Welcome, we are a lovable bunch 🤓

Scott, Rock on man. This gets better all the time👍

 

I love seeing people dig into and rehab a car like this. It's also good to see so when people see bargain cars like this it tells you why they are often that price.

I am still a bit amazed at how many drivetrain components especially in the gearbox are considered wear items. I don't quite understand why some of the shorter ratios, ring gear, etc have such a "short" lifespan. These cars don't even make insane power/torque figures. Good to know though.

 

The lifespans are based on Porsche Motorsports guidelines for their race cars. One important criteria for these numbers is that you are driving at the stress limits for extended periods - that that are impossible on the street and darn near impossible in DE. Porsche has long been a race car company selling street cars!

 

This is very true and for someone like me who does 95% of my driving on the street far from racing conditions it still gives me concern. Probably over thinking it.

 

Don't be worried. I have 142,000 miles on my mostly street driven car with both the transaxle and engine never dropped. I still have the original clutch in my car.

I drive mostly street and some autocross when I can. These cars are insanely robust for what they were designed for.

 

Hi Steve,

Do yourself a favor and attend a DE event (some time....) and get a ride with a 'good' instructor driving a GT3. It will be truly an eye-opening experience to see what these things are capable of, and how far street driving is from the DE stuff. Now the 'real' race guys will be nearly as different from the DE guys (unless you were really lucky and got a good instructor ), as the DE guys are from the street folks.

This is a long-winded way to agree with your assessment that you are overthinking it.

I do need to point out that some of these mods are specifically designed to add more stress - cornering forces, torque multipliers, etc, which in part is why the different reliability schedules exist.

Ray

 

About once per year I would use your vacuum method to get the easy stuff out, and even tape some small gauge tubing to the end of the vacuum extension to be able to access even deeper into the corners, but you still won't be able to get to the crud stuffed in between the two radiators. Unlikely Porsche cleaned out the other one! Center one does not require bumper removal to clean out, as there is no condenser behind that one. In terms of exposing the radiators, after you have the bumper off its literally 5 extra minutes per side. (4-5 screws holding on the plastic air shrouds, and then two bolts holding on the outer radiator (which then permits you to wiggle the other side "tab" outside of the mounting bracket).

And as for those concerned about the robustness of the gearbox, I think it really comes down to two things: 1) Was the owner(s) careful, maintenance-minded, and conscientious?); and 2) has it seen a lot of time on the track? When the answer to No. 2 is "a lot" and the answer to No. 1 is "not very," there is a good chance your gearbox will need refreshing. Throw in a half-a--'d, incompetent rebuild in the past, and that is situation I found myself in. None of my other gt/mezger motored cars (996-3, 997-3, 996tt) ever showed even a hint of gearbox issues, and they were all "higher" mileage examples too). I've seen videos of my car's past life on the track....it was ridden hard, which is fine, but also unfortunately put away wet too often as well. I am convinced that any other car, of any other brand, treated exactly like my car was treated, would be on its third transmission by now and probably third engine! These things are robust, but if they are flogged 100% of the time, stuff wears out.

Brake caliper repaint went well. Only downside is that the VHT high temp caliper paint is not nearly as "red" as the stock calipers (which I'm pretty sure is guards red, or very close to it given that my touch up paint matches the stock caliper color nearly perfectly). This shade difference is not going to be a big deal if your car is anything other than red, but with a red car, the different shade may be annoying. Oh well, definitely better than peeling clearcoat and completed faded calipers. Yesterday I cleaned up all the pistons and pucks (none were cracked or broken), epoxied in the pucks that were loose (about half of them...used jb weld to glue them back to the pistons, which is good to 550 degrees, we will see how it holds up), and started the refresh, complete with new speedblee


ders and oem brembo bleeder caps. Making progress...now just need my shocks and gearbox back!

 

I am very glad that I only know of motorsheister anecdotally and that if those reading this don't know of them, that's a good thing because they were driven out of business years ago.

thanks for the post Matt. Be well.

Craig

 

Are those the racingbrake high temp dust boots I see there (blue)?

 

Hi All,

Scott's assessment of the gearbox is right on with my experiences. The prior owners drove mine hard, and put it away wet, requiring a comprehensive rebuild! These cars are quite reliable, but in the 'right' hands can easily be trashed...

Ray

 

Scott
I’ve used VHT Hight Temp paint many times with good success. IMO the trick is adding a few layers of clear coat (High Temp of course) then little buffing. When it hits the light, it will look much brighter.
My new favorite high temp paint is G2 but I recommend buying 2 cans as this paint comes with a hardener and clear mixed in so it dries fast. Make sure before you start to paint that your calipers are clean, sanded, and ready too just paint. This paint dries fast also have the other 3 calipers ready to go , so you can just go from one caliper to the next. Then I would had a clear on top , ceramic coat and it will look like a professional did it or even better.
This one part imo that so many don’t pay attention to or might think it’s not a good dyi project. It’s very easy all you need is patience and don’t rush. The more time u spend cleaning and sanding the better it will look and last longer .
Thx again for all the welcomes

 

Spiller, they are the high temp "silicone" versions (that shouldn't touch brake fluid LOL!). I sourced the "kit" from Ohio Performance solutions. Reasonably priced, fast shipping. We will see how they hold up! https://www.ohioperformancesolutions...he-996-997-gt3

Thanks Nosubturbo...the repainting is done. I did use the VHT high temp clear. we will see how they hold up!

Ran into a bit of a snag trying to disassemble the rear shocks. You are supposed to loosen the large 18mm nut on the top mount while countering the shock piston rod with a tiny (I mean puny) 7mm wrench. Well, the nut is apparently seized to the rod, and the 7mm wrench is starting to round off the corners of the piston rod end. Going to try to find a 7mm "spanner" style thin wrench that has a deeper profile to see if I can get a better hold on the rod. I'm also soaking with PB blaster. Hopefully that will do the trick!

Scored a pair of the correct 996 gt3 upper front brake ducts for a good price (crazy expensive new and hard to find used). They are really huge. I zip tied them to the hard lines at the top so they don't get lost (again), as the stock clips are very small and weak. One question though. I'm not sure how much air is even hitting these thing and getting directed to the calipers/rotors. If you remove the wheel well liner you can see there is no direct path at all from air that goes through the bumper to hit this area of the wheel well. In fact, its blocked by the radiators and lots of other crap. Perhaps the radiator fans provide this air? I had expected to see a nice clean pathway for the air to come through the bumper, but nope!

 

Thanks for the link re: dust boots Scott. I thought the same thing about the upper brake ducts when I was cleaning my wheel arches last night (this thread motivated me lol). I can positively say it has nothing to do with the cooling fans though, as the GT3 cup has no cooling fans and still has these ducts. If you look on the underside of the front section of the wheel liner, there is actually a duct molded into the liner. My thinking is this directs air up into the wheel well and the upper duct grabs what it can and directs it to the braking assembly.

Good idea on the cable ties too, my previous GT3 spat one of these out when I had an off at the track once. Fortunately it wasn’t damaged, for the $400 or whatever they cost, at least porsche made them out of a durable plastic!

 

Not even an LSD rebuild?

 

I'm sure I need one. The car is probably reaching its end point. It still runs well, but the handwriting is on the wall. I was hoping to push the engine to the 250K mark, but I am thinking that may be a stretch.

Nevertheless, these machines are remarkably robust for what they are. I don't know of any other vehicle that can be flogged as hard and still be reliable enough to be driven daily with confidence.

I feel confident that I could still get in this car and drive it anywhere without worrying about it crapping out.