atmorris

I just replaced the Bridgestone S-O2A tires on my Boxster S with the Michelin Pilot Sport PS2. I thought the SO-2A were good tires but they wore very down quickly on the track, especially the fronts. But other than the wear, I had no problem with the Bridgestones in the dry or the wet. If you check the wear rating on the Bridgestones it is relatively low, if I remember correctly it is about 110 AAA while the PS2 is at 220 AAA. The TireRack website spec sheets and test results are a good source of info on tires, generally quite accurate. How do they feel comparatively ?...sidewall flex etc...

When I bought my MY03, the dealer was nice enough to put on a brand new set of Pirelli P-zeros, and I love 'em. Excellent dry and wet traction and, although I have seen others say they are noisy, I don't consider them noisy at all. A bit on the expensive side, but it IS a Porsche after all. I have been considering trying out a set of Bridgestone Potenza S-02 A when these wear out. The S-02's seem to be VERY highly rated by other Porsche owners who drive, shall we say, "spirited" like I do. It sounds to me like a: your tires are dog crap, and B: there are other contributing factors playing into those spins. Could be tire pressures; or alignment; or the PSM is not working (if you have PSM); suspension issues; or it may just be that your cornering technique is REALLY bad, because normally, I don't think there is any way a self-described "non-agressive" driver should be coming even close to flipping a 986 around so easily. The car's limits are almost certainly FAR higher than your limits are. I have driven B-Gas drag cars, Formula F's, sprint cars and modifieds, so I tend to be a very aggressive driver, and I push my Boxster h-a-r-d when I am playing with it - and I do that on north Jersey roads that are curved like pretzels. The only time I ever even came close to flipping it around on the street, I felt the PSM working to "correct" my error. Even then, the car was stable as hell - never even a twitch - just the PSM bringing you back inside the car's envelope. I'm sure I probably could spin it on a track pushing hard in the rain, but normally, highly unlikely. The thing is simply welded to the road. I've had mine over a hundred in a hard rain and it felt like I was still on dry road. Start with new tires and an alignment. While they are doing the tires, take a look at the suspension for leaks and any wear indications. Then try some mild corners, the car should be stuck like glue, if not either you or the car have other issues.

I'm not suprised at all. When I bought my sill plates from him, I really wanted a style he made for the 911, which is slightly different than the boxster in dimension. When i mentioned this while ordering a standard set, Harvey says "no problem!" and makes me up a set of the 911 style plates special for my 986 - and doesn't charge me a penny more than the standard 986 sill plate. Not only did he make them up special for me, he did it within a day. SUPER easy guy to deal with. Harvey is in it more for the love of the cars than anything else, and it comes across. He's a PCar owner too. To anyone who hasn't had the pleasure yet, Harvey sells top notch rear speaker kit, amplifier kit, and some real sweet sill plates for the Pcars through ebay.

Just curious as to your experiences after lowering the car 1.5" or so, do you scrape when you encounter speed bumps or like objects? Do you encounter any other problems with everyday street type driving because of the lowering?

...couple thousand miles. I don't want anyone thinking only one thousand is recommended for break-in. Anyway, between the three engines, 6,000 of the 27,000 miles has been break-in driving on my car. Come to find upon installing the last engine, the dipstick tube was bent to where it could not be properly installed. I took it to a local dealer and he CHARGED me to check it out. Said it would cost another $175 to fix. He said he had to charge me because it was a workmanship problem, not warranty. So I leave the dealer that morning and later the car died. Had to be towed again. Supposedly, the dipstick left my intake disconnected after checking my dipstick. This carz gotta go. Sure can't blame you by the sound of it. I have to say though, pjslowik, that since your original post I have been scouring every Porsche board that I can find, and I have found very, very, few who have had the kind of problems you have been unfortuante enough to have soooooo persistantly. Sounds like you got tangled up with a real lemon and a crap dealer on top of it all (which might explain the lemon too....) It is an awful shame that your Porsche experience was so terrible. I truely feel bad for you.

Yes Rick, I do still intend to post one. I am very busy with my son's graduation activities and HS football start up at the moment, but as soon as that smoke clears, I will get the template drawn up and posted. Andy

The article is now also available on Boxster Wikia, but hey - no need to go further than right here, T-H-E best Boxster board on the web !!! :renntech:

Anyone have a Dual XDM6825 or like Dual model HU installed in their PCar ? I am interested in knowing how well it fits.......

I have a MY03 car, so after reading this thread I talked to the CT dealer I bought the car from - both the salesman (who I found to be a VERY stand up guy) and the service manager. Since I bought a Porsche Certified Pre-Owned car, my warranty would cover such a thing if it happened to me in full (thank god,) so there is little need to sugar coat anything to me. Both the salesman and the service manager were not aware of any such problem with Boxster engines on a widespread basis. The service manager eluded to the 98/99 MY issue, but said that even that incident was not very widespread, and that the overall percentage of engine failures was very small. I am not a naive individual, and 25 years of business experience has schooled me in the art of reading body language and eyes - I believe these guys were being honest. I also checked this out with a local NJ Porsche dealer while buying some new plugs and found the same type of response. I don't get the impression that this problem is very widespread or of significant magnitude, but only time will tell I guess. I am not disputing anyone's unfortunate experiences, just thought I should share this.

Your a good son. :cheers:

Is this typical of MY03's ? I am a little concerned. I was aware of the 98/99 MY problems, but have not heard of this with 03's. I have an '03 with 20k miles on it currently. It had 16k on it when I bought it , and it is a Porsche Certified ride. It appears to have been pampered, but I can't be sure. I put my foot in it on a pretty regular basis, but do not over rev, nor beat it - just spirited driving in short stints. So how about it, is this a known issue with '03's ?

My '03 goes through exactly the same series as your car

A word to the wise though.....be very careful with a Boxster built between 9/98 and 4/99. If it has 35k miles or so on it it may be fine, but if not, be careful. There was an engine problem during those build months and they have been known to blow at around 25k to 29k miles. It isn't all cars made during that time, of course, but why risk it? I don't think that miles mean all that much much if the car has been well maintained, so do try and check out service records on the car etc. If you are in the market for a newer MY, and you can afford to, try and by a Porsche Certified Pre-Owned car, as I did, then you basically get a full warranty for 2 years. I have business acquaintances who live in Germany, and they tell me that it is not unusual at all to see 20 - 25 year old Porsches being driven daily. :drive:

There are only a few things in life that are absolutes: You will die eventually..... You will pay taxes, one way or another..... No one will ever say "Holy crap!, you drive a Miata?"...... To a true gearhead a Porsche is a WHOLE LOT MORE than just another car..... You DO only have one life to live....... SO.....swallow hard, learn some basic maintenance, and buy the Boxster. There may be days that you are mad at it...kind of like your wife....but If you've been "lusting" after a Pcar for 30 years as you say, you'll never once regret buying it....not really. Because if your like me - and you "miss" this window of opportunity - you just might spend the rest of your days kicking yourself in the *** because you'll always wonder: what if...... If you do buy the Pcar, when you need help - there are a whole crapload of great people right here to share your pain and guide you through. Dude, it doesn't GET any better than that......... "Git 'er done !"

Thanks Cassiebox and Sboxin for the kind words. I hope it helps out lots of Boxster owners. :welcome:

Now all we need is 10" of free space to mount them in...tough to come by in a Boxster :P Seriously ....Where did you find these ? Interesting design.... saw a write-up on these subs online. i'm going to build two large, thin enclosures to go behind the seats. they will taper at the top. the idea is to provide enough internal volume for a great sounding sealed enclosure while still letting me put the seat back almost all the way. Let us know how you make out.

OK...that makes more sense to me. You are correct, starting with MY03 , the M490 amps are MOST based. Performance wise though Tool Pants, there are many aftermarket amps out there that will out perform the stock M490 unit handily (in the same price range), so unless one of your requirements is to remain pure OEM, you might want to look in that direction. JBL, Kicker, Diamond, Audiobahn,Phoenix, to name a few.

Hang on a sec.....I'm confused. The M490 amp is MOST bus I believe. If so, how would the Amp work without a MOST bus HU, because the HU is the master on the MOST bus. Remove the HU and the entire MOST system is down, so there would be no communication between the HU and the amp. The '97 doesn't have MOST bus HU.....or are there different "versions" of the M490 architecture?

Upgrading the sound system - overhauling the speakers Here is a documented guide to overhauling the Boxster's speaker systems for improved sound. I did this for under $600, and the difference is astonishing. Covers front,rear, and door speaker systems. Well illustrated, and contains a detailed section dealing with updating the door speakers from 5 1/4" to to 6 1/2" drivers while maintaining a completely stock appearence. Hope this helps many a Boxster owner. First986NJ UPDATE 4/23/08: Wow, 2600 downloads - cool! Hi Guys, a couple o Author atmorris Category Boxster (986) - Mods Submitted 06/06/2006 04:43 PM Updated 03/10/2017 06:01 AM

Simple answer - waste of money. The car is fine in stock config. As Loren commented, the car has the same strut baces (from the factory) that a full race GT3 Cup Car has. Save your money and spend it elsewhere.

OK, I got all the documentation of the speaker system update done (still working on the template) and will post the doc tonight under the DIY MODS section. I am still working on the template, but that doesn't have to hold anyone up - the documentation is pretty clear on how to do this and most of you should be able to develop your own templates easy enough.

No one seemed to have a comprehensive guide to improving the stock speakers, so I wrote up the mods that I made and the steps involved. Rear, dash, and door speakers are all covered. I am working on a printable template for the 6 1/2" door speaker mount plate to go along with this document. I will post it here as soon as I have it done. Andy

I'll get the template up there as quick as I can. I should have the write up posted this weekend. In the interim, the process I used was this: I made a cardboard template using the front of the original speaker enclosure first. Then fitted it against the door. I kept making adjustments to the template and making new templates until I got it just right. Be sure to pay attention to the inside of the door panel as well, there are a couple of features on the door panel that will have to be planned for as well (plastic gussets and stiffening features around the retainers.) At the front lower edge of the door panel there are long plastic gussets that I modified to allow the speaker panel to clear perfectly. I just dremmeled off the upper 1/2" of those gussets. This still leaves plenty of gusset to accomplish the intended reinforcement. I believe that the 6x40 amp feeds subwoofer output to the doors but I am not 100% certain. You could alwys unplug the door out feeds and tap them into the fronts to get a full range signal, but that will present an 8 ohm load and reduce their volume. Of course you could probably just adjust the fader to compensate as the rears are so close to your head to begin with...there really isn't any need though. With the rear kit inplace and good speakers all around the sound stage is quite a bit more natural and balanced, and those doors will produce some much needed bottom end. P.S. using the modified stock mounting system in the dash, I had some issues with that bolt as well. I was going to replace it with a 1/2" shorter bolt. However, using vfxbox's rings I had no problem on that side, so I didn't need to change the bolt anyway. Next up for me: Head unit that has receiver,plays MP3s, video, and maybe nav (Pioneer AVIC-D2 ?) new 6 channel amp with just a bit more power - maybe 60 x4 + 120 x 2 Andy

I planned on making a scale CAD drawing of the door mounts and attaching it to the write up in a couple of formats for anyone to use. This way you could print out a template to start from. I don't really know if there are subtle differences in the door stampings from year-to-year or not, so the template might have to be "individualized" by the user anyway. When you installed the MBs in the dash, how did you handle the connections? Did you modify the old speaker frame and use the stock connection, or did you splice/crimp/solder new ends onto the stock wires ? Your situation really sounds like a bad connection or a cut/pinched/broken wire somewhere. I always solder the new ends and/or cut-in points to avoid these kinds of issues. FYI....I did some research on this speaker. Although I am seeing it listed on eBay as 2 1/4" mounting depth, the Blaupunkt specs list this speaker's mounting depth at 5.1" (130mm) deep, not 2". Not sure where the eBay guy is getting that number from.