Banana S

I have a 2002 Boxster S that I bought in 2008 with 30,000 miles on it. I'm at 102,500 miles now. The car has 19 track days on it. And I absolutely love it. With no glove box and a plastic rear window, the 2002 was lighter than the 2003-04 986S that came after it, and mine was the last year that the Boxster could be ordered (as mine was) without traction control or stability control. No electronic nannies, save the ABS brakes. Hydraulic steering that's virtually telepathic. And no navigation screen or touch screen display. Simply put, while every generation of car is less "pure" than the ones before it (after all, with an ECU, fuel injection, and variable valve timing, this car is far less "raw" than, say, a 1965 289 Shelby Cobra), this car nonetheless checks all the right boxes for me when it comes to driver engagement and simple, fun, open motoring.

In March 2019, after I got the car out of winter storage, I noticed an intermittent lifter tick and some significant smoking that a new air/oil separator didn't resolve. Crap. So I put in a call to Jake Raby at Flat 6 Innovations (who performed my IMS bearing replacement in 2010) and discussed a possible engine rebuild. His waiting list is a year long, but I decided that I like this car too much not to go for it. I put a deposit down on one of FSI's 3.8L "Stage II Track Performer" engines, put the car back into storage, and waited.

Over the winter, I decided that the cost of the new engine justified some other "refreshing" to the rest of the car. (Well, that and I was bored and going out of my mind by mid-December.) I'd been wanting to get the original Sport Classic BBS wheels refinished, so I took them to a shop here in Indy, then to another shop to get ceramic coated once they were done. They turned out great:



As long as the wheels were nice and shiny again, it was time to do something about the calipers, which were past due for a rebuild and had lost their shine 5 or 6 track days ago. Decided to spend the money on a set of new calipers rather than rebuild and refinish the old ones. (Pretty sure I can recoup a little of that by selling the old ones once I clean them up a bit.) Applied some ceramic coating to the new calipers, then took a wire brush to the rusty wheel bolts and refinished them too while I was at it.







No sense putting brand new calipers on the car but keeping the 18-year old rubber brake hoses, so on went the stainless steel braided brake lines:


My original Porsche head unit went out a few years back, and I had installed a Kenwood head unit with adjustable color display (so I could match the display to the yellow LCDs on the rest of the dash), but with the stock Bose speakers being 2 ohm, I've known that it would just be a matter of time before the Kenwood gave up the ghost. So I ripped out all of the paper-cone Bose speakers and replaced them (including the ones in the speaker enclosure behind the seats) with proper 4-ohm speakers from a local car stereo shop.

Then the winter blues really kicked in. I just started replacing every little thing that I'd been putting off for the past several years. New underbelly tray. New gas cap. New roll hoop padding (which had to be flown over from Germany and arrived with an Air France sticker on the box ) and windscreens. New gas pedal hinge. New wheel center caps. New AGM battery. Had the rusty battery tray refinished and powder coated black. The list goes on. And the car wasn't really even in bad shape before... Heck, I won my class with it at a local PCA show just a few short years ago.

Finally, this past March, the day arrived when it was time to ship the car down to FSI for the rebuild. The enclosed rig from Reliable Transportation came right to my driveway, and in about an hour, the car was tucked away and heading down south.







FSI kept me informed throughout the process, from sending me photos and a video of the car as received upon delivery to them, to photos of the engine disassembly, reconstruction, and re-installation into my car. Here are just a few:






















After the long wait, my Boxster was delivered to my driveway by enclosed transporter on Wednesday, along with a USB drive containing nearly 2GB of photos and videos from the car's initial delivery to engine teardown, parts preparation and measurement, engine assembly, and installation. Also included on the USB drive are Flat 6 Innovations' detailed break-in procedure and multiple other documents relevant to the car.

The build had one significant hiccup, and the way the Flat 6 Innovations team handled it left no question in my mind that I chose the right shop to do this build. Back in 2010, I went in on a group buy for an ECU tune through FVD Brombacher, which required me to hook up my car to a laptop with an internet connection, and the tune was done online, via a direct connection with the FVD Brombacher server. One feature of the tune was that the ECU could be flashed back to stock at any time, and then re-flashed to "tuned" state.

Fast forward to 2020... As part of my engine build options, I elected to add FSI's proprietary handheld tuner, which will give me the option of running, for example, a custom 93-octane tune for driving in the Midwest and out East; a 91-octane tune for when I travel out West (where 93-octane fuel is not always available); and a 100-octane tune for the track. Before I shipped the car to FSI, I mentioned that the car already had the FVD Brombacher tune and asked whether that would create a problem for them when they were ready to dyno-tune the car. They responded with an emphatic "yes, that will likely create a problem, please flash the ECU back to stock before shipping the car." So I dug up my 10-year old FVD Brombacher cable and software (and prayed that my old laptop would still boot), and hooked it up to the car to re-flash the car back to stock. Laptop booted up, connection with the car established, selected "stock," and... nothing. "Connection with Server Could Not Be Established." Hmmm... So I called FVD Brombacher and was told, "Sorry, we stopped using that server years ago. We don't have any way to flash the car back to stock. You'll have to take it to a dealership." Grrrrrrr... Fine. 30 minutes and $100 later, my local dealer reflashed the ECU to the most current stock file, and I went on my way.

Then in July, after the car was back together and FSI was ready to dyno tune it, I got a call from them. Something was blocking their ECU tuning software from connecting with my car. They tried for two days to get it to connect, but it just wouldn't. I confirmed to them that my local dealer had reflashed the ECU (which was obvious to me since the car was down on power when I drove home from the dealership). They were ready to pull the ECU and send it away to a third party for a complete wipe, when Jake got personally involved. As he explained to me later, he remembered that he knew the guy who used to do FVD Brombacher's tuning, and that guy used to write code deeper in the Motronic ECU than most Porsche tuning software was written for, in order to prevent other users from being able to read his tunes. So Jake tried a trick he knew to erase those otherwise unused (by Porsche) sectors of the ECU code, and... Voila! The ECU was now "unlocked" and ready to be dyno tuned!! All in, Jake and the FSI team spent well over 8 hours just trying to get into my car's ECU, and but for his experience with not only these cars but OTHER vendors, they never would have gotten into the ECU at all. Oh, and the total bill to me for all of this extra time they had to spend just to get the ECU unlocked? $0.00. That's the level of service FSI provides, and that's why they have such a strong following.

On to the car as-delivered... The first thing I noticed when starting it up is that it really doesn't sound or feel any different than a stock 986 S. I opted to leave the stock air intake and headers/muffler alone, as FSI assured me that noticeable gains would be had without changing any of that, and it's easy to actually lose power when going aftermarket on those items. After putting a little over 200 miles on it in the last four days, the biggest difference is the midrange torque, from 3,000 to 5,500 RPM. Put simply, the car just pulls in that range like it never has before. Particularly when exiting a corner, there is just no delay any more... You're right in the meat of the powerband when you downshift going into a corner and then power out. This is how the car should have been delivered from the factory! I'm still in the 1,500 mile "break in" phase, and still on the 91-octane tune during break in, so I haven't taken it beyond 6,400 RPM yet (redline is 7,200). I'm told the car will continue to gain power for the first 10,000 miles (and I'm sure it will gain even more from the 93-octane tune). For now, I'm just enjoying the feeling of summer, top-down motoring in a car that still fits me like a glove but now has both more power and by all accounts will be a level up in terms of reliability.

Thanks for reading.

Byprodriver

Great story & testament about FSI service! I have a speed yellow 2000 Box "S" I focused on 2000's because few of them have PSM & I didn't want it. I was in Jake's 1st engine rebuild class in 2009 and I have 60 K miles on my 3.6 litre build. ( 3.6 was the biggest option then.)

Flat6 Innovations

@Banana S
Thank you for the kind words!
We always love repeat customers, and you were great to work with. Its always better when people are easy to please, and appreciate what we do- it makes doing a good job, a lot easier.
I look forward to more reports as you get time on the car!

AnthonyGS

I too have a 986S in speed yellow. It’s a 2000. I hope to someday go to 3.6 or 3.8 myself. I just need to get the current unemployment mess resolved first.

This car is beautiful and inspiring.

superbike81

I'm curious, how much power does the 3.8L rebuild make?

KC-CarGuy

I saw this one at the PCA Parade in '21. Beautiful car.