brandobot

I'm looking to purchase and retrofit the sport design steering wheel to get the paddle shifters on my 981 Boxster S and had a few questions.

1) Do I lose any functionality from losing the steering wheel multi function controls? (Is there another way to control the settings from outside of the steering wheel? i.e. changing the volume on the headunit instead)
2) Can I install a steering wheel with the sport chrono buttons and put it on my non-sport chrono car? (I am looking at purchasing pre-owned to save some cost)
3) Are there any "code" changes after installign the steering wheel? Or can I simply remove the steering wheel and install the new one and be done?

ramans

It's a pretty easy swap, takes less than an hour and several youtube videos showing it down. You use your existing wheel's airbag. You can buy the wheel with and without multi-function controls in it, and with or without heat, not sure about the Sport Chrono stuff. If you have multi-function controls now and buy a wheel without you'd have to source the stalk to control that interface, but radio controls are all accessible on the radio itself, I'd just exchange like for like.

If you want to add heat, there's some articles either here or Planet 9 on doing that, but it would require a new clockspring in the wheel, and coding I believe.

I had my wheel swapped so I got paddles instead of the silly buttons, and it works just fine, without coding or anything, but I went from a non-heated, non-mf wheel with buttons to the same with paddles.

brandobot

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds like the swap is a little more complicated and more costly since I have the multi-function steering wheel as I'd need to buy the stalk.

Just found that TechArt also makes one.

Does anyone know if the 991 steering wheel fits a 981? Found one with the TechArt paddles installed. Looks like I can just buy this and swap it on and call it a day.

Alan C.

I have a 991.1 GT3 PDK wheel in Alcantara with red stitching, never used. $600 plus shipping.

Sold

mitch48

There is a big thread on P9 (under modifications on the 981 threads) about putting the GT sport design wheel on a 981 or even a 987. I put one with MF butons on my 981 that came with MF wheel (ugly). My wheel came with the sport chrono **** and so far this doesn't function, but I have hopes it soon will. I had to get an adapter to make the buttons work on my car, my dealer tried and could not. I found gpsadapter.us (Hong Kong) and the guy there supplied me with an adapter that piggy backs into the wiring inside the wheel so the MF buttons all work, and everything (save the SC **** functions) works. I do believe the radio controls will work w/o needing the adapter. He also sells an adapter to add heat (my wheel came with the heat button), but as stated above you will need to get it coded at the dealer or a shop with the PIWIS. The adapter also requires swapping out a really tiny resistor which must be soldered into place. It wasn't worth it to me so I didn't add heat. He is also working on getting the SC **** to work, should be available pretty soon I think. He responds to emails fairly quickly and my adapter came three days after I ordered it, from Hong Kong no less.

brandobot

Thanks for the info guys.

I ended up pulling the trigger on a 911 steering wheel with the TechArt paddles pre-installed. Going to give this a try as I preferred the mf buttons.

mitch48

There are two threads dealing with the wheel swap: Fastest mod ever GT4 steering wheel and 718 sport wheel blah blah blah. The first one has several pages of posts.

tdimma

Hi Alan,

do you still have the steering wheel for sale?

Alan C.

Sorry, sold