Marc Gelefsky

OK, intake on GT3 is on the right side, intake on Carrera is on the left.
So? is it just the matter of cutting a hole on the left?

philooo

huymm I thought that installing the 'real gt3' wing to a regular C2 was a pain because the air duc being on the wrong side.

https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...-02-996-a.html

Also there might be a couple of wiring to buy separately to avoid the wing light to show up on the dash.
Any good DIY about retrofitting the GT3 wing ?

Torontoworker

There are two intakes. Looking from the back - the left side is for the factory intake - no changes needed. The right side intake is used for the engine fan. The only issuse I found was the light on the dash going on and off as it was goasting the old missing oem wing. That was solved with a GT3 wiring harness (ask me for the part # if you need it) that I got at the dealer. The intake for the engine was mod'd up with a diverter inside the wing that splits the air - one side 'rams' it into the intake the other to the fan side of the engine bay.





I weighed the complete OEM wing and lid - 26.4 lbs. The GT3 wing and lid - 14.2 lbs.

philooo

Nice to know the weight of the GT3 wing... I hope the aerokit was build with the same weight saving !

Do you have a picture of how it looks underneath the wing ? I mean showing how you modded your air intake. I have never seen it anywhere yet.

Torontoworker

Excuse the quick phone pic's - the job was pretty much plug and play with the exception of the two pieces of metal that are up inside the wing. Sorry - that one is hard to get a photo of short of using an MRI! (You can only see one of the plates through the grill work)

The idea behind the plates was to create a ram effect and or channel the air into the engine intake and one vent for the engine bay fan. Shade tree engineering of course - it probability doesn't do much good unless your at highway / track speeds but what the heck, I had time on my hands!

You have to make a pattern out of cardboard and play around fitting it up inside and then when your happy with the fit use it to cut out sheet metal to this shape and maneuver it up into the inside of the wing. I used a high strength industrial epoxy to fit it into position.

Mine has dual outside vents on top but you'll notice that the second vent dumps into the round opening for the fan. All I had to do was transfer over the plastic piece from the OEM intake and the fan (which bolted in perfectly).

The harness for the OEM wing I *thought* I could modify it but figuring out which pins to jump to get the third brake light to work and the light on the dash to turn off ended up such a pain in the butt that in the end I just ordered the part from the dealer (got it in two days) for around $100. An interesting thing is: the spoiler light on the dash also does double duty as the warning lamp for the engine cover 'open' which is why I declined a friends advice about putting tape over the lamp! Plus I wanted to do it the correct way and I would have still had the 3rd brake light out issue.

The adjustment of the deck lid was a snap - really easy to center and the fit to the bumper is done by moving the latch assy up or down and tightening the two bolts. Just make sure that the micro switch on the latch is making contact when the lid is closed or you'll find that the engine bay light (on fan housing) will stay on with he cover closed and drain your battery. (easy to spot by looking through vent on top)

The grill work in the vent was from Home Depot that I primered and painted - that went in first before the two plates.

philooo

Humm I am a bit lost now. I see your part# is the same as the guy who is selling me the wing and tells me that is an OEM aerokit for 996 has the same part# 996.512.901.02

So is this part number the factory GT3 wing or the aerokit for the regular 996 ?

Here is a picture of the wing I am purchasing (white). From what I can see, I don't understand why there is anything to mod on it...

I thought the GT3 wing was like the Red picture below, with no air intake opening on the left side...no ?

Torontoworker

Phil: It depends on the year/model of the car. The red car is a different year then mine - 3.6L in the photo?? (Also a twin strut - can't see the 'why' behind that?)

As well, there can be a big differences between 'aero' wings - say a GT3 wing and a Turbo or GT2 or even C4. They all called their wings aero look but all were way different. Taco's, Tea Trays, Aero 2 - there are so many styles. There is even a difference between the Mk1 and Mk2 996 GT3 wings and differences again between the 997.1 and 997.2 wings.

Aero is just a name - part numbers rule, but even then...

But beware: The photo I see (primer/new paint?) may be a clone and NOT an OEM - in fact I'm willing to bet it isn't. Mine IS a clone and I've compared it to a real one and the differences are tiny. I can spot the differences between the two because I built mine up, surface finished it, bought the rubber pieces, bought all the labels you see and I have seen the inside of both mine and OEM and it is difficult to tell which is which. In all practical purposes the materials are the same - the differences are the weave patterns. Everything has been reproduced right down to the same bolts, mounting plates with the spring loaded 'button' that fits into the curving aluminum adjustment plate slot. I've even got a Gurney strip that I can attach (if I wanted too) that matches with the years that came with that option. I think I've got enough downforce to match the front airdam so I didn't want to overkill things.

The funny thing is: two of the companies that made wings for 996/997 now out source to China anyway. Most of the Calf companies selling wings and kits - guess where they buy from? It's a whole new world now - they even clone the bar codes! The scary thing is the aircraft parts business...

Of course it sucks to be you if you bought an OEM kit 6 years ago for 6K and want to sell it now for what looks to be a good price of say 3K. Your up against people who have labour costs of not even $20 per day and have through experiance and trial and error - have finally learned how to make these things properly. Compare to Europe where that wouldn't even buy you 20 minutes of a workers time. If you put an OEM up against a good Clone and I show you the difference - I garantee your hand will be shaking as you give over your $3000 dollars when you know what I paid. The good ones are that good. The darkside is that the bad ones are that bad. They are not bonded properly, the lids can be warped and have pinholes in the finish that take many labor hours to fix. Don't even talk about the ones that have holes for the lid mounting, strut or the fan have NO metal boses in them for your bolts to thread into! The early ones (I've seen one) had bolts screwed into just the fiberglass! Can you spell dangerous boys and girls... (Most of these were made a few years back)

Even when you find a used wing thats already on a car, I found few owners could/would produce the orig invoice from their dealer showing the aero option with the car. I wasted a lot of weekends driving around to people who 'said' they had OEM wings for sale and thats when I started going, hmmmm... and began researching the clone offerings and ran into a few Rennlist members who had both OEM and clones that I could compare. If I ever sell mine (only if I buy a 997!) I'm going to be upfront about it - I built it up and this is what it is, take it or leave it.

I only had to spend two ours hand sanding the primer (cause I'm picky) before I sent it off to my buddy who is a painter at a Lexus dealer. I also sent my old OEM lid along with it so he could match the 'aged' paint as my car is 10 years old. Nothing looks crappier then sutle tone changes on paint jobs.

So just because someone 'tells' you it's an OEM wing - beware - more so when it has not been mounted on a car thats been on the road for a few years. There are NOS GT3 wings around from some dealers and (their suppliers), but they are held hostage to what they paid for the part in the first place and have to make it back out of your wallet.

If your buying used or off the internet - get lots of close up photos of different areas of the wing, inside and out and if they won't do that - walk away. Oh, and beware of the top wing blades that are hollow - ie, no foam inside - they shake/vibarate at highspeed.

Marc Gelefsky

If you buy the correct wiring harness, (about 60 bucks if I recall) the spoiler light goes out and the warning light for engine cover open works properly.
No light, no tape

Torontoworker

FYI: There is something up with the red wing. The harness is NOT mounted correctly. It HAS to run inside the plastic clip (missing) thats attached to the strut and this one doesn't do that and when closed it can be pinched and fail after time.

Torontoworker

Which is what I did in the end. 60 bucks is a bit low, Pelicon had one for $73 but I could get it faster at the dealer so thats who I went with. Get this - even with the proper harness - the light on the dash still comes on until you get above 5 kph where it will go out, (until the next start up). Found this is normal through our buddy Loren at Renntech. I spent days scratching my head over that one until he told me they all do that. Some weird odd ECU programing that needs car movement? The tape 'thing' was never considered. I couldn't live with myself if I had black electrial tape on my display. I would hate myself every day I drove it - fixating on it. (My wife would buy the damn harness after one week with living with me)

philooo

Very interesting.. now I just have to wait and see what mine will look like..scary..

By any chance do you have the part number for the sticker and little bits you added to make it look real 'stock' you did a great job with that !

Also great tip about asking the painter to be carefull to match the aged paint. I would not have think of that one.

Marc Gelefsky

Cool, but I have the proper harness and I never get the light at all. is that a Mk1 thing?

chsu74

My spoiler light remains lit until the car moves then it goes off automatically.

Marc Gelefsky

There should be part numbers on the stickers in your existing lid, just use those.
I think thats what I did, I will see if I have the part numbers anywhere.

Torontoworker

Might be - perhaps the 'real' mark 1 GT3 had the code down pat for this and it wasn't worth the time to do an update for any of the 'cheaters' who came after.