MontereyC4S

First Renntech post - I just joined yesterday. I read through all the posts here yesterday, plus read the Pelican how-to, and watched the video of the guy using a helper jack on his 997. Some background: I bought my 996 C4S 4 years ago, but I have only put about 4k miles on it. It had great maintenance history despite 150k miles, and the only work needed so far has been a swap of the motor oil and transmission fluid. I did that soon after buying the car, and I couldn't remember much about how I went about it last time. Reading the posts here reminded me that I DID jack on the engine lift point, and didn't damage anything. (At 150k miles, the motor mounts are certainly not original...maybe they are quite new?) I have a lot of tools and experience working on 90s/2000s BMWs, but no Porsche experience. Here's my process: 1. I bought 4 ESCO jack stands from Amazon for $220. Seeing the jack points on the 996 worries me that I would need all kinds of chunks of wood to work with the saddle type and round steel type stands I already have. Annoying and not the safest way. I bought the regular ESCO stands. In hindsight, the low-profile ones are probably better for our cars, but at least I'll be ready any real big job that comes up. The ESCO stands work PERFECTLY with the 996 jack points. I wished I'd bought these a decade ago for all my cars. 2. I bought a 2x10 and cut four 18" long pieces. 3. Using my trusty aluminum "racing" jack from Harbor Freight, I jacked up the car using the right rear jack point. 4. With jack on lowest point, slide it under the right front jack point. 5. Slide two 2x10 pieces double-stacked under the right rear tire. 6. Lower the car onto the stand and wood. 7. Repeat on the left side. (side order doesn't matter) 8. With the rear tires 3" off the ground, it's easy to reach the best rear jacking point - the center of the suspension cross member. 9. Lift car enough to get jack stands under both rear jack points. 10. Lower car onto jack stands. Ta-da! That's pretty fast and easy! 11. Slide wood boards out of the way. Remove wheels. For my suspension project (Ohlins coil-overs), I think I'll have enough room. But if you need to raise the car higher, it's easy now that the wheels are removed. So I suggest always starting with the jack stands in the lowest positions. For the rear, use the center of the suspension cross member (duh!). For the front, you can now get to the reinforced part of the body just inside the front jack point. (This is impossible when the car is on the ground, which makes the Pelican article most useless IMO.) see yellow arrow in figure 1 at link below. https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/Porsche-996-997-Carrera/01-BASIC-Jacking_Up_Your_Car/01-BASIC-Jacking_Up_Your_Car.htm I hope this helps any other 996 newbies in the future. Hard to get far on DIY maintenance if you can't get the car in the air! As for the Ohlins project, I will report back. My plan is to replace all suspect bushings, certainly the 8 big links. Probably replace with stock end links, for now. Then drive car and assess the impact of Ohlins (and new bushes) by itself. Then replace the very tired Sumitomos, probably with Michelin Pilots. Then maybe swap the sway bars also. My pace is glacial due to job and family, so don't expect to hear back for a while. Cheers!