Ron986

Recently, much seems to be made of new GT3's being "Made (or Born) in Flacht", anyone know where my 2004 GT3.2 was "made"?

I assume the Carrera 4 body shell was fabricated in Zuffenhausen, but where was the Mezger engine assembled , and the source of the adjustable suspension? Final assembly was done where?

My mechanic is strongly suggesting a coolant flush on my 04 GT3 ... anti-freeze, alkalinity & ph all test fine, but I know there are at least 8 winters on this coolant, only 40,000 kms, though .... recommendations?

Thanks all ..... will use this info next time!! ..... Good thing I did not know the GT3 RS dampers were cheaper.... I'd have been tempted to go that way, likely throwing off Porsche's careful suspension balance! 

Awaiting spring in the Canadian Okanagan.. 

Ron

Who might be selling Porsche part 996.333.051.95 that price? Pelican charges $838 US per damper for that part.

Car has 35,000 miles on it ... quite a bit of track time in the first 12,000 miles.

My inter-provincial safety inspection identified my  14 year-old rear shock bodies were leaking ( I confirmed that ) ... 1200 CAD, about 1000 USD, per shock, for the replacements ... yikes! Apparently this is a weak spot on the GT3-1? Any other experiences?

|I have been strongly advised by my Porsche mechanic (supported by another VW mechanic) to change the coolant in my 14-year-old GT3-1 asap.... an associated Renntech post listed 8 yrs as a recommended interval between coolant flushes.

Graeme,

I recently completely changed my suspension over to the ROW M030 setup. It was the first time I have ever worked on Porsche suspension, and I used your guide. It was a great help to me during the process. Good illustrations and clear instruction.

Thanks for taking the time to put such a great guide together.

One note to potential users: When you get to the rear suspension, I found it much easier to unbolt the lower control arm at the chassis, than to split the lower ball joint - even though I have the Porsche type splitter tool. Just clean the adjuster cams good with brake cleaner first and let them dry, then mark the cam positions with a sharpie before loostening the bolts. Then its easy to put them right back in the same positions.

Unfortunately because those eccentrics have so much slop in them, this in no way guarantees that you're at the same alignment as when you started. If you've ever aligned one of these cars you know that if you turn the eccentric, often no change in alignment will occur for the first 1/16 of a turn!

You may be fine - but I'd suggest getting an alignment.

Quick question - did you still have to disconnect the axle doing it your way (removing the eccentric bolt)?

Right, but it puts it back close enough to get it to the alignment shop. For me, it's a given that anytime your changing suspension components an alignment is mandatory afterwards. I wouldn't even think of not doing one.

I already had the axle loose before I decided to go with removing the excentrics bolt, but no, you wouldn't have to.

My experience, just installed h&r 1" lowering springs springs on both ends, is that in the rear the drive shaft needs to be disconnected at the differential to allow enough play to pull the lower control arm out of the pivot point on chassis (eccentric bolt). Drive shaft disconnection is easy using the method in Graeme's guide (6 mm hex, 15" extension, using park brake to stop rotation).

In summary, at the rear, I disconnected; the driveshaft at differential, lower control arm at pivot point (eccentric bolt) on chassis, toe link at hub end, trailing link at lower control arm only. This allowed lots of play to drop the hub carrier and remove strut. I did not disconnect; brake line, wear sensors, ball joint, diagonal brace, chassis mounting of trailing link, driveshaft from hub, brake rotor.

I pulled the brake caliper off the rotor and hung to one side (no brake line or wear sensor disconnection) and did not need to compress the spring.

p.s. I found that piling a few layers of paint masking tape on the wheel well lip and fender saved chips as I wiggle the strut around to remove it from the hub carrier (of course this was after a nice little chip due to removing the first strut and ticking the fender with the top of it!)

I've ended up spending an afternoon per corner... I am slow and generally careful, also due to having to buy the non-standard tools to do this job; 18 mm socket, 18 mm wrench, 6 & 7 mm hex drives.