (aggressive) exhaust tones even at idle. Looks like you are really enjoying your car. Cheers,

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These cars are awesome at longer road trips - highly recommend it! Where will you be in Philly? I'll be heading in that direction for Easter too! Thanks man. Trying to squeeze the maximum fun out of the thing while I can!

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From Collegeville to Conshohocken. If you are in the area love to meet up.

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Awesome - Conshohocken is not far from my parent's house, Springfield area. It's just down 476. Keep me posted on your schedule.

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​​​​Sounds good!

I've been getting a periodic CEL for cat efficiency after getting the 200 CEL ones in so it looks like I'd need some O2 spacers. Found some on line that offer some adjustability and installed them this weekend. 100 some miles later and no CEL. Also, the CATs have turned a nice copper color which I'm all about. I also picked us a set of used Michelin Pilot Sports N4 tires for rear from a buddy for $50 bucks a pop. They have plenty of tread and are only 2ish years old so it was a no brainer. They will go on my OEM MY02 wheels and get used on track. Now I just need to decide what to get for the front. I have a good set of General G-Max RS tires but I probably shouldn't be mixing tires and at least stay within the Michelin brand. I definitely want to go with 235/40 for the front but also curious if 245/40 would work on MY02 wheels. I have 10mm spacers I could use. The rears are a Porsche spec N4 tire but from what I understand it's an older technology and the PSS4S is a newer compound and a better tire overall. Both are about $250/tire at Discount Tire. Tire Rack was a bit more and put the PS2 at only $10 bucks less than a Cup2 for the fronts! I think running a Cup2 on front and PS2 on the rear might be a bit silly though. I'm thinking of going with the PSS4S and think mixing it shouldn't be a big deal. There are Pilot Super Sports available but I have only found them in BMW and Mercedes spec and at a higher cost. I've also pieced together everything I'll need to get the center radiator in. Scored the radiator and all mounting pieces used for a great deal and purchased all new hoses so hoping to get that installed sometime in April. The plastic T junction on the hose leading from the coolant reservoir to the water pump is cracking so it will be replaced at the same time. More to come...

Pete, copper color looks great! Regarding tires, I wouldn't mix two different tires front and rear due to different characteristics in how quickly they get heated up, level of grip, wear etc. Good news is you have 2 different sets of wheels so you can run your street tires on one and track tires on another. Plenty of options available that a cheaper than a new set of michelins depending on wheel size. Assuming you are running 8x18 and 10x18, your cheapest bet is to go with 225x40x18 F and 285x30x18. Unfortunately, bigger sizes push the price up. At this stage you want a good durable tire with a good sidewall that won't get you in trouble if you hit rain too and from the track. M Sport Cup 2s, Falken RT660, Bridgestone RE-71 RS are 200w tires. The Falken and bridgestones are quite a bit cheaper than the sport cups amd reviews are good. I have one day left on my Toyota Proxies and I will probably move to the Bridgestones. Don't know if this helps. Add: havent run M4s, but i have run PS2 and sport cups on the track. All the Michelins are good tires with great sidewalls. But they will cost you a premium.

Thanks Glenn. To clarify, I'm definitely not running the Generals on the front. Basically trying to decide if I should match the PS2 for the front or go with the PSS4S for the front. Since both are from Michelin and both are high performance summer tires I'm wondering if there would be an issue with that set up. My reasoning is that the PSS4S would have a better newer compound that should arguably perform better than the older compound used on the PS2.

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I would probably opt to match the PSS2s and get some miles out of them. Saves you a couple of bucks that you can use towards your next set of tires. If I remember correctly, they were pretty durable.

Summer is here so a little (photo heavy) update time before racking up more miles. Just crossed over 105k last week. General public still can't believe that this car is 20 years old. A few months back I picked up a set of rear Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires in 295/30 with plenty of thread left so I ended up picking up a set for the front and had them installed on my MY02 wheels. This will serve as my set up for track. I'm not crazy about the finish on the special 40AE wheels but don't want to get them powder coated. I'd still like to keep them as is for a potential future owner, should that ever happen. With that, I think the best solution for a temporary change might be plastidip and with the new HyperDip designed for wheels it might be the ticket. I don't want typical silver or black. I'll be deciding between matching the Apex wheels with anthracite or getting a bit brave and doing their Brass Monkey color. Not too much in your face and just something different on a spare set. The rubberized spoiler curtain has been bugging me as it basically started to break into pieces so $125 later things were back to normal. Next it was finally time to get the new adjustable rear toe arms put on. It was a pretty easy job. Once I removed the old pieces I noticed 2 things. Wow - they're very light and even though the rubber was in actually in ok shape and not broken, it was compressed in one direction meaning that it would sit slightly at an angle and not square. This is normal as this stuff ages but ends up playing a bigger role during the alignment. The ball joint splitter is a must and makes the job a breeze. Buy it or rent it from AutoZone for free.99. I also need new rear rotors..... I knew I'd be getting an alignment right after this job but just so I'm not rolling down the street sideways I marked the eccentric bolt that needed to come out. That way I had a fighting chance to get things close enough upon reassembly. Dropping the rear sway bar is needed to get that eccentric bolt out without a fight. Done And done. The next morning I got the alignment done. With the new adjustable rear toe arms we were able to get the toe just right. Since it sounds like out of spec toe will eat your tires faster than negative camber I was happy with that. Having said that, I wish I could have gotten a bit less rear camber than the -1.9 degrees. I know the car will technically corner better with it but as it's mainly a street car that's not my priority. We could not dial out more without adjustable coffin arms. Thinking back to the aged rubber and how it can shift it one direction under load over time, I think that's what partially prevented further adjustment. I think that's normal and to be expected with 20 year old rubber bushing. I'll monitor how the rear tires do over time with the current set up and may consider rear adjustable coffin arms at the very least. So far I like the SPC ones for their adjustability and the ability to rebuild the ball joint. Looking at the photo below I'm beyond stoked with the stance. It's very OEM++ while remaining very functional.

Over the long weekend I had a chance to replace one of the coolant hoses. The plastic T junction has been cracked for a while and it's only a matter of time before I puke coolant somewhere. It's a super easy job with just 2 clamps at the bottom, water pump and coolant crossover hardline. You drain some coolant via the water pump. From the top it's just one connection point. Be careful separating this as the junction is plastic. Hands only. You can also see the green cap that I used to block off the coolant line that used to lead to the AOS. No longer needed with UAOS. I opened the UAOS collector box and it was completely empty after 2 years. Not a drop of oil. I guess that's good. old vs new It's a little thing, but I like how OEM hoses give you markers where clips or clamps should go. It looks like they put this for plastic connections where location is most important. Done. Put some fresh 50/50 coolant back in and let it get to temp with the bleeder valve open. This was an easy job that took about an hour-ish while screwing around with photo taking and a beer. With time to spare and not having broken anything I thought I'd keep going with another job..... It's been a while since I took a look at my radiators and maybe, just maybe, I'd have enough time to install my center radiator!! I have an OEM unit I purchased second hand in wonderful condition and new hoses based on the pelican writeup. Here is what I found on the side radiators....not much! Grills still doing their job pretty well if you ask me. No issues with temps at all. The center radiator is going in for added cooling capacity for when I'm turning laps and it's stupid hot out. It depends how much dirt you have in there but my preferred method of cleaning these effectively has been using my tuf shine wheel brush. The bristles are long and stiff enough to get in between the fins to clean out junk that gets lodged in there without bending them or causing any damage. If they're really dirty you can add in a spray with a power washer to wash out any further dirt. I did this when cleaning them for the first time but it was not needed this time around. Back to clean! After this I removed the air diffuser / dummy radiator thing and went to test fit the new center radiator. Everything lined up nicely and it seems like a fairly easy and plug and play install....or so I thought.... things have gone a bit too well so a speed bump was expected.... Looking at the above 2 photos you may notice something a bit different. Unlike most other NA 996 models, the 40AE cars came with the larger Turbo radiators. This means that the connections to said radiators are a bit different and is what caused the speed bump in my case. As you can see the hoses are different and attach via a regular clamp to the hard line like all 996 models but use a different connection to the radiator via a different end on the hose that has a rubber gasket and is held in place with a metal retention clip. The hoses I purchased require a traditional clamp on both ends, like for a regular 996 and had a slightly different shape which did not work - bummer. I still want to get the radiator installed and I think I have 2 options here to get the connections to work, but I'm open to ideas! 1. Search and see if 996 Turbo cars came with a center radiator installed or as an option. Since the front end is essentially the same I believe, if I can find the hoses that are used there I should have what I need. Maybe my searching skills suffered but I haven't been able to find those hoses. 2. The other option will require a bit of modification but I feel confident in making it work. Essentially, I'd need to get a pair of plastic T connectors to fit the current hoses. I'd need to cut the current hoses, fit the connector and run the smaller feed and return lines to the center radiator. I'll just need to make sure I have the right diameter T connector to ensure a tight seal. Once I do some more reading and figure out a solution I'll post an update on the install. More to come...

The turbo pipes are not going to work for you, the aluminum hard lines are different. You want the C4S parts.

Thanks for the tip @theprf I did look at the C4S parts as well but I still think it won't work. Looking at the Pelican site the center radiator kit they offer for a C4S for example ( https://www.pelicanparts.com/More_In...=684&DID=62612 ) has the hoses that feed the center radiator that still don't have the correct ending for the side radiator and the shape is slightly different. Maybe I'm missing something. This is one of the hose that runs from the aluminum hard line and connects to the radiator. Notice the two ends are different. The rubber end gets clamped to the alu line and the other is secured with the retention clip. The below is a hose that is included in the 40AE and C4S center radiator kit. It clearly is different as both ends are all rubber and there isn't a way to secure it on the radiator side with the retention clip. Despite that, the site says the kit fits the car, although I don't always trust that claim.

Bro I love your write ups, perfect every damn time.

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Thanks cuz! Can't do average around here

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We gotta figure out a central location and have a big group meet up.

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ViR....just saying

C4S uses Turbo radiators so the hose must be correct, if it is actually a C4S part. Have you got the part#? I believe that it does not go from the aluminum pipe to the radiator. It goes from one aluminum pipe to another aluminum pipe and the branch gets yet another aluminum pipe. Those fittings on the Turbo radiators are called Henn connectors. The Turbo center radiator also uses Henn connectors, just smaller ones. I have to take the front bumper off my Turbo tomorrow to clean out the radiators so I can take some pictures then.

I hope you're still interested in this because it is complicated. Also I don't know the configuration of the 40th cars. Obviously you have a Turbo bumper, so I am assuming you have Turbo left and right radiators. I believe the 40th is an awd car so you should have similar front to rear aluminum pipes. So what happens is the aluminum pipes from the engine split into a Y shape in the space behind the steering rack. This is the passenger's side, easier to see. The aluminum pipe from the engine is just visible and the yellow line is that splitter hose you linked above. The left radiator has a hose that crosses under the car with the red L arrow. The splitter hose dumps into two aluminum pipes. The one labeled red R goes to the right radiator, the one labeled red C follows along the inside of the frame rail and gets a short hose to attach to the center radiator. The blue R aluminum pipe crosses under the car. The driver's side is harder to see. The aluminum pipe from the right radiator has a short joiner hose above the steering rack and connects to the inboard leg of the Y, the blue R. The yellow squiggle is another of those splitter hoses which dump out into two aluminum pipes - the blue L goes to the left radiator and the center radiator can't be seen behind the frame rail. The center radiator aluminum pipe here also has a short hose on the end to attach to the center radiator. The red L pipe comes under the car in front of the steering rack. So to duplicate the Turbo setup you'll need to see what hose is installed in place of the splitter hoses and if it could be replaced with the turbo/C4S hoses. The you'll need to source both center radiator aluminum pipes and short hoses. I sort of doubt that's going to be practical or cost effective. Here's the parts list: Right side splitter Y hose: 996-106-728-72 Right side aluminum pipe to center rad: 996-106-730-71 Right side short hose to center rad: 996-106-638-73 Left side splitter Y hose: 996-106-724-72 Left side aluminum pipe to center rad: 996-106-725-71 Left side short hose to center rad: 996-106-639-73 Additionally some O-rings and clamps, etc for hoses. Assorted clips to hold pipes to the frame rails. If you don't have the brackets etc. those are: Exhaust air duct: 996-575-151-01 Intake air duct: 996-575-141-30 Intake air duct attachment strip: 996-575-761-00 Pop rivet for attachment strip: 999-190-419-30 (need 6, I used stainless M3 bolts and nylock nuts instead) Lower radiator bracket 996-504-493-00 Upper radiator bracket: 996-504-495-00 Speed nuts attachment to car: 999-591-869-02 (need 4) Bolts attachment to car: 900-378-074-09 (need 4) Speed nuts bracket assembly: 999-507-550-02 (need 2) Bolts bracket assembly: 900-378-036-09 (need 2) Grommet for radiator: 930-113-430-00 (need 4)

In reply to my note above, all I can say is that the parts list diagrams appear to be incomplete or incorrect. The same part# pipe is used on the Turbo and the C4S to cross under the car and it's shown bent differently in each diagram. I am not at all sure what parts are used on the NA cars that use the Turbo radiators. I can say that if the situation looks like the pictures I posted the parts list will work.

@theprf - Thanks so much for taking the time to look into this and document it! Always appreciate your technical "know how" on these cars. Few things to clarify here.... The 40AE cars are a bit of an odd ball and sometimes feel like a parts bin special (not necessarily a bad thing) so things get confusing. I can confirm that the side radiators are the same as Turbo as I cross referenced the part numbers previously. Having said that, they are NOT AWD like Turbo or C4S cars so that's where the differences will come from. It's essentially a narrow body C2 with Turbo front bumper and radiators. Their logic behind it seemed to be to provide additional cooling along the side of the X51 package that bumped the HP to 345. I'll pull the front wheels tomorrow when I wash it to better document this - pictures speak a thousand words. I do have a potential game plan in mind that I'll share soon but it may require some customization. I did purchase the 2 hoses that come with the pelican kit that I may be able to use - 996-106-666-56-M100 & 996-106-665-58-OEM . Since I just rolled over 105k miles it was also time for an oil change. Since I had some extra time and felt a bit frisky I decided to pull the UIDS as it's been 11 months and 10k miles since I installed it. I thought I'd also play around with the borescope. I love the fact that I didn't have to screw around with a sealant when putting it back together and then spiking future UOA numbers. Didn't find anything in the sump �\_(ツ)_/� Everything looked good to my eyes. The scoring marks on the wheels looked concerning at first but upon closer inspection, the surface underneath looks perfect with no marks and looking at the photos I took during the install the marks were also there. Seems like they were there from production and felt smooth to the touch. Nothing in the screens either. Nothing to see here. I've been using the LN magnetic plug which had just a thin layer of some "dirt". Didn't seem abnormal from what I've seen before. The rubber gasket did a great job keeping things sealed and I did not experience any leaks. It has flattened out slightly but no leaks this morning. Went out for a brief drive to get some gas after. Ran into a nice guy named Rob with his 87 Carrera cab. Next thing you know we're talking about valve adjustments and oiling systems and 30 minutes has gone buy. Porsche owners are a different breed.

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It is interesting that the parts catalog specifies a center radiator for either the X51 or the M249 Tiptronic cars. Yet the 40th doesn't have a center radiator. I suppose with the Turbo radiators, which are 50% bigger than the Carerra radiators the factory did not feel it was needed. I would think that you will have no problems with the side radiators only. I see this is going to be a tricky install. I think it could be done with 997 hoses; without the car here to try them out I cannot be sure of that.

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I agree that some of the info out there is inconsistent. It's possible that standard Carreras with X51 could have the center radiator added on but after discussing this topic a good deal with folks in our 40AE registry the consensus seems to be that our cars did not come with the center radiator from factory. For the 997 Porsche made some changes, one of them with the hoses. Both ends have the Henn connectors you've mentioned so it wouldn't work here. Another thing I noticed is that on the Turbo radiators, the hoses connect on the side that is closer to the wheel, while the standard smaller radiators have the connecting point on the other end. After doing some more digging here is what I found: For reference, here is how things would typically connect on a regular C2: Below are photos of my passenger side wheel well and coolant lines: You can see that the hard lines are essentially the same and the main difference is that Henn connectors are used on the radiator side and are situated on the opposite side of the radiator body in comparison to a standard one. In order to make this work I should be able to replicate what the hoses for a standard C2 accomplish by cutting the lower hose (on the passenger side in this illustration, upper hose on driver side) and inserting a coolant compatible T fitting that will then connect to the center radiator via a skinnier hose. This should work with a T fitting like below. I'd just need to make sure that the diameter is correct and the hose will fit tightly so it can be secured with a clamp. I think that's the most straight forward approach that should work here. I'm essentially routing the coolant to an additional location via correct lines and there are no additional switches or sensors that are in play here. As long as I can have it all nice and tight with no chance for leaks we should be in business. Let me know your thoughts but I think this seems like a good plan. I haven't seen this done before on a 40AE car so all for being the guinee pig. Someone's got to try it first! We did have one guy in the registry convert his front end to the GT3 bumper and while adding a center radiator, however, he replaced the stock side ones with smaller C2 radiators.

The left and right Turbo radiators fit exactly as yours do. For the 997 Turbo Porsche flipped the side radiators and the connections are closer to the center of the car. The side radiators are symmetrical which is why I though that perhaps flipping your radiators and using 997 Turbo hoses would work. The 997 front radiator hose configuration is far simpler than the 996. Of course that would require the Turbo center radiator with Henn connections as well. If you could figure out the part#'s of the hoses that attach to your radiators perhaps I could do some more research. The part# should be printed on your hoses somewhere.

I am closely watching this as I think it may have some real pertinence to my upcoming problem of getting the turbo radiators working on my car. Thanks to both of you guys for so thoroughly covering the work here.

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Those are good points! Since I already went through the motions of getting the 996 center radiator kit with hoses (here is a link with all part numbers https://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin...ator-parts.htm ), I don't think I want to try to get the 997 center radiator route as for it to work nicely without any modifications I'd still need the 997 side radiators. That's additional cost and complication. They have separate plugged ports to feed the center radiator. It's a much better design and makes the install super easy. It's also much cheaper than the 996 one but I was able to source my parts individually and save a lot of cash. I went ahead and got some measurements of the 996 hoses and coolant pipes to figure out what size T fitting I'd need to make it all work. The coolant pipe to which the radiator hose attaches is ~32.31mm in width. The pipe is the same size on both ends so I just measured where I had easy access. The outside of the stock hose that attaches to that pipe is ~40.63mm By comparison, the hose that is part of the 996 kit has an outer width of 41.63mm, which is essentially the same. 1mm difference which is normal due to one being 20yo and other new. The inside of that hose is 32.72mm which is inline with the diameter of the coolant hard pipe at 32.31mm. What this tells me is that the T fitting that will work must be able to accept a hose of that size. Finally, the skinnier hose that leads from the T fitting to the connecting point on the center radiator has an inner width of 21.13mm, so the T fitting must be able to accept that size. The connection to the 996 center radiator is secured by normal worm style clamps and not a Henn connector like on the 996. After a quick search, I think the Dorman Coolant connector part 627-006 will work here. It's an Audi / WV part, so kind of in the family! The larger connectors are 1.35in or 34.29mm, which is very close to 32.72mm of a new hose and I think should fit just fine. The smaller exit port is .87in or 22.1mm, again right in line with the 21.13mm on the new hose. The game plan would be to buy 2 of those T fittings and insert them into the current hoses that feed the center radiators (1 for each radiator) and then feed the center radiator from there.

Those look rather suspiciously like the coolant T's that are behind the engine on my Cayenne Turbo - and which seem to shrink, crack, and blow apart after a few years. Perhaps keeping it away from engine heat will help them survive longer. Most Cayenne guys replace them with aluminum T's sourced from a place called "Jags that run" in England. Although the aluminum T's that I got leaked at the side fitting so perhaps not a perfect solution.

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Thanks for pointing that out! I'll keep an eye on them but since they will be upfront I'm not as concerned. There is other plastic there that's been fine. It will be nestled in the hose mostly which is right behind a radiator fan and a vented wheel liner so the temps should not be as high as near the engine. I'll order 2x and continue to update as I make progress.

Center radiator update. Cliff notes = got it working! In depth info = read on. After some more planning and few parts collected I took advantage of no work on monday to get this all hooked up. The goal was to DIY your own hoses to plumb up the center radiator as the OEM hoses for a regular 996 would not work for a 40AE car. I started by pulling the front pumper and front wheel liners. The cool thing about the ones on the 40AE is that they have exhaust vents which aid in cooling. I've seen some people make cut out on theirs to help with it. I got the center radiator back off (I had it attached in it's place for fitment and planning) and test fitted the hose that will run from the radiator to the T fitting. I was able to get the hose from my local AutoZone and the fitment was tight but right kind of tight. This will be secured with a worm clamp. The hose also fit in the same way onto my T fitting so success on both ends so far. Next I started to remove the stock hoses from the radiators that will need to be modified and drained some coolant. Probably a little over a gallon total came out. The T fitting was the perfect size for the oem hose connecting the aluminum pipe to the radiator. Next I marked up the hose to figure out where I'll need to cut it to insert the T fitting into. Did this on both sides. The adage of measure twice cut once applies here as I didn't want to goof up the good and probably expensive hoses. They have some curvature in places so it was important to install the T fittings in a straight area and avoid potential leaks. Next step was to attach both hoses to the center radiator and do a soft install to route the hoses and estimate the location of the T fittings. I did need to slightly bend the horn bracket to create some extra room and not have anything touching. On the passenger side, the radiator connects to the lower side radiator hose. It routes nice and clean on that side with no binding or excessive bends. Coolant flow is not affected there. The driver side demands a bit more attention as the side radiator hose to which I'll be connecting is the top one. There is a nice opening in the plastic panel to route the hose through but I knew it will require some modification as it seemed like it will create too much bend in that smaller hose and potentially compromise flow. Extending that opening will allow the hose to have a smoother path and prevent this from happening. Because I'm apparently glutton for punishment and work on my car is 90+ degree weather I had a beer brake or two before cutting up my hoses because that order seemed right to me. From there I starting cutting hoses after measuring everything twice and began to test fit things before fully connecting everything. The goal was to have the hoses not bind up and run through a clear path that wouldn't contact anything they shouldn't. Passenger side fit great. Driver side came out well too. Could have been slightly closer to the right but it still looked good. Once splitting the hoses you do need to cut out a tad more of each one to compensate for the T fitting. If you don't do this then the hose will be too long and won't fit well. Those old oem side radiator hoses looked perfect inside after 20 years fwiw. After the test fit on both sides I started to connect everything with clamps and cleaned up the hoses. Below is the passenger side. Driver side. Here you can see the enlarged cut out I did to ensure the hose has a smooth path and does not bind up. I cleaned up the edges with a dremel after. It's all plastic so went like butter. View from below before the bumper went on. There is ample space where the center radiator will vent to under the car. With the bumper on, this is still wide open. The center radiator I used is the OEM Porsche part that I picked up cheap second hand. It was in great condition and included the plastic shroud and all mounting brackets. View from the front once everything was connected. From there on, I lowered the car, started it up and began to add coolant and bleed it via the bleeder valve. After a few minutes of idling and a few light revs to get things going, the coolant started to get sucked into the new larger system. I ended up adding about a gallon and half back in as the car idled. After a bit of time I shut things down and checked for leaks but there were none. From there on I buttoned things back up and got the car ready for a test drive. I grabbed another gallon of coolant and went on a 40ish mile drive. I left the bleeder valve open to get rid of any residual air in the system. Bleeding via the valve was super easy and I had zero issues. During the drive the temps stayed in check with zero leaks of any kind. I wasn't expecting any dramatic changes but this modification will definitely add cooling capacity for hot track days and other spirited driving during summer. Also, modding cars is fun! I'm also curious to see what oil temps will look like when stuck in city traffic. I noticed that the temps can go up a tad and heat soak when coming to a stop in the summer while in traffic. Overall, this wasn't too difficult but it did take some planning to get things right. Now I have 2 center radiator hoses for a regular 996 that I need to return or sell so let me know if you want them.

Nice Pete. Congrats on getting it done.

Time for a 6 month update.... After fixing the minor leak post the center radiator custom install all has been well and no more leaks. Temps have been fine as well, although I have not been pushing the car to the point where I'd see it make a difference. That will come later. Keeping with the saying, f*ck around, find out, it was time to take a quick look at my spark plugs and inspect the bores with the borescope....and boy, did I find out! The oil consumption has been steady for 3 years now and has stayed at right around 1L in 600 miles average, which Porsche says is in spec, surprisingly. Sometimes a bit more and sometimes a bit less. The car never showed any other signs of bore scoring and all preemptive steps have been done to try to mitigate it. I recall Charles from LN mention something about an old TSB where some engines had a lower tension oil control rings, which could potentially lead to some oil burning. Yet another theory I can add to the bucket. All bores seemed to look very good and the piston tops were very clean after running Redline Si1 in the tank. All looked good until I got to cylinder 6 (I think it was). Get a load of this.... After several double takes, cleaning off the lens on the scope and some WTFs it looks like we have a problem, Huston. I'm unable to point to a particular event or time that would lead me to think something like that might have occurred. The engine has been running perfectly fine with no noise or anything that would indicate that a loose object was in the cylinder bore. I'm sure I would hear something. I took a few photos and reached out to both of my mechanics and few other folks much smarter than me that have seen things over their time working on P cars. Looking at the photo, you see the bottom part of the piston, clearly with a small chunk missing and indentations that seem to be somewhat similar in shape. Whatever was in there was now gone too. Any visible damage was also limited to what you see in the photo. The rest of the piston looked normal. Some of the guesses I received were: one of the prongs of the spark plug broke off - nope because the spark plug was completely intact; Something was ingested through the intake - perhaps but the intake has not been apart since I did the UAOS install and I don't remember seeing this during my previous bore inspection; Broken valve - maybe but the engine would definitely loose some power and compression, which has not been the case; Valve seat separated and fell in - that's the most probable guess although I have never heard of anything like that before; broken piston ring - maybe but not sure how the ring would brake, come loose out of the groove in the piston and work its way upwards through the tiny clearance. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and had I not performed my typical inspection I would have had no clue this occurred and just gone about my business with the car. It's a little ironic that in the world where the IMS, bore scoring, intermix or AOS can take my engine out this is what I got served up with �\_(ツ)_/� So what's next? I've been driving the car, albeit not as hard but it still gets driven. About 3 weeks ago or so I pulled the plugs again and things looked pretty similar, just with more carbon build up on the top of the piston. The car has been running the same as it always has. Evaluating my options I could either: 1) leave things as they are and use the car normally and preform regular maintenance as I have. I would stay off the track though. 2) New short block from Porsche and get that swapped out and 3) Full rebuild. Because the delta in terms of cost between the last 2 options is actually not that great when all said and done, I decided to go with a full rebuild. This is not a car I intend to track a lot but I would like to do 2-3 HPDE days a year for fun and knowing that the engine could go boom and have the costs get significantly higher didn't sit well with me. As they say, it always runs best right before it blows up. After carefully considering my options and what the costs will be I elected to work with Brandon at Slakker Racing Development and a deposit was put down this week to get my spot in line. We will be utilizing the Hartech 4.1L cylinders with nikasil plating as well as matching pistons. Hartech actually has Capricorn as their manufacturer for the pistons and cylinders and is said to be equivalent to a Mahle Motorsport or better. The piston is a Hartech design that is suitable for street and endurance racing applications. Besides the displacement upgrade, this will be a somewhat of a mild build. Speaking with Brandon, I expressed that my primary objective is reliability and not horsepower. I'm sure I'll be seeing a decent bump in power but for my use case, eeking out every possible HP is not important here. Crazy, I know, but with these cars, and how I plan to use mine, getting into the neighborhood 370ish will provide me with all the kicks I need. If it's more, awesome, but I don't want to throw more money at it to get an extra 20hp. We will also be using the X51 intake manifold that should help here for sure. The way I have been thinking of the car is "what if a GT3 Touring version of a 996 existed". As I have more information and photos I'll be posting some more updates. When this is all said and done, I plan to fly out to Oklahoma, check out the whole operation and drive back to DC. Should be a great road trip and a great way to get some break-in miles in! More to come....

Man, one of my biggest fears, but I think that was a PO nightmare as thats why mine is currently a 3.8. He did the overbore during the rebuild process. Do you get to 4.1 from just a bigger bore? Still weird how that may have happened. Bummed, but you seem to have a good attitude about it.

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Yeah it's a bit of a bummer but I like the car enough to keep it going. Actually, I've been driving the **** out of the car for the last 3 years racking up about 30k miles so at least I'm not in a situation where it's been sitting and now I need to drop more money into it. Basically, getting good value out of the investment so far. And yes, it is my understanding that the increase in displacement will come from the new larger sleeves that will be installed once the block is bored out. They will come with matching pistons and rings so everything plays nice together. I'm actually quite curious to see what Brandon finds once he rips into the block.

What a great thread, barring of course your last update. The journey you and your car have been on is impressive. While knowing relatively little about them, I have always liked the 40th Jar cars and like you felt they were the precursor to the later generation GTS cars. I have the mechanical aptitude of a drunk butterfly so, as a checkbook mechanic, I marvel at what you and others have accomplished. Perhaps I missed it, but how long do you expect your car to be out of commission while the motor is rebuilt? I've been getting re-invested in the 996 forum of late and have read quite a few of the massive threads surrounding owners, their cars, and their builds. In years past there seemed to be more focus on what color tire valve stem caps than anything of substantive value. It's nice to see the shift in the focus of the forum. BTW, we are actually somewhat neighbors. I'm in the Shepard Park area of DC. I've got 99 996 as a track car and have been active in the local PCA Potomac chapter for quite some time. Hopefully we can catch up (especially at the track) at some point. I'd love to get a ride in your car once it is broken in. I've never been in any of the 3.8+ 996s.

Damn Pete that piston looks bad. After the build, your car will be one of the most sorted out of all the 40th anniversary models.

Man, that picture made a pit in my stomach for you. Does seem likely to have been a PO mistake as I'm thinking that damage would have created a noticeable racket until whatever was in there was ejected. Good luck my guy !

If the damage is from PO time and you have amassed 30K+ miles on it in 3 years, that damage to the top of the piston is not likely to cause issues. Yes, it will be a hot spot on the crown, and there is surely some mirror image damage on the top of the head - but again - after 3 years and 30K miles (if existed pre-purchase) - but I think you said you did previous bore inspection and did not have the damage? If so - how long ago was that inspection? -Tom

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Thanks! And I feel like I might have seen your car around town...happy to connect any time so shoot me a PM. Also, love the drunk butterfly analogy I genuinely enjoy wrenching on cars and detailing. It's a pretty satisfying process...until something brakes or the blow torch and a hammer needs to come out Since I just made the deposit, that should have gotten me into the queue with Brandon. I'll continue to drive the car until it's my turn. No promises around timeline have been made yet but if I'm back on the road sometime in spring or early summer I'll be happy as a clam. Yeah...I actually might ask Brandon if I can keep it as a paper weight hah. The car number is 1111 so I have no choice but to make it great Thanks man! One of those things that you can't really unsee. Could have been the PO but I doubt it. That said, this engine has always been a bit of a russian roulette in terms of its past so whatever was done to it previously decided to stick its ugly head out now. But hey, I'm still enjoying those Ohlins! Tom - all good points. Last time I pulled the plugs was on Aug 6th, 2022. I discovered the piston damage on Sept 18th, 2023, so whatever happened, happened during that time period. There was one track day, a HPDC in early March of 2023 but the car ran fine during with zero issues. Being the intro to track driving there was only about 3 or so 20 minute hot lap sessions. Rest was skills practice. So yeah, I could probably keep driving and maybe be fine but I'd need to dial things back and hope I don't get to see the internal through a nice window on the side of the block that happened to appear. If that happened, it would take this experience from a bit of a sucker punch in the stomach to a sucker punch quickly followed by a swift kick in the nuts. Did not want to do there!

That's quite a picture! I've heard that carbon chunks can be pretty dense, I wonder if a chunk broke loose from a valve face or stem...? The only other real source would be something in the intake, which would have been post air cleaner, and most likely a piece of something already in there -- and I'm having a hard time coming up with something like that. A setscrew from the throttle body?

I have seen similar things happen on boosted cars when the mixture gets so rich that gases under the 1st compression ring explode, which chunks the piston like that. The dents are probably from the missing chunk before it exited through the exhaust. I have never seen pistons blown up like that on NA cars, I don't think it is possible to get the mixture rich enough at high cylinder pressures. So I would guess it's a piece of the valve seat that has come adrift.

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I guess there is a first time for everything! Perhaps we will know more once Brandon rips into the block. I have also heard of things like that on turbocharged cars. Part of me has me thinking and wondering if it was the valve seat and if so if this happened at startup. Valve seat comes loose and falls into the combustion chamber -> few initial revolutions of the engine smash it up causing what we all saw -> and then everything exits via exhaust. My reasoning for that is that the damage is localized to the very bottom of the piston only. I imagine if something was knocking about in there for longer we would see those marks all over the top of the piston �\_(ツ)_/�

It's definitely not a screw/bolt, there are no thread impressions on the piston, I have seen what it looks like when a screw falls into the combustion chamber, and you can clearly see the threads.. All Holley 4 barrel carbs were bad about the center screw falling out .Back in the day of "Carbs" lol...If you had a factory dual plane intake , the screw couldn't fall into the intake, but if you had a single plane,medium rise, or high rise intake, they were open in the center and the screw would fall right into the cylinder. I have seen it many times..most people who had been around a while always left that center screw out because they were so bad about vibrating loose and falling into the engine..Those screws are pretty big to and would beat the hell out of the top of the piston..I had a friend who had built a Round Tracker to race at BIR, a 400 SB with a Victor Jr intake, had the screw fall out about 1/4 way through the season and beat up the piston pretty bad before it blew out the exhaust,, it bent the spark plug and started missing is how he found it ,but didn't pinch the top ring ,so put a new spark plug in and kept racing it all season and won the championship.... .

I can't see that being a valve seat coming loose, the engine would run terrible if that were the case. Ah yes, the classic screw falling out... this would happen on the Schrick VR6 variable geometry intakes. Schrick uses a rotating flap that is very much like the throttle plate in a Holley, screwed to a shaft. Those screws would unscrew and since they are just above the runners for #3 and #4 the screw was guaranteed to cause much carnage. The Schrick VGI and closely related VWMS VSR are the first application of a variable intake that I know of, dating to 1992.

Agree with the above regarding valve seat. You could try a bore scope with a mirror attachment to look at the head or find a shop that have an endoscope with a controllable camera to inspect the cilinder head

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I did try that but it was pretty tough to get a good picture and I was only good enough to get a mediocre image of one of the two exhaust valves, assuming it was an exhaust valve. To what theprf mentioned, the car should have been running poorly, which it has not so who knows. Even the compression numbers looked pretty even across the board. At this point, the wheels for the rebuild are in motion so I guess we will see what Brandon finds once he starts to take the engine apart. For now anyone's guess is as good as mine

I am wondering if that piston damage hasn't been there all along......covered up by carbon deposits.....and why it wasn't seen in the previous inspection but became visible after cleaning the piston tops with the Redline product .... BTW : that product did a very good job of cleaning the piston crown....

So I found a 2004 40th anniversary 911 with 90K miles for $39K. 3-owner vehicle, Carfax is clean and service records from 2009-present. Service by reputable porsche independent shop. The IMS had been done by LN Engineering-certified shop, RMS, Clutch, Plugs, Catalytic Converter, Fuel Pump and PPI came back good. Some minor things here and there like scratched front lip, one horn inoperable but nothing major. Engine, Suspension all in great shape. No leaks, etc. Paint meter readings are good. Would buying this be a smart idea? (If anyone has some extra tips or advice that would be greatly appreciated!)

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Fixed it for ya

Quotes source post: 19182589

Best advice is to start your own thread.

Soooo 2024 is off to a start. Not the greatest one though. On my way back from a New Year's Day gravel ride I got a little too close and personal with a deer. Driving at a normal speed, as I went around a blind corner, a deer bolted across the road. When I saw it I slammed on the brakes but it was too late by that point. I didn't see it till it was already on the road as it's coat was pretty much the same color as the dead vegetation. According to my dash cam, it first hit my driver side fender, caught air, hit the windshield and flew over the top taking off my bike. No blood and no deer. It probably ran off and either lived or will die somewhere due to whatever it broke. So this kind of sucks..... Damage seems to be the following: windshield trashed, driver side fender seems to have a small dent that PDR can probably fix, driver side mirror - completely ripped off, Driver door glass seems to have a deep scratch in it either from the deer or the mirror flying off. Feel lucky that the headlight survived just fine. The bike is mostly ok, save for the carbon handlebars that are trashed. Actually, had it not been for the SeaSucker bike mount, the damage probably would have been worse to the car and bike. Here is the damage: I opened a case with Geico already and will work with their adjuster. They allow you to choose your own shop so hopefully this will be easy. I have two local shops recommended to me to get this repaired. Any tips re. windshields are appreciated! 2 years ago I got hit by a car (hit and run) on Jan 2nd and now this. Something tells me I should stay inside rest of the month.

Damn man well I�m glad you�re unscathed. He damage looks very fixable.

Sorry about the deer and car. It could have been much worse. A long time ago I got a crack in my windshield from a rock on the freeway. Brought it into the Porsche dealer and they had safelite replace the windshield. May still be an option.

Dang, all things considered thats actually not too bad!

Geeezuuusss !! Was it a Buck or a Doe ?

Yeah, definitely could have been worse. Just so happens, a neighbor around the corner that has been eyeing my car ended up buying a 40AE of his own after driving mine so we have 2 on the block now. He recommended a shop so hope to have this fixed sooner than later. The deer looked like a youngster. Screen grab from my dash cam.

Yikes! Glad you're okay. I'd push for factory glass. Also replace the windshield surround pieces while you're doing the job. Those trim pieces require the windshield to be removed in order to replace them, and they're 20 years old.

Sucks dude. They're everywhere. Best of luck on a hopefully uneventful repair.

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Ouch. I've been there. Make sure you pick a Porsche approved shop as they will use OEM panels for the repair. My damages amounted to over $14K.

Dang! That sucks. Glad you're okay. Wow, does that deer ever blend in to the bush like you said!

Quotes source posts: 19197373, 19198228, 18346225, 19198262

Thanks! That's a good call out on the trim. Last thing I want is some wind noise or leaks since that stuff has seen plenty of heat cycles in the sun. Yikes! I don't think I'm anywhere near $14k but we will see what the adjuster says. I have two good shop recommendations. One of the is used by a local dealership. It was suggested to me to get quotes for the job paid in cash and via insurance. Might be a good time for a few minor touch ups but the overall paint is in great condition. Yeah, no kidding! I didn't see it till it was on the road.

Finally back in action! Car is looking great as if nothing ever happened. The body shop I worked with did great. All factory glass was used as well as new OEM side mirror assembly, which was a PITA to source and what delayed everything the most. Apparently they called 30 dealerships in the country and finally scored NOS in San Diego. We could have gone with a used unit but they didn't want to take a chance with missing bits. I starred at the car in bright sun and later on and could not see that paint was done, which means the shop did a great job. They said the lighter metallic paints are quite easy to blend for them and they see a lot of cars from the Porsche dealership, which is a block away. Come spring time, I'll repaint the lip again and will re-coat the car with a new ceramic coating. For now, I need to find some time to give it a good clean as plenty of the shop dust got into places. While the car was at the body shop, I made my way to LA, after a SKO trip in Vegas, and was able to meet up with some great folks, including @2mAn and get some great driving in. Because LA just plain brakes when it rains, my 50 minute flight was delayed by about 5-6 hours getting me to LA around 1am on Friday. A friend of mine let me use his 997.1 Carrera S which was a hoot in the canyons. So with about 4 hours of sleep I hit the road to meet up with a bunch of the locals to roll up to the Good Vibes Breakfast Club, which was a fantastic experience and the meet up an awesome time overall. Got to chat with Jonnie Lieberman a bit about the new GT3RS and met a whole lot of other awesome people. Off-roading in snow in a Cayenne Turbo was a riot. Amazing time. After the meet-up ended I went and drove a bunch of the canyons around the Angeles Forest for a few hours. Proper drive therapy. Here are some photos from the day: When the weather turned ****, I ended up paying another visit to the Peterson Museum. The Vault is very much worth the extra cost. Some photos from that visit: I'm inching closer to my turn for the engine rebuild. No specific date yet but Brandon mentioned that they will be ready for my car soon so I suspect #1111 is getting shipped to Oklahoma in the next few weeks! From there on, it's party time! Having spent 2 days in the 997 Carrera S with the 3.8L, I'm very excited to feel the 4.1L motor. More to come...

plpete84, it occurred to me that there is another local (Silver Spring, MD) with a Slakker motor. He went 4.1L. I'm not sure if you've reached out to him or not. On Rennlist he goes by steveP911. He's got an active thread in the Racing & DE Forum about goals for this season. His car is a 997.1 and he's a friendly guy. I am sure could give some feedback on his Slakker motor and how the process went. Just FYSA.

@KJinDC Yes, I've been following Steve's thread very closely but haven't reached out to him yet. Even though we will both end up with a 4.1L, our builds have somewhat different goals so it's been very interesting and educational to follow along his journey. It will be cool to have 2 of these motors rolling around the DMV If I recall, I think Steve is also planning to drive his car back home so I'll be curious to see what routes he takes and how everything unfolds.

I am probably mistaken, but I assumed his build was complete. I do not really know him. I met him once briefly at Summit point last year. Glad you're tracking and definitely will be nice to have two big bore motors locally. I know another guy who has a Jake Raby 3.8 in his 996.2 that is local as well. He's another track junky that I see at Summit frequently. What are the differing goals, if you don't mind sharing? Can always hit me on PM if I am knocking your post off topic.

All good - happy to discuss anything pertaining to the car. Following Steve's thread, it seems like much of the long block has been completed so I wouldn't be surprised if his build is in the final stages of completion. Because his engine build is mainly for use in a track car, from what I read, I believe he's working with Brandon to get as much dependability and power out of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they will test a few bits and see what they dyno numbers show which might add a bit to the time, I don't know. Either way, it's looking like a fantastic project! As for my build being different....track car and squeezing out the most power is not the priority for me. When speaking with Brandon, I shared that I wanted a bullet proof (yeah I know that term is a bit silly) motor that I can rip around twisty roads, do 2, maybe 3 HPDE days just for fun and the experience but also feel comfortable and doing a long multi-day road trip. I don't really have the time and desire personally to chase lap times but I do enjoy driving and driving hard. I kind of want the car to reflect a 996 version of something between a GTS and GT3 touring. With what Brandon will do to the engine + the UIDS I already have + Turbo sized rads and center rad, I have zero doubts that the car will be able to handle what I throw at it. For a while I actually considered doing a stock displacement rebuild but the upcharge to 4.1L was not that great in the grand scheme of things so I would be crazy not to do it.

The gears have started slowly turning! Last Thursday, the car was picked up by an enclosed trailer and off she went to Brandon and the team at Slakker. Today, I got a confirmation that the car arrived in Oklahoma at Slakker Racing HQ. I've never shipped a car anywhere but working with the team it was a pretty smooth affair. They even provided a GPS tracking info which was nice. Pretty excited to get this started and curious to see what Brandon uncovers as he rips into the engine. I'll post updates as things progress and I know more!

Exciting times! I just got my car back from a motor rebuild. I kept my motor stock since I club race the car occasionally, but it was fun driving it with the fresh motor. Looking forward to your updates. I'll see @steveP911 car, with his new Slakker motor, this weekend at Summit. If you're free come up and meet the PCA Potomac 996s in attendance. There will be at least 4 that I know of attending the first DE of the season.

Quotes source post: 19340112

Congrats on the newly built motor! Did you have that done locally? I'd love to join but this weekend might be tough. Saturday looks pretty rainy and the 996 is actually my only car. I don't really need a daily living where I do in DC and my neighbor is a total legend for letting me use his car when needed. Don't want to abuse his kindness though! Definitely down to meet up at some point, however.

Quotes source post: 19341594

I am sure we will catch up at some point when your car gets back. Yes, I had the rebuild done locally. Any questions about the rebuild, hit me with a PM but my build back to stock isn't exciting like all of these big motor builds going on. Saturday looks like a nasty day to be outside for sure. Sunday should be much nicer. As a volunteer I am lucky to get some track time on Friday with the rest of the volunteers, so I should get 2 decent days to break the car in for the season.

Looks like the wrenches at Slakker have started turning! To my surprise, I got a text sharing a few photos which have confirmed that moving forward with the rebuild was a smart idea. Below you can see piston #4. Jury is still out on what the heck was in there. As the tear down continues maybe they will find something or maybe it just shot out the exhaust. But if that happened, wouldn't it get stopped at the cat? We will see. Either way, looking at the photo it doesn't look like the piston chipped very deep but that's like saying "I got stabbed but the knife only went in half an inch". My guess is that this event started the scoring on the piston skirt and the cylinder bore. Looking at both they seem to look pretty healthy outside of the afflicted area. The top of the head also has markings from whatever smashed up in there. I was told that after the initial inspection the valve train looks fine but the heads will be cleaned and inspected in more detail soon. After my manic and ocd maintenance regiment over the years, I'm curious to see what the rest of the bores look like. More to come...

Yes, something harder than aluminum went through that cylinder, could have been from way back. Didn't this just get uncovered/discovered after you cleaned the carbon from the pistons? If you still have the original cats, you may be able to shake what ever it was out of them...and get it analyzed...

Skip - once the pistons got cleaned up that's when I was able to see it. Not sure how long it's been there. I still have the stock cats so can check but not sure if I'll find anything. Need to get these recycled somewhere and get some $$$!

Quotes source post: 19351723

I have seen, and we just had another case where the cats themselves were coming apart and a piece got blown back into the cylinder or under the exhaust valve from back-presure/reversion....You may want to use the borescope to inspect the conditions of the original cats to see if they are breaking apart, Do a little forensics on them...

@plpete84 Looking forward to seeing your results after your 4.1 build with Slakker! They are delivering some impressive and solid builds. Should be a blast starting with an x51 car and pushing it to 4.1- great choice while you�re in there! Please share some numbers after

More photos are trickling in which means that the rebuild is progressing forward, step by step. Here is the problem child. The coating actually looks pretty decent outside of the affected area. That said, I was surprised this didn't show up as some sort of spike on my UOA. Either bigger particles not caught or very small ones over longer period of time. Either way, I'll be holding onto that piston as a souvenir. #6 with some of the coating starting to wear off. The bearing is also showing wear on one of the pieces. This is the theme across all of them. I presume this is somewhat normal, as there is going to be wear given mileage and good that it looked pretty consistent across all connecting rods. Outside of the cylinder #4, the rest of the bores actually look pretty decent. No other major scoring. Today, I got an update that the heads and valves are getting some attention. There were some indentations on the top at cylinder #4 but Brandon thinks that it should clean up nicely once we skim the head surface. Overall, happy with the process and progress so far. Communication and response time has been great, which I appreciate, especially as Brandon and the team have their hands full with multiple rebuilds going on. We might upgrade the injectors once they are tested to 997 ones to better support the 4.1L displacement. 996 ones can work but have shown some tendencies to create lean situations so we will address that soon. Additionally, new springs on the intake side will most likely go in as they have slightly dropped off after being tested. Exhaust ones are looking good. More to come...

Things are moving along with the build and should be really picking up over the next 2 weeks! Brandon sent over a few shots of the case halves showing the old cylinders machined out and with the new ones installed. I like seeing how the sausage is made so appreciate this kind of stuff. The little bit of a hit that the head took from whatever the heck was in cylinder 4 was addressed by skimming the surface and staying within their specs. The new cylinders are in and this means only one thing...the assembly process is scheduled to start today! With the assembly kicking off, I was able to confirm the completion date with Brandon and have booked a flight to Oklahoma City for May 10th. From there, it's off to Dallas to visit a good friend and will start the road trip back home on Sunday. Tentative plan is: - Day 1 = Dallas to Memphis - Day 2 = Memphis to Knoxville - Day 3 = Knoxville to start of Blue Ridge Parkway -> Skyline Drive -> DC This is subject to change and I'm open to any suggestions, especially around good roads, cool stuff to see along the way, good places to eat and stay and etc. At this point I'm equally stoked for the new motor and the road trip

Wow, progress! And your plan sounds like fun. I'm not your engine builder, so take their advice on things, but here are some thoughts I had: - Initial break-in might involve a series of short-ish heat cycles followed by an oil change. If they take care of all that, it will help with your trip planning. - First 1K - 1.5K miles: it might not be ideal to be running at steady RPMs the whole time, as you would on an interstate. You may want to plan for secondary roads and several stops. - Dallas to Memphis: if you can spare the miles and time, swinging up through Arkansas will put you in some fun country. - The other legs should be relatively easy to find fun roads. - Blue Ridge Parkway is pretty, but it's limited to 45MPH or 35MPH, it's patrolled by park rangers, and depending on when you're there it can have a lot of cruiser motorcycles and RV's. Congratulations and keep the information flowing please!

Quotes source post: 19412929

Thanks - all great points! I definitely did consider the break-in process and plan to pick Brandon's brain when picking up the car so I do all the right things and break in with longevity in mind. The engine does go through a break-in process on their engine dyno and is considered "track ready" upon delivery. Steve, who is actually local to me, had his 997 motor rebuilt to a bit more track focused spec and after a bit of local driving hit the track with 0 issues or any oil consumption. I think he has 2 track days or weekends under his belt already. With all that I have confidence that I won't have any issue on that front. Here are a few tidbits on the topic from their site: Do I need to limit my driving initially on my engine when I get it back? No, it can be driven aggressively. Our process is the same for all of our engines and so they leave our facility "race ready". Testing/QA - Every engine we build goes through an extensive QA and break-in process on our Engine Dynometer where we monitor and record every aspect of the engine during testing. We use the ancillaries and the tune that the engine will be installed with to ensure that it is ready to reliably perform on the street or the track when it leaves our facility. What oil and change interval do you recommend? We use Driven BR40 for the break in and then we recommend Valvoline VR1-20W50 as an intermediate oil for the first 2000 miles to allow the rings to fully seat. Following that, we recommend Driven DT50 or Motul 8100 5W50 for street use and XP6 or 300V 15W50 for track use along with used oil analysis. Change interval moving forward is recommended at 3000-5000 miles depending on the UOA results. We equate one track hour to equal 500 miles. Can I pick my car up and drive it home? Yes. Also, noted on the routes! I plan to leave quite early that day so I can beat most of the traffic. If it get's really congested I'll look at some alternative routes, of which looks like there are plenty in the area. Last thing I want is just to sit on a highway for hours at a steady RPM. That's both boring and probably doesn't lend to ideal break in, whatever might be needed at that point.

If you havent done it I would add Tail of the Dragon on the route home

Quotes source post: 19412991

Paid the dragon a visit circa 2020 when I first picked up the car and was driving home. She's come a long way since! Not opposed to stopping by again and driving the Cherohala Skyway, which many say it's arguably a better driving road. Just not as popular.

I've had a few folks reach out to me for an update since I've had the car for a week now so short story long, here we go.... As agreed with Brandon, I was planning to fly out to OKC on Friday, May 11th to collect the car. The plan was to drive the car back to DC, which I was assured wouldn't be a problem. Because life has been known to throw me some curveballs, what's another one as I embark on this trip. As I put my head down to sleep, since I needed to be up before 4am for an early flight, I heard a ding on my phone. Reluctantly, I looked thinking maybe it's a "u up" from some pretty lady....but it was not....it was Delta telling me that my flight has been cancelled and moved to Saturday. Great, it's not even Friday yet and something went wrong already. I frantically grabbed my laptop to see if there are any other flight options. Original plan was to arrive in OKC by 11am but my only other option that would get me there on Friday put me in OKC at 5:30pm via a 4 and half hour layover in Salt Lake City. But wait, there's more! Upon arriving in Utah, I learned that I did not have a seat for my second flight as the flight was overbooked. Luckily some folks with flexible schedules gave up the seats for some money and I was the last person to board the flight to OKC. Whew, that was close. Brandon was a complete legend accommodating this and staying longer on a Friday until I arrived. Between travel, temps all over the place, 3 time zones, 2 airports and the stress I managed to pick up a cold. Wonderful. Once I landed my buddy, that also flew in, and I made our way over to Slakker to collect the car. What a sight for sore eyes (and throat at that point)! Brandon provided me with a bit of a tour of the facility which was very cool to see for me. I enjoy seeing how the sausage (or my engine in this case) is made so seeing all the machines, engine dyno, and all the other parts laid out was a very cool experience. Also, how often do you get to meet the guy who built your engine!? One of the big reasons why I chose to work with Slakker was that everything is done in-house. I think this really contributed to a relatively speedy turn-around and all the control over the process you can ask for. There is no waiting for someone to finish your case halves with new sleeves or waiting on the heads to be refinished, which are in their own separate queue. I think it's a huge benefit that's not often talked about. The whole operation is still relatively young but you could see some great work being done as well as constant improvement to the process. I know some folks had some concerns about driving the car half way across the country and the break in. The engine has gone through a pretty rigorous break-in process on the dyno where it was pushed hard for about 30 minutes, harder than what I'd probably throw at it. Also, the engine saw about 10 heat cycles and through some procedures that verify blow-by and other things that confirm if the rings are seated nicely I was able to just drive off and enjoy the car. All I needed to do is change the oil when I got home. Heck, I didn't even have any break-in oil in the sump and was able to run Driven synthetic, I think it was DT50. Brandon and I went over the car and I was ready to hit the road! I requested that he save the problem child that was piston #4 which I took back with me as a souvenir. I might get a gold chain and wear it around my neck when I go to C&C or a track day After departing Slakker, my buddy and I hit a Whataburger and hit the road for Dallas, 217 miles. The car did not skip a beat and boy, that torque was a pleasant surprise. In most cases 6th gear can work as a passing gear and the car gets up to speed north of 80mph with little effort. Driving in Texas was an experience. We were booking it at about 90mph and still getting passed by pick up trucks. One thing that was a big surprise, however, was the fuel economy. Over the 217 mile trip to Dallas, with steady speeds of 80-90mph with a few pulls into the triple digits the car returned 31.6mpg! Bigger displacement, more power and torque and better fuel economy? What else could I want! Speaking of power, the engine dynoed at 371HP and 325TQ. This is with a stock plenum and TB. I do plan to add a GT3 TB and plenum from the guys at Spyder Performance at some point which will gain me another 10HP and some torque. Looking at the 996.2 GT3, which was rated at 381HP and 284TQ (although we know Porsche was probably sandbagging with those numbers) and this puts me pretty pretty much near those power levels with more and earlier torque. With this car quickly becoming my version of "what if Porsche made a 996 GT3 Touring" I'm pretty happy with the outcome. My goal was never to squeeze out every possible HP so to end up where I have, I'm quite happy. As stated originally, the goal was a more powerful motor with which I can have a good time on the track 2-3 times a year and then hop in and do a long road trip. The primary goal was dependability and addressing all the shortcomings of the M96. With the nikasil plated cylinders and matching pistons from Capricorn, larger motorsports main and rod bearings, larger IMS, UAOS and UIDS I've pretty much addressed everything that you could. We even are running 997 injectors that were a bit better suited for the larger displacement. Saturday was spent in Dallas visiting a good friend of mine. Bike riding, soccer match and a late night at a Korean bar all contributed to me feeling like total poop the next day. Still worth it. Brandon checked in via text to see how the initial drive went, which was nice of him. Sunday I hit the road with Memphis being the destination. Just under 450 miles. Kind of a boring drive with mostly rainy weather so just wanted to cover the distance. More trucks passing you while going 90 but still awesome fuel economy! Didn't get crazy with the driving given the cold and basically running on cold medicine, Pedialyte and a bottle of 5 hour energy. Don't remember the last time I took that stuff but it really wakes you up! So far no light of any kind, loads of power on tap and didn't look like any oil was consumed. So far so good! I decided to sleep in a little bit and hit the road to Chattanooga in the late morning - about 340 miles. Somewhat uneventful but as I got closer to central TN the roads began to have turns and there was finally hills and elevation change! I've never been but Chattanooga seemed like a cool little town. Found a cool spot for dinner called State of Confusion, which felt very appropriate with a cool bakery near by where I got breakfast and some other snacks before hitting the road towards the Tail of the Dragon. After a good night's sleep and a solid breakfast I headed out towards the Smoky Mountains and the Tail of the Dragon. Thought it would be nice to return there 3 and half years later. Some of the spots of the road were repaved with more pull outs which was great to see. Had a nice opportunity to exercise the engine and get some more spirited driving in. I actually felt pretty rested with more energy so that was great to see. But wait, there is more! I had a total bonehead moment when while fumbling with my phone, wallet and camera I failed to notice that I never took the key out of the ignition. You can probably imagine what happened next....I came back to a locked car. F*ck. Luckily, I did leave my sunroof cracked open. Several minutes earlier, while picking up a decal at the shop, I overheard the familiar Polish language being spoken and ran into a nice Polish couple with their son who were roundtripping from CT. With their help and some backyard engineering we found a long skinny branch to which we zip tied another stick that resembled a hook and were able to get the key out. A little more excitement than what I was looking for but hey, I was able to get back on the road! Next destination was the Blue Ridge Parkway. I drove to the South Terminus which is the starting point and began to drive. The roads were mostly empty but the weather started to turn for the worse. Light rain and increasing fog made for limited visibility. I did go past the highest point of the parkway, about 6069ft, and past the entrance to Mt. Mitchell. The roads were great and going through a bunch of tunnels was fun. I think the parkway has over 60 of them as a whole. Not wanting any more excitement for the day, I elected to drive to Little Switzerland and get off the parkway after that. It was just too foggy to hold any meaningful pace and do so safely. I had a nice little dinner in Little Switzerland and to my surprise still had some energy in me. Since I needed to get home by end of the next day, I decided to drive towards Winston-Salem and stay in a hotel there. That was only about another hour or so after dinner. From Winston-Salem it was about 340 miles / 5 hours to get back to DC. Had a solid breakfast and hit the road, which was mostly highways. I got back to DC a little before 3pm, having covered 1,787 miles. This car is a road trip monster. It's pretty hard to describe how easily it just ate up the boring miles and felt very at home at about 80-85mph. The engine was super smooth and just hummed along. At those speeds, you're close to 3500rpms so having all the torque on hand made passing super easy and if you wanted more oomph just drop down into 5th and go. The engine is broken in but it will take some time for everything to fully settle in. I did the first oil change now with FR50, since I have 2 cases of it. I plan to run it for 3k miles and then change again. After that I'll probably go back to 5k mile change interval. I need to send out the first sample for UOA and I'm sure it will be pretty ugly. Only at idle, there is some ticking noise that goes away immediately when you tap the accelerator. Brandon said this is common with lifters making some noise with the thicker 50 weight oil at idle and as long as it goes away with revs/oil pressure it's a non issue. It will very possibly go away as the engine further settles in. Now that I think about it, the old motor made a similar noise at idle, albeit more faint. I still haven't driven the car "in anger" but hope to this weekend. With fresh oil, I also finally had a chance to add Skip's baffles for the UIDS. Getting the UIDS to seat was a bit of a PITA with the tight fit but that's a good thing I guess because the baffles are creating a good seal for each chamber. The car got a much needed wash and now it's time to address few other things: - front lip needs to be repainted - polish and redo the ceramic coating since there was some paint work done after the deer run in - the spoiler decided to stop working and sits a bit crooked - might do a quality of life upgrade for potential future exhaust manifold removal. While the bolts are not baked into the heads I might convert them to Ti/Al studs with copper nuts. This should make removing things much easier in the future. More to come....

Welcome back! Great post and what an awesome adventure it's been from purchase through now. I hope it continues to get better. Let's catch up sometime this summer? I'll bring the GT3 out and you can feel the difference (i.e., lack of torque!). -KJ

Quotes source post: 19453176

U mean ..... lack of torque under 5k rpm.

Awesome post and pics of the drive home. What an adventure! And yes, having a pickup with a 9" lift kit, neon lights, and tires taller than your car fly by you when you are doing 90mph is almost an experience in and of itself, but fairly common place in the DFW area. It was great to meet you and thanks again for letting us be a part of your magnificent 40th AE build! I look forward to more updates and seeing your cars continued progression.

Quotes source posts: 19453176, 19454141, 19454212

Thanks and let's definitely get together! Days are long now so shoot me a PM and we will get something on the books I haven't driven a GT3 of any kind yet so it will be a treat to try one and see how it compares. I'm sure both fantastic driving experiences with their own unique characteristics. I'll bring my camera to grab a few nice shots. The time is now! They do pop up for sale somewhat regularly and are not getting cheaper so might be a good time to pull the trigger Brandon - once again, great meeting you too and thanks for making a somewhat of a complex process simple! I look forward to racking up more miles this summer and through rest of the year. The car is 20 years old so I'm sure it will keep me busy with little stuff popping up here and there (like the spoiler) but the motor is the one thing that I won't have to worry about

Just rolled over 1k miles on the new oil change! I'll be changing the oil again in 2k miles and then will move to 5k mile change interval most likely. I should get the UOA for the first change soon and it will probably look pretty ugly as stuff settles in. I forgot about the photos that get taken at the Tail of the Dragon and purchased the below: I finally got around to fixing my rear spoiler as well. The car got nervous before being shipped out to Slakker and 2 days before it was collected the wing started to sit crooked closed and deploy unevenly only to go down again after a few seconds. This also threw the red light / message on the dash. Not wanting to spend $1400 on a new unit I tore into the mechanism to see what I find. In my case, the steel lines that actuate the two black curved rods? that move the spoiler were the culprit. The have some sort of solid lubricated housing that is plastic, which basically crumbled into pieces and prevented the line from moving smoothly. I ended up taking the whole unit apart, cleaning it and reassembling it. Watch out for the 2 springs that hold the 2 steel cables under tension in the black housing under the motor. I had an "f me" moment when one shot out into the air and landed somewhere in the engine compartment. Luckily I found it. The foam insulating the metal housing was also pretty gone. I used the same foam I used to fix the heater blend door to wrap them and then went over again with cloth tape for good measure. Now the wing is back on and operating as it should. Look forward to being able to buy and install the "GT3 Touring" style lid that artnd is working on ( https://artndvehiclestudio.com/produ...ouring-spoiler ) Still few little projects to do: - repaint the lip as it's looking "distressed". Using an adhesion promoter this time and might screw around with a roll PPF to give it some extra protection. - pull the bumper to fix a piece of loose black plastic under one headlight. - with bumper off, check the center radiator and lines to make sure nothing is kinking. - clean and recoat the leather interior with Colourlock - remove the rest of the tint and figure out what to replace it with. - continue to rack up more miles and maybe sneak in a track day towards end of season Finally, a close friend of mine was finally able to collect his new Lotus Emira so I went to pick it up with him. It's still in the break in period but can't wait to drive it soon. Insane value for the money imho and hope you like attention because we had countless thumbs up and people bolting across parking lots to talk or chase you down on roads. Was quite surprised that they come with AP Racing brakes and braded steel lines straight from factory. The shift action is fantastic and throttle actuator you see in rear view mirror never gets old. With double wish bones all over, this thing will be a hoot to drive. More to come...

Pete, this thread is awesome. Your updates are always equally well written and photographed. I just got a 40th AE a few weeks ago with a lot of work to do (PO left me with a lot of deferred maintenance, but a good price to compensate), so following your journey has been enlightening and inspiring. Looking forward to seeing how your journey continues to unfold!

Quotes source post: 19495220

Wonderful posts. For long term ownership, I think Porsche is the better way to go if you are in the States. Emira is nice (I put down deposit for one back in 2021), but it was a bit underwhelming when I drove it at their Hethel test track. 996/997 are better driver cars--that's why I ended with the Porsche instead of the Lotus.

Quotes source posts: 19497683, 19499402

Thank you and congrats on your 40AE! What number car did you pick up? They're 20 years old so there will always be something to do but glad you were able to get it for a fair price. The benefit is you get to choose how to address the maintenance / upgrades and will have the peace of mind of knowing it was actually done. Enjoy the car, and especially the driving experience it provides. Thanks! You might be right re. the Lotus but we all choose cars for different reason. My buddy is a Canadian Brit and loves the Lotus brand + he wanted something different and I can't hate him for that. I don't think he will ever push the car as much as I would and so far it has proven pretty enjoyable and engaging, especially at slower and out of jail speeds. I think a 911 and even a Cayman is way more usable but if it's your 2nd or 3rd car, then I'd probably consider one as well. My 996 is my only car so it fits the bill perfectly. Good on you for being able to experience it at a track though! I'm sure it was still a blast. All that aside, I think there is a lot to be said for it being the last Lotus with an internal combustion engine and a solid manual transmission. That's a rare combination. Throwing in a manual is not enough imho if that manual stinks. Combine that with the striking looks and I can't see it aging poorly. We're going to detail it this week and ceramic coat the wheels and brake calipers as it's now half way past its break in period. Happy I didn't have to worry about that with the new 4.1L motor! Zero smoke of any kind on start up since collecting it and all the oil is still in the sump 1300 miles later (after recent oil change)!

Does anyone make a oil fed drive belt pulleys? I used to think that the metal roller pulleys were the better kind vs the newer revised plastic ones. I've seen the plastic ones crumble and fail and while in pieces taking the belt with them, however, it seems like the metal ones are not bulletproof either.... I did a weekend road trip to Philly to hang out with dad for his 66th trip around the sun which totaled about 300 miles. Not the trip around the sun...the trip to Philly and back Car ran beautifully with a few trips into the triple digits on the way back. On the way there I might have hit a new record in terms of fuel economy, cruising in the mid 70mph. Still amazed at the efficiency of this motor while giving you a nice power bump. The fun times ended once I got off the highway and into DC. I had a podcast on but seemed to hear some sort of noise. I paused the podcast and cracked the window open and heard some sort of rattle. The engine seemed to idle fine at the moment so wasn't sure if it was me or another pile of bolts rolling down the road. I tapped the gas pedal and it seemed to quiet down a bit. I drove another mile and the noise got a bit louder, especially once I stopped at a light. At that point the idle got a little rough and the engine shut off. Right before that happened I heard a metallic rattle that was definitely coming from my car. I thought "****, well that's not good!" Turned on the hazards and got out to see if I can spot anything in the engine compartment or under the car. Nothing - everything was bone dry. I tried to start the car but it would just about crank over once and nothing. I immediately called Brandon who answered the phone right away. Understandably, there is only so much he could have done in the moment and the situation seemed unusual and a first to him. I was asked to try to manually turn over the engine and see if there is any resistance as I do so. I have a 24mm socket so that wouldn't be a problem. Based on that we would ciome up with further investigation. Somewhat ironically, this happened 2.8 miles from where I live! I requested a flatbed from Geico and the driver showed up in a little under an hour. Cool dude who also owns a 2004 Cayenne. Once I got home, my neighbor was outside, and with a flashlight on I was able to quickly remove the airbox and try to rotate the engine manually per Brandon's suggestion. There was some resistance but nothing I haven't felt before doing this, especially with the spark plugs in. Still pretty confused I pulled off the belt and tried to manually spin all the accessories - AC compressor, power steering pump, water pump and all the pulleys. All the sudden, BINGO! We have a winner! The upper belt drive pulley would not turn at all and was sitting a little crooked! Well sh*t, how did that happen?! The bolt securing the upper pulley was plenty tight so this was not a situation of it not being torqued properly and the pulley basically lose and shaking itself apart. I looked around the motor some more and found the following: Looks like the bearing inside of the roller went "huck tuah" and spat out a piece of the bearing race as it started to disintegrate itself! I went inside and ordered a new set of pulleys from FCP which should arrive in just a few days. I pulled off the other pulleys and looking over the upper one, you can see why there was metallic noise coming out of the engine. The thing basically ate itself and spat out chewed up pieces like a misbehaved child. So looks like no matter the type of pulley you have, metal one like mine, or the newer plastic ones, they are both susceptible to failure. Let this serve as a PSA to replace yours or take them off to inspect, pull the seals from the bearings and apply some new fresh grease. It also looks like the tensioner really applies a good amount of tension to the belt to the point where it wouldn't allow the belt to slip at all and thus preventing the engine from starting. 3 days later, the new pulleys arrived and went on the engine. I thought I ordered the tensioner pulley as well but looks like I forgot to add it to the cart. I plan on taking it off (it's a bit of PITA) this weekend during the oil change to inspect and service the bearing. Now is the engine going to engine?? With some encouragement from my portable jump starter, the car fired right up and no metallic or any other funky noises! Great success!!! Funny part is that people say that a Porsche will give you several warnings and an opportunity to fix a potential issue before that car just craps out on your and refuses to move forward like a misbehaving dog that just lays down on the ground. You can pull on it all you want but you ain't going anywhere! I've reached out to Brandon previously regarding a strange whine that would come from the engine. It kind of sounded like I had a supercharger strapped to my M96 and would really become audible at around 2.5k to 3.5k RPMs. I have driven my friends Lotus Emira which actually has a supercharger and this was louder than that. He was actually a bit jealous hah! We thought it might be the power steering pump, although seemed unlikely. Fluid levels were fine and steering felt normal. Perhaps something transmission related? Not really as revving the motor with clutch pressed in or in neutral made no difference. The clutch disc itself was in perfect shape and I have a fairly new flywheel as well. Well, looks like we have our answer about where the noise was coming from. Other than this little adventure I removed the old tint which was starting to slowly fail and got new ceramic one installed. Should help protect the leather. I also repainted the front lip in GT Silver and applied some PPF to it to help make it look decent for longer. It was my first time working with PPF. I did an ok job and it's a good five-footer I think. I'm at about 4500mi on the motor already, which means that I'm due for my next oil change. The future intervals will be a 5k miles unless a shorter one is needed. Curious to see how the 2nd oil change looks like on the UOA too, so will be sharing that.

Glad it was relatively minor. There are certainly some places in the city I wouldn't want to be broken down in! I'll PM you to figure out a chance to catch up in the next couple of weeks if you're free.

Pete, glad you figured it out and fixed it.

Thanks gents. I had a few folks stop to see if all is ok and one guy told me that I should get a Lamborghini instead. I'm sure there was a joke in there but it went over my head in the moment. As the car hit 114,999 miles as I last parked it, I went ahead and did the 2nd oil change on the engine this weekend. This was a shorter interval of about 2500 miles and I put in my last case of FR50 that I had. My thought process was to do the 1st change as soon as I got home with the new motor and then another shorter one as the engine continues to settle in. I should have the UOA from this one in a little while. At this point I am at 4,340 miles on the new motor since collecting it at Slakker. Next OCI will be at 5k miles and am thinking on sticking with FR50 and moving to DI50 for warmer months since 15w weight might not be ideal for winter weather. DC winter is a hit or miss last few years. I also pulled the UIDS as I had a small amount of seepage happening since the sump has been off a few times since installing it. Skip sent me a new seal when I got the baffle system so I was all good there. Everything was clean with nothing to report there, which is a good thing. I also took the opportunity to remove the belt tensioner pulley for service. It's a bit of a PITA but I got it off in a few minutes. I popped the bearing seal, cleaned it out and packed it with some fresh high-temp grease I had. It seemed to spin smoothly but now I'll know it's fine for sure and as I like to say, "they always run best right before they blow up" Time to rack up some more miles and get some new photos, while summer is still here!

Not much new to report other than I've been enjoying the car and the new Slakker 4.1L motor. I'm right around 6k miles since picking it up in May. I'll probably write a longer long-term review as I rack up even more miles and a track day and provide some insights into how it is in various conditions. One thing that I'll mention now is how effortless the power delivery is in this thing. A lot of this has to do with how the thick and wide the torque band is. Maybe not the best comparison, but to an extent it almost feels turbo-like but the acceleration doesn't fall off as you go up the revs. Merging onto a highway in 3rd gear get's you to 100 very quickly. The more time I get with the motor I'm starting to feel it ask for that larger throttle body (kept the stock for now at time of rebuild) so that will probably be my next purchase. Spyder Performance makes a nice kit that includes the correct hose with a port for the side vacuum pipe that the 40AE cars have ( https://www.spyderperformance.com/sh...h-extra-pipe/# ). Since there isn't much I need to do right now mechanically, I decided to tackle the lights. I'm not a fan of the replacement lights for front and rear and really like the stock hardware. Having said that, the light output, especially in some conditions leaves a lot to be desired. My friend even pointed out that my rear turn signals were pretty faint in bright sunny conditions. As such, I started the process of upgrading all bulbs to LEDs. I know this can be a hit or miss with some working and some not, so I started by ordering few at a time and returning what doesn't work. For example, the same turn signal bulb that works perfectly fine in the rear only give me a single blink in the front headlights....so there will be some trial and error here. That aside, the light output is significantly better. Below are 2 photos showing the difference. For those who care, I can share which bulbs worked once I get them all upgraded. I might throw on the stock wheels with Michelin PSS tires soon as state inspection time is coming up and the rears (PSS4S) are starting to get low and might not pass. I'll probably need to get a new set come spring time. I really like the performance and the ride quality so will stick with the same. So far I have about 15k miles on the rears. Fronts are still looking good.

Amazing that you've added 6k miles already this year... I need to drive mine more as its total in about 18 months is that much... BTW Just noticed the GVBC stickers, love it!

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The thing is so much fun to drive, even more so now with the new motor, that it's hard not to jump behind the wheel at any opportunity! If I lived closer to canyons and roads like Angeles Crest Highway I'd probably have a few more miles on the clock And GVBC was such a great time you better believe you'll be hearing from me next time I'm in LA!

Have been working on the light bulb upgrades and decided to tackle the headlights next. I still need to get LED turn signal bulbs for the front as the ones that work perfectly fine in the rear, did not want to play nice in the front ( they only blink once and stop, bulbs are the same model ). For the front I'm upgrading the parking light bulbs, high beams and low beam bulbs. We all love out fried egg headlamps as much as the next guy but when you dig into the units 20 years later, we see some issues arise. I don't know if this is due to the material from which the wire insulation is made (I doubt it) or the fact that the wiring is enclosed in a small space that doesn't see much of ambient air moving around and essentially cooks the wire insulation due to high temps over 20 years producing the sh*t show you see below. It was all so brittle that touching it or moving the wiring around would cause the insulation to crumble and fall off. So I ended up spending a good chunk of time fixing this to make sure nothing touches and creates a short. It takes working in very tight quarters but I was able to remove the OEM projectors as they looked a bit off. Well, it turns out there was a nice coating of some sort of dust or film on both sides making it look like your bulbs were essentially shining through frosted glass greatly diminishing the effectiveness of the light output. I was considering, and still kind of am, upgrading the projectors to newer ones but I wanted to first see how things look once the projectors are cleaned and put together with good LED bulbs. On my way back from a biking weekend, I took the Skyline Drive to avoid a traffic jam on I-81 and was greeted to sky full of starts and a faint view of the milky way and a great opportunity to test out the lights. This is a quick sneak peek with low beam LEDs on as well as rear driving LED lights on. I have a sneaking suspicion like I might need to readjust the aim on the headlights as they were great but I feel like they should be pointing a bit further up. With the car now a fair bit lower over stock, the headlights might need a tweak to point far enough up the road and not blind oncoming traffic. I believe the manual should have the measurements for this. No photo of it but the high beam LED upgrade made a HUGE difference vs old halogen units. And a photo of pure Form & Function. Got a second suction cup mount for the ladies bike and had zero issues. Gotta love turning heads and dropped jaws from other drivers, that now they tend to follow me much less closely

Long time no talk.... as I rolled into 2025, I also rolled past 9k miles on the new motor! That's 9k miles since collecting it at Slakker in Oklahoma in May 2024. That alone should speak volumes to whether I've been enjoying it I'm due for another oil change in coming weeks and since we're still in winter and DC just got snow and some freezing temps I'll do a shorter interval with FR50 before moving to DI50 for spring/summer/fall. Drives like these are good for the car and driver ... I recently had to replace my battery as I was experiencing slow starts, especially in colder temps. Things got bad when I'd drive the car for a while, stop to get gas and then wouldn't be able to start and require a jump with my portable battery jump starter. I have a new alternator so ruled that out and was concerned it could also be the starter. I decided to tackle the easier thing first and since the battery was still under warranty it was a quick and painless swap. Zero issues since then and fires up with confidence, even when temps got into 20s recently. In early November, I finally had a chance to meet up with @KJinDC and experience a 996 GT3. A brief drive but the experience delivered! It was great to feel the Mezger engine back-to-back with my 4.1L motor. Doesn't matter what you do to the M96, it will not have the same personality and sound as the Mezger...and there's nothing wrong with that! From the start and idle, the engine let's you know about it's racing roots and that it likes to be in the upper rev range and that's where it thrives. The difference in how the power, especially torque is delivered is pretty noticeable. It really likes to live north of 5k rpm, where my Slakker 4.1L gets really peppy as you go past 3.5k rpm. With that said, I can tell that while the HP number on my build reaches its peak a bit after 6k rpm (as evident in the engine dyno sheet) and stays almost flat, the torque does drop off a bit, and I think I know why... With the GT3, the car seemed to pull harder towards its redline. With the ethos behind my car being "what if Porsche offered a GT3 touring" back in the 996 days, that's all good with me. The easily accessible torque has been amazing in my use case and it probably won't be a slouch on the track either. Speaking of the torque delivery, when specing out the build with Brandon, I elected to stay with the stock sized throttle body for the time being with the goal of upgrading it later on, which is what I'll be doing by spring time. I think with the bigger displacement and at higher revs, the engine will really benefit from some extra air....que the GT3 82mm throttle body, plenum and intake hose: With some searching around I found a killer deal on a genuine new Bosh TB. I also needed a "special" intake hose that has a port for an extra intake hose that leads to a venturi valve found on X51 motors / intake manifolds. Finally, I couldn't really justify the IPD price tag and went with the budget version of the plenum. I believe Brandon has used these on some builds with good success. The unit was beautifully cast and machined, properly aligned holes and even had a gasket! I think I got all this for just north of $300. Look forward to getting this installed once temps get warmer and letting the ECU adapt. Once winter is gone, I'm also planning to refresh the car cosmetically. The front bumper will need a respray as the clear coat is showing it's age in a few spots and starting to peel in another. Once that is completed, I'll do a simple paint correction, as the paint is really in a fantastic condition otherwise, and apply a coat of a ceramic coating. Pretty much decided on Gyeon Mohs Evo. While at it, I'll pull out the seats to polish and coat the hard backs and clean, condition and protect the natural leather interior with Colourlock products, which I've used and really like. The car is also due for rear tires so a new set of PS4S will be going back on. That's all for now and more to come....

For the headlight wiring harness, get with Adrian. Well worth the upgrade. https://www.adriantaillights.com/sto...986-c114018836

If I was replacing that pulley I would go with this: https://lnengineering.com/rauch-spie...7-996-997.html Expensive I know, but critical just like the plastic coolant fitting next to the alternator. Goes kaput and your day/trip is done.

Cool - thanks for the recommendation. The repair has been holding up but I'll definitely look to fully replace the wiring at some point. I already replaced the pulleys so that's done but I did keep the old ones. Those were the older metal ones that are more robust....except for when the bearing itself fails, so technically the LN ones are similar in that they won't crack like the plastic ones, but the bearing could still go and seize, like it did in my case. I might source new bearings, press them in, and throw them in my tool box for a potential emergency. With the UAOS, I removed that coolant line and thus eliminated the risk of breaking that fitting. It's a no brainer move if you have UAOS installed.

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Exactly how I felt!

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That seems reasonable if the pulley itself doesn't really tend to fail. Could you source a superior bearing along the way?

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Precisely - I'm not sure at what point Porsche switched to the plastic pulleys (my car is a 2004) but having the metal ones originally and having the bearing grenade itself they can fail no matter what. I'm starting to think there's some bearing-gate brewing here.... first the IMS and now the idler pulleys I think typically a bearing will have a size printed somewhere on it or I'll have to measure the outside and inside diameters and source one somewhere on line. If you still have the original ones on there, I would definitely pull them off, remove the seals, clean everything and pack some new grease in there. Since my bearing basically ate itself (the race was in pieces) if yours is starting to fail, it should be easy to spot. It's a super easy job.

I would be very interested in the LED lights/numbers for replacing the old stuff. My '04 C4S has the originals in there and I want all of them to be brighter. The are a lot of big critters out here in the mountains (elk,deer,open-range cows) that just lurk everywhere. They should be required to have reflectors or international yellow stripes or something done by chromosome engineering. Kidding, I don't drive much at night, but I am a "light freak". I am just starting neglected maint. tasks and lights are one of them. Did you replace the main projector bulbs also? Do you have front "fog lights" work also? Curious. TIA Excellent build/maintenance thread, you did (do) a great job explaining what you have done. Thanks from a (semi)novice on 996. (25 years experience air-cooled...) YMMV

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Thanks a lot! As much as I'm not into much of the newer cars I will say that the newest lighting technology that's out there is pretty impressive and our older cars can definitely use some upgrades. At this time, I pretty much replaced all bulbs with the exception of the fog lights, which I use very rarely and for some reason, I haven't been able to get the front turn signal bulbs to play nicely. I tried about 3 different kinds/brands of LED ones and they all blink once and then stay off. The rear turn signals work perfectly fine. Here are the ones I have used: Low-beam bulbs - https://www.morimotohid.com/morimoto...8OLcG0xi_IMFO4 Front Parking light - Amazon Amazon High-beam bulbs - the ones I got from Amazon seem to be no longer available but I purchased H11 LED ones similar to this - Amazon Amazon Side marker (in bumper) - Amazon Amazon Reverse light - Amazon Amazon Rear light - Amazon Amazon Rear turn signal - Amazon Amazon Rear side light (I think) - Amazon Amazon As you can see I pretty much got all but front low-beams from Amazon. Should anything not work (like the front turn signals) you can just return them easily for a full refund. Just about all bulbs have been working well for several months now with no issues of any kind. I'd like to still figure out why the front turn signals don't want to play nice. The high beams are now stupid bright. The light output has been great, especially with the rear lights, and more specifically rear turn signals. Since I don't drive a BMW and my 996 came with the turn signal option , I use them a lot and feel more comfortable with them being seen since the old bulbs were pretty faint on a bright day.

Thanks for the links on the lights, I've wanted to improve the taillight output to prevent silly behavior behind me. Do the blinkers have the typical LED reaction with the on/off behavior? I want to improve my headlights too, but being a halogen lense and wanting to retain ambers makes my life a little harder. Luckily I dont do much night driving

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You got it, Simon! The LED blinkers function normally. No hyper-blinking like some people report. The issue in my case was only in the front, where they would blink once and turn off. I don't exactly remember, but I think all turn signals worked fine with hazards on....go figure. My car had the OEM xenon lights so I ended up removing the ballasts and storing them away. I decided to splurge a bit more on the low beam bulbs as much of the issue with them tends to be how they're designed and how well the placement of the LED mimics the xenon bulb. Some cheaper bulbs have the led cell placed slightly off which can affect the beam and the light output.

Quick little update with a new UOA. We had a random day that went into mid 40s F so I jumped at the opportunity to change the oil as I was at 4500 miles. Happy to see that the silicon is back down and the engine is wearing in nicely. The wear per 1k miles continues to trend down which is a good sign of things further wearing in nicely. Come spring/summer I'll be putting in some DI50 oil and continue to rack up miles. I hit 120k miles on the car this past weekend which means I'm almost at 10k on the motor and 3 oil changes. No better way to protect the investment!

Been a while so time for a late summer update on #1111! The car is currently sitting at about 124,000mi with almost 14k miles on the new 4.1L Slakker build. That's about 47k miles driven since purchasing the car in October 2020. That's to say the car is getting used As spring finally showed up I gave it a good wash and continued to use up the rear tires. Snapped the below photos on some local driving roads....she's aging gracefully if I may say so. I had a wedding to attend in Charlottesville which made a perfect opportunity to drive the entire Skyline Dr. and some of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Such a great dynamic drive with weather anywhere from milky fog to sunny sections with perfect roads and little traffic. If you ever drove on I-80 you know how soul sucking it can be so grateful for this parallel option. In May, I finally was able to find time to install the larger plenum and the 82mm throttle body. This is basically the set up that Brandon uses on some of the builds which I elected to add at a later date. The plenum casting was very nice and a perfect fit. I recall Brandon calling out that other options out there that include the wedge inside the plenum can interfere with some of the pulses inside of the intake which is why they use this option. The install was pretty straight forward. Lowering the engine via the rear engine mounts provided ample room to reach everything - no drama. With that, getting that new silicone hose to fit on the new TB was a major PITA. It was the right size but no matter what I couldn't get it on without some minor trimming. After that I was able to muscle it on. Need to get a proper plug for the intake that's slightly less ghetto too. The goal here was to allow the engine to breath better in the last 1k rpms, and with my butt dyno it slightly helps there. The ECU takes some driving to adjust but I can feel the power to drop off slightly later than with stock TB. The engine was tuned to have the meat of the torque through 6k rpms before it starts to fall off. I feel like this upgrade gets me about 500rpms extra, again with my butt dyno. Overall happy camper here. Last week, a buddy of mine gave me the opportunity to clean off a bunch of stuff that was being stored on his lift so I could use it as intended This gave me the chance to get a good look at everything underneath and look for any potential issues. 14k miles later, the engine is still bone dry. No leaks of any kind. Maybe some minor seepage / aeration around the UIDS but nothing that would classify as a leak. Exhaust is holding up well, save for the hardware. I may do this again and replace all hardware with stainless steel bolts and apply some additional rust protection before winter comes. While the engine is still relatively new, I'm still tempted to heat up the stock exhaust manifold bolts and replace them with titanium studs and nuts. I installed the Ohlins R&T in July of 2021 and still happy with the choice. Perfect blend of performance and comfort for me. Most importantly, they have held up amazingly well. The finish is in amazing condition with no corrosion which is something I was more than happy to see given the car is used all year long and in all conditions. I could take them off and clean them and they'd look pretty close to new. With the car off, I took the opportunity to remove and clean all the plastic covers and applied some plastic protection in form of CarPro Perl. It was great to see that all coolant pipes and all other lines running along the length of the car are in great condition with no corrosion or kinks of any kind. Also, great to see that the aluminum weld job is holding up well. While getting the new mount pressed in, my mechanic discovered that the round portion was cracked. Instead of trying to source a new part, we elected to use his shop that specializes in aluminum welding and clearly they know what they're doing. Both, the car and the new engine continue to provide me with all the kicks I need from this platform. It really does it all for me. More than enough power to give many other cars a run for it, plus all the tactile feel and dynamics of a sports car that's not over 4000lbs AND it answers the important question of...Does it Costco? Yes, yes it does Strap a bike or 2 to the roof and it's off to the races too. What's next... just changed oil moving over to DTI50 15w50. Oil pressure was always good but now it's even gooder across the range. about .5bar improvement over DT50 5w50. I should be getting a UOA for the DT50 stuff soon as well. The engine continues to get better, even at 14k miles and I've noticed oil consumption drop even lower. Curious to see how it will look with DI50. Work/life has been a bit nuts so still no track time but really itching to get a weekend in. Other than that, I'd like to get the front bumper resprayed as it's peeling clear coat in a few small spots. Might apply PPF to it later. Also, driver rear taillight is forming some of those spider cracks and allows moisture in if it rains a lot. I got some clear PPF so will cover both with that, as I did with the headlights, once I restored them. Still holding up great! More to come!

Just received the latest UOA from Lake and all looks great. I'm at 5 oil changes since getting the engine and went to DI50 for this change, as mentioned above. I picked up something interesting reviewing the numbers. The calcium reading had a pretty significant spike so I reached out to Lake to see if that was a typo. He confirmed that the number is real and that he's noticed this on some oils coming through. Goes to show that even if you're using the same oil, the formulations can and do change and the only way to know is to test the oil.

Car and engine are looking great Pete! I noticed the same with calcium in my last test. You saved me a call to Lake. My engine has been responding very well to DI50. I am planning on running it year round instead of going to DI40 in the cold weather months. In reality, I dont start and drive the car under 40 degrees anyways. Whatever Driven has put in it for lubrication, it works. been using DI40 in my Audis and the oil tests have been substantially better than Castrol which is recomended by the Audi factory. It really is good oil. But very expensive.

Those calcium levels are alarming. The DI oils were formulated using less calcium with the intention of addressing LSPI. Someone butterfingered the calcium lever.

I am going to send a virgin sample in sometime in the next week to get the raw numbers for DI50. After a track day and highway miles in July, mine had 700 miles on the sample and the calcium level was 2376. The previous UAO with a track day and highway miles in April showed calcium of 1292. It would be interesting to know why the increase in the new formula.

We have seen that not every oil brand is after the certifications but wondering if this is partially driven by new requirements for an oil to be certified. I asked Lake and he confirmed seeing the same with Mobil 1. I think the best next step is either a virgin sample test to see if it's down to a certain batch (probably not) or just a new formulation or reaching out to Driven to get a better explanation re the changes they made and why. I've been more than happy with their oils, even at the price and I typically try to snag a few cases when they have a sale. I grabbed 3 cases (1 DT50 & 2 DI50) with a 25% discount so it's good to stock up when those come up.

Car looks amazing bro, it's one of the best 996 examples on the site.

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Much appreciated, coming from a gentleman of such fine taste as yourself!

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It looks like a very recent shift across the DI40 and DI50 products. I had just tested both my Audis which i use DI40 and the jump in calcium is the same. Hoping to have a couple of minutes today to give Driven a call to fill in the blanks on any changes and why. Nevertheless, I am pretty impressed with the oil tests in my Audis using DI40 versus factory recomended Castrol.

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Awesome - let us know what you find out speaking to Driven. Curious about the reason and logic behind the formulation change.

Here's the the NOA off of the most recent DI50 batch. No major changes in formulation. It makes me question the results of the anomalous UOA but I tend to question everything anyways.

A bit of an update, as 2025 comes to a close. Currently, the car is sitting at just about 128k miles and 17,340 glorious miles on the Slakker 4.1 motor since May, 2024 and total of 51k miles on the car under my ownership since October of 2020. After coming back from a little vacation trip, I arrived to my ECU with an updated tune! The primary ask was to raise the idle a tad to help with the lifter noise in bank 2 that only presented itself at idle. After speaking with Brandon about it, it's something that comes up often as the oem lifters were never designed to run on thicker oils like 5w50 or 15w50 that I'm running now. With the update, the idle now sits nicely at 1050ish RPM and the motor sounds smooth and quiet. After plugging it in, I was experiencing some drivability issues, however. The car did sit for a while and I thought maybe I had bad gas, dirty MAF or some sort of vacuum leak. The car sometimes didn't want to idle nicely and had hesitation at light throttle applications. When I was anywhere above 1500 RPMs, there was no issues. Before reaching out to Brandon, I decided to eliminate any potential issues on my end that could be causing this. During that time and out of nowhere, I get a text from Brandon asking me how the car is doing and if I had any issues with the tune. Thinking he might have planted some sort of GPS data beaming device I confirmed that I indeed did! He let me know that he has tested a copy of my tune in his car and similar was happening. Next thing you know, I have Samm from the Slakker team connecting with me to confirm my address as a tune programmer is being shipped over! A few days later, a beer coaster looking thing showed up at my doorstep with directions on what to do next. After a quick sync and setting up the app on my phone, I was able to read the current file, send it over to Slakker and soon after I received 2 new files to try out. File 1 immediately fixed the hesitation issue and had the idle sitting a tad over 1k RPM as we wanted. The issue had to do something with an obscure torque request limiter that's only supposed to affect partial throttle requests but was being used for all torque requests. Something that they discovered after a bunch of other tuning sessions so it's great to benefit from the ongoing learning and development. The second file included a bit of a power bump - I guess you can tell which file I chose to stick with With the plenum and larger TB plus the new tune the car feels more confident towards the redline and pulls without letting up and feeling like the power drops off - exactly what I wanted. All in all, huge thank you and props to Brandon and the team for the ongoing support and yet another confirmation that I went in the right direction by working with Slakker. Another thing I was able to fix was my dang gauge cluster that caused the odometer to get stuck at 999,999mi. I tried every single possible fix out there with no luck. After speaking with the two big names out there when it comes to fixing this kind of thing, I was looking down the path of getting a used gauge cluster and having them reprogram the mileage so it shows the correct number. Luckily, my trip odometer worked fine and I just tracked every single mile driven. One day, as I was scanning eBay for used gauge clusters I came across another repair service that advertised all kinds of work on Porsche gauge clusters. Having nothing to lose I reached out to see if they have ever seen anything like it. Soon after I got a reply telling me that they are not surprised this happened (after using Durametric) and it's something that can be fixed easily. After doing some research, I decided to take the plunge and ship out my gauge cluster for the repair. To my amazement and surprise, the package arrived on Friday afternoon and was back to me in mail the next day! Best part of all fixed! This saved my a large chunk of change and the service and communication was top notch. I couldn't help myself and after some googling, I found out that the gentleman running the service used to work for Porsche in their classic department and is now at Lucid. I don't think I could have done better to be honest. The gauge cluster has been perfectly fine since install. What wasn't too great were those 3 connectors on the back. 21 years of heat cycling made the plastic very brittle. They plugged in fine and everything works but at some point I may replace them and repin it all. I think I read somewhere that Porsche doesn't sell them but it's the same VAG part used on other VAG cars like VW and Audi. Sounds like it will be a PITA job. As one sometimes does, while browsing the FB marketplace, I came across a used x-pipe for a stupid low price of $300 bucks. Naturally I couldn't say no and I have been curious to try one out. It looked rough but after some elbow grease and some chemicals I was able to get it looking pretty decent. It's not a name brand part and was something that was custom made and lived much of its life on a race / track car only. The install was a bit challenging and made me think that the track car it lived on also had custom headers as the fit was extremely tight and felt like there was too much tension. I actually removed the studs and installed it with fresh bolts and nuts. I was only able to get 2 out of the 3 to clear so I knew this wouldn't work for anything long term..... After some additional fiddling, I knew I needed about 1/2in of space between the header flange and the cat flange. I was able to get my hands on some nice flanges that fit perfectly and covered the space I needed. With new gaskets and the flange slid in the middle on each side, everything bolted up nicely without any excessive force or tension. I used some nice stainless steel bolts, washers and nuts along with anti-seize so taking it off in the future would be a breeze. I added 2 O2 spacers after the cats and tied up the install. The sound.... very, very, very happy with it. It was always going to be a gamble but glad with how it turned out. It's actually not as loud as it was with my crossover TopGear cats but in a good way and more importantly I like the tone of the exhaust a lot more. I think this combination works much better with the valved mufflers that I have. I'll have to get some sound clips but to describe, the car has less rasp and low tone and more of a smooth, dare I say "exotic" sound that is a bit more high pitched. It's no GT3 but definitely closer to it than before. I did a bit of a rip going through the Baltimore tunnel and was very happy with the sound. But wait...there's more. For the first time in about 10 years it finally happened..... a mouse got into the engine compartment. Nothing major happened but it did chew through one of my silicone hoses which caused the valves on my exhaust to not fully close. It also had to get to some wires that go to the O2 sensors. I have been getting a CEL for the O2 sensor heater which I need to now track down. Very frustrating but such is city life. I've been able to park in a garage for now which should help. I also cleaned out the engine compartment with pine sol and sprayed it down daily with peppermint spray so now I leave a minty fresh scent as I drive by. I also installed a ultrasonic mouse deterrent in the engine bay. So far so good and hope things stay that way. It seems like we might have a snowier winter than in years past so I also grabbed a set of the new Pirelli all-season tires and threw them on my OEM wheels. Michelin PSS tires that were on there make any winter driving more exciting than I'd want. Come spring, I'm hoping to address a few aesthetic things and get my front bumper resprayed. I'm also thinking of making my own front splitter that will attach to the front lip. Something very low-key and should help protect the lip that is on there now. Got an idea from a fellow pcar owner I saw at a local meet. That's all for now I think. The plan is to continue to enjoy the car and rack up some more miles. After all, they don't melt and the car is so much fun to drive it's pretty hard to let it sit!

U should not have to repin the cluster plugs. The inner part that holds the pins does not deteriorate. Its the outer casing. U just slide it out and slip the new covers on and u r done.

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Well that's great news! Thanks for the tip!

Also mk2 cluster plug vw parts.

thx for the update - car's looking (and sounds like driving) great! who did you use for the cluster mileage repair?

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Thank you! Here�s the link to the service� https://www.ebay.com/itm/275414225169

Went out for a little New Year’s Day ripper around local backroads and grabbed some video/audio of the updated exhaust set up. You Tube

Hey, beautiful build. And great story. I�m a little late to the party, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the whole thread! The sound of the new exhaust is also amazing. My C4S is fitted with have a performance kit from Soul that I�m mostly happy with, though the drone is a bit much at times. Good luck with that stunning chariot.

Thank you, @bigel ! Very minimal amount of drone here, if any. Usually in low rpm and high load situations but that’s why I like the valves mufflers because with them closed it’s pretty stock. Hoping to address some aesthetic things this year and upgrade some control arms, mainly coffin arms. Just need the newer 991 slim type to come back in stock…but that will be a spring project.

New exhaust note is glorious 💙 Well done. Must be a brilliant machine to drive.

Spring is here and I just rolled past 130k miles on the car and 19,340 miles on the motor. The engine feels strong and confident. All the power I want when I need it and still returns 30mpg on a highway and 28mpg if I'm stretching my right leg All that while producing a great soundtrack. With engine stuff basically addressed, it was time to turn attention to suspension. The Ohlins R&T have been fantastic but I'm pretty sure all the control arms were original, and although not in a horrible shape, 22 year is 22 years. FCP finally got the updated lower control arms back in stock so I decided to amass all the parts and get ready to replace them all. Everyone always raves about what a huge improvement this job will make so I was curious and excited how it all turns out. The "dog bones" remain unchanged but as you can see, the lower control arms and the "tuning fork" arm are a bit different. Slimmer for the lower arm and the tuning fork is much beefier, especially where it attaches to the lower arm. FCP supplies the longer bolt that's needed. Overall it was a pretty easy job and everything came apart without much fuss. Living the "no lift life" had me doing burpees for a while and let me tell you, I felt it the next morning! Everything was installed loosely and then tightened to spec with everything raised to ride height. I tried marking the alignment points to get things close enough upon reassembly but this was a fool's errand since the new bushings threw everything pretty out of alignment anyway. I skipped the rear toe arms as I replaced them with adjustable ones about a year ago. This is where the longer bolt is needed, given how much thicker the tuning fork is. Once all that was done, I witness marked all the bolts, which was oddly satisfying. Then it was rinse and repeat on the other side. The front was easier since I had to replace only the 2 arms. The slimmer lower arms look great and everything came together without fuss. When I installed the Ohlins a while back I forgot to order new bearings for the front struts and had to reuse the old ones, which wasn't ideal. This was a good opportunity to get these replaced. I went with OEM ones since they were not that expensive. Forgot to snap photos but I'm quite impressed with how well the Ohlins have held up. They see all 4 seasons and there is essentially no corrosion anywhere. No leaks of any kind as well and the adjustment ***** on the dampers turn and click perfectly fine. In next week or so I'll be cleaning the wheel wells and will give a good clean as well as some anti-corrosive spray to keep it clean for longer. Of course no job is complete without something happening... I lower the car and take it around the block to let everything settle and before I pull out of the alley, the PSM, ABS and Brake Wear lights all come on...great. Pulled off the wheel and saw the below. Ironically, only on the driver side, front and rear. The thing literally crumbled in my hands. This piece, which is basically a connector with some wires is about $170 bucks per corner, which is a bit silly IMHO. Since it's a simple wire connection, I'll be repairing these with deutsch connectors and will probably delete the brake pad wear sensors. There's 5 wires...Brown is ground, Brown/Green & Brown/Black is for the brake pad sensor and Brown/Blue & Brown/White go to the speed sensor. Lastly, I've been meaning to get rid of the janky key fob to control my valved exhaust and so something more OEM. I copied the idea for opening a garage door with one of the buttons located around the radio. I suck at soldering but was able to get a good connection and used my defrost button to make sure it works. Green wire is "close" function, Yellow is "open" and Black is ground. I wrapped it up in some foam to prevent any rattles and shoved it into the space on the left, where I just have the PSM button. I also ordered an OEM Sport Exhaust button to use with this but it turns out that it only clicks on one side! This would mean that I can only trigger one of the 2 buttons. So the solution here will be another defrost button, which has a click to the right and left and I'll just swap over the button cover from the Sport Exhaust button. Few days later I went it to get the alignment done. I actually raised the car by a few mm to get some additional clearance, especially upfront. It still looks great to me but is a bit more functional now. The alignment is fairly mild, to maximize tire life. I have -.6 degrees of camber up front and .03 degrees of toe and -1.4 degrees of camber in rear with .20 degrees of toe. Overall car feels great after the alignment. To me, the biggest improvement comes from the front end. The steering is much tighter and feels very direct. Car feels pretty eager to turn in while still tracking nicely on the highway without any issues. Over next few weeks, I'm hoping to fix that wiring and do some detailing in the wheel wells, taking some tips from Ocean Blue. I have some Simple Green Aircraft degreaser coming in which should help clean up some of the aluminium. My oil sample is off to speediagnostix this week so I should have some results from that as well to share. More to come...

UOA is back and the engine seems to be liking DI50 15w-50. I stretched this OCI by almost a 1000 miles (winter and life) and the oil still looks to have performed well and the wear rate has dropped further. I also noticed that they started adding Soot as a measure point which is pretty cool. As we got some warmers days I decided to clean out the radiators. It's been 2 years! Luckily, the grills I installed have done their job and this is what I found after 2yrs worth of regular driving (it's my only car). So yeah some tiny stuff got through but did not find a nest of leaves and sticks stuck in the radiator and the covers. Temps have remained unaffected. I'd call this a win. I used a strong degreaser and a few nylon brushes to do the cleaning and really get a bit deeper into the fins and push out the dirt that accumulates there. Having a power washer helped blast all the loosened dirt out. Things looked better afterwards. The plastic covers got a good clean as well and were protected with CarPro Perl at 50/50 dilution. I finally got the correct Sport Exhaust button and got that installed for that OEM look. No more silly keyfob sliding around! Also, we all know how much people love those Porsche options, so I retrofitted a new one to take out the only blank left in the middle. The word is that it was an "off the menu" item available only through the Sonderwunsch program, that I was able to track down on the dark web. I heard it might be one-time use only though Next is some attention to the bumper before I make plans to have it resprayed. I decided to swap out the old grills with new ones, that are hexagon shaped. It's what Porsche has been using on some GT cars and I really like the aesthetic. I'm also looking at some options to protect the front lip and have an idea I'll be trying out. Current one has some minor damage that I'll try to repair, especially now that they are 4x the cost they were a few years ago. If this doesn't work, I have my eye on something aftermarket that looks very OEMish but will have to come from Germany. More to come...

What kind of bug is that! Yikes.

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hah no clue but given that there is something like 70 bugs per person in the world it could be anything. Looks like the 996 kills bugs fast too!

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Wish I hadn't read this 🐛😟 Good job cleaning out the rads and dressing the plastics while you have everything apart. 👍 When I did mine last week I found light agitation w/ a soft bristle brush + APC loosened a lot of stubborn build up I had missed the first time I cleaned them. I use disposable brushes from HF similar to these . Bradley

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Love the Apex rims! highly recommend the R&T�s. I put them on my �04 Turbo Cab last spring. I am west of DC and the winding roads can be junk. Car absorbs everything and stays planted in some very spirited driving! not sure if you mentioned a local shop (TLDR on my part), but there is a shop in Western Loudoun, Red Beard Racing, that specializes in PCars. About 30 min before Summit Point for reference. congrats on the beautiful 996!!

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Thank you! Yeah, the Ohlins have been great. I've gone out to River Rd, heading towards Poolesville to set up the dampers. It indeed is pretty bumpy so it was a good place to dial things in. I do most of my work but have had good experience with Taylor Chapman, located not too far from Dulles. He was great to work with. I was able to repair some minor damage to the lower lip/splitter and repaint it. It's not perfect but looks much better than before. I added a product called EZ Lip to the bottom for some added protection. Can't take credit for it as I got the idea from Norwegian Car Guy on Youtube. I'll need to get some better photos but I really like the look and the material is made out of rubber-like compound that serves as the sacrificial layer and is only about $30.

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Nice! I was fortunate to get a new OEM spoiler lip last spring when they were still $325. There was a very small issue with one of the clips that turned out to be fine. They sent me a replacement and told me to keep the other one since it was already mounted. Then I hit a deer, so now I have a new one on and basically two back-ups. Would you happen to know the settings for your R&T's? I had mine softened a little but since I ve gone back to 18" rims, I feel like I need to stiffen them up a bit. I am not 100% of the current settings. HA Im basically driving the same roads, just across the Potomac from you. I used to live off River Road. Now it's Western Loudoun for the win!!

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From what I recall i'm at 15 clicks front and 17 rear - that's from full stiff. The ride has worked really well for me. Since the springs are on the stiffer side, I wanted the dampers soft and let them do their thing with the high-flow valve for when you hit those sharper bumps at speed. I will say that switching to PS4S tires, improved the ride quality as well.

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THX... Hoping to dial mine in a little more at next oil change.. I had also changed from Conti EC Sport 02's to DWS06's to see if I could get a little more life out of them.. May go back to o2's or try the Pilots next time!

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I wonder if that's the stuff I looked into last year. Since I added the aero bumper and lip I'm scraping a lot more, even going in and out of my driveway. Something flexible and sacrificial would be a nice addition.

Finally had a chance to use the lifetime warranty program from Pelican! My pre-cat O2 sensors were still operating but would show a soft code (no CEL) that they were aging and not as efficient. Since I purchased the OEM Bosh units from Pelican, I sent those back and with the credit I purchased the ones without the Porsche plugs. I saved those and simple soldered the wiring together, added shrink wrap and covered with stock protective sleeve. With the credit I was able to get 2 new sensors, and had some money left over to cover a portion of a window regulator. In an effort to prevent any future damage to wiring courtesy of a rodent, I added some synthetic protective sleeve to the wiring that is very exposed and usually is the first to be targeted. The little black box is a wireless valve controller for the exhaust. A few weeks ago, got together with 2 fellow 40AE owners and went for a bit of a drive and a German marque concours show where I got to see a Mercedes Gullwing - first time seeing one in the flesh! Finally, occasionally, the idle would sometimes hunt a tiny little bit. Nothing major but having replaced the O2 sensors, the next thing I wanted to check was any potential vacuum leaks. I didn't have a proper smoke machine and randomly came across this little guy - Hypersmoke. Zero affiliation with the company but this thing is absolutely fantastic and everyone should get one. It was only $60 bucks, it's small, came with everything I needed and I had it working in minutes. Started producing thick smoke in seconds and guess what, I had a bit of a vacuum leak (the bigger one) at one of the sleeves connecting the plenum to the manifold, and 2 very small ones around the brake booster hose (need to source a new elbow) and at the plug where at UAOS connects to the plenum/TB. Once I fixed the bigger leak, the car idled perfectly immediately. The car has been looking and driving great after the recent work. Really enjoying how much better it steers with the new control arms. Raising the car a tiny bit was a good idea and I really like the stance. Low but not tucking tires, which I'm not a fan of, personally. I thought I could get the bumper resprayed before upcoming vacation but that might have to wait till I'm back. I have been itching to make some changes in terms of wheels and adding a small duck tail. I really really like the look with SM-10s but had been thinking of switching things up. If I can move the current wheels, the current vote goes to either the Apex EC7-RS in same color. I have thought about doing weiss gold but am still undecided... The mini ducktail from Rennline is also in the running. It would be color matched so still something I may do and get it painted along with the bumper: More to come....

Ok so I read like the first 6 pages of this thread and you�re a badass I could never do a tenth of the **** you�ve done to this car�but you bought an AE from a dealership that didn�t have an actual power kit? That didn�t bother you? I know you said it had a couple of the components but given all the diy work you�ve done you never confirmed if it had the entire suite of parts?!

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lmao how was this �fantastic�?! This sounds like lawsuit material to me!

@goniners42 - thanks! I made sure to do my due diligence and worked with a great shop that did the PPI and could not verify the complete X51 package, so nobody is not suing anyone. As such I negotiated accordingly and long story short, I was able to acquire the car for a very good price. Having the relatively rare (for 40AE cars at least) sport seats sealed the deal for me. Unfortunately, the heads were not original but I did have all the other bits. Fast forward 5.5 years and almost 55k miles, I have been thoroughly enjoying the car and have not lost a minute of sleep over any of this. If you only made it through the first 6 pages then keep reading - it gets better At this time, I feel like I have a very well put together 996 that provides me with all the fizz I want in the driving experience and with the 4.1L motor, gobs of power and torque that I can still deploy on empty roads and track. So yeah it's been pretty fantastic I'm excited to continue refining the car inside and out and continue to pile on more miles!

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Does the rear auto-spoiler still go up/down with the mini-duck on it? Where did the 4.1L engine come from? Did whoever-X builder give you any dyno numbers or build results? Care to share how or who built it? Curious. YMMV

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It does - I don't see why it wouldn't as it attaches to the top of the stock decklid. I know it's a long thread but you might want to scroll up a bit and have a read as I provided all those details and more. I worked with Brandon / Slakker and at this time I'm probably right around ~395HP and 350TQ, give or take a few, with the latest tune.

Well then ****! Badass! Love it man!

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I saw your build thread where you dynod 375. What got you to 395ish?! I�ve got a 3.9L from Brandon, great dude! I dynod 365/312. Loving this thread. Thanks for doing it!

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Good catch! That was the initial numbers Brandon texted me before more fine tuning took place. Below is an engine dyno graph. Keep in mind that this was done with the stock plenum and throttle body . I wanted to drive the car like that for a bit and after a while upgrade to their power pack which consists of a larger plenum and a GT3 throttle body (covered this in the thread). Along with an updated and more aggressive tune, all that is good for about 10 hp/tq more or less, which is what puts me at the estimated power values. I'm sure having the X51 intake manifold helped get the power numbers up there. Hope that makes sense. This is peak power but the meat and potatoes are throughout the mid-range and gobs of torque available really early...and by 4k rpm you really start to boogie! You can see the power flatten off and torque drop off a bit after 6k rpms. I believe that's how they will tune a street car so that you get access to usable power sooner. I could definitely feel that when pushing the car. With the upgraded plenum / TB / tune, that seems to be gone and the car pulls all the way to the redline. If this was a track car, I'm sure they can make adjustments to augment how the power is delivered. Pre plenum / GT3 TB / tune upgrade engine dyno graph:

Very awesome. The X51 is a big deal. I remember a video out of Slakker talking about it and them talking about doing some work to retrofit for the .1. The head was definitely holding me back. I did some minor head work but wasn�t gonna drop big money for full head work. I did the power pack right away with the 3.9. My car was actually their first 3.9 up from their usual 3.7 for the 3.4L. They did some minor head work and increased compression from their original plan and I ended up at 365/312. Love the torque w these builds. Maybe several years down the road and more development I�ll go back.

I had a similar conversation with Brandon re. head work and we both agreed that the squeeze was not worth the juice for this particular build and the results we got as is were more than satisfactory. There are folks out there across the pond developing ITBs for the M96 platform. Look forward to seeing how that goes.

Summer's here in full blast and this weekend I rolled past 132k miles and 21,500mi on the Slakker motor. Threw the bikes on the roof and off to Philly/NJ for the weekend....but not without surprises :| Cruising in the express lanes of I-95 past Baltimore, all the sudden I felt my steering wheel vibrate heavily. I was going about 70ish mph and was able to gently slow down and move into the emergency lane. Turns out I had a blow out on my front driver side. The tire was not aged out (2022 production) and still had decent thread. They had about 30k miles on them so had a good run but the side blow out definitely took me by surprise. Somehow there was no damage to the rim. I ended up installing the donut I had in the frunk, although that tire was not looking great either so I took it extra easy. Of course something like that would happen on a holiday weekend where most shops were closed. Racking my brain on what to do next, I realized I was not that far from Tire Rack distribution center in DE. I gave them a call to see if they had PS4S in stock in my size and see what install options look like. I didn't really want to install a random tire somewhere and at this point, replacing both fronts made sense. Ironically, I have an almost new set of PS2 tires sitting back at home.... Well, the tires were available and waiting for me but install wise I was on my own. The guy that brought them out was pretty puzzled about how I was going to get them into the car but my tetris skills came in clutch and I was able to get the 2 tires behind the passenger seat after some creative repacking. These cars can really fit a lot more than most people think! I did remember that @De Jeeper didn't live far from there and could maybe point me in the right direction. I haven't seen him in a while and nobody wants to be reaching out to someone asking for help after not talking for a while but I was in a bind had no choice. Aaron was a total legend and was able to help by installing the 2 tires for me since he had the equipment to do so. Lady luck was definitely on my side again and huge kudos and thank you to Aaron for helping a guy out. Porsche community is indeed pretty awesome. Seeing GT3ish in person was a treat too. Some time later, I had new rubber installed and we went out to grab a late lunch. Next I'll need to buy a replacement donut tire since the one on there is still original and even though I probably won't need it again, I'm not going to tempt fate and test my good luck again! The car ran great the rest of the weekend. With the feels like temps being around 110F that weekend I was glad to have the center radiator. The oil temps stayed around 210F while in traffic and dropped once things got moving. 3k miles before the next oil change....something is telling me that I should do a road trip to Rt144 in North PA, which has been named as the Best Driving Road by Haggerty in 2026!

Based on the single time I met him and his contributions here, it is safe to say Aaron is a good guy and an absolute legend. Pete, this is my annual reminder to come out to PorscheFest at Summit Point in a couple weeks to check out the scene. It's a great drive there and lots of cool cars to be seen once you get to Summit Point. Saturday, July 25. Hit me up if you're coming and i'll try an save some space for you. It gets pretty packed in the paddock during PorscheFest weekend. I'll have my 996 race car there. -KJ

As thet say...timing is everything and yours was perfect. I was happy to help out a fellow porsche friend. Thx for lunch and im glad u were able to salvage the rest if your weekend.

Anyone named Aaron is guaranteed to be an all-around good guy.

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Putting it on my calendar and already asked the lady not to plan anything for that day! Will shoot you a text soon.

Wow! Talk about the stars aligning!!! Amazing stuff!

People don't come any better than @De Jeeper , you are lucky to have been in his Area !!!!!

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Would head down that way too but have a stupid weding to go to that weekend.

We all need to take a trip out to the Dragon again!

This community is awesome. Glad the tire situation worked out in the end.

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I'd be down! When are you back in the states?

I've had mine for about a month, love it. Previous owner installed APEX wheels, Fister Mufflers, and H&R Coilovers

Went through this whole thread. What a journey and great build!

Quotes source post: 20650582

Congrats! I've considered those wheels a number of times.

Had a great time hanging out with @KJinDC at Summit Point during Porsche Fest. Lot's a good people and a great event. Someone even brought a proper track support car Went out to explore some WV roads afterwards and grab some late lunch... I've been quite happy with the Racesng shift **** in my car but the wooden 917 / Carrera GT style has been on my mind a bit and could potentially be a nice upgrade/change. I've seen some versions with different executions and I think this one is a favorite so far... The car ran great over the weekend and it got some proper exercise. Since I switched to DI50 from DT50, the oil consumption went down from 1qt in 2500 miles to 1qt in a bit over 3000 miles which is great. This tends to happen when switching oils and am curious to see what happens at the next OCI in about 1500 miles. The car has been driving even better with the refreshed control arms BUT I've been chasing my tail with the PSM/ABS light that stays on. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the connector for the speed sensor has essentially crumbled from heat and age. I don't like doing wiring repairs but tried to fix this via deutsch connectors, which it seemed like it was going to work and a simple fix. There is nothing special about it as it seemed like join wires and ground, which I did via connectors and soldering. Well, despite all the work, codes 4205 and 4206 kept on coming back. This is Front left speed sensor - op. circ./GND/+ short and Rear left speed sensor - op. circ./GND/+ short. I ended up biting the bullet and purchased the Porsche OEM wiring harness in hopes of putting this to bed. I made sure the connections were well secured and protected with heat shrink..... Well, the rear left side code looks to be gone but the front is persistent and won't go away. Going to button everything up later today and go for a brief drive to see if the car needs to cover a bit of distance before this goes away. I'm hopeful but a bit concerned as when I try to clear the code, I can hear a brief click coming from the frunk, presumably from the ABS control unity. I've read through an older thread where someone had a similar issue and it turned out to be a faulty ABS unit. Would be strange here as this issue was non-existent prior to replacing the control arms. Fingers crossed. Could there be a short of some sort that affected the ABS unit and only throw the code for one corner? I don't know but I used the correct factory harness for both front and rear and performed the six exactly the same but it only worked on the rear. Not a fan of silly electrical gremlins. Worst case, I think there are people that repair these units for about $300 but I'd rather put that money elsewhere!

Took a break from chasing the annoying ABS/PSM issue and worked on another project over the last few weeks... I've always liked the rear end aesthetic of the 911R and the earlier GT3 Touring models, particularly the decklid area. Thinking of something like below....and since the ethos behind the build has been a 996 version of a GT3 touring, I think the mod would fit the vision, and as just about all other things I've done is easily reversible to stock. One weekend I removed the OEM decklid cover piece and restored the plastic + ceramic coated it, while also painting the few hardware pieces that hold it in place that were starting to rust a bit. I obviously didn't want to do anything to the original piece, so I ordered a used deck lid cover on line that was in fairly poor shape paint wise and cost less than 100 bucks. Using a variety of sanding and cutting tools I modified it to resemble a unit found on the GT cars. I also ordered another piece of hexagonal grill that I also have on the front bumper to serve as covering. I ended up painting the "frame" in matte black using peelable paint as it gave it a matte black plastic look. Below are some photos of V1 of this thing. I still need to do some fine sanding on the sides to refine things further and decide whether I want to keep it as is or paint match the frame to GT Silver. I do like the contrast but I think it would also look great painted. Maybe I'll just make 2! Before: After: I initially went back and forth on whether I want any type of duck tail on the rear but for now I think I'm going to stick with the classic 911 in lines and leave the deck lid as is. If I can find someone with a 3d printer locally, I'd be curious to try getting a small 4.1 badge bade in Porsche cursive font and place it in lower center, similarly to where the 911R logo is. I don't want to touch the 911 40Jahre badge on the bottom portion of the deck lid so that will stay as is. Also, coming up on 6 years of ownership in a month! Will probably do a bit of a recap then.

Grill stuff looks great! I am interested in 4.1 emblem if you find someone to do it -- get 2, I'll cover cost. YMMV