Paul Waterloo

And so it begins....I don't want to do to many things to the 968, but I have seen the replacement steering wheel mods and I have to say that I love them.

On my old 2001 Audi S8, I removed the sport steering wheel (tiptronic buttons only) and retrofitted a factory multi function steering wheel (MFSW) and the factory Bluetooth and Nav system.....including the control modules and added the new wiring. I love having Bluetooth in the car plus I love having steering wheel controls.

I see this wheel in the classified section out of a 997.1 2008 Carrera 4S:





I wonder if:

1. It would fit in the 968?

2. If I could power it up and get a OEM module or CAN Bus (I assume it's a CAN bus architecture) and then get an aftermarket Bluetooth stereo that can integrate with a factory steering wheel.

I know it has tiptronic buttons, but those would just go unused....would be cool if I could have the phone and the radio controls on the wheel!

I would need a wiring diagram for the 997.1 steering wheel/controls and some research to figure this one out....but I can dream, can't I?

ChatyJones

Check the 944 Turbo thread. There's a user, gregeast, who's done something similar. But, I think his is just the tiptronic buttons used for his stereo. Not sure about bluetooth. But, this thread https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-...th-how-to.html
might set you in the right direction.
Since the 944 and 968 are pretty similar, chances are if someone here hasn't done it, someone there may have. Most steering wheel mods (beside the CS wheel) will require mods to the wheel and steering column, but, nothing major.

Vendetta NY

Mods like this don't do it for me, personally, because I don't think the gadgetry fits the essence of the model. It looks out of place timewise, and takes away from the austerity of the cabin design.

I do like the bagless sport steering wheel mod though, and might have to look into that.

Congrats on the car man. And good on you for getting down to business on it so fast.

-V

TheBlau

Depending on the brand of stereo you choose, you may be able to do it. Look at the adapters here:
http://www.pac-audio.com/

As for fitting that wheel on the 968 - you will probably have a function issue.

The 997's use a two-stage airbag - whereas the 996 and previous were all one-stage. They function differently and I'm not sure that the signal your car would send to the airbag is correct in the event of a crash.

The 996 wheel is a much easier swap as all you need to do is machine the hub down a bit, and cut/splice the 968 clockspring harness plug onto the 996 clockspring. Your best bet would be to get a 996 tiptronic wheel, and see if you can program the Tiptronic buttons to function as your volume/tuner.

BikePilot

I'm pretty sure the 986 is not CAN bus, just old school wires and switches.

docmirror

A) 968 is not CAN bus. It uses a proprietary Bosch tester(Hammer) to interface with the ECUs on the car.

B) The airbag will not function. The POST test will fail with 'ignition pill resistance too high/low' can't recall which but I think it's too high. If it were too low, you could put a resistor in series, or too high in parallel with the ignition pill circuit wire, but I suspect the ignition signal would affect the operation of the firing of the ignition circuit. Just don't know for sure, but there is no adapter that I know of to go from stage 1 type to stage 2 type. I'm guessing with enough messing around it could be made to pass POST but if it came to an ignition, I wouldn't trust it would fire.

jeff968

Agreed, have you seen the period correct 968 club sport steering wheel? An easy mod, you'll lose your airbag but it is a great looking wheel that feels great.

odurandina

great idea to ****can the 968 wheel. with some electronics work this could work out.... the 968 wheel is so horrid, it even scares away would-be car thieves. 993, 968CS or 996/996TT/Carrera GT (if you desire to keep using an airbag) are your best options in oem Porsche..... however, I see no reason why a 997 wheel couldn't be modded to fit. but you won't have a functioning airbag system.

a 996 airbag will work... running the 996, if the airbag light comes on, you can add a resistor (the exact value escapes my memory but i'm sure someone can pull up the correct values of the 968 and 996 airbags)..... the 996 wheel requires very exact measuring when cutting because if you cut too much, you'll compromise it's safety..





this is my 996TT wheel....

docmirror

Is that an SRS wheel? If so, did you wire it in?

odurandina

period correct or not,

I can't wait to see that thing on the car....

and congratulations on the purchase.

azbanks

Paul didn't buy that wheel, I did. Starting to figure out the details to make it work in my 90 S2 cab.

A close friend is a 18+ year Porsche dealer service tech. I hope the two of us can figure out how to make everything work.

odurandina

simple.

you have to decrease the hub depth by boring in the front and removing part of the back.

azbanks

Getting it to fit is easy. Getting the airbag, and horn to function properly could be more work.
My ultimate goal is to do what gregeast did and use the tiptronic buttons to control my stereo. It is a multifunction wheel so i want to use as many of the original buttons as i can.

Why do you need to use those specific measurements for boring and removing metal off the back?

azbanks

Well, getting it to fit will NOT be so easy. I thought I had read somewhere that the newer cars used a different diameter steering shaft. That is the case. The newer shaft is much larger than the 944/928/993/996 shaft. So I need to have an adapter made to fit on the existing shaft and then the wheel will slide onto the adapter.
The hub depth is much shorter on this wheel I'll have to deal with that using the adapter as well.

Paul Waterloo

Once you figure out the mechinicals, I could help out on the electrical side. You will need a radio that allows steering wheel controls or an interface between the two, the correct clock spring, and a wiring diagram.

I don't know much about Porsche electronics, but I would be very surprised if it didn't have a card on board the wheel and just one or two data wires to transfer all the functions.

I would imagine it would have something like this:

Airbag positive and ground
12 VDC power to the wheel and ground
Horn relay wire
One or more data wires for the controls

If it does have the data wire, and you can't figure out a way to get the signal on the car side of the wheel (would need an OEM controller I would think) then it's going to be very hard to make it work.