bought my first porsche - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

well i've been a camaro and vette guys so far but as of tomottow at 4pm i will be in my first porsche. its nothing special just a 98 2.5 but.... its a porshe !!! lol i'm excited. i have a little nest egg set aside to to play with and was wondering what you would do if you had $3k to sink into your porsche? what performance mods would you make, what visual mods would you make? i know $3k isnt huge but its a start. i just sunk #17k into my corvette and well..... i need to recuperate a little from that lol

You spend all the time in the car on the tires, so they should be checked. Next is suspension, something else that is used 100 percent of the time. Brakes as a safety item should be perfect. Then I would invest in yourself and attend a driving school to get your personal skills squared away.

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??? Huh ??? Im 38 years old... Driving school??? Im not sure if your being sarcastic or insulting here. If i was asked about spending $3k on fun stuff for a car... I would suggest fun stuff for the car. Safety things such as brakes are kind of a given. Not to many people who own a corvette, custom exotic and a porsch driving around on three tires and a donut spare and or bare pads on grinding rotors lol Again not sure if your joking or ??? Anyway.

Congratulations on the car! I had a few Corvettes too that are gone now, but my 99 does remind me of driving a Corvette but it actually handles better being a mid-engine car. It's not as fast as my Vettes were but I'm getting older so it's fast enough for me. I would just make sure the car is road worthy first and then maybe do some cosmetics things if needed. Mine needed a new top which I installed with a plastic window like original, but you may want to upgrade to a glass window top if your top or window is in poor shape.

Complete suspension refresh and new kicks. Not many performance mods short of the underdrive pulley that really make a difference. Your ims is a double row so you're probably ok there. Much smaller failure rate with those.

So ive been on ebay for the last few hours lol so if i bought the rear wide body fenders.. What rims could i get under there? How wide? I have some pretty wide wheels on my vette... I did a custom wide body on it. But i love wide body on any car so if i did that to this boxster any suggestions on wheels? Thanks for the input guys.

Meh. Forget performance mods. Make sure you have a decent set of tires and brakes and go spend some money on the track with a driving instructor and learn what you and your car are capable of. Learning how to really drive the car will be the best performance upgrade you can make. I promise you will be amazed at what that little 2.5L engine and stock suspension are capable of. Welcome to the club! Rick

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Thanks. Ok so this is the second post about driving instructions... Am i missing something lol is there a warp drive thats gonna pop out of the hood ... Whats so dificult about driving a porsche? Serious question... Why has this been suggested twice now? Not debating anyone just curious

Totally agree with the below. One of the thing that sets the Porsche apart from the rest of those 'sports cars' is the handling. Focus on the tires and suspension. I'd imagine a 98 needs a refresh to get the real Porsche feeling. Motor mount is also an important handling piece. Drop us some pics of your new ride!

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I will post up pics tomorrow when i get home with it. I was thinking about these rims... Will they fit http://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/231748748114

Congrats. I would start with good quality tires,shocks,air filter,oil,spark plugs,water pump,brake oil, under drive pulley,clay,polish,wax. Park it and drive the corvette.

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Lolol that was great lolol well the vette i have is pretty mean but the porsche is just for something fun to drive and down the road... Im gonna cut it up and make a monster ya you porsche original guys will hate me, but the end result will be "wow"

Did you have a PPI done? If nothing was found that needs fixing, then don't fix anything. If you didn't PPI, then take the car to an indy and have them check it out for you. As said before, learn to drive fast at a DE or driving school - before you monsterize it.

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What is PPI? How come no one suggested learning how to drive when i bought my corvette? Third suggestion on learning how to drive.... Why???? Lol what is so complicated about driving a boxster? Ive owned 800hp street cars... More then one. Is the porsche handling worse than A corvette or camaro? Just asking As far as monsterizing it.... At 38, a new grandpa and a five yr old son. I have no desire to go 150mph. 0-60 ... Oh ya definitly lol but im not a speed guy. Just the get up and go thrill me. With all the fast cars iv had ive never crashed.

PPI = Pre Purchase Inspection. Congratulations on the purchase. Enjoy.

As others have said, tires, brakes, safety stuff, etc. Before you do car performance mods, do driver performance mods. In other words performance driving school. No matter how poor your Porsche might be in performance (which it is not!), unless you have had a bunch of driving instruction, you will not drive it anywhere near its stock capabilities. Go to a driving school and if they have timed laps, I would bet no matter what your best lap time is an instructor will beat it by a few seconds in your car. Also if you are considering performance mods and plan on doing AX or track, what you can and cannot do will be governed a bit by the rules and what class you plan to run in. Dont mess with mods at first and dont end up with something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQptfdSCdhs

As someone who bought a 97 years ago and started modding it like it crazy (new headlamps, tail lamps, seats, steering wheel, center console, exhaust, 18 inch Carrera light aftermarket wheels, etc), I offer this advice: - Porsches are expensive to own. Parts are a LOT more money and the 98 you've purchased will no doubt need a grand in repairs in the next year or two at a bare minimum unless the previous owner was as idiotic as ME and replaced most everything on the car even if it wasn't worn out. It's an old Porsche that was built in an era where the bean counters were in charge of quality control and all the plastic crap on the car is now brittle and the bushings are all worn out, etc. Save your money for repairs. They'll be plentiful and not simple to fix like your American cars due to parts sourcing at affordable prices. - Arrest the desire to stuff big tires and wheels under the car. You've got a 200hp car that will be substantially hurt performance wise if you put heavier wheels and tires on it. It doesn't need them for traction, that's for sure. It will also wear out your suspension and wheel bearings rapidly. Learn from my mistake. When I put my factory 17's back on the car there was a noticeable bump in off-the-line performance. - If you join the local PCA chapter and sign up for a high speed driver's education course, you'll quickly discover you have far more car than you are capable of handling on a track (where it really shines. After all, it's not a Turbo with gobs of HP for straight-line performance). If you do this, the desire to mod the car will go away and all you'll think about is becoming a much better driver... a far more worthy use of your time and money in our opinion here on this forum. - Every dollar you put into your 1998 beyond keeping it running well is a complete waste of money. You will not recoup any of it when you get tired of the car (or very little of it if you keep your factory parts and sell the improvement stuff). Dumping money into a depreciating asset is insanity. Took me 10+ years to figure this out about my 97, but I've got it in my head now and it's final... no more mods. It just wastes money you have saved for retirement or to retire debt in your world. Check out my web site for all I have done and been forced to do to keep my 97 on the road and looking good... you'll see I was addicted to modding the car before I came to my senses. Final advice: Drive the car for a year before you do a thing to it or argue with me on my points. Bookmark this thread for re-reading in November of 2016!

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+986! .

Wow after all of these replies im thinking i should have bought a performance car lol one i dont have to treat like a grandma fearing to break a hip lolol so keep it under the speed limit so it doesnt out handle my driving abilities, rebuild it so its safer then every other 1998 car and dont do anything to it to make it fun or personalize it. Sounds like porsche builds poopy cars lolol dont take me wrong guys or get offended im just replying with my sarcastic humor as i usually do with everything in life... Gotta smile in this world Ok on that driving school stuff... Id challenge most to thise track times ive had quite the collection of sports cars more then most. The thought that now that i own a 200hp porsche my driving skills are void and null... Nooooo lol porsche weighs 2900lbs right? I have a supercharged fiero at 450hp right now that weighs 2600lbs. Coil overs all around, i have a vette running low 11's. I have a a custom exotic ive swapped in porsch boxster s trans/ls1 with four wheel independant susp. Mid engine etc, ive own multiple supras, mustangs etc. not debating guys are trying to make anyone frown lol just saying that this porsche doesnt have a cape and an s on the hood that some how makes it undrivable to mere mortals lolol sorry for the grammar and spelling .. Typing on my phone from work

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No, we're just telling you like it is. Owning a Porsche ain't like owning a Vette. The car is designed and engineered the way it is for a reason so that's why you aren't going to do better than the factory unless you're someone like Jake Raby who builds things better than the Germans do. You asked us what to do with 3k. You said you didn't want to blow 17k like your vette. Pretty much every suspension component is going to be worn out on that car by 100k miles. If you want a car that you could care less how it handles and what it rides like, then blow your cash on one of those Lamborghini body kit conversions and then you'll have a Lamborghini. Or if you really want to dump some money into it and make it a monster, drop a 3.4 liter carrera engine in it and add a supercharger if you really want to give it balls. But you're likely still going to need a suspension refresh if you want the car to handle that power. I know you said this in jest, but you need to be prepared for expenditures if you own an out of warranty German car. They need preventative interval maintenance. No way around it.