mpruden

Disclaimer: A long read. You’ve been warned!

I picked up my 993 on this day last year, a four owner ‘97 arctic silver Targa with 121k mi. The PO had recently paid for a valve job, clutch, DMF, cosmetic paint work to repair rock chips, along with other odds and ends. The car has no accidents, no rust, and has always been owned in the steel-friendly climate of Northern CA.

The car sat for sale for a month or so. It had high miles, a risky glass roof, and a significant modification: The 993tt hydraulic system (clutch slave, master, PS pump, PS reservoirs, etc) was installed at great expense by RMG at the request of the 3rd owner that could no longer operate the standard clutch due to injury.

Aside from the frankenstein clutch, it checked enough of the boxes for me. Stock, good condition, good service history, no accidents, no rust, well maintained, good PPI results, new tires, a 993, etc.

My motto with the car is pretty simple: continuous improvement while keeping the car reasonably stock. If I can have the car look like it’s 7 years old, when it’s really 30 years old with 300,000 miles, I’ve done my job.

The car has been to a real mechanic only once during my ownership for a brake flush with the Hammer (ABD option and all). I’m still angry about having to take it in, so I now have a Hammer on my wish list.

Work done in past 12 mo - in no particular order. The car has had no major problems.

• Painted fog lights - see pics. They were the usual yellow when I bought it.
• Motor mounts - Stock mounts were sagging. Replaced with Genuine Porsche C4 mounts. The C2 mounts are crazy expensive. Maintains my motto of “reasonably stock”
• Air, oil, aux fan resistors - PPI revealed all had failed. All replaced.
• Shift bushings - In the spirit of “reasonably stock”, I replaced the bushings instead of the usual GR/SSK
• Gearbox oil - Redline NS to help with some slight syncro wear. I will try the genuine stuff next.
• Spoiler bearing - No more coffee grinder sound. About $5 on Amazon.
• Alternator - The only real problem I’ve had. It died. I had it rebuilt locally
• Fan / bearing - While the alternator was out.
• Belts - While the alternator was out
• Shocks - Bilstein HD. Not stock but seems like the defacto standard.
• Springs - Genuine M033 springs. This is close enough to stock for me.
• Front control arm bushings - Walrods. Again, close enough to stock, and the defacto standard.
• Wheels - I run two sets of tires, one for summer, one for winter, so have two sets of wheels. Summer are genuine 996 turbo look for NB (see pics). Winters are the stock Targa wheels. For the record, I do not like cleaning the Targa wheels. Despite the 18” wheels, my roof has not exploded ;-)
• Center reflector - Replaced with a used one. Original was beyond worn out.
• Distributor rebuilt - My hall sensor failed. Had Rennsport systems rebuild a used distributor with working hall sensor. Hope your hall sensors last, as they are not available.
• Caps, Rotors - The bosch stuff
• air filter - Genuine
• pollen filters - Genuine
• Polished exhaust tips - Pretty easy to remove years of tarnish on these things. I do like the look of the wide oval clones, but am trying to fight the urge and keep it stock.
• Bulbs in gauges - Had a couple burn out.
• cleaned rubber rings in gauges - The rubber can get brown with age. I sanded down the brown residue and they look brand new again. Kind of one of my pet peeves when I see 993 interiors with the brown rings around the gauges.
• New rear speakers - Originals had rotted away. I replaced with the mid-range aftermarket speakers. They basically bolted right in.
• Dynaudio front mid speakers - Originals had rotted away. Another RL recommenation for drop in replacements. Wow, these are awesome speakers.
• Kinivo Bluetooth - This was plug and play and gave me bluetooth + hands free phone with my stock CDR 210.
• Lloyds mats - Originals were really worn out and had a strange color fading that looked terrible. I went with the black on black at FDM’s recommendation. Very happy with the color choice. I’ve kept the originals for the next owner.
• Engine drop - never thought I’d ever drop an engine out of a perfectly good car.
• PS pump - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• Clutch master - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• Clutch Slave - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• PS belt - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• Clutch lines - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• PS lines - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• PS reservoir - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
• Fuel filter bracket - All part of yanking out the turbo hydraulics
  (PS - there were about 1000 little small changes that are different between the turbo and NA just for these systems. I’m not going to list them all. Luckily RMG did an amazing job on the turbo stuff with all OEM parts and documentation so a home mechanic could undo all of their handiwork).
• Washer pump - This failed and is about the easiest fix in the world. Take at headlight, replace pump and seals.
• Roof leaks - unclogged driver’s front drain, repair weathersripping. A previous mechanic didn’t understand how the roof worked and attempted to stop leaks by sealing everything… including the water drains. Now it's fixed properly. I’m confident that the roof will not leak even in a hurricane.
• Roof wind noise - adjusted roof level and deflector position. Now noise free.
• Roof aftermarket sealing removal - A previous mechanic had placed aftermarket gaskets around the roof. I think this was part of an effort to stop wind noise. I’ve removed all of this junk and and just followed the TSBs to adjust the roof. Case closed.
• Roof rattle noise removal (a few items from TSBs, and some others found through investigation). I went on a war against noises and have addressed almost all of them. The two others are minor will wait on new parts that will come with a future roof rebuild.
• Brake flush - ABD, so had to go to shop for this.
• oil cooler switch (hidden) - I placed this in a hidden spot to maintain stock appearance.
• Headlight switch bulb - Minor, but annoying
• windshield rope - Part of my “war on noises” efforts. Amazing result for such a simple fix.
• cowl trim - These were showing their age.

There are probably 20 other things I’m forgetting.

Next on the list:

• plugs, wires, oil change, fuel filter - Just waiting for summer to end so I have a cool garage to work in.
• windshield replacement - Previous replacement was poor, so I have the typical gap on one corner. No rust, but it needs to be addressed.
• Gearbox refresh / regear - It is showing its age.
• Roof rebuild / new cables and wear items - Roof works perfectly, but the cables are making some noise. I may wait until a failure for this project.
• Stereo upgrade (stock look, but modern performance) - The Dynaudios helped, but the stock hifi kind of sucks.
• seat leather - Showing its age. Trying to find a local refinisher.
• new front bumper seal (fighting the urge to do bumperette removal) - During the bumper respray for rock chips, the body shop didn’t do the best job getting the seal in place.

Here are some pics from yesterday. Probably not the most desirable 993 on the board with the kind of a convertible, kind of a coupe, kind of a figher-jet cockpit thing, but I certainly like it.

I’ll follow up with some interior pics once I get a chance to clean it up a bit.

quacktoduck

looks great coming from a fellow targa owner

six gun

Thanks for sharing your project, she looks amazing. It provides a great laundry list for fall and winter projects, especially those of us living in the north east.

911F1

You've been busy for sure. Looks great. I'm in my first year as well. My list has some similar items. I went with Motul Motylgear 75w 90. The transmission feels much better than whatever was in my car before. I love the Bilstein HD setup! Cheers.

randytrish

You've been busy. Car looks great. I believe all these fixes make us appreciate them even more.

boman993

Congrats on the year of ownership and tackling all of the items on the list! Having finished an engine drop and a bunch of while-I'm-in-theres this summer, I know that a lot of your items have days worth of sub-to-do-lists. It really is a big undertaking.

Great job! Your targa looks brand new ~ I'd never guess it has 120K on it!

fatmike

Nice car. Nice pics. Thanks for sharing. Very clean looking car.

I hear a rumor that a bike rack should be on this list too...

/

mpruden

Thanks Mike! The bike rack doesn't fit, unfortunately. The bumperette mounts on my car (and some others I've seen) is a different design than what was intended. I'll likely post if FS here again soon depending what Will from willwood says he can do to modify it.

Quadcammer

which rear and front mid speakers did you purchase (part number?)

car looks nice.

enjoy

Todynot

Impressive list of work. Looks very clean.

Are you missing rear stone guards? Can't tell.

mpruden

Polk DXi461 for the rears. Although the car has the hifi option, the rear speakers are from the non-hifi car. Just another quirk of the Targa.

Fronts are Dynaudio out of a VW product. Part numbers:
7H0-035-415 SPEAKER (right)
7H0-035-416 SPEAKER (left)

Based on recommendation from M. Schneider in this thread

I found the Dyns on eBay.de, I believe.

Thanks! Stone guards are definitely there.

mpruden

And here are those interior pics I mentioned. Man, is it ever difficult to get good pictures of a black interior.

soundbehindyou

Disregarding mechanics which tend to be how the car moves.....looks like a low mileage example in and out! Nice....

doublecabmel

I see your OCD has caught up with the rest of us! Welcome to the good life. Next you will be driving home and ubering it to your destination if you can't find a proper parking spot.

uniquenamehere

Wow... super clean!