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Recently wrapped up what will probably be the last couples of tweaks for the year:
Numeric shifter and .2 shift cables
Shift feel has always been very important to me in a sports car and having previously owned both one of the best feeling stock shifters (S2000) and one of the most rubbery (BMW), I know how much of a difference a good shifter can make to the driving experience. On the GT3, I didn't necessarily have any real complaints with the stock plastic OEM .1 shifter and the rubber bushing .1 shift cables, but after learning more about the stock components I felt there was room for improvement so I started exploring my options. On the shifter itself, I spent a lot of time going back and forth on whether to do Numeric, the stock .2 shifter with the additional metal bushing, or doing the Function First shifter solution to my stock .1 shifter. Any of these options should have given a nice bump in feel but the Numeric route with its all metal frame and mechanism kept calling to me. Numeric on these cars seems to be a little polarizing with some loving it and others not but I figured if I didn't like it I could always re-sell. The Numeric cables are really impressive and can appreciate that they are a much more durable part than the stock cables but I didn't want to deal with the increased NVH. The .2 cables seemed like a nice middleground to me, no increased NVH but no rubber bushing at the transmission end like the .1 cables have.
The Numeric shifter made an immediate and noticeable difference over the plastic shifter body. Everything just felt much more solid and there was less slop once slotted into gear. The .2 cables I feel like then gave me that last 5-10% of an improvement that I was after--I'd be lying if I said they made a night and day difference but I definitely feel an improvement over my old .1 cables. When I first installed everything, second gear was fairly notchy and required some careful effort when downshifting from either third or fourth. I took some time and played with the adjustment of the cables on the shifter side and managed to all but eliminate the second gear issues. If anyone has a Numeric shifter and finds some or all of the gates to be somewhat difficult to slot, I'd highly recommend playing with the cable adjustment.
With the new shifter and cables, the car shifts perfectly now once it's warmed up. On the fully stock setup, every once in a while I would get slightly hung up on the tricky 2->3 shift. Since the upgrade, it hasn't happened once. Just buttery smoothness while still feeling very solid with little to no play.
RS wing
I posted about this a little bit in the recent 997.2 RS wing thread, but I recently picked up an OEM .2 RS decklid and wing setup after giving up on trying to find a .1 RS setup. Since I needed a dual inlet intake anyways, I decided to spring for the Dundon intake with their Black Friday sale. Not only does it look gorgeous sitting in the engine bay, but I swear you get a bit more induction noise in the cabin over the stock intake.
With a silver car, I've struggled a little with color schemes on the parts I've added to the car. I ran into this issue with the wheels and now again on the wing since the uprights are silver. There's always a fine line to walk between too much silver, differing shades of silver, balancing contrast on non-silver parts, etc. One thing I've consistently wanted to avoid with this car was turning it into an RS clone. A prior owner put .2 RS style graphics on it that I removed and while I was considering putting a bold color like yellow on the endplates, I ultimately decided against it for a similar reason. I also feel like I would have had to add more yellow beyond the calipers to better pull off the yellow theme. After mulling the color scheme over for a few days, I settled on painting the endplates matching silver. The seller of the wing had painted the uprights black and while I'm not yet sure if I'm going to keep them black long-term, I think they provide a nice contrast against the silver on the car and endplates. I'll likely need to re-do the black finish in the Spring with something more durable since it's starting to peel in a couple of spots but I can use the off-season to think over what I want to do. Without further ado, a few pics after the changes (I still need to put on the rear badge):
Lovely pickup as these OEM parts are rare and expensive. I hear that dilemma around RS clone vs too much silver. I do think some contrast would be nice. Black end plates, black/carbon mirrors, black GT3 logo would look great, IMHO. Porsche has offered constrast decals on GT3s since 996 and contrast painted pieces since 997.
Lovely pickup as these OEM parts are rare and expensive. I hear that dilemma around RS clone vs too much silver. I do think some contrast would be nice. Black end plates, black/carbon mirrors, black GT3 logo would look great, IMHO. Porsche has offered constrast decals on GT3s since 996 and contrast painted pieces since 997.
Originally Posted by RAudi Driver
I'm liking the black uprights. I'd do the endplates and mirror caps in black also.
Thanks guys--these are great suggestions. I actually had black endplates on the car before everything went to paint and the problem was that with the dark wing blade, black uprights and black endplates the whole wing assembly looked like an afterthought on a silver car and tended to blend in. I think it would work better on a black or meteor gray car, or maybe if I had a ton of black contrast (large decals, mirrors, wheels, etc.). Here's how everything looked before it went to paint (car was filthy in this picture and it's in direct sunlight):
Spoiler
I feel like if I do black endplates I may want to return the uprights to silver for some cohesiveness with the rest of the car but curious what others think. Other options I was thinking of to add more dark contrast: the upcoming NB side skirts that were advertised here recently or perhaps a darker shade on the wheels. I probably wouldn't go back to black again but could do anthracite or some other darker finish. The mirrors were black when I first picked up the car (see first couple of pictures) and I wasn't really a fan but carbon fiber may be an interesting change, even on just one of the two mirror halves.
Despite saying in a recent post that I was going to wait until Spring to work on the car again, we've had a streak of warm weather recently so of course I couldn't leave well enough alone
First up, I learned Porsche finally restocked both of the yellow 997 belts so I ordered a set and took off the red set that came on my car from the factory. Although I liked the red by themselves, I didn't really have any other red accents on the car and the yellow should be a better match with my PCCB calipers and a few other additions I have planned in the future. It's also really nice having a brand new set of belts vs. the somewhat saggy 16 year old pair that came out of the car. They're just much tighter feeling and no longer slip off against the shoulder bolster when not in use.
I also started making some subtle tweaks to the exterior. @Elliotw44 had some great advice to add some black accents to break up all the silver so I started doing just that. First, I sent the wing endplates and lower mirror housings back to paint and had them repaint them in black. Then, since I still had black GT3 wheel centercaps laying around from my black wheels, I decided to see how they'd look instead of silver. To my surprise, I think they're actually a pretty noticeable improvement for such a small change so I'll probably keep them on.
Finally, I stripped off all the black paint from the wing uprights and it proved much more tedious than I thought it would be, though I think they've been painted black for quite some time. I probably spent a good 3-4 hours attacking them with Xylene stripper, though since I also had to stripe the paint from attachment points on the underside of the wing blade, a decent chunk of time was spent masking everything off so I didn't damage the CF clearcoat with the stripper. For the uprights, getting 95% of the paint off was a fairly quick process--it was getting that stubborn last 5% off that ate up most of the time there. On the bright side, I can confirm the original anodized finish is really tough so I didn't need to be overly careful and instead I could just attack them with the stripper and metal scouring pads.
Here's how everything currently sits:
I think it's a noticeable improvement over the prior iteration but I want to keep experimenting a bit more. In particular, I have some decals going on in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned!
Despite saying in a recent post that I was going to wait until Spring to work on the car again, we've had a streak of warm weather recently so of course I couldn't leave well enough alone
First up, I learned Porsche finally restocked both of the yellow 997 belts so I ordered a set and took off the red set that came on my car from the factory. Although I liked the red by themselves, I didn't really have any other red accents on the car and the yellow should be a better match with my PCCB calipers and a few other additions I have planned in the future. It's also really nice having a brand new set of belts vs. the somewhat saggy 16 year old pair that came out of the car. They're just much tighter feeling and no longer slip off against the shoulder bolster when not in use.
I also started making some subtle tweaks to the exterior. @Elliotw44 had some great advice to add some black accents to break up all the silver so I started doing just that. First, I sent the wing endplates and lower mirror housings back to paint and had them repaint them in black. Then, since I still had black GT3 wheel centercaps laying around from my black wheels, I decided to see how they'd look instead of silver. To my surprise, I think they're actually a pretty noticeable improvement for such a small change so I'll probably keep them on.
Finally, I stripped off all the black paint from the wing uprights and it proved much more tedious than I thought it would be, though I think they've been painted black for quite some time. I probably spent a good 3-4 hours attacking them with Xylene stripper, though since I also had to stripe the paint from attachment points on the underside of the wing blade, a decent chunk of time was spent masking everything off so I didn't damage the CF clearcoat with the stripper. For the uprights, getting 95% of the paint off was a fairly quick process--it was getting that stubborn last 5% off that ate up most of the time there. On the bright side, I can confirm the original anodized finish is really tough so I didn't need to be overly careful and instead I could just attack them with the stripper and metal scouring pads.
Here's how everything currently sits:
I think it's a noticeable improvement over the prior iteration but I want to keep experimenting a bit more. In particular, I have some decals going on in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned!
Car is looking amazing and it's nice to see you enjoying ownership and modding I love the lower mirrors in black, which is subtle but adds to the whole scheme. Cant wait to see the decals.
Love the narrow body look of the 997.1 GT3 with these Mods. You've done a stellar job Vocan. I've been considering the DSC cont. for some time now. My PASM suspension setup is stock and has about 40K miles on them. Wonder if the DSC will be as effective with higher miles on them? How many miles on yours? I think the car as it sits is balanced and striking, subtle, elegant, focused and ready to attack. Not sure what you're planning for stickers, but my vote is leave as is. The car really stands out, in that stealthy sort of way. Well Done!!!
Christallon,
Depending on your intended use. A DSC and accelerometer is a noteworthy addition to a 997.1. Immediately controls the hunting and bobbying. In addition, when not pushing the RS through its paces, it provides a smoother more compliant overall ride. As exhibited on my well used 38K mile RS.
09-25-2023, 03:01 PM
