StormRune

I know there are those who think that wings mess up the line of the 911s, but I like them. I have been especially fond of the clean and relatively subtle lines of the wing on a Turbo. So when a nice Turbo deck lid and wing with proper actuators and hydraulic pump (the most expensive parts other than the wing) showed up on eBay a few weeks ago I was tempted.

After about two weeks of fretting about it and the wing still being available, I decided to dig into some research and see how much more it would take to install it properly - meaning with all factory parts and the actuators working. There is a smattering of talk about this online, but nothing with all of the details. After a bunch of digging through parts diagrams and evidence that at least one other guy has done this successfully, I bought the wing assembly and it arrived earlier this week.

If you are interested in how this goes, I'm going to keep this thread updated with all of the info on how this is done. Keep reading if you want to know more. If you think I'm a heretic, I respectfully disagree but you might find this interesting anyway. Note that I am not going to badge the car as a Turbo and as discussed elsewhere recently there are very few people out in the world that will know this has been retrofitted and that it came from a Turbo. Our cars are probably one of the most personalized cars on the road, so we manage to keep most everyone pretty confused anyway!

Since purchasing the wing assembly I've done some more digging and identified all of the parts I should need and problems I might encounter. Some of what I found was vague, but with help from other wonderful folks online I think I have most of the answers. Special thanks so far to Loren on Renntech, NikosF, semicycler, and ECS Tuning on 6speedonline, and the patient parts guys at my dealership in Austin for helping clear up questions so far. I'd also like to thank the guys at Gintani Motors in Van Nuys for working with me on the phone to better understand what they had for sale and doing an outstanding job of packaging it safely and shipping it to me. They were really honest and helpful.

Here is the state of things right now: My son and I have stripped with deck lid of all attached parts and removed the wing and the Turbo badge. I was able the get the pin spanner tool to remove the wing from a seller on eBay at a good price. The stripped down wing, deck lid, and panel that sits between the deck lid and back window are at a local custom car shop for painting. They expect to have it ready by the end of next week. The panel I mention allows the deletion of the high mounted center brake light that is currently on the C2S, and yes, I have a plan to make sure no codes are thrown. The presence of the panel in the shipment was a very pleasant surprise as it wasn't shown in the seller's description or photos and isn't cheap.

Rather than continue to ramble on here, I'm planning on photographing all of the steps and writing up a proper DIY for others who may choose to follow. There are already a lot of details not mentioned but I'll get to those later. For now, here are a few pictures of the wing assembly before removal of the remaining parts for painting.

Dennis C

Good luck with the conversion! Looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

gota911

That will look good on your car. I will be waiting for updates.

If you docment this process very well (a.k.a. good level of detail), then we can ask USMC_DS1 to add this thread to his 997 DIY sticky thread at the top of page 1.

StormRune

Thanks for the nice words guys. I'm planning on doing a precise DIY worthy of Dennis's thread and I've promised Loren a copy for the Renntech DIYs as well. While I think I have all of the part numbers correct at this point, I'm waiting to confirm completeness and correctness before posting them.

Hey Tim, I hope you have been enjoying your car since you got it in the spring! I ended up reselling the Fabspeed mufflers you sold to me after I was able to get a used set of PSE mufflers with GTS tips for the car... but it was nice while it lasted. I think the PSE sounds just right.

SO here's a first update on progress (to be cleanly documented later): The wiring harness that I received late this week turned out to be the wrong one. The connector on the original was destroyed before I got it (but the eBay seller warned me about it before I bought it so its okay) and the first harness I bought was missing the wing position up/down sensor and was incorrectly listed on the parts site I used to determine part numbers (it was a GT2 harness it turned out). The in-spoiler brake light I got the first time was missing the clips that hold it in and they can't be ordered separately, but semicycler provided me with the updated numbers for one with the clips and ECS Tuning provided an update to that with the part number for the latest redesigned one with stronger clips (apparently the first ones had problems breaking off). I'm pretty certain I have the right ones on order now.

I was fortunate enough to get hold of the wiring diagrams for both deck lids (my current one and the Turbo one) and was very pleasantly surprised to learn that the wiring at the connector and signals are exactly the same for both the standard non-turbo wing and the Turbo wing... even the wing up/down sensors send the same signals. This almost seemed unusual for Porsche to do something standardized. The sensors at the business end of the harness are different though but that seems necessary.

RichFL

Following this thread with interest. Good luck!

gota911

Storm,

You must be thinking of someone else. I have had my car for 3 years and have never owned Fabspeed mufflers. Come to think of it, I never did receive payment for the Fabspeed mufflers I didn't sell you, so just put the check in the mail!

jhbrennan

This will be a great follow-along. I've had two TT's and really the TT spoiler is the only P-car spoiler that I like. Now that I have a GTS, your DIY may move me in the same direction. Who did you choose for custom paint and are they pretty confident they can match your Arctic Silver - mine is GT Silver Metallic. Good luck.

Cbst09

Storm, it was I that sold you the Fabspeed mufflers. I too am looking forward to following your progress with this project.

StormRune

Ooops!!! Sorry, that's embarrassing. I saw the central NC address and the gray 997.2 and made a mistake. Thanks for sorting it out for me.

StormRune

I'm having it done by Custom Car Crafters. The plan is for them to mix the paint and then shoot a patch on a test piece. We'll then compare what they have to my car and see if it's a match. We're thinking that while it may not be absolutely perfect, there are a lot of changing angles and curves back there and subtle mismatches will probably not be noticeable. Take a look sometime as you approach your car from various angles and see how many different shades the silver takes on... it changes quite a bit.

Since the change I'm doing is non-destructive, when I eventually sell the car I'm planning on putting the original deck lid back on and selling this as a full setup with all parts included. I'd expect to net more money this way unless I find a buyer willing to pay extra for the Turbo wing setup. They initially brought up the question of whether I would accept blending into the fenders and while I rejected that as an option outright, the desire to be able to switch back to stock later shoots it down completely.

BrakingBad

I for one fully support this endeavor. Looking forward to updates.

Dennis C

I'm curious about something - is the turbo spoiler that you bought from a coupe or a cabriolet? I ask because the cabriolet spoiler raises about 2 inches higher than the coupe spoiler due to the differences in aerodynamics of a cab vs. a coupe. I assume that yours is from a coupe...

StormRune

Your assumption is correct, it is from a coupe and doesn't raise terribly far... only around 2 inches. In the photos I think it is fully raised.

Fortunately I like how it looks in the down position too since around town and parked it will most often be there. BTW, when I recently borrowed a Durametric Pro, I did enable the option to raise the wing under heavy acceleration as well as at 75 mph (currently works with my standard wing but it will do the same with the new one).

Dennis C

Sounds good. Are you planning anything in the front to "balance" the look with the rear spoiler? I'm not sure you'll need it since the turbo spoiler is fairly small, but a more aggressive front lip might be nice...

StormRune

I've considered it, but I already have places around my normal routes that I have trouble avoiding a light nose scrape and have to hit at angles. The 997.2s already have a hint of a lip shape in the standard front (just edited to add a clipped photo of the "lip" of my car out at the COTA track), more so than the 997.1s, so I'm hoping that this will visually do the trick. We'll have to see. I think my wife is hoping the wing will allow me to call it done!