Out with the old...

 

You're gonna be sooooo happy with the change! Congrats!

 

More old bits out. I got in about twelve hours of garage action this weekend.

All brake calipers/rotors removed
Front original shocks removed, one PSS10 installed
Front sway bar and links removed, new M030 bar/links installed
Front stainless brake lines installed
Soldered cheater pad sensors
Rear sway bar removed
Rear toe arm eccentrics loosened, one bolt still wedged in by the heat exchanger

Waiting on a few small things. My Bilstein kit only had one wrench, so I had to order another. Needed better allen wrenches for the PSS10s -- their crappy keyway is no joke. One of the front strut bolts/captive nuts cross threaded, replacements coming from 'Schland. Needed the nut/bolts for the front drop links. Nothing unobtanium so far.

I had a change of scope creep, also. Elected not to do the injector R&R at this time, but I did order the RS heater pipe, fan shroud, and bridge relay. Why put all that crap back in, I figure.

Anyway, I feel like I'm around 40% done. The hardest part is going to be mentally checking out for a few days to focus on work. I want to get this done!

Oh, and here's a shot that shows how little workspace I have. I'm six months way from having a better garage. I added a whiteboard at the beginning of this project though and wow, how did I not have one in the garage before? It's fantastically useful. I'm going to upgrade that to a RasPi + touchscreen monitor in the new place.

That's also the reason I'm stuck leaving my wheel wells and fender liners so disgustingly filthy. I have no way to wash them until I have my own driveway where I can a) leave the car on jackstands and b) have a water hose nearby. It kills me leaving it all so dirty while putting in the new shiny.

 

Slowly but surely! The rear shocks are out, and I've built the coilovers. Removing everything from the shock body took a little effort, as the collars didn't want to break loose. I hit the threads with some PB Blaster, let them sit for ten minutes, leveraged one Bilstein wrench against the garage floor and tapped the other with a 2lb hammer. Came right off! So now the rears are assembled with the extra locking ring and ready to go in the car.

Will make some more progress tomorrow and next weekend. Alignment scheduled for the 7th and Laguna Seca on the 9th!

 

Well, I'm done! Car is on the ground, PSS10s and M030 ARBs are installed, and new brakes all around. It was a long project. I counted 35 hours in the garage over the past two weeks, not counting the brake refinishing. Phew. I don't have a lot to say about the process that hasn't already been recently documented.

I'm at RS +5 height and going in Tuesday for alignment, KT, and corner balance by a local shop with 993 experience, Custom Alignment in Mountain View. My only real screwup (that I've found so far...) was accidentally putting one rear caliper's pad keeper clip in backwards, which caused some metal-to-metal rotor contact and mild heart palpitations. No big deal, all is well.

Speaking of brakes... I had a bit of sticker shock on the Porsche OE stuff. I went with Sebro drilled and coated rotors for under $400 shipped, Stoptech Sport pads for $140 shipped, pad adhesive spray instead of spiders, and soldered my old sensors into cheaters. Several hundreds bucks stayed in my pocket and much aggravation saved during install. We'll see how it does in the long run. I replaced the front rubber lines with ECS stainless lines, but could not get break the nuts loose on the rear lines and decided to skip. I'll save the rears for a pro to install when it's in a shop some day.

While I was at it I also replaced the nine year old pollen filters, and the faded color crests with some clean used black crests.

Enjoy the photos!

 

I like how you by-passed the brake pad warning... I did the same, and do all the time.
So easy to just look through the wheels.

Thanks,
Dave

 

Yep! They make sense if you're the kind of person who doesn't maintain your car, but I think during my ownership I've spent more time under it than in it. And I'm okay with that.

 

I agree -
+ it gets rid of some wiring, plastic stuff & saves weight... :-)

 

what camera are you using? those are some of the nicest 'service' pictures ive ever seen!

 

Some are with a Canon SL1 w/ 24mm pancake lens, some are from a Nexus 6P. Thanks

 

Paul: Nice work. Interestingly, the PSS10s were removed by CA. BTW, sure am glad you got them on finally.

 

Ha, what a coincidence!

Thanks for hooking me up with the PSS10s even though it took a little extra legwork to get all the bits and pieces. I'm happy with the end result and probably would not have sprung for a brand new set. Used PSS10s > new springs/HDs

 

Alignment and corner balance done. Total weight: 3272 - 180lbs driver weight - 108lbs fuel = 2984

LF 649, 652 RF
LR 1020, 951 RR

Cross 51.1%
Left 51.0%
Rear 60.2%

Ride height fine tuned closer to RS +10.

I'm a little unhappy with the lack of negative camber up front, but this was supposedly max for the stock top hats.

I'm mostly *very* unhappy with the service I got from Custom Alignment. They aggressively pushed charging extra for adjusting ride height despite the front not needing adjustment and the rear needing only to be raised enough to induce the 1* rake, which I feel like should've been part of the corner balance/alignment.

Worse, they promised me they had the KT tool over the phone when scheduling. When I asked if they had the motorsports tool or the fancy dealer tool in person when dropping off the car, he said the motorsports tool.

Then when picking up the car, I asked the guy who aligned it what KT result he got, and he said, "oh, we don't have the tool, I just work around it." I got kind of pissed and confronted the other guy about it, and he said they borrow the tool from the Porsche indy next door but then couldn't produce numbers.

Just felt super slimy all the way around.

Gist of it, regardless of what kind of a job they did, if you want your KT done with a real tool don't take it Custom Alignment. All this for only $675...

Heading to Laguna Seca tomorrow and hoping to have a good time. Mostly feeling stressed out about it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Sorry to hear about your alignment problems with the shop. Try not to let it get to you and have fun at the track this weekend. Be Safe and drive the heck out of that beautiful car. By the way nice work thus far and all the stuff I enjoy reading your posts.

 

If you were down here in LA, VDS Racing is the best.
Marty does it the old school way with the strings.
I agree, ride height has to be included in corner balancing.
Real straight shooter.

Thanks,
Dave