Quadcammer

Gents,
I wanted to give you all my brief write up on doing 997TT plugs. I based my knowledge on the excellent info and pics provided by therock88, but I did things a bit differently, partly because of what I was doing.

I did plugs, coils, do88 style tubes, and front 02 sensors.

Bumper, intercooler, and y pipe/airbox stuff was consistent with therock. Note, there are two screws right where the bumper and the taillights meet at the side. You remove the outer one. The inner one is a plastic screw that the taillights slot into. No need to remove that.

The flexible heat shields. They are held to the intercooler brackets with these speed nuts that go onto studs on the bracket. My car, which has seen some salt and snow, snapped these things right off, pbblaster didn't help. I got one out, and one would not come out without torquing the whole bracket all over the place. Heat may have been effective here. Either way, my heatshields are now held on via other methods. Exercise caution here.

I also snapped both turbo cold side outlet hose clamps. That was odd.

Intercoolers.

Guys, you gotta check these things. I had tons and tons of leaves, pebbles, paper, etc in here. The passenger side one probably had about 35% of the effective area covered with junk. It was unbelieveable and was not doing my IATs any favors. I was shocked given how high up the intakes were. I dumped and vacuumed out whatever I could.

Now onto the heart of the issue.

Plugs and coils. I DID NOT lower the motor. If you have a good tool selection, good touch, and can lift up the inlet tubes enough, you may not need to either. I was installing new intake tubes, so I cut the old ones giving me access to the forward plugs.

This part was fairly straight forward actually. The drivers side, I removed nothing but the metal heat shield. The middle coil is a bitch, but it will come out if you angle it towards the front of the car. Wiggling the new bigger coil in will try your patience, but don't be afraid to gently bend the plug end of the coil into the spark plug well.

The new thicker coils also present an issue on the front plug on the drivers side.

You will need to put the rearward bolt in first and line it up with the hole. The vtg actuator is right there though, so its a pain. Once you get it threaded in slightly, install the front bolt. Using your fingers, tighten the rearward bolt as much as you can. You will then need to use an 8mm closed end wrench to tighten this bolt as there is no clearance for a torx socket.

Passenger side was straight forward once the VTG actuator was out of the way. The ball end allen were absolutely critical here. No other way to do it. Spray these with pbblaster or similar as soon as you can. If you feel them start to strip, STOP. That would be a disaster.

Plugs
All of mine came out easily, new ones went in easily. 22lb ft of torque. Pics of the old plugs below...not sure if they were original, but the gap was in the .042 range

Inlet tubes.

The stock ones neck down so far its amazing. Its insane porsche made as much power out of these cars as they did given the cross section.

I got ones from a private seller on 6speed, but the d088 ones are the same. I think this is a worthwhile upgrade. Skinny arms are a plus to install the breather hose.

Install is basically removing the old ones by cutting and yanking, and installing the new by pushing from the top and pulling from the bottom (drivers side) and vice versa on the passengers side. Lubricate the tubes, and fold over the passenger side one as seen in the D088 instructions.

02 sensors

PB blaster and heat. I only did the pre-cat. One side came out easy. Had to cut the wires on the other to get a box wrench on it. Rear ones seem very difficult if you don't lower the motor.

That was pretty much it. It took a long time, even with 3 guys working, but now having done it, I'm confident I could knock a few hours off.

I would put anti-seize on almost everything (not plugs), but definitely the vtg actuator bolts. Also, lubricate the ball fittings while you're there.

Its one of those projects that makes you think "wtf am i doing" as large assemblies of your car end up on the ground, but the satisfaction is great.

Car runs tremendous and my idle vibration is gone.

Very pleased.

Used:

Beru coils...thicker design
bosch 332dpps plugs gapped at .025
d088 inlet tubes or similar
OEM porsche front 02 sensors. Bosch branded are too short.

Any questions, I hope I can help.

Quadcammer

something like this is also useful for keeping bolts and nuts organized

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-10...4825/203367153

saabin

Nice work, great satisfaction in doing it yourself.. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd trust my local dealer to do it any better than I did..

Snapping off the heat shield speed nuts and intercooler hose clamps? Wow, wait 'till you upgrade your exhaust, I'm sure all those nuts will give you trouble..


One of the benefits of living in the south - no salt.

Ibanezgod

Oliver glad it worked out well, did this take 2 days? Impressive upgrade and DIY job. Props to you guys. Glad it came out great. Probably why I have a bit of an idle vibration.... unless that's just the loud exhaust.

CincyScott

My car runs smooth as silk with similar mods to Oliver's with a fresh tune up (coils, plugs, filters, do88's, UMW tune, etc). It was pretty remarkable how much better it ran afterwards.

I'll do my own plugs next time, I didn't this time because there was so much other work going on.

TTurboRoo

Good Job! I better understand the difficulty with the 02 sensor given you did not have a lambda wrench! They are awfully difficult to get to without one, with the exhaust system in place.

No salt is definitely a benefit of living anywhere west of the Rockies!

I want to second the suggestion that people be attentive to keeping the intercoolers cleaned out. If you buy a used car... check them right away. Those are pretty big holes in the side for letting in things like leaves and in mountainous areas, pine needles! We bought our 08 TT six months ago with 8000 miles and upgraded to 997.2 intercoolers at 10,000.

This car was always garaged, dealer serviced and driven by an individual who's office was two miles (in the city) from their home. Still, probably 25% of the surface area of one of the coolers was covered by leaves (it does not take many) and pine needles. The second not as much but still probably 10-15% covered.

You might just be surprised by what comes out if you just slipped a small vac hose in there!

jaycm3

Just finished the same mods (i ran denso colder plugs) and actual work took two days but waiting for parts took 3 weeks lol (back order on the coil packs, misc parts i broke, gaskets, studs). I had to take the exhaust off to get off the O2 sensors (i changed all 4) as they would not budge. I also encountered a ton of trash in the intercoolers (cigarettes, leaves, bugs etc).

monty007

Awesome work! Did you completely take off the intercoolers? I'm planning to tackle this job in about a month. Would you lower the engine if you were to do it again?

Kevin

Quad, Congrats on the weekend tuneup!

From your pictures, it looks like you had a cracked coilpack?

Folks, every 9976TT should get this type of treatment reqardless of the vehicle miles due to "age" and wear.. The difference in performance is night and day.

Quadcammer

I took a look at the exhaust bolts, and all I can say is, I've learned to love the stock exhaust. Those things are gonna be a bear if I ever have to mess with them.

We started at around 8:30. Plugs and coil packs were in by 1230.

Sunday, I probably spent an hour doing little stuff before you got there. We started back up in earnest by about 11. finished by 130. I'd call it right at 8 hours.

Yes, the intercoolers are actually very easy to remove. 2 nuts, 3 bolts, two heat shield nuts, and one hose clamp and the whole assembly comes out.

I'm not sure I'd lower the engine the 2nd time. It really all depends how easy it is to get the front plugs out around the inlet tubes. If i can get them far enough out of the way, then nope, engine stays.

Thanks Kevin.

The pics are of the worst coilpack and yes it had several cracks. Another 2 had little cracks. They had 996 part numbers.

thanks for all the advice!

therock88

Good job! I am sure it is running much better/smoother now!

Take care,
DC

turbofever

this is an instance whereby a fidelity pays for itself in gold. their gold package covers coil packs.

Quadcammer

Couldn't have done it without your guide.

Thank you sir!

sadly you wouldn't know you had a cracked coil unless it was really bad. Car ran fine in the wet, which is usually when the coils start to produce misfires.

Bob in NY

you've been busy! Nice job, glad it runs to your satisfaction.

Quadcammer

Thanks bob, couldn't have done it without kevin, jim, and yury.

Bet this is one job you are happy you don't have to think about anymore