weekend project - bad news and more bad news - UPDATE

UPDATE - seats and steering wheel are now in got the parts, sparco evo2 seat and atiwe steering wheel. got the time, the whole weekend to install but guess what? i wasn't able to install either! first the steering wheel. i have a set of torx bits that fit onto a hand held driver. good? nope. for one the driver is too long and hits the steering stalk and it has a collar that's too wide to prevent it from inserting. so stupid me i use an allen wrench. i torque it to untighten and feel something give. not good. i should've just waited and got the right tool. second the seat. dang, the power heated seat is HEAVY! at least 50 lbs. took me a while to figure out how to unhook all the wires but finally did it. sparco seat base matches the chassis holes, good, but after assembling the sliders onto the base i realized that the sliders are positioned too closely together. sparco seat base DOES NOT work! now i have to get the brey krause adapter kit and side mounts. in goes the stock powered seat (oh my achin back) at least the stoptechs are in

Hey Carlos... Been a touch bit here as well. I may even have to custom fab some of the brackets. Do me a favor...post a pic of the sparco base. I need to check something. Chad

here ya go

karlooz, I'm not sure if I can be of help but I've installed a number of racing seats in my 996. First on Sparco sliders, which frankly I don't recommend, and later on Porsche Motorsport sliders. PM me for my number if you want to kick it around. Jim

That's a bummer Karlooz

i know dude! i wanted it installed for the bay area gathering. between all the 996TTs and my plain jane 996 i need as much bling as i can get just kidding, i want to get it installed in time for track day on the 15-16th at reno/fernley.

Karlooz...I think you may need to mark and drill points on the mounting base. Measure twice and cut once my friend. Chad

Carlos, I see the difference now that you have posted pictures. I mounted the sliders directly to the floor. To do that you need to get the small tabs that mount to the front of the sliders. In your pictures, you are mounting the sliders to a frame which mounts on the floor. It looks like the sliders mount inside of where it bolts to the floor. I don't see how that would ever work. Obviously way too narrow. I assume that it isn't possible to mount the sliders further out on the frame. I think they sold you the wrong parts. Jim

hey jim, i was thinking of doing what you did (mounting the sliders to the floor) but i think i need the brey krause adapters. it requires trimming the sparco sliders 3/4" however. also i have the option of just using the oem sliders with the BK side mounts. this will allow me to use the lap belt for the street. what did you use?

Carlos... I have a set of these. If you need them, I will sell them to you with a significant discount. I won't need them. Let me know. I paid around $108 from Jason at Paragon. Chad

Carlos, If you can return the Sparco stuff and purchase the oem manual sliders I would highly recommend it. I'm a big Spraco fan and have many products from them but the Porsche sliders are much much better. The ones I use are from Porsche Motorsports but I've been told that they are the same as the stock ones. They cost about twice as much as Sparcos but are worth it. You can also get the side mounts from Porsche although I suspect they cost more than BKs. Make sure that the BKs with work with the oem sliders. They need to have a notch cut out on the bottom. Jim

thx jim, i think i'll get the factory manual sliders and use the BK side mounts. it has the notch in the middle and a mounting for the stock lap belt buckle

Yep, those are the right notches. I think your plan is a good one. Good luck. Jim

thx chad. i'm gonna try out the oem manual sliders and BK side mounts first. i'll let you know if it doesn't work out.

finally in. used the brey krause side mounts with oem manual sliders. works great with the stock belt buckle. i seem to be at the same hieght though. kinda wanted to get lower. maybe i'll just drill a few more holes.

Schweet!!! I love my Atiwe airbag wheel. I think the factory should have made the OE steering wheel this size. It's perfect. I should have pics soon of my seat install. Chad

ya the atiwe steering wheel is really nice. it's exactly like the one ruf sells with their rebadged airbag and costs 700 less. at first i thought the difference in diameter between stock and atiwe wasn't enough but after installing it i think any smaller would feel (and look) weird. especially since we can't tilt the steering column. you might as well do the roll bar and seats at the same time. you don't want to do it like me and do double work

Dat's the plan, Stan... C.

Hey, so Carlos, do you have any pics of that steering wheel? Also I noticed you did the red calipers in the front did you paint or powdercoat the rears to match and do the stock fronts if you ever put them back on etc? I was going to do that and do yellow calipers, but decided against it because I beat the hell out of my car and wouldn't be happy if the paint on the rears started to wear etc., so I did the black. Also what fluid and pads are you using??? I am also interested in that flywheel deal. How much and did you change the clutch out at the same time to something else?

hey spr, i bought some high temp caliper paint from autozone. it came out really good, especially after using a porsche stencil to paint the logo rather than using vinyl caliper decals. the paint has proved to be durable in street conditions but i cannot comment on track conditions. i haven't over cooked them so that the paint discolors. i've heard (maybe even from the stoptech site) that powder coated calipers can discolor too. i'll let you know how they fair after a track event. i have a two day event next weekend if you track the car a lot then black or for that matter natural aluminum/silver, a la brembo gtr brakes, may be a better idea. if there was that option i would have got the natural and got the rears too i used ate gold w/axxis street pads. i want to try out hawk for the track. supposed to be as good as pagid but cheaper. maybe next time i'll use castrol srf. your favorite right? check the thread on LWF for my $0.02

cool on all the aforementioned. I do like srf and was running the ate blue before. I have heard some bad things personally about the hawk blues so even though they are said to be the same they really are not when you are really tracking them-

Carlos, I think your calipers will turn a dark red after a few events. The white Porsche will turn yellow. That's what I've seen happen to Turbo brakes. Could you please comment on what it took to get the StopTech brakes in? Just curious on what changes had to be done to get the rotors to fit. My front rotors are just about well done and probably will not survive another hard DE. Thank you. And congratulations on your project!

i have a set of 18" champion rg5 monolites and 19" sportecs come w/ a 7 mm spacer from the distributor. you can download a template which you can cut out and place against the inside of your wheels to check for proper clearance. SPR has been able to fit them w/the stock carrera lightweights. the front kit consists of two 355x32 mm 2 piece floating rotor (stock is 318x28 mm), stainless steel DOT lines, caliper and adapter.

Damn I didn't get a close up look at your car on Saturday!

you got some great pics form the event. HAHA other than the brakes and wheels you wouldn't want to get a good look at my car. the bumper is not in the best of conditions. still need to install my ruf front bumper, just no time. gotta keep up with all of you "ballers"

Nice job on the brakes. BTW where did you find the stencils and what type of paint did you use for the "PORSCHE" lettering? Thanx

i got them off ebay. search porsche caliper decals. be sure to ask of the reverse/negative/mask so you can use it to spray the letters on. i used high temp caliper paint for the caliper AND the lettering.