atmorris

OK...update.... jmatta - I'm sorry, the car has whatever weight oil the dealer put in. Probably is 5W-40 already. Don't know why I typed 0w-50, that's what is in my MB. Started the car and let it run for abouut 25 mins last night...only at an idle, did not drive it. If it is a lifter, it didn't pump up. However, I did notice a couple of things. 1) You can not hear the tick through the intake. 2) It could still be a lifter I guess, but it doesn't really sound like one. The tick is more like an electric arcing sound. Sharp and crisp, not really a "rap" or "clack" sound. Then again I don't know what Porsche engines sound like when a lifter is collapsed. This doesn't sound like a bad lifter in a big 6 or a small block V-8 sounds...that I know. 3) The sound pitch or loudness does not change with the rpms rising or falling, however the frequency of the ticking follows rpms. I did double check the oil level with the dip stick and bothe the dip stick and the computer show it is full. Am going to try changing the oil (am going to change from Mobil 1 to Castrol Syntec as well) and drive it around a bit to see if it quiets down.

Yesterday I fired up my car after keeping her in the nice warm garage for the winter. I am a little unnerved by what I heard...a slight, but clearly audible, ticking sound emanating from inboard of the drivers side rear wheel area. The sound raises and lowers in speed with rpm changes, but gets no louder or softer. Car seemed to rev and respond fine to mild revving. Car was almost fully warmed up. There is no smoking or CEL light. Car is an '03 base and was last serviced 12k miles ago by the dealer (15k service). Oil 0-50W, is full, and is just due for a change. I was going to switch to Castrol Syntec during this change. Now, I know it is likely this is just an exhaust leak, since I haven't re-torqued anything since I installed the headers and Fabspeed muffler at the start of last summer, but I know it can be a few other things as well - some not so good. I also know that a lot of you guys say the light ticking sound is normal with your cars, and mine IS just getting to the point of being "broken in," as it just hit 28k miles before I put it away for the winter. Is it likely that this is just a "normal" Boxster engine trait that I am just starting to hear? I can't swear that it wasn't doing this before I garaged it for the winter last year....... So, if checking out the exhaust situation stop the ticking, what else should I check out , and in what order of likelihood ? All opinions are appreciated.

+1 FWIW....I have Harvey's sill plates on my car as well, and they are great. They are 2 years old now and I have had zero problems. I actually liked the look of his Carerra sill plates a little better, mentioned it when I went to order my Boxster plates, and he made me up a set of those to fit my Boxster - no extra charge. Hell of a nice guy, Harvey.

Thats not exactly how it works..... The human ear does not function in a linear fashion, and perceives a greater loss of bass presence than it does mids and highs at lower volume settings. A "loudness" feature normally boosts selected bass frequencies, usually around 10 db or so, to compensate for this perception. It was designed to be a sort of a "low volume bass boost" if you will. It is one of the worst and most dangerously mis-useable features they have ever put on a piece of audio equipment. I never use it - ever. If it is used, it should only be used at low volume levels, and certainly NEVER should be used at higher volume levels. If you want to understand why I say this, just go back and read my earlier post about how bass pulses can demand up to 10x more power from your system amps than your average listening level. Using this feature can actually induce a clipping problem if used at too high a volume setting !!! (..and what is "too high" is VERY dependant on the music itself by the way...) Listen to your music at a level that drives your speakers well and set the tone controls accordingly. Or take a more sphisticated approach and add a good parametric EQ like the Alpine KTX-100EQ , multi-band digital EQ like the Kicker 03KQ30, or a sound processor like the Alpine PXE-H650 to your system.

It's a little known fact that more drivers are damaged from a system being under powered than from it being over powered. The thing you have to remember about power is that, whatever listening level you normally use, strong passages and pulses can demand 10 times that much power from the amplifier to produce the music cleanly, without distortion. Distortion damages drivers. So lets say that you have a 20wpc head unit powering your front speakers. You feed the sub outs and rear outs to an external amp - say a 4x75wpc unit. Your tooling along with the top down listening to the new Nickleback CD, The volume control goes from 0 to 30 and you have it set on 10 because you have the top down. For sake of simplicity, lets say that the volume control is linear, so since you are set at 10 of 30 that is 33%. Since your HU is rated at 20 watts that represents 6.6 watts. At this setting, a strong bass pulse or musical passage could easily demand 10 * 6.6 or 66 watts to produce cleanly. Your subs and rears are ok with that since your amp is rated at 75 wpc, but what happens to the dash speakers? The amp in the HU can only push 20 wpc. Thats 46 watts short ! What happens when this condition occurs is called clipping (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio) ). It is harmfull to both the amplifier in the HU and the drivers over time, AND it introduces distortion from the clipping into the music reproduction....so it doesn't sound clean. This condition might only last a few seconds. You might not even notice. But the strain on the affected amp (the HU in this example) and the drivers is still there and will take it's toll over time. I learned this the hard way years ago when I destroyed a brand new set of expensive speakers over a 10 month period due to underpowering the system. Pay careful attention to the wattage ratings on your equipment. Make sure they are properly matched up, and that you have enough power to support what you want to accomplish.

I have an '03. MY '03 used a MOST bus system. The HU and amp communicate over a fiber optic connection. You have to replace BOTH if you want to replace either one. I am not familiar with the BOSE system, but I have seen it referred to MANY times by those who have it as the BLOWS system FWIW. Not trying to be obnoxious, just communicating what I know....please don't take offense. Amp power needed for decent sound with the top down at highway speed is around 70wpc rms minimum. The stock setup is underpowered anyway. I replaced the HU with an Alpine 9886 and put a Swiss Audio SMX6600 100wpc x6ch amp in the front boot in the stock amp's location. I replace the drivers in the dash, doors, and rear storage compartment with same sized Polk Audio drivers (except the doors, I replace the 5.25" drivers with 6" drivers) and added a Kenwood KSC-SW10 subwoofer in the passenger side footwell. Sounds great, top up or down, at 20 or 120. Pricetag was just under $1000 complete, with me doing the install. Took a weekend taking my time, being ULTRA neat and hiding everything. Looks stock. HU driving the dash and doors will work but will be severely under powered. Best luck on your project.

I thought that was Midnight Blue Metallic....... :P

I did not have this problem, but I swapped out the HU and amp also. You don't really say how you have the 651's mounted, but you seem to indicate that the CD's sound fine, with no over emphasised bass. If so, it sounds more like an EQ issue with the way the CDR220 is set....for example there may be a built in bass compensation (boost) on the radio output circut. I don't know how the CDR220 operates as I had a CDR230, so I'm not sure if there is a way to permanently adjust the EQ specific to the input selected or not.

My $ .02 for what it's worth......Stay with Polks.......You might be able to get 6x9's (Polk db691's or MM691's) in there, but check it out good first. The stock speaker cover in the door panel is round not oval and I'm not sure how easy it would be to replace the stock one with an oval one and have things fit well enough to look "stock" (assuming that matters to you). I'd put Polk db601's in there (501's if you want to use the stock tuned mounts) OR if your driving them off a sub out, you might want to consider a set of Kicker 08CVT654 - Kicker 6.5" 150W 4-Ohm Shallow-Mount Subwoofers. Then, I'd put db301's in the PNP kit if you bought it. Then, if you didn't go with the Kicker 08CVT654's and want some more bottom, take a look at putting a Kenwood KSC-SW10 powered subwoofer in the passenger footwell. :thumbup:

Yep, I took them out. The Polks are coaxials and have their own tweeter. BTW...good choice, I love the Polks. I now have Polks in the entire car, dash,doors, and rear shelf.

Andy, Got most everything together (need to install passenger door speaker). Running door speakers as sub (thinking that maybe should have gone the Kicker speaker route) and system sounds very good. One small problem, though, AM reception is nil. Do I need to get an antenna amplifier? Joe I didn't have any issue with the antenna....not sure what's up there. FM reception ok ? Don't recall the HU you selected but if Alpine, you can play with the crossover Freq to the doors a little, and with FR speakers in there it will sound fine if you put it up at highest freq available - probably 250hz.. I had the same thought about the Kickers, but I decided to keep the mid bass fill from the Polks in the doors and add a Kenwood KSC-SW10 behind the pass seat. Charlestonboxster gave me a great deal on the older Kenwood KS1 he had around so I will be using that. Putting it in this weekend I hope...... had I not done that I would have tried the Kicker route. I tried not running the doors as subs and found that at lower volumes it made the sound way to bright for my liking. I run the doors as subs with the high pass set as high as I can set it. I like the balance that gives the music at any level. Adding the KS1 is just going to fill out the bottom a little.

:lol: OK, I lied..........but it was just a l-i-t-t-l-e fib.....

My '03 has headers w/o pre-cats, stock main cats, and an exhaust I bought from Jeremy of IA, which is supposed to be a Fabspeed unit. To be honest it looks just like a TopSpeed unit or one of the ones available on eBay. Anyway, I L-O-V-E the sound of the thing and with the top down the resonance isn't bad at all, but with the top up it is. Also, the resonance is right at the "being-good-highway-cruising-speed" rpm range. :P So I had a couple of ideas to cut down, or cut out, the resonance and I would like to hear opinions about how effective they might be. Here is a pic of the exhaust for reference: Option 1) Modify the Fabspeed muffler design. Install an 1.5" cross tube in between the two chambers on this muffler, and add mounting studs to the top surfaces of the chambers so that the stock isolated mounting bar can be used for mounting this to the upper mount. Between the isolation offered by the stock mounting arrangement and the equalizing cross tube, most of the resonance may be removed. I have noticed that any muffler design which has been said to NOT resonate utilizes a either an equalizing tube or a head-to-head tube like the stock muffler. I am surmising that the purpose for this is to balance the flow and reduce standing waves. These modifications would address those same issues. Option 2) Modify my still intact stock muffler. The PPBB stock muffler mod basically copies what the sport muffler does - dump a portion of the exhaust directly from the inlet flow into the out flow. There is another mod that describes dremmeling out about a 1" square opening in the stock muffler's through tube, just inboard of where the through tube is welded to the muffler body on each side. This dumps a portion of the inlet exhaust directly into the outer chamber, or just prior to exit, bypassing the first 2 chambers. I am told that if you remove the outlet cover and look back through the two ~ 1.3" outlet holes in the muffler, you can see through to the same inlet through tube. Could I not accomplish the same result by going through those openings with a 1" drill and drilling two 1" holes in the central area of the through tube? Would this not also allow a portion of inbound exhaust to escape directly into the outlet chamber? Hearing opinons of anyone who has tried any of these mods, or that has knowledge of the exhaust would be appreciated before I start modifying anything.

Mats, Well, replacing the front speakers and adding the PNP rear shelf speaker kit will certainly improve the sound. Adding a Kenwood KSC-SW10 or Blaupunkt THb 200A powered subwoofer behind the passenger seat would help fill in the lows as well. Since you have neither door speakers or the stock rear shelf system, you probably have either no amp other than the HU, or have the small 4 channel one. in either event, adding an amp, or a better amp as the case may be, for more dynamic headrrom will also produce further improvement in sound quality, as the stock systems are seriously under powered. It is a common misconception that a set of speakers were "blown up" by driving them to hard or loud, when the speakers were actually damaged from being under powered and over driven. The distortion that this causes can be inaudible to all but a highly trained ear, yet severely damage the speakers over time. Door speakers would be a little more difficult since you don't have them already, but certainly not impossible. If you want to add door speakers, it would not really be all that hard to accomplish. You could search for a set of door panels with the speaker grills in them if you don't want to cut yours, put a set of speakers in the doors as my guide describes, and then wire them up. You will most likely have to run wiring to them yourself. Perhaps Loren or one of the other guys here could tell you if the wiring for the optional door speakers is present whether or not your car was ordered with them. However, I'm betting that it is tied back to the applicable option package, and so if the option package wasn't applied the wiring isn't there. You will probably have to install your own wiring from the HU or amp down through the door pillars. Again, not really that difficult and there are a couple of possible ways to accomplish that. Hope this helps some. Andy

Lol...........you're just a hell of a popular guy Loren.........

I agree with you on this in a theoretical sense Tony, but in the Boxster I found that the effect really isn't very noticable. I imagine it is because the sound stage is quite small and confined and there really isn't much imaging going on anyway...and because of the stock driver placements. The fronts fire off the glass at about ear level, and the rears are right at ear level, so having fulls in the doors, assuming you have it all balanced correctly, only seemed to "fill in" the soundstage and make it fuller to me....more enveloping. Generally though, I agree, you would want to angle any such driver up and toward the center of the sound stage. In any event, I think you need the doors to be subs unless you are using a powered sub like the Blaupunkt THb 200A or Kenwood KSC-SW10 in there somewhere. Otherwise there isn't enough bottom when you have the top down and the volume turned up. Could be, I have not sat and listened to the two side by side, I didn't do full in the doors based on a lot of research on high end car audio sites and well known Jamey in LA, formerly Paris audio now Rawlings, porsche specialist. Could be that it does not make a huge difference. As far as subs/top down is concerned, Imagine a heavy duty real 8" sub, with a lot of excursion, in a sealed .4 cu ft fiberglass and wood footwell enclosure, with 200wrms of class D amp power pumping 30-50hz bass into the footwell.....and up under your wife's skirt.... http://pics.realmofexcursion.com/albums/us...01/DCP_2762.jpg :) Very healthy bass even with the top down, or at 80 mph. Wife's 4'10", so leg room is not a problem..:) ....so the wife likes the NEW sub better I imagine....... :P

I agree with you on this in a theoretical sense Tony, but in the Boxster I found that the effect really isn't very noticable. I imagine it is because the sound stage is quite small and confined and there really isn't much imaging going on anyway...and because of the stock driver placements. The fronts fire off the glass at about ear level, and the rears are right at ear level, so having fulls in the doors, assuming you have it all balanced correctly, only seemed to "fill in" the soundstage and make it fuller to me....more enveloping. Generally though, I agree, you would want to angle any such driver up and toward the center of the sound stage. In any event, I think you need the doors to be subs unless you are using a powered sub like the Blaupunkt THb 200A or Kenwood KSC-SW10 in there somewhere. Otherwise there isn't enough bottom when you have the top down and the volume turned up.

Interesting discussion. My amp is also mounted in the same location. My interconnects (RCA's) come through the firewall via the opening just to the right of the steering column, across in front of the battery tray, and through the opening in the passenger side of the trunk wall below the sealing gasket. I do not use a ground loop insulator. I do not have any static or noise in my output. I just used good quality, twisted pair, gold plated, interconnects.

The 9886 has all the high and low pass filtering you need for the F and R speakers. No additional xovers would be needed. Depends....If you are going for absolute best possible sound quality and a few extra bucks don't bother you, then yes, I would replace the 3.5" drivers in the PNP kit with 3.5" MB Quart DKE 108 or Polk Audio DB351 or other 4 ohm drivers. If you are on a budget, then no, I would not change these out, I'd save the money for the amp(s) instead. The drivers in the PNP kit are decent drivers, just not as bright as the MB Quarts. The amp question is really hard to answer without more info. Is price an object? How discerning is your ear and how high quality do you want the sound ? Do you want to drive a sub as well later? Profile amps are great amps for the money and I would highly recommend them to anyone. If price is no object, I'd buy an Audison VRX 6 DIRECT 2 or McIntosh MCC406M to run everything. Backing off that price range a little maybe a Polk Audio PA1100.5, Alpine PDX-5, or Kicker ZX700.5. For real value at very slightly less impressive numbers you might want to check out using a Profile HA1040 for the F/R with a Profile HA700M for the doors, or maybe an Infinity Reference 5350a or MB Quart PAB 5400 to power everything - although the last 2 mentioned are a little marginal on available power for the Boxster with top down at highway speed in my opinion. Not sure if you realized it or not but the door speakers ARE subs in a Boxster (well...they are supposed to be anyway...), and the 9886 is capable of providing a sub output. Kicker just came out with a perfect solution for the Boxster, the Kicker CompVT 08CVT654 subwoofer. These are a 6.5" purpose built subwoofer drivers, that can easily be adapted as the door speakers in a Boxster. If you were planning on converting the door speakers to fullrange drivers as I did, and then adding a small sub system, then that is another issue. A Boxster is a tough place to get a sub into. Front boot will probably house the electronics, rear boot is to small for most boxes, the sound will be muddy, and the engine is between it and you anyway. If you put in a footwell sub on the Pass side, you get better bass but give up some passenger footspace. Probably the best solution for the Boxster is to look into mounting a Blaupunkt THb 200A, Alpine PLT-5 LAT, Kenwood KSC-SW10, or maybe a Bazooka BTA6100 Subwoofer System behind one of the seats. I personally have heard very good things about both the Blaupunkt THb 200A and the Kenwood KSC-SW10. I like the Blaupunkt THb 200A a little better because it carries an 8" driver and takes up about the same amount of room. I know someone who has mounted a KSC-SW10 behind the pass seat in a Boxster and loves it. It won't give you window rattling bottom end but it will give your music some solid, tight, bottom end that is missing otherwise. Hope some of this has helped a little, and best of luck with your project. It is a lot of fun to do !

FWIW......I do have the newer version...I think that everything out there now is the newer version.....and I have never experienced a CEL. One thing I did do though, is remove some burrs and jaggies before I installed it. May mean absolutely nothing, but there seemed to be a bit more slag and burrs around the joint of the MAF mount tube to the main tube on the inside than I would have expected. I'm kind of a perfectionist about such things, so I took a dremmel and cleaned all these burrs and slag out before I installed it. I didn't want to chance some of it breaking loose after some time and vibration, causing problems. May not exist on most, may have just been mine, I don't know. There are ways to get the air box out whole. Take the intake loose on that side and move it a bit is the prescribed method. I also read somewhere that loosining the motor mounts and dropping the motor about 3/4" - 1" will allow you to extract the airbox whole without loosening the intake. I was planning on going this route, but in the end I didn't do either. I didn't plan on ever using the stock box again, so I just took a pair of tin snips and cut sections of the airbox away until I could clear everything and remove it. I have never regretted it, nor have I had any trouble at all with the EVO.

Have it. Love it. ZERO problems.....other than getting the stock box out of there. (a real biatch..if you don't want to take the intake loose as I didn't). I usually buy this kind of stuff here: Suncoast Porsche

I do not have this one, but I have one built EXACTLY like it. It resonates between about 2600 and 3000 rpm and drones down low around town. Thats in a sweet spot for about 65mph on the highway too. With the top down it isn't objectionable, but with the top up it gets old. It does sound sweet as hell above 3000 rpms though. Enough so that I have lived with the resonance for a year. But now I'm looking for another solution with less resonance.

Just curious, for those of you who have done this, do you find that you go through headlight bulbs at a tremendous rate after making this change? The GM cars don't seem to, but we used to have a Volvo 940 that went through headlight bulbs like water. I always attributed it to them being on all the time.

You have to loosen off the intake manifold bolts and slide the whole upper part of the intake manifold out of the way. Then when you have the lower bolt for the air box out (most people forget) you can get the box out. Even then it's with great difficulty to get that damnd thing out of the engine bay. It's so tight it's just incredible. After getting the intake manifold slid outta the way and the box loose it was another 20 minutes fighting with it to pry it outta the engine bay. Its so tight it slightly bent side of the metal around the opening to the engine. Yea, I used a special tool called tin snips to get mine out when I put the EVO on. :lol:

Lol...No problem to do Topless...Last winter I bolted on an EVO, a set of headers and a Fabspeed exhaust, put in an iPod capable Alpine HU connected to a 6x100W amp in the front boot, and replaced all the speakers in the car with Polk Audio db series drivers. Top up or down I have plenty of juice on tap for crisp, clean sound with a great sound stage......and when my foot hits the pedal hard I can still hear that flat 6 singing it's sweet melody! :thumbup: ...as to the weight, what I gained in the electronic equipment department I more than lost with the exhaust changes.... ;) Surely have a point on the sub enclosure though. This puppy can generate some serious lateral G forces, and that enclosure has a BIG moment of inertia by the looks of it......