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Ive been trolling around the gt3 forum for the past 2 months since my gt4 was totaled by a motorcycle. I managed to find a drivers car fairly quickly, but got hung up on the insurance and arbitration to pay out for a few weeks. once it was settled, deal was done. its a .1 gt3 that i bought from a fellow rennlist member out in denver. so my wife said "road trip", flight was booked and off we went. The flight out was entertaining as i sat next to a pilot coming back from a barca flight, who happened to be an ex f-15/16 pilot. picked his brain the entire time. im sure i was more amused than he was.
at the advice of the seller, we headed from denver up to a town called nederland. there was some nice twisty roads on the way up the mountain to get the cobwebs and recent accident out of my mind. while up there we randomly ran into another gt3. it was a .2, also white and the owner had got it about 3 months ago. we decided we would follow him and turned a quick 30 mile drive for breakfast before heading back home into a 200 mile run through the mountains. the roads up there are awesome. very much like cherohala and parts of the blue ridge parkway, but with no giant cliff edges to fall off you make a mistake. the scenery was amazing. we left denver around 1pm sat and made it back to maryland by dinner time sunday. 18.5 hours seat time.
managed to pass a milestone for the car along the way hitting the 60 k mark.
as for the car, what can i say that any of you dont know already. my wife said it made the m981 gt4 ( which had buckets, this has sofas for now, and catless dundon race headers) feel like a luxury highway cruising car. in know the car checks out mechanically, as the leakdown test was less than 5% in all cylinders, ppi was solid, but does had the usual wear of a car with 60k. but i will say, i almost crapped my pants. i think a tire was out of round when i got it and the vibration was more than obvious. the prior owner had bbs LM on the car and put these back on for the sale. thankfully after about 75 miles the vibration was gone. it also had a bit of a rough idle. once we got back down out of the mountains and put in 93 instead of th3 91, it was running smoother. the car also has the 90L tank ( which is the coolest thing ever, doing 90-100 down the highway and still getting 600 miles per tank of gas is awesome ) so not sure how much gas had been sitting in the bottom for god knows how long. after 2 refills idle is also markedly improved. i know its gonna be rough, but again one of those omfg what did i just buy that i have to fix now. i cant really give a good hard comparison to the gt4 just yet as i only really pushed it and not anywhere close to how hard i would have the gt4 for the 200 miles that first morning. the rest was all high way. but i can tell once i get used to it and have it back from the shop ( getting new rubber and state inspection done ) that night and day wont even be a fair comparison. this car is ridiculous.
speaking of fixing, im sure i will be asking tons of questions in the future and apologize ahead of time. ive made it through about 120 pages of threads in this forum and had a prior 997, so ive been all over those as well.
the car currently has the interior painted satin black. its in good shape, but im planning on pulling it all, and most likely either getting it back to white as it came or alcantara with deviated stitching. i was surprised, the rubber on the dash and upper door trim was actually in really good shape and plan to leave it for now, but will replace the lower dash with alcantara, as well as some of the door trim. i miss that from the gt4. the car had a wrap on it, and when removed, they left some behind, so ill have to take a few sections off and get it all out. good opportunity to refresh/replace. the rear wing is an oem .2 lid with from what i can tell a fiberglass wing blade and not the oem carbon. but i could be wrong. its annoying that the inch thick service history i have, that one isnt there. it has an aftermarket head unit with car play, but im really debating pulling it and putting the pccm+.
i was happy to see some of the stuff done already to the car after going through all the invoices as they date back to 2008. has the usual suspects - lines welded, rs 4.0 clutch and lwfw and rs crank pulley, steel synchro's for 1st and 2nd, Guards LSD, both the rms and fms done, water pump, coolant expansion tank, 90L gas tank ( 24 gallons ), DSC controller, all lower control arms and rear toe links, RSS center bypass. so the nuts and bolts are in good shape. so other than driving it, ill start with the refresh of the car -
Also came from a 981 GT4 recently and feel the 981 is a lot more refined. There are definitely things that the 981 (and also the 991 GT3s) progressed, but the 997 GT3 just feels more of an occasion and special (I know the term “special” has different meanings to different people).
I do find the fuel tank a little small, as I do have the extended tank on the 981. But then it seems like a lot of work to change the tank, and I have RHD (the RHD cars might have different fuel tanks for 997 generation). And I’m sure the gas mileage isn’t been great on these cars to begin with.
Congrats on the new acquisition! Similarly, the drive home after buying my '07, I got a CEL on a Sunday, in the boondocks of Hwy 1. Turned out to be nothing more than bad fuel as well. Needless to say, I now always travel with my cheap ecu scan tool.
Congrats on the new acquisition! Similarly, the drive home after buying my '07, I got a CEL on a Sunday, in the boondocks of Hwy 1. Turned out to be nothing more than bad fuel as well. Needless to say, I now always travel with my cheap ecu scan tool.
Hah, I had 2 on my 7.5 hour drive home with mine (both times for misfire), ended up being cracked coil packs. Nothing I was going to fix on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere Oregon though.
06-27-2024 | 02:44 AM
officially part of the group
