MyNameIdeasWereTaken 987.1 S Progression Thread

2008 Boxster S "Lossëa" Carrara White Manual Stock Options: Sport Chrono Bi-Xenon headlights (DRLs disabled) Cocoa Full Leather Interior Heated Seats Automatic Climate Control Bose High End Sound Self-Dim Mirrors Cocoa Top Rain Sensing Windshield Exterior Cosmetic Modifications: Victor Equipment Turismo 19" x 8" ET+45 & 19" x 9.5" ET+49 Clear Side Markers DSX 15mm Front & 30mm Rear Hub Centric Spacers Black Porsche Trunk Lettering Jtec LED Tail Lights Full LED Conversion Custom Mesh Grilles Custom Livery Wrap Custom Canards TC Sportline Front Lip Blacked Out Headlights Custom Rear Bumper Vents VTX Spoiler (more info here ) Rally Armor Mud Flaps DEPO LED Running Lights / Fog Lights Interior Cosmetic Modifications: Sparco Sprint Seats G-Force 4 Point Harnesses Momo Wheel with Momo Hub (more info here ) Uro Part Steel Convertible Top Arm Ends Full LED Conversion Custom Fire Extinguisher Mount Color Matched Tunnel Console and Interior Trim Aluminum Shift Knob WeatherTech Floor Liners Porsche Logo Door Latch Covers Deviated Stitching Leather Wrapped Custom Roll Bar Spyder-Style Door Pulls Audio & Electronics: Garmin GPS Cobra Radar Detector Eyourlife LED Light bar Prosport Oil Pressure Gauge iSimple FM Modulator Kinivo Bluetooth Adapter Performance & Handling: Schnell Short Shift Kit Top Speed Catback Exhaust GodSpeed Coilovers and Adjustable Toe Arms Opened Wheel Well Radiator Vents Custom Rear Subframe Stabilizer Bar Tarett Underdrive Pulley Sprint Booster GT3 350mm Front Rotors Awards & Features: 129Photos "Photo of the Week" 11-12-2018 129Photos "Photo of the Week" 11-12-2018 Dragon's Choice CTDX 129Photos "Photo of the Week" 5-26-2019 Killboy Weekly Highlight 5-26-2019 129Photos "Photo of the Week" 6-2-2019 Killboy Weekly Highlight 6-2-2019 129Photos "Photo of the Week" 11-3-2019 Killboy Weekly Highlight 11-3-2019

For those who don't know me, my name is Michael and my automotive background mostly consists of extensively modifying, tuning, and racing Volvos (detailed build threads can be found in my signature). My plans for this Boxster are to build a Touge / Track car... I will keep the first post updated with a list of current modifications and continue to share as I go. All of my cars are a never ending build, but I hope to have this car "ready" by the start of the spring season.

Went to my first PCA event today, at Hamilton Gardens in Hiawassee, GA.

Beautiful car, was looking at similar modifications on my 06. Where did you get the spoiler and tail lights from?

The previous owner bought and installed the tail lights, not sure where he got them. But just searching "987 Jtec tail lights" shows a few sellers online. The spoiler came off of a salvage Cayman , already painted.

Finally thought of a name for this car...Lossëa. Lossëa is an adjective in Tolkien's Elvish language, meaning "snow white." Snow White originated as a German fairytale, so this seemed like a fitting name for a white German car. ​​​​​​​ Here's a picture of the Cayman spoiler :

Knowing Michael’s work from the Volvo community, this is going to be fun to watch! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Find yourself a Cayman rear bumper or a after market bumper for a Cayman . That will fix the gap between the spoiler and the rear bumper. I have the Cayman spoiler on mine and have a GT3 -type rear bumper waiting to be added.

Finished building my catback exhaust , sound clip to come.

Catback muffler delete with the stock cats and the stock T pipe, so there is still proper scavenging. If there is any loss of low end torque, it is barely noticeable. It definitely flows more efficiently on the top end and it sounds heavenly. It's loud, but compared to some of the other cars I have built, it's not unbearable and drone is minimal; likely due to the engine being behind the driver and it being a convertible. The real shocker was how heavy the stock mufflers were, so this is a decent weight savings. Total cost was about $96 and an afternoon of cutting, bending pipes, and welding. The dual 4" tips were the real expense at $80.

Can you explain more what you did to perform a muffler delete but keep your cats? I got rid of my mufflers as well but since the secondary cats are built in, how did you keep those in the new system? I loved the sound at first but recently it has been a bit too much drone for my liking, yet I LOVE the way it sounds on the top end. I want to add some sort of muffler or blockage to get rid of the drone but keep the grunt and top end scream I have right now, any suggestions? I still have the stock mufflers sitting in my garage, guess I could gut them if I realy wanted to, but doesn't seem worth it.

I didn't realize that there were cats built into those mufflers... So I guess I deleted those too. I kept the cats that matter, the ones with the O2 sensors connected to them. We don't do emissions/inspections where I live, so all my turbo cars are catless and it has never been an issue. We got caught in a rain storm yesterday and drove with the roof up, there was quite a bit of drone in that 2k-3k rpm range. From past experiences of building exhausts systems, adding a simple loop to the piping can alter scavenging and minimize drone, as well as extending the tips a bit further outward. Not sure what car this came from, but something like this: We built a similar loop on a muffler delete (not Porsche) and it retained the raw sound and butt-dyno performance, but with half the drone. Lots of science to this, which is why I acknowledge that the top end exhaust systems are fully worth the cost of engineering. Since I only intend to drive this car on the weekends and with the top down, I can live with the drone for now. But I may explore other options in the future.

We built a bolt-in roll cage that still allows full function and clearance of the roof and retains the factory roll bar. This cages meets all SCCA requirements (which is sufficient for the events I usually compete in). If I start doing PCA HPDEs, then I'll see about getting it inspected... Or whatever steps I'll need to take. First, we removed the aluminum shims from the bottom of the stock roll bar and cut a steel plate to match this shape. We then welded the roll bar to this plate. Here's the test fit of the roll bar. Next we welded these brackets to plates, which bolt to the floor of the car. The carpeting did have to be cut for the bracket to pass through. These connecting brackets were welded to the top of the roll bar. A pipe was bent to run from these connectors down to the brackets bolted to the floor. Final fitment before measuring and welding in a harness bar. Both the cage and factory roll bar were removed and painted with an appliance epoxy, something I have used on past cages. $3.50 per can, no primer or clear coat required, and it leaves a very durable semi-gloss finish. It's also a close enough match to the body color, that I'm satisfied. *

I made fixed seat brackets by welding two halves of this steel bracket together. Bolts into the factory bolt points and sits about 1" lower than stock. The Sparco seats came out of my C30. The total cost for the cage was about $200 for materials and took us about 7 hours of pipe bending and welding. I also swapped in my Momo steering wheel with a Momo hub and an NRG quick release. I simply added a 3.3ohm resistor to each airbag connector. No cutting, so this can easily be reversed. No codes so far. The horn wires were extended and run to the Momo button in the center of the wheel. This car is really starting to feel like home with my wheel, seats, and harnesses.

This set up looks fantastic for the track, but what about going to get coffee? I was watching Jay Leno's show last night, where one of his buddies found a Ferrari Testa Rosa body hanging in a garage in Italy. He likes to build old cars and bring them new life, so thats what he did. Very accurate reproduction including wheels, engine, tranny,etc. Where he found all the parts is a wonder. So, he was going to get some coffee in sunny LA, someone ran a red light and wiped out the front passenger fender and door of his hand pounded beauty. Turned is five year project car to the back of his garage. He had a harness as well. My question, what happens to your neck when someone smacks your car head on by accident when you are buckled in the 6 point harness with no air bag to support the forward motion of your 10 lb bowling ball head. Dale Earnhardt. No Hans device to hold it in place. Accidents happen all the time, texting, phone, children, not paying attention, as you see on Progressive car ads on TV. What I am getting to is this setup may not be safe for going to get coffee where in my case is 90% of my cars drive time. Dont get me wrong, I love the Mono wheel and disconnect, but I do not want a broken neck/spinal cord from lack of an air bag. Maybe someone can figure how to use a Hans device on the street without the helmet but a strap that goes around your bowling ball head hidden by a cap . Also, as in PCA, if the driver has this setup, so too must the passenger (instructor) have all of those safety belts and restraints available and working for him/her including the Hans device attachments. For the street, sort of takes the fun out of it when looking at this issue from a safety point of view. Honey, please put your head strap and neck brace on and buckle your 6 point harness. WTF, wife not going, car's ride is rough enough, now this!!!!

Accidents do happen and every accident is different. I have a few friends in emergency response and law enforcement, some who have quick release wheels and racing buckets in their dailies. Their opinion on airbags are 50/50. Half the time it's what saved the occupants, half the time it caused more harm and was actually the culprit for breaking necks. A light bumper tap at 30mph is bearable, but then being punched in the face by a 200mph deploying airbag causes the injury. On the other hand, if you stop and a light and get rear ended at 60mph, an airbag would be beneficial. Steering wheel airbags are designed to work with the standard 3 point belt and factory seats with anti-whiplash protection. In my opinion, if you're ditching the steering wheel airbag, then you must always use a full 5 or 6 point harness. When properly adjusted, harnesses will hold you much tighter. Whiplash is still a threat, but you won't be smacking your head on the steering wheel or windshield. The downside is that when not on the track, you not experiencing the adrenaline that helps ease an unexpected impact. While it's debatable whether it's safer than a stock setup (I would say it's not), it's not any different than driving a Slingshot, an Ariel Atom, or an Exocet. Those are all road legal cars that have huge safety risks to drive. As for the cage, it's still street legal, just frowned upon because it can make vehicular extraction more difficult for emergency response. Insurance is fully aware of what I have done. Add a roll bar to a Miata or pickup and insurance rates go down. Add a cage to a Jeep or 4x4 and insurance rates go down. Add a cage to a car and insurance rates go up... I had a friend who had a tree go parallel with the windshield, between the A and B pillars. The roof is what saved them. Since then I have been terrified of convertibles. The factory roll bar keeps you safe if you're upside down, but there's nothing to protect you from something coming between the roll bar and the windshield. So having the cage is worth it, to me.

My son's friend was riding in his ex girlfriend's Honda that went off the road over a curb, triggering the air bags. My son's friend had facial damage and eye issues. Double vision for 6 weeks, finially cleared, but a law suit by him followed to reclaim the medical damages. $35,000 was awarded to him of which $7000 was to be paid by the his ex girl friend (parents paid), as she did not tell her parents of the accident, which caused a lot of issues with the ER department and care to my son's friend in a few days following the accident. So you are right about the 200 mph air bag. My thought is that it took Dale Earnhardt's death for NASCAR to develop the HANS device. He died do to hitting the wall head on at Daytona. His Simpson safety harness and seat worked properly as did his helmet. The problem was his head was unrestrained. The belts held his shoulders in place, so his head was going 190 mph in one second to 30 or so, off the concrete wall and sliding back wards across the track. The safety crews were on the spot quickly, as their man (NASCAR's hero) had just hit the wall, but looking at the tape, they could tell, life was gone. Still efforts were made to revive him. Not sure how many vertebra were broken and spinal cord broken in different places, but the fact remains that a bowling ball on our shoulders need to be harnessed to prevent this from happening in frontal accidents. Yes, air bags do damage, but these are mostly repairable, broken spinal cords are a different level of damage and not repairable.

To all my non-car friends who thought they were smart by calling my car a 911 , and to all the Porsche owners who disappointingly asked me how I liked my Carrera ...

I have no problem with the stock shifter throw, but the height of the shift knob really bothers me. It's not in a position where I intuitively grab it and if I'm just cruising with my elbow on the arm rest, I don't want to reach upward to change gears. Any easy ways to shorten it? I'm thinking I may just pull the assembly, cut down the metal rod, and put on an aftermarket shift knob.*

One of my convertible top arm ends was broken, so I replaced both sides with the steel replacements. ​​​​​​​

I have had 60s and 70s cars that have had lap belts, I really think as long as you aware of the risk its fine, there are no air bags on a motorcycle.

Got a set of Porsche rubber floor mats. I've always preferred rubber over carpet. Swapped the main interior bulbs to LEDs and added my ricey touch of blue LEDs for the foot well lights. Since they're just the foot well bulbs, they only illuminate when the doors open. I like the splash of color and they compliment the other blue accents on the car.

Bolted my fire extinguisher bracket to the roll cage, directly behind the driver's seat for easy access when exiting the vehicle. All vehicles should be required to carry fire extinguishers; I know some countries make it mandatory.

I picked up a set of Godspeed coilovers and adjustable toe arms for a ridiculously low price, brand new in box but previously opened and returned. I share the general opinion of Godspeed products and if these last me two seasons, I'll be surprised and happy. In the meantime, it's nice having something with adjustable dampening, lowering, and built in camber plates. I'm honestly very impressed... Compared to my experience with H&R, Bilstein , and K&W on Ford, Mazda, and Volvo, I would consider these better than H&R and Bilstein , but time will tell... The amount of adjustability has allowed me to test various settings over the last few weeks and dial in something that is comfortable, sits the way I want, responds very well to the road, and isn't bouncy. Install took about 2 hours and adjustments only take seconds. I fully expect that I'll have to replace these in the not-so-distant future. But considering that they cost me less than 20% of any other 987 coilovers (many with less adjustment options), these will hold me off for the next year.

your car's stance looks great with the wheel spacers. I would suggest you look at solid thrust pucks for your lower control arms and poly bearings as well. What this will do is prevent your tires hitting the front inner liners under down hill turns and stiffen up the rears, preventing 2 1/2 inch of travel front and aft causing your toe in to change to toe out. A Pedro Technobrace will also solidify your rear frame rails from torquing under threshold braking causing brake wiggle. The brace also aids turn in as does the solid thrust puck in front.

Thanks for the compliments and suggestions; more things I'll probably consider once I put a few more miles on the car and start to determine where it's lacking. So far, no problems with rubbing or hitting the fender liners. There's a few local roads that I use as my testing grounds for suspension mods. Lots of nice banked turns and gravity dips that can cause many cars to hit their bump stops. Over the last few weekends of testing, nothing has made contact. But a rear brace is already on my radar. Seems like an absolute must for how I intend to use this car and something I can easily fabricate in my garage.

They do wear out (I've had to replace mine) but do realize they are plastic so that they will break if there is an obstruction to closing/opening. Instead of frying the more expensive motor.

Awesome :banana:

Did a few Dragon runs and Blood mountain runs last weekend. A few more tweaks to the suspension and it'll be perfect. It's getting there! I promised myself I wouldn't order any more parts until after Christmas, so my to-do list will be completed early in the new year.

The stance is perfect whats your settings?

Thanks! The front is a 2" drop, the rear is a 2.3" drop to make it sit a little more level but still remain slightly raked. The dampening is set about 75% firm all around, but I'm going to soften it a bit more. Fronts are 19" x 8" ET+45 with 5mm spacers and 235 tires , neutral toe, and -2.5° camber. Going with 245 tires and ditching the spacers for next season. Rears are 19" x 9.5" ET+49 and 265 tires and a slight toe in. The first lowered picture was with 25mm spacer and -3.0° camber. In the rainy rolling shot, I pulled the camber back in to -2.5° and swapped for 15mm spacers. Not as flush, but these tires will be upped to a 275 and it'll look about the same again.

Your stance looks good! With my OEM wheels I have 10mm f and 18mm spacers along with 10 mm internal Tarett Cup LCA shims to push the OEM stance out. My race wheels are Signature forged monoblock 9 inch 18in with 47 offset f and 10 inch rear with offset of 35. The idea of internal shims is less wear on the wheel bearings. My camber is -2.7f and -2.5r (for now) using 255/35/18 RE71R f and 275/35/18R. OEM wheels have Michelins P4S's 255/35/18 f and 275/35/18 r. Recently I increased my Tarett GT swaybar spring rate to the second from max front and rear. This caused me to change the Ohlin rebound settings from 15/18 clicks from stiff to 6/8 clicks to control the wheel rate. The balance (roll rate front, rear) is still very good but my main purpose of changing the swaybar to reduce weight transfer across the car. What I am trying to accomplish is the same balance with the OEM daily drive tires and my race tires , so when I am hill climbing, pushing the apexes, etc, the front inside tire sticks and the rear does not have any tendency to snape oversteer with throttle modulation, or full thottle while unwinding the steering wheel out of corners. So far these two sets of tires are very close to the same balance, even though the RE71R's are 3-4 seconds faster through the autocross. This coming year I will invest in a set of Hoosiers A7's and relegate the RE71R's to wet track use and change my camber to -3.0f and -2.6r. If you are fabricating a rear frame brace, I would use a solid bar like Pedro's Technobrace and use two additional bolts to attach the support plate to the bar. You may need spacers between the bar and the plate so no additional stress is put on the support plate to create a very solid rear platform.

3 of the last 4 weekend at the Dragon have been a great way to enjoy the fall colors. I was selected twice for photo of the week! Please go vote at: http://www.129photos.com/