Accomplished quite a bit this weekend. Being that my car was a lifetime Florida car, I was suffering from the typical 996/997 foam in the climate vents issue. I didn't take any pictures since there are a few guides out there on RL but I'd say it's more tedious than it is difficult and I'd peg it around 3-4 hours in total. It's definitely a pain to apply the foam tape to the second blender door by feel and having someone with small hands and wrists would probably make it a lot easier but it's still doable. Definitely made a tangible improvement in the volume and temperature of air coming out of the vents (plus no more foam!) and the random billowing and rustling sounds from my vents are gone.

Next we tackled the DSC controller. Since my car is a .1, we had to deal with the accelerometer which really wasn't that bad using taps. After getting that buttoned up and the DSC box installed we went for a test drive. I have to say that I went into this optimistic based on all the positive reviews but skeptical of how big of a difference it would really make. To my pleasant surprise, the difference is immediately noticeable and fairly dramatic. Gone are the occasional suspension crash or pogo effect and the front end no longer gets noticeably lighter on hard acceleration. Everything feels so much more planted and confident and I'm generally staying in sport mode on the suspension on the street, whereas that mode was almost unusable with the OEM box. The friend I did the install with told me that whatever I paid for this box it was well worth it and my non car person partner said she likes riding in the car much more now. If you've been on the fence about this mod and still have PASM, just do it...

 

Couple of changes since my last update.

First, I ditched the black painted stock front splitter in favor of the Cup splitter. Even though it seemingly scrapes on every curb known to man, the more flexible rubber has been a nice improvement and I'll happily take all the additional front downforce I can get.

Next, I went ahead and had the 10+ year old PPF replaced. What came on the car was starting to yellow and get dirt under the edges. To make matters worse, whoever installed it seemingly put little to no effort into hiding the edges and you could immediately spot them (now with 10+ years of dirt!) wherever you looked. With the new stuff, the installer really took his time and it turned out great as a result.

Finally, new wheels! I went with Apex EC-7RS in 19x9 and 19x12. From day one, I knew I wanted to ditch the black wheels and thought long and hard about repainting them either the factory silver or something in between like platinum satin. The more I thought about it though, the more I felt it made sense to put the $1k or so I would have spent on a repaint towards new wheels instead. While I think the stock .1 wheels look great, after looking up their specs I almost couldn't believe how heavy they are. The Apex wheels collectively save about 26 pounds of unsprung weight. The second reason I went with new wheels was due to sizing. My understanding is that the narrowbody and widebody 997 GT3/RS have identical maximum front wheel and tire fitments. In spite of that, Porsche decided to gimp the already understeer prone NB GT3s with 8.5" wide rims and 235 section front tires instead of the 9" and 245s that came on the RS. New wheels would let me fix that as well.

For the wheel choice itself, like many here I'm a big fan of the BBS motorsport monoblocks on these cars. Perhaps against my better judgment, I was ready to suck it up and pay the $8k price tag for a set but came to find out the next 5 lug NB restock was more than a year away. For better or worse I'm just not that patient . The stock issues led to me exploring alternative options and after hearing great things about Apex from my track rat friends, I took advantage of their July 4th promotion (10% off forged wheels and free shipping) and ordered a set. I still give the monoblocks a slight edge on aesthetics, but with immediate availability, similar specs and an extra $5k in my pocket I'm thrilled with how these turned out:





With these things checked off the list, the car has finally reached about where I want it cosmetically. When I look back to the pictures of the car from when I first got it, I can hardly believe it's the same car. Before buying this car, I was never a big DIY guy and about as far as I've gone with cosmetic modifications was swapping out a set of side markers. I've since had the interior of this car apart more times than I can count and I still feel a tremendous sense of pride from its cosmetic rescue, which makes the ownership experience all the sweeter. I still have a few things planned for the near future, such as swapping the belts to yellow and installing a GT2 rear sway bar, as well as a few longer term plans (likely either a .1 or .2 RS wing and deck lid and maybe some Dundon performance bits) but for now I'm just going to enjoy every mile.

 

Looks great with the Apex wheels!! Enjoy it now and drive her as you should!,

PS. Lmk when you get Yellow Belts and wants to get ride of the Red Belts….as I’m looking for a set for mine…. 👍🏼

 

Amazing work, the car looks stunning. Post up some more pictures.

 

When/if one pops up, jump on it. I waited several years to find an OEM one and haven't seen one since.

 

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I love it! So much better than when you first bought it!

 

Appreciate it. I'm likely going to just get my red belts re-webbed to yellow since it seems one of the yellow belts is backordered but TBD.



On an unrelated note, I realized I made a whoopsie on the wheel install. I forgot these cars came with rear 5mm spacers from the factory and it seems one of the prior owners added a set to the front as well, neither of which will be needed with the new offsets. Ordered 20 new lug bolts and the correct brake disc retention screws and will post a few updated pics once the spacers are off.

More unsprung weight to remove at least

 

Such a simple and amazing change. GT3s look phenomenal in silver. Congrats.

 

1. Congratulations. The car looks classy and proper now. Your wheel choice is excellent. BBS is the pinnacle but overpriced and I personally don't see the value.
2. Thank you. This car clearly needed rescuing. You did a great service.

 

this is great to know - I've been on the fence.

 

Overall great work you've done to this GT3. It looks great, so bravo!

 

What a fantastic result of all your work, looks much better than day one. Keep the updates coming in the future.

 

Knocked out a couple new quality of life/cosmetic upgrades this weekend.

First up, installed a Mods4Cars RemoteKey module. A little pricey but it cured a few of my minor annoyances with the 997 platform. I no longer need to wait for the passenger window to be at least halfway up before using the one touch close feature (why is this a thing??), I set the automatic door locks to unlock once I turned off the ignition so you no longer need to double pump the door handle to get out and I wanted an audible noise when I locked the car (it's the quieter horn you hear when you try to lock the car with the frunk popped). Fairly easy install that took me about 20 minutes and completely reversible.




Also went ahead and ordered a new shift ****. $500+ for these is straight larceny but the cap of my original **** was super beat and was so loose that it would click every time you changed gears. Would be great if there was a way to just buy a replacement cap.

 

The cars really coming along! Looking fresher everyday!