plpete84

Thanks! That's a good call out on the trim. Last thing I want is some wind noise or leaks since that stuff has seen plenty of heat cycles in the sun.

Yikes! I don't think I'm anywhere near $14k but we will see what the adjuster says. I have two good shop recommendations. One of the is used by a local dealership. It was suggested to me to get quotes for the job paid in cash and via insurance. Might be a good time for a few minor touch ups but the overall paint is in great condition.

Yeah, no kidding! I didn't see it till it was on the road.

plpete84

Finally back in action! Car is looking great as if nothing ever happened. The body shop I worked with did great. All factory glass was used as well as new OEM side mirror assembly, which was a PITA to source and what delayed everything the most. Apparently they called 30 dealerships in the country and finally scored NOS in San Diego. We could have gone with a used unit but they didn't want to take a chance with missing bits. I starred at the car in bright sun and later on and could not see that paint was done, which means the shop did a great job. They said the lighter metallic paints are quite easy to blend for them and they see a lot of cars from the Porsche dealership, which is a block away.



Come spring time, I'll repaint the lip again and will re-coat the car with a new ceramic coating. For now, I need to find some time to give it a good clean as plenty of the shop dust got into places.

While the car was at the body shop, I made my way to LA, after a SKO trip in Vegas, and was able to meet up with some great folks, including @2mAn and get some great driving in. Because LA just plain brakes when it rains, my 50 minute flight was delayed by about 5-6 hours getting me to LA around 1am on Friday. A friend of mine let me use his 997.1 Carrera S which was a hoot in the canyons. So with about 4 hours of sleep I hit the road to meet up with a bunch of the locals to roll up to the Good Vibes Breakfast Club, which was a fantastic experience and the meet up an awesome time overall. Got to chat with Jonnie Lieberman a bit about the new GT3RS and met a whole lot of other awesome people. Off-roading in snow in a Cayenne Turbo was a riot. Amazing time. After the meet-up ended I went and drove a bunch of the canyons around the Angeles Forest for a few hours. Proper drive therapy. Here are some photos from the day:












When the weather turned ****, I ended up paying another visit to the Peterson Museum. The Vault is very much worth the extra cost. Some photos from that visit:








I'm inching closer to my turn for the engine rebuild. No specific date yet but Brandon mentioned that they will be ready for my car soon so I suspect #1111 is getting shipped to Oklahoma in the next few weeks! From there on, it's party time! Having spent 2 days in the 997 Carrera S with the 3.8L, I'm very excited to feel the 4.1L motor. More to come...

KJinDC

plpete84, it occurred to me that there is another local (Silver Spring, MD) with a Slakker motor. He went 4.1L. I'm not sure if you've reached out to him or not. On Rennlist he goes by steveP911. He's got an active thread in the Racing & DE Forum about goals for this season. His car is a 997.1 and he's a friendly guy. I am sure could give some feedback on his Slakker motor and how the process went. Just FYSA.

plpete84

@KJinDC Yes, I've been following Steve's thread very closely but haven't reached out to him yet. Even though we will both end up with a 4.1L, our builds have somewhat different goals so it's been very interesting and educational to follow along his journey. It will be cool to have 2 of these motors rolling around the DMV If I recall, I think Steve is also planning to drive his car back home so I'll be curious to see what routes he takes and how everything unfolds.

KJinDC

I am probably mistaken, but I assumed his build was complete. I do not really know him. I met him once briefly at Summit point last year. Glad you're tracking and definitely will be nice to have two big bore motors locally. I know another guy who has a Jake Raby 3.8 in his 996.2 that is local as well. He's another track junky that I see at Summit frequently. What are the differing goals, if you don't mind sharing? Can always hit me on PM if I am knocking your post off topic.

plpete84

All good - happy to discuss anything pertaining to the car. Following Steve's thread, it seems like much of the long block has been completed so I wouldn't be surprised if his build is in the final stages of completion. Because his engine build is mainly for use in a track car, from what I read, I believe he's working with Brandon to get as much dependability and power out of it. I wouldn't be surprised if they will test a few bits and see what they dyno numbers show which might add a bit to the time, I don't know. Either way, it's looking like a fantastic project!

As for my build being different....track car and squeezing out the most power is not the priority for me. When speaking with Brandon, I shared that I wanted a bullet proof (yeah I know that term is a bit silly) motor that I can rip around twisty roads, do 2, maybe 3 HPDE days just for fun and the experience but also feel comfortable and doing a long multi-day road trip. I don't really have the time and desire personally to chase lap times but I do enjoy driving and driving hard. I kind of want the car to reflect a 996 version of something between a GTS and GT3 touring. With what Brandon will do to the engine + the UIDS I already have + Turbo sized rads and center rad, I have zero doubts that the car will be able to handle what I throw at it. For a while I actually considered doing a stock displacement rebuild but the upcharge to 4.1L was not that great in the grand scheme of things so I would be crazy not to do it.

plpete84

The gears have started slowly turning! Last Thursday, the car was picked up by an enclosed trailer and off she went to Brandon and the team at Slakker.



Today, I got a confirmation that the car arrived in Oklahoma at Slakker Racing HQ. I've never shipped a car anywhere but working with the team it was a pretty smooth affair. They even provided a GPS tracking info which was nice. Pretty excited to get this started and curious to see what Brandon uncovers as he rips into the engine. I'll post updates as things progress and I know more!

KJinDC

Exciting times! I just got my car back from a motor rebuild. I kept my motor stock since I club race the car occasionally, but it was fun driving it with the fresh motor. Looking forward to your updates. I'll see @steveP911 car, with his new Slakker motor, this weekend at Summit. If you're free come up and meet the PCA Potomac 996s in attendance. There will be at least 4 that I know of attending the first DE of the season.

plpete84

Congrats on the newly built motor! Did you have that done locally? I'd love to join but this weekend might be tough. Saturday looks pretty rainy and the 996 is actually my only car. I don't really need a daily living where I do in DC and my neighbor is a total legend for letting me use his car when needed. Don't want to abuse his kindness though! Definitely down to meet up at some point, however.

KJinDC

I am sure we will catch up at some point when your car gets back. Yes, I had the rebuild done locally. Any questions about the rebuild, hit me with a PM but my build back to stock isn't exciting like all of these big motor builds going on. Saturday looks like a nasty day to be outside for sure. Sunday should be much nicer. As a volunteer I am lucky to get some track time on Friday with the rest of the volunteers, so I should get 2 decent days to break the car in for the season.

plpete84

Looks like the wrenches at Slakker have started turning! To my surprise, I got a text sharing a few photos which have confirmed that moving forward with the rebuild was a smart idea.

Below you can see piston #4. Jury is still out on what the heck was in there. As the tear down continues maybe they will find something or maybe it just shot out the exhaust. But if that happened, wouldn't it get stopped at the cat? We will see. Either way, looking at the photo it doesn't look like the piston chipped very deep but that's like saying "I got stabbed but the knife only went in half an inch". My guess is that this event started the scoring on the piston skirt and the cylinder bore. Looking at both they seem to look pretty healthy outside of the afflicted area. The top of the head also has markings from whatever smashed up in there. I was told that after the initial inspection the valve train looks fine but the heads will be cleaned and inspected in more detail soon. After my manic and ocd maintenance regiment over the years, I'm curious to see what the rest of the bores look like. More to come...

Porschetech3

Yes, something harder than aluminum went through that cylinder, could have been from way back. Didn't this just get uncovered/discovered after you cleaned the carbon from the pistons?

If you still have the original cats, you may be able to shake what ever it was out of them...and get it analyzed...

plpete84

Skip - once the pistons got cleaned up that's when I was able to see it. Not sure how long it's been there. I still have the stock cats so can check but not sure if I'll find anything. Need to get these recycled somewhere and get some $$$!

Porschetech3

I have seen, and we just had another case where the cats themselves were coming apart and a piece got blown back into the cylinder or under the exhaust valve from back-presure/reversion....You may want to use the borescope to inspect the conditions of the original cats to see if they are breaking apart, Do a little forensics on them...

C2-996

@plpete84 Looking forward to seeing your results after your 4.1 build with Slakker! They are delivering some impressive and solid builds. Should be a blast starting with an x51 car and pushing it to 4.1- great choice while you’re in there! Please share some numbers after