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MichaelL

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Everything posted by MichaelL

  1. MichaelL
    I have had to have this rear control module replaced twice due to water getting into it. Both times the module was fried. The second time, my mechanic drilled holes in the mounting plate so the moisture would not(hopefully) accumulate. I have him clean all the drains at least yearly. Don't ask me where they all are. The second time, it happened because of a dead battery. The engine box inadvertently got left popped. The battery went dead overnight. With a dead battery, the window will not drop when you close the door and it will not seal properly. It rained and water got in. The entrapped ignition key with a dead battery was an added extra. The car can behave as if it were posessed when this part goes bad. Flashing lights all over the place, spoiler going up and down, front hood continuously locking and unlocking, horn blowing. The first time, I was out there in my bathrobe in the rain disconnecting the battery.
  2. MichaelL
    I have seen shops with built in ramps that use lumber to ease the entry angle into the lift. 2 x 12's are cheap. You can't overcome the laws of geometry.
  3. MichaelL
    I had a GIAC reflash done, some time ago, on top of a full AWE exhaust & Evo airbox on a 3.8. An additional 7 rear wheel horsepower on a Mustang dyno. More recent programming may provide something more, but it is probably incremental.
  4. MichaelL
    Coil packs can deteriorate from road spray, particularly, if salt laden. If any cracking or visible surface defects are present, replace them. Probably a good idea to replace all if one is near failure. Coil failure is more common in cars that are driven in the winter or not garaged.
  5. MichaelL
    The coolant temperature gauge on the 997 is known to be "dumb". It is apparently placed in such a location that it does not indicate the actual highest temperature in the motor. Any time that the temperature gauge goes over 175 degrees can be a matter of concern. In 5 years of operation, the only time it ran over was on a 90 degree + day when part of the plastic ducting under the car was busted up after running over a "road alligator".
  6. MichaelL
    I don't mean to be critical, but if you are setting camshaft timing, this is very important. If you are not sure what you are doing, you shouldn't be doing it. This is not minor work and means that the engine is probably out of the car for major issues. Trying to diagnose something like this over the internet with truly insufficient information is an invitation to disaster.
  7. MichaelL
    This may not be a problem. At idle, fully warmed up, oil pressures around 1 bar are not uncommon. Your oil level may be a little low. The gauge should peg at 5 bars on cold start or close to it when warmed up and the rev's are up.
  8. MichaelL
    At the worst, unless the car has been tracked or run very hard, only the brake pads will require replacement. The brake discs are quite durable and normally do not experience low mileage problems without hard usage. Track driven cars may have cracking issues around the cross drilling holes or heavy wear. Check that the brake fluid has been replaced with a high quality product within about 2 years. Clutches also, are durable unless the driver is unskilled or the car has been subjected to numerous clutch drops. They say that you should put $100 in the kitty for every time you rev it up and dump the clutch. For a 6 year old car, check the accessory drive belt, spark plugs, cabin filter, transaxle oil and coolant to ensure that all is well. Batteries are known to have issues also. You didn't say anything about the tires, but 6 years is a long time. If the car was easily used, it is possible that the fronts are original. Unlikely that the rears have lasted for this mileage. Think about a complete set of new shoes. Have the tires carefully inspected by someone who knows what he is doing to see if there are any alignment issues.
  9. MichaelL
    After going through numerous stationary radar devices, the difference seems to be about plus 3 miles per hour. This is at relatively low speeds.
  10. MichaelL
    This is a snapped cable. I have had it happen twice, once on each side. A dealer may be the best place to take it to be fixed.
  11. MichaelL
    At about 39000 miles, my 997S developed a misfire & check engine light. It turned out that 3 ignition coils were defective. The remaining 3 looked deteriorated. My mechanic replaced all 6. He said that it was common for coils to go bad on cars that were driven in the winter and subjected to salt laden road spray. They are not in a protected location. It is apparently also common, on replacing one coil, to have issues with the others. An inexpensive part, around $60 each, and probably not such great quality. Evolution Motorsports has come out with an improved ignition coil for the turbo, it might be worth checking with them to see if they fit the M96/97 engine. One caution, if you have a coil failure like this, don't drive the car very far or use much throttle opening. The unburned fuel will poison the catalytic converter.
  12. MichaelL
    I do not recommend anyone using a smart top module, or any other product made by IT-Wilhelmy. I had one for a 997 cabrio and it failed catastrophically in less than two weeks. I was very lucky that there was no damage to the car. This failure may have been an anomaly, but the manufacturer's response to the problem was unacceptable, to say the least. IT-Wilhelmy was completely unapologetic and uncaring about the failure of their product and the problems it caused me. I was out of pocket for two way shipping, installation, removal and 5 days use of the car. The cost of the unit was refunded eventually. Not even a simple apology for the failure of their product. A discredit to the aftermarket community.
  13. MichaelL
    Cargraphic makes a radiator protective mesh grill, available from various sources. About $300. Bumper must come off to install. The radiators do tend to pick up a lot of trash.
  14. MichaelL
    On the various forums, I have seen stock rear wheel horsepower figures varying from 290 to 310 for the S model. There is, apparently, a high variation in results and repeatability from various dynamometers, which is also dependent on how the machine is operated. The car will need several pulls to adapt the ECU to maximum performance. Loss in the drivetrain is generally considered to be 16 to 17 percent for rear wheel drive, 20 percent for all wheel drive. It looks like if it wasn't done on the same dyno, same day, same operator and correctly, you can't compare numbers with any assurance of being right.
  15. MichaelL
    I had an IPD(sold by RSS) plenum installed on my 997S cabrio. I already had the AWE headers, catalytics & muffler, Evo airbox & Giac reflash. The apparent gains from the plenum were greater than that of the reflash, which was done after the other mods. Midrange power & torque were definitely increased. Prior to the plenum, the car pulled 321 rwhp on AWE's Mustang dyno. The reflash gave 7 rwhp. I will post results when I get it on the dyno again.
  16. MichaelL
    Cargraphic has PASM compatable coilovers.
  17. MichaelL
    The transmission has triple synchromesh on first & second gear. It tends to be a little stiff when the car is cold. It will loosen up somewhat with increased mileage. If first is hard to engage, which happens sometimes, shift back into second and then forward into first.
  18. MichaelL
  19. MichaelL
    Dealer installed XM to connect to Bose Surround option. Module placed in empty space at bottom of center stack. Antenna(about 2"x2"x1/2") epoxied to center of windshield header.
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