CCW's on my red GT3
05-02-2008, 03:38 AM
#35
Banned
Taping each one was bit of a pain, but still worth it to me.
Those of you who looked closely may have noticed some flaws on the lettering where some of the stock silver is still showing and also some aluminum peering out on the inside of the CCW wheel center holes. These wheels are very precise and cannot take a thin coating of powder-coat where the hub-centric spacers go. So after the wheels are done, you need to sand away the powder-coat to get back to spec.
Next time I take all the wheels off, I will put a thin coat of the Riviera Paint inside the center hole so that no aluminum shows through by the edges of the caps. I will also clean up all of the “GT3” lettering on the caps to make sure no silver shows and that the black stays completely in the letter recesses, while the blue goes right up to the upper edge of each black letter.
But for right now, they look pretty darn good IMHO. Those not in the know would never know the difference, and at most they might think that some of the caps don't fit perfectly because they are a plastic part. And those who do know what is going on there, and have an idea of what I did; well, let me just say that I hope you appreciate the work put into it and find the solution and aesthetic result to be a fair compromise and very near the factory look.
Stephen
I will now go take the wheels off and take some pics from the back to show you what I did.
Last edited by 340Elise; 05-02-2008 at 11:30 AM.
05-02-2008, 10:05 AM
#37
Banned
Next I will go back to my old "CARRERA" look, but I have some new ideas up my sleave that I will be trying soon. I still have about 50 ft of material left.
Last edited by 340Elise; 05-02-2008 at 04:31 PM.
05-02-2008, 11:25 AM
#38
Banned
I cut the stock GT3 caps down by about 1/4" so they fit the CCW wheels center hole. I use a hole saw to do this. This makes a very round and accurate cut and makes it look like a factory cut. It does require a little bit of sanding, but not much.
For the front caps (as shown), I have to remove almost all of the stuff behind the stock cap as it is too thick with the wheel centering ring on the hub. I used a dremel to do this and it does not need to be perfect, you will not see it.
My caps were cut to make for a very, very tight fit in the CCW Wheels, but they still need something to hold them in place so that they don't start to slip our of position and eventually fall off the wheel. This has to be something strong and temporary. I went with a blue RTV slicone for making gaskets. After you have mounted new tires and had them balanced and rebalanced, then you can put your caps on as you should not be messing with the tires for some time until a weight falls off or you need new tires again. But if you are hard-core and you are constantly changing out tires or rebalancing, then this is not the right set-up for you in terms of the caps. Just go capless in that case.
Anyway, you can put the cap on before you put the wheel on the hub or after. It is easier before because you can put a nice tight bead of silicone on the inside of the cap and the wheel center and make sure it is evenly spread out. This also allows you to adjust the cap placement from the front and from behind to make sure it is nice and flush with the outside edge of the wheel centering hole. If you made your tolerance correctly, then this should be very easy since the cap will hold itself in place and you are addig the silicone as final bonding agent (which peels right off in the future). If you cut the cap a little to small, then just make sure you have some extra paint for your wheels. You can always tape off the face of the wheels and then paint inside the centering ring of the wheel (more towards the top/outside edge of this area) and build up some paint so that your cap will fit tighter. And if you have too much paint (or powdercoat as was the case with me, then you just sand inside the edge of the wheel centering ring until you get a nice tight fit for your modified center caps.
The rear caps do not need to be ground down behind the cap as the fornts do. There is more room in the rear between the hub centering ring and the outer edge of the CCW wheel. The silicone is also nice because if you get some on the outside, it wipes right off. and if it hardens, then it is still flexible and you can still peel it away from the face of the wheel.
IMO, it looks just as good as the stock cap except that this way is a little more difficult to work with. You have to temporarilly glue each cap into place as opposed to snapping in each cap. But this can be done very quickly if you took your time to precicely cut the center caps to fit snugly.
Let me know if you are interested in doing this for your CCW wheels; it will work with the colored crests, turbo, RS, and any other modern Porsche cap.
The other option, which I will be exploring soon is to use those BBS dummy center locks. I think these require you to drill 3 holes into your wheels to mount them. But they do like kind of cool, although I would much rather have the real thing. Anybody interested in a center lock conversion group buy?
For one person it is about $3,200 to $3,500 to convert your 997 GT3 to the cup center locks. That is not toooo bad. But then I found out that you need a $1,200 torque wrench to torque the center lug to about 400 + lb/ft. So now the price approaches $5k, yikes! All that just to look cool!
Here are my back of wheel pics (just one front wheel):
For the front caps (as shown), I have to remove almost all of the stuff behind the stock cap as it is too thick with the wheel centering ring on the hub. I used a dremel to do this and it does not need to be perfect, you will not see it.
My caps were cut to make for a very, very tight fit in the CCW Wheels, but they still need something to hold them in place so that they don't start to slip our of position and eventually fall off the wheel. This has to be something strong and temporary. I went with a blue RTV slicone for making gaskets. After you have mounted new tires and had them balanced and rebalanced, then you can put your caps on as you should not be messing with the tires for some time until a weight falls off or you need new tires again. But if you are hard-core and you are constantly changing out tires or rebalancing, then this is not the right set-up for you in terms of the caps. Just go capless in that case.
Anyway, you can put the cap on before you put the wheel on the hub or after. It is easier before because you can put a nice tight bead of silicone on the inside of the cap and the wheel center and make sure it is evenly spread out. This also allows you to adjust the cap placement from the front and from behind to make sure it is nice and flush with the outside edge of the wheel centering hole. If you made your tolerance correctly, then this should be very easy since the cap will hold itself in place and you are addig the silicone as final bonding agent (which peels right off in the future). If you cut the cap a little to small, then just make sure you have some extra paint for your wheels. You can always tape off the face of the wheels and then paint inside the centering ring of the wheel (more towards the top/outside edge of this area) and build up some paint so that your cap will fit tighter. And if you have too much paint (or powdercoat as was the case with me, then you just sand inside the edge of the wheel centering ring until you get a nice tight fit for your modified center caps.
The rear caps do not need to be ground down behind the cap as the fornts do. There is more room in the rear between the hub centering ring and the outer edge of the CCW wheel. The silicone is also nice because if you get some on the outside, it wipes right off. and if it hardens, then it is still flexible and you can still peel it away from the face of the wheel.
IMO, it looks just as good as the stock cap except that this way is a little more difficult to work with. You have to temporarilly glue each cap into place as opposed to snapping in each cap. But this can be done very quickly if you took your time to precicely cut the center caps to fit snugly.
Let me know if you are interested in doing this for your CCW wheels; it will work with the colored crests, turbo, RS, and any other modern Porsche cap.
The other option, which I will be exploring soon is to use those BBS dummy center locks. I think these require you to drill 3 holes into your wheels to mount them. But they do like kind of cool, although I would much rather have the real thing. Anybody interested in a center lock conversion group buy?
For one person it is about $3,200 to $3,500 to convert your 997 GT3 to the cup center locks. That is not toooo bad. But then I found out that you need a $1,200 torque wrench to torque the center lug to about 400 + lb/ft. So now the price approaches $5k, yikes! All that just to look cool!
Here are my back of wheel pics (just one front wheel):
05-02-2008, 06:43 PM
#42
Banned
Toe Steer Kit (GMG or Porsche MS for RSR)
GMG Dog Bones
Thrust Arm Bushing Kit
Porsche MS control arms possibly (also from RSR)
I will then go with a custom alignment and corner balance, and also drop the ride height as per Euro specs.
Also, I am looking at the new sway bars from GMG (front and rear) and in the future a set of Motons and the Brembo GT's 380 mm (not the GTR for $20K or whatever it is now!).
I want to start small and get comfortable and then work my way up. The GMG parts I am ordering since I am going to do an alignment and corner balance anyway, and I got some advice on some of those parts.
What I really want to do is lose some serious weight, but that is not very easy in this car.
Stephen
