Trouble with De-Snork

K-Man and others who have DeSnorked. I know that K-Man did an excellent job with his detailed de-snork instructions. I attempted this yeaterday and quickly gave up. On the restrictor plate I could clearly see 4 tabs and pins. I carefully pried up the tabs (I may have even broken one or two in teh process). What happended is that the restrictor plate became loose from the pions but the outer air intake 'grill' (exterior vertical body color pieces) remained firmly attached. Am I removing the wrong set of pins? I did not see any other pins (did I miss them somehow?) and the exterior grill doesn's move at all. rather than do any further damage, I gave up until one of you can give educate me a little more. Thanks, Charles

Charles, There are only 3 tabs and pins holding the exterior grill. The four latch pins visible without touching the grill are to hold the restrictor baffle/plate. You release those after getting the grill off. To get at the 3 tabs holding the grill, you need to pull the edge of the grill away from the edge of the steel body panel. I actually inserted two fingers into the gap. The plastic grill deflected so much that I swore I'd break the grill or craze the paint before I got at the tab. I will try to take a pict tonight and post if someone doesn't beat me to it. Vic

Thanks Vic, Thanks for the quick reply! I too found it hard to move the plastic grill out from the body even a small amount, so decided not to pullany harder. I guess I gave up too soon. Did you finda noticableperformance increase with the de-snork? I am getting the 9ff, kit-2, modification within a couple of weeks. The better breathing with a de-snork seemed to be a good thing to do too. Thanks for any pictures you may have to clairify exactly how to best remove those pins. Cheers, Charles

Charles, Have you read through BOTH articles in the Articles section on how to de-snork, there are a lot of pictures there including some annotated ones that should make the pins pretty clear. Is there anyone in your area who has done this mod that you can have do it for you? or drive it by here and I can help!

Ken, Have you had any track vibrations coming from the air intake area? I'm getting a vibration (I think its the snorkel itself vibrating) that hits at about 95 MPH and gets a bit louder as you hit triple digits. Paul

Thanks for the note Ken. In your picture 3 (from top), in De-Snork II, you show your fingers under the yellow plastic vent piece. My (silver) one is VERY tight (that's why I attacked the visible tabs on the restrictor (which were easy to move, but only loosened the restrictor plate itself).It seemsyou were able to pull out your yellow outer vent trim enough to see, and work on the pins. Mine is very tight and I thought I would break something pulling on it any harder. It moved out only about 1/8 inch with ~ 40-50 lbs of force, so I stopped. Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.A drive to KC from St. Louiscould possiblywork outbut I will be out of the country almost all of August. I teach at Washington University and, after classes are comfortably under way, I might be able to get a away over a weekend. That will be presumably after I get the 9ff mod installed. I hope tohave this done by ReidVann during my trip to Zurichand try it out before I leave for Australia on the 19th of August. The parts aren't in yet and may not be in in time for this since 9ff is changing locations in Germany and shipping has been delayed. Hopefully the kit will get here before I go. Thanks again, Charles

Devo, Nope no vibrations, none. Charles, Why don't you hold off and wait until your 9ff install is done then bring the car over and we can de-snork it here and put it on the dyno at Imagine Auto!

Ken, That sounds fine - It will be interesting to see independently how much the 9ff kit puts on the pavement. Hope theparts comes in soon. I'''ll check with Emeka to see how things are getting sorted out in Dortmund. By the way, that kit uses one cat (instead of the stock two) anda singleO2 sensor. It remains to be seen how this is integratebby the ECU for mixture control though 9ff has access to all the original Porsche firmware and has reworked the code in revised ECU firmware in a proprietary fashion (which is why 9ff wants the ECU sent in for reprogramming instread of letting the installer flash the unit). Charles Cheers, Charles

No trouble here with the de-snorkel. Took me about 10 min (I did not use any wire mesh) and did not break or scratch anything. Happy to do yours if you are near Montreal!

Hopefully, when you get the 9ff kit installed the de-snork should be a distant memory.

Charles, Here are the picts of what you need to do to the grill to gain access to the clips.

Silversled, There is actually one at the very bottom as well which can be seen in my Articles, at first I thought it was just a pin, but then realized I had pulled the whole pin piece out with my intake grate.

K-man S, You're absolutely right. However, I didn't want to remove my grill again to snap a picture. I was losing daylight. Thanks.

Silversled and Ken, Thanks to both lf you. These pictures makes it even clearer. When I get home tonight I'll have another try at getting the grill off. Again, I do rally appreciate all of the help! Charles

Ken, I was thinking about your comment and realized that there really isn't a practical way of getting at that bottom pin/clip. I did the same also and just pulled the whole assembly out. I also thought it was a locating pin. Vic

Charles, have you dyno'd your car yet? I dont want the desnork stealing the 9ff powerkits thunder!! I have word that 9ff is in the new location - but their phones and computers are not yet back up. I'll post pics soon. I spoke w/ Mr. Fatthauer via cell phone yesterday. He says it looks like an F1 construction shop - he is very pleased. However, he couldnt indicate which one of the tons of boxes around him had the powerkits. I should know later this week for sure. One thing is for certain - at least they'll be shipped before the entire country goes on vacation (to terrorize the rest of europe)!

Emeka, I have not de-snorked yet and will probably wait until I install the 9ff power kit. K-ManS has the dyno results on the stock Cayman S. I may drive to Kansas City and try to set up a dyno test using the same setup as K-ManS, then de-snork and maybe test again. That way we will the have both modifications tested independently. While it may not be the best way to do it, since the dyno results from K-ManS will be on a different car and under different conditions (temperature, etc.), but it will give us an idea. I understand that Benmay begetting the same power kit installed in Las Vegas. A dyno test before and after that install would be very interesting and the best way to gauge the WHP gain under the cleanest of circumstances. You might check with him to see if the has access to dyno facilities, and/or work with him to set them up in Las Vegas (K-ManS may be of help here). Charles

Vic, Thanks for the great pictures. I de-snorked last weekend using your pictures with no problems. I used plastic gutter guard (rather fine mesh, maybe too fine) instead of the metal. The only problem I hadwas when I put it back together. The outer shell (that contains the pins) pushed in when I tried to re-insert the outer grill after installing the mesh. I had to pull it back out and out came the pin, bending/breaking the plastic tabs on the inside.However, itholdsnice and tightwith the tabs broken on one side so I don't think I will replace them. Thanks again for all the help, ArcticSilver