I don't dislike anything about the 996 dash (especially in full leather) because it is such a step up from the 993 interior it isn't even close IMHO....but I think anything can be improved upon given enough thought and creative effort and I keep an open mind so I'm looking forward to see what your improvements look like..

 

Excuse the picture quality, but the aluminum landing pads are here!




You might notice the design changed a bit, I've got holes in the faces now - that was just a necessary evil for the transition from 3D printed concept to CNC machined prototype, it wasn't possible to mill the deep, narrow pocket that holes the Yakima towers, so I drilled a 12mm hole through the whole landing pad and that's how the towers clip in now. I upped the gasket material to 3/8" thickness and widened the overall pads 4mm, which has done wonders for stability and sealing. The "squish" as you tighten the bolt down preloads the foot more evenly so even at 3.5Nm of bolt torque (normal Yakima specs) the pads are solidly on the roof, no visible flex possible by hand. Bolted all four landing pads down, clipped the towers in and yesss it is rock solid. I can't wait to test it out, with extended drives first to check vibration, fatigue, or things loosening, then we'll try the actual load tests and hopefully I can protect the car well enough should anything fail.

Can't drive at the moment though, I sent my steering wheel to Swedit for an overhaul. Aaron's helping me redesigning the leather pattern and modifying the base wheel underneath to improve the seam locations, and sourcing the nicest black leather we can find that matches the leather airbag. Almost exactly like this spec here but minus the red stripe:



Not actually sure how much it'll cost but I'm sure it's gonna be well worth it.

 

I just swapped my Renegade 350mm BBK(front only) for Girodisc 340mm front & 325mm rear.
I'm extremely happy.
The Renegade looked better, but the Girodisc weight savings are well work it.
I can actually feel a difference!

 

I feel a bit bad taking up two threads with my design work, but we're finally back on the horseshoe today after getting the OEM piece scanned on its own. For this first draft, I'm just gonna 3D print a piece to validate my concept. I'm curious what the horseshoe area will look like IRL with all the "poverty buttons" removed - if it looks nice I'll try to move my door lock switch to the left side so the final product can be symmetrical.

 

That design looks awesome.

 

I’m impressed with your progress
good luck

 

I love how active this forum is, that I don't post for a week and my thread's already on Page 3 of the list.

I've been busy! First things first, chopped down the roof rack to its final config. 44" seems like the right bar width to me, little bit of overhang to not look too vertical (cough, RTS), but minimizes excess amount of bar to reduce drag and wind noise.






Looks perfect to me now. I've done some load testing on it and feel confident that it can pass the full-monty "8G crash" scenario, but I need to stock up on padding before I attempt to risk my car over an ISO test that most rack makers for sure don't meet.



The horseshoe project is going, although, our first print failed so I can't really tell if I designed it perfectly or not.



I painted it black to get some preview to look forward to. The parts that weren't warped to bits fit up really nice against the original horseshoe, so I'm hoping the next print comes out straight and I can clip it into the car for real. One thing's for sure though, cleaning up the button pockets and sharpening corners makes the horseshoe look way more modern.





In the meantime I also scanned the GT3 center console delete, I'm gonna be making my own with some fun features. Because I have a double-DIN radio to install, I'm gonna tuck the HVAC controls deep inside the console delete piece, and to hide it, add a trapdoor with a Magsafe phone mount on the outside. So during normal operation the HVAC controls will be invisible / hidden by phone, but no need to go into the glovebox to change settings on the rare occasions that I actually touch the panel Just the scan for now, but will have more 3D printing fun to share after the holidays.



Now for my favorite thing of the week. Spoiler alert!



I'll post all of the pics in the other thread. Long story short, I'm battling print warp issues (see zipties) but I can confirm I'm not too far off on fitment. The design of this spoiler came out good - obviously, not finished yet, but the contours I drew catch the light exactly the way I envisioned, and the window exposing the tea tray works too. I'll have to clean up and paint the tea tray, and source the right mesh too, but I'm so excited for the next revision prototype!

 

Put me at the top of your list for those "landing pads"!

 

Free bump to yet another 996 enthusiast helping to keep these cars awesome.

 

Awesome updates here
Keep it up

 

Love the updates and design work. I’m a PDE also, and just bought a 3D scanner myself. I sold my old 3D printer and CNC plasma table to buy updated models and it’s been fun to watch someone else create similar projects. Keep up the good work!

I’d also be interested in buying roof rack parts for my 996 from you. If you scanned the deck lid, I’d also be interested in that file, if you wanted to share, so I don’t have to repeat the work. I’ve been meaning to design a cold air intake for my LS swapped 996 and have been procrastinating. Lol

 

Thanks! Making stuff is fun, making a business out of making stuff is not haha. I intend to make most of the CAD files I write available for sale later, or at least the ones where laymen should be expected to be able to build it at home (2D cut-and-fab stuff, 3D prints).

Sharing scans depends on which scanner does it - sorry if this complicates things, but I basically have two scanners on loan. On the Einstar I'm allowed to share/sell scans, on the Artec I am not. Or, well, you'd have to pay the shop graciously letting me borrow the Artec. The OEM spoiler insert was scanned using the Artec as the Einstar struggles with certain lighting conditions and backgrounds.

Do you have a Yakima or Thule rack? I've been meaning to borrow someone's Thule rack parts so I can make a proper rear-landing-pad riser (to level out boxes, baskets, and tents). For Yakima (heads up @merlot ), the landing pads I've made for myself are very expensive, so unless you'd like to mill them yourself using my CAD model, I think I need to make a cheaper riser kit like what's planned for Thule.

 

You’re 100% right about business, it’s a pain. I setup mine in the pandemic and I underestimated how much time each component of a successful business requires. Marketing…sometimes 4-5 hours a day. Sales and customer support…8-10 hours some days. Design, if you even get to do that and it’s still fun….all weekend. lol

Lately I’ve been thinking of compiling a CAD library and selling the files. I’ve seen this in a few places recently and it appears to be a good way of offering a low overhead service with little customer dissatisfaction due to problems or issues with the product, IE not much time spent troubleshooting. If you’d be interested in joining, or even just discussing, let me know.

No worries on the files and if you can’t share. I bought an Einstar myself and just need to take some time to really use it and understand the process. If you have some pointers, aside from the typical found on YouTube, I’m all ears. Adjusting the lighting on the Einstar seems to be common, I had that issue on my first scan. I’ll be researching higher end consumer to business grade 3D printers too, if you have suggestions there. Looking at the FormLabs Form 3L possibly, although it’s spendy.

We use Thule racks, we only have 1 right now on the wife’s mk6 GTI. I could send parts or measurements, or maybe even a scan, to help you along the design. I also use Solidworks if you’d like anything drawn. Daily use is NX but used SW for about 6 years previously.

Have you quoted the parts with protolabs or similar rapid prototypers? Is an industrial grade polymer not strong enough? I’ve seen some interesting material mashups lately that are very interesting, such as coating plastic parts with metal to increase strength and corrosion resistance. I was thinking 3D print the main parts in nylon or similar, then coat the parts in Nickel or something like that. Just some ideas for you.

 

Yeah, I even like marketing (my flavor of it is just to build something very eyecatching, which is fun, see original post in this thread) but customer support is my weak suit. If I've learned anything about myself, I need to pick my clients carefully or else life is just extremely unproductive for everyone.

CAD Library = GrabCAD, Thingiverse, Cults3D, etc, don't reinvent the wheel lol. I am slowly setting up a Shopify website for these automotive trinkets, but Etsy is also enticing as it can reach a bigger audience faster than a new site with few connections. For example, this horseshoe here would be great to sell as a 3D model once fully developed - whoever downloads it can print it, glue it on, finish it up themselves and enjoy. OR they can buy a finished part from me, where I can offer fancy stuff like napa leather and deviated stitching to match the instrument cluster hood.



^ I'm ready to test that btw, it's JB Welded to the original 996 horseshoe. I just need to sort out my double-DIN and HVAC relocate before popping the trim back on.

About the Einstar... I float the part in space somehow (normally a stick on a vise), turn the lights off and roll up your sleeves. Sounds dumb, but the Einstar's sensor is just too susceptible to noise no matter what brightness tweaking you do. If you're scanning long expanses of uniform nondescript surface (eg. the slab side of a 996) you need to put something detailed nearby that the scanner can pick up and use as reference. I threw my jack under the car with a few jack pads and that seemed to do it. Two sledgehammers under my front bumper lol. You'll be seeing some stuff from there next I had some inspiration for a bodykit to match the "GT3 Touring" decklid and make my all-silver car more visually interesting.

Printers are a crapshoot. So far I like Modix - the print head runs on a gantry like a router table or a plotter, so the bed isn't moving anywhere which is the cause of a lot of print artifacts as the prints get larger and wobblier. But the print resolution on that massive thing (48x96" bed!) is coarse and it's not great at printing large flat objects, which are bound to warp. I used to use a gMax which took a lot of negotiating with to print truly big stuff (66" long wing element), totally would not recommend. The "corporate" SLA printers like Formlabs, Stratasys, etc aren't worth it IMO, you can always pay for SLA service if you actually need it for prototyping. Maybe I'm behind, I'm not confident using SLA for functional stuff whereas FDM ASA prints we have now used in wheel-to-wheel racing with no issues (besides heavy).

Thule has Fit Kit 183100 & Rapid Podium 30404 that I/you/we need to source; the two aft feet in particular are where I plan to modify with a new structural bracket and a cosmetic spacer. Thanks to another volunteer I've got a measurement already but need to scan the actual part to make the final parts.

Lastly, I have a good number of connections within both automotive and manufacturing industry haha, so I don't have to get ripped off by Protolabs. Nylon or Delrin would be an optimal material for CNC milling my Yakima feet, but I do think that a simpler spacer solution is a better product than my fancy feet. Just gotta design it. I'll just keep the one prototype for myself as a memento unless someone wants to pay for a copy - I'll never know!

 

New year, new progress? Almost done with the steering wheel, one of the Tiptronic switches cracked on removal so getting that fixed delayed us a bit.



In the meantime we still gotta test the horseshoe, so I tried tackling the double-DIN and HVAC relocate... Metra got me good.



Their 996.2 dash kit is apparently NLA, so I was directed to "Please Use the 99-9605B" instead. Clearly they didn't test out their words, as there is no way the 996.1 dash kit actually mounts into the 996.2 bezel. Eventually you can see I figured out a solution using panel screws and washers to clamp the parts together and align everything. The Sony XAV-AX5600 looks fairly tidy in there, I can't wait to try it out as I've heard so many good things - and it was only $348.



Took out the cupholder for a sec to 3D scan that as well. I don't have the bandwidth to do anything about it immediately, but this thing sucks and I need to fix it.



Question is "how" - I think the slide-out plastic panels seem robust enough, so maybe they can be kept, and we just replace the (as you can see, already broken on mine) flimsy hinged plastics with metal. I'm not a fan of doing more than necessary haha, though if someone asks me to be extra and design an OEM-quality pop-straight-out cupholder, I'm also game...