986Jim

I havn't started my car in two weeks and I lit her up yesterday and it shot a big puff of smoke out right when it fired, pretty funny... It's gone right away tho so no big deal. It's when you see that smoke after the car has been running for a while that you have problems.

No they have been perfectly fine. I have put say 5-6000k miles and lots of night time driving with no problems. In Canada we have day time running lights so when ever my car is moving the lights are on and they have been fine, so they are working regardless of what I do with the headlight switch. Even under those conditions of running all the time they have been fine. Regards,

Sounds to me like you didn't set the shift light for a 6 cyl car. Most of them have wires you have to snip so it knows if it's a 4-6 or 8 cyl. Have you done anything in particular to the light so it knows how many cylinders you have? That affects the tach-o output from the computer and it will get 50% more or less readings if your in the wrong mode.

Blinkwatt, its the magic of zip ties my friend...

Other than some small lip they added to the front it's not much of an upgrade just a different way they were made. If you want to paint the whole thing like on the 2003 cars you can just paint the intake you have no need to buy a new one to paint.

Tell him that the leaf springs on his corvette are worn out and need to be replaced with the same interval as the muffler bearings.

I just had the same problem, I got the tank for $180 and changed it myself in about 3 hours. I could do it again now after having done it once in about 2 hours complete I would say. Should have taken a stab at it yourself, it's pretty easy, just time consuming. No special tools or anything like that. http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6675

Welcome to the PORSCHE WORLD of $$$$ Repairs. I am not sure where you get the high cost from - it could be just a loose clamp. Further to Loren's post parts are not that expensive and if you look around the net you can find most stuff priced reasonably well. The cars are fairly easy to work on and most stuff straight forward. I would start with jacking up the front pulling off the front bumper and starting up the car to see where it's leaking from. It may take until the car is hot for pressure to build and it to leak. Then check the hose connections clamps and rad. You can generally have the rad soldered to fix it, the hose can have a piece changed out if need be. It shouldn't be that bad.

The only reason I tried from the top was your picture and saying that it could be done that way. It slowed me up taking off the wrong clamp, boy was I ticked hahahah. Not your fault. I found that using a standard pair of needle nose pliers that open about 1.5" at the tip worked really well to get those clamps. Once I found a pair that opened up wide and were short getting those clamps on and off was pretty easily. Btw, I have a lift and still did if from the top and would do it that way again. After all is said and done really it took me about 2 hours start to finish, I couldn't do it in 1 hour cause it came out a lot easier than it went back in. Either way I would say easily could be done by a standard DIYer with some patients in 2-3 hours start to finish driving down the road.

Just as an update to this. On my 99 Boxster this was quite easy and totally accessible from the top. I had the tank out in about 40 minutes. The pic provided by tool pants (on my car at least) shows taking off the wrong clamp. If it wasn't for that it would have been a bit faster. Have a look at the pic which is attached. You can easily get to both of those clamps from the engine bay with a pair or normal pliers. I had the first one originally pointed to in yellow off in about 5 minutes and figured out it was the wrong one, then did the one I marked in red at the bottom in about 2 mintues as it's easier to get to and had the whole tank out in no time. Seriously I could re-re one of these in under an hour now, so don't be afraid to do this yourself it's a piece of cake. Pic: Top hose is the oil fill tube, no need to undo this it's attached to the plastic plate that runs into the trunk. Next three are the three that run through to the tank attached to the plastic plate as well. No need to undo any of these in the engine bay. The very bottom on, the largest hose is the one thats attached to the tank and the one you will need to remove. It's easy to get at from in the engine bay. I'm 6.0' and 175lbs and have good sized arms and could get in there no prob. Once you undo that the tank pulls right through with no problems at all. I ordered my tank from my local Porsche today for $250 so I will have it back up and running in no time. I didn't bother buying from Sunset as its $170 for the part plus $35 shipping to Canada then duties on top of that so $250 from my local dealer was actually cheaper.

On my Talon when I drag race it, I took an old fan from the radiator that was replaced with slim fans and built a stand for it. I wired it up with a set of alligator clips and a switch. It would sit right on the top of the valve cover/intake manifold and clip it onto the battery then hold onto it while I flipped the switch. The motor had torque so you had to hold onto it when turning it on and off, once it was running it would stay in place. My valve cover after 5-6 back to back 1/4 mile passes down the track with 400hp would be on fire, my intake manifold is sheet aluminum. Within 10 minutes of that fan being on it everything would be cool to the touch. I also wired the radiator fans to stay on as well. It would cool so much that when I started the car after about 20 minutes (10 mins with the fans on 10 with them off) the temp gauge would be below the normal operating level of half. Now on a boxster it's sooo much work to get to the engine. However for racing I would wire the fans up so you could run them constant even with the car off, should be pretty easy to do. Also a fan on a stand to blow into the non-intake inlet on the passenger side would probably help a lot too...

Actually I totally disagree with Glvn.. Iridium plugs seem to work better in some cars than others. My dad's race car has a terrible time with iridium plugs with mis-firing and fouling. Runs great on regular NGK copper plugs. Anybody running a turbo car will find that platinum run terrible as well, some have luck with iridium and others with regular copper. Nitrous cars can only run copper, nothing else. Seems that platinum and iridium are prone to developing hot spots on the plugs and in different applications they cause the car to detonate pretty badly.. I did the plugs in my Jetta VR6 (daily driver) and just went with some regular ol plugs and it ran like crap. Went to the dealership and got the Bosch silber plugs they recommend and it was so much better. I would have though the same thing as you Glyn, however after some years of racing and having different plugs not work at all for me you either run OEM plugs or something specific to your engines setup that you have tested and figured out to work on your own or something that somebody else has done so with a similar setup.

There's a guy in my local area with a 99 boxster with a 3.4 in it. He run 20's in the front and 22's in the rear with a 295 wide tire. He has coil overs but thats the only suspension mod. The car has a funky body kit to fit the wheels (Carerra rear end style it's crazy) but otherwise fits those wheels with no problem and he drives the car around. There shoudl be no reason 19's wont work, but 18's will for sure be safe.

This was exactly what I was going to say. You can buy the brakes front and rear with pads for about 400 bux or so, don't even consider paying for them. Porsche builds cars so certain things are easy to work on for the weekend racer. Brakes are definitely one of those items. The battery seriously is like replacing the cigarette lighter, take the old one out put the new one in. The mount could be missed by even so it's not that expensive. Is the motor sloshing around in the engine bay that you can feel or hear? Even if the mount was toast I would pull the mount buy urethane and fill the mount solid then re-install it. We have been doing that on race cars for years instead of buying mounts. It will make it stiffer but doing only one mount you will never feel or tell that in the car. That will cost about 20 bux in urethane. If you want to know where to buy it let me know I'll show you pics and give you a link where to get it. If you don't like that you can buy a new mount no big deal too. The urethane is nice cause it keep the motor put in the engine bay, just don't do em all or you get vibration, 1 will be ok tho. There should not be anything more expensive to do on this car than to do on a Cavalier (within reason). Parts can be had for the same price and to re-re a tranny in a boxster is easier than a FWD car.

In Canada all cars have DRL so my headlight are on when the car is on no matter what. Both my Jetta and boxster have CQLIght HID's in them and the Jetta my daily driver gets about 15k miles a year on it with the headlights on the whole way and they work just fine. The boxster doesn't get many miles a year so thats not really a good test to their quality but the jetta takes abuse and has them on all the time, they are just fine.

Not everybody is convinced that it's the K&N that does it. Many people are over oiling their filters which would cause it once you clean it. I would look for S&B their filters are oil-less and AEM makes a nice oil-less filter as well they have intakes pretty well figured out if you know what I mean there... If your worried about water and such you can buy filter jackets that breathe but are totally water resistant. http://www.aempower.com/ViewCategory.aspx?CategoryID=32 - Dry Flow I have been looking for that waterproof jacket, but can't find it. OBX or somebody similar makes a air filter cover that you can zip over top of your cone air filter like I mentioned above and is waterproof. I found it once before but for the life of me can't find it again. It was pretty cool.

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?s...c=10247&hl= Peep my HID thread. I did a H7 HID kit in my Boxster. H7 is H7 is H7. There is no such thing as made for Porsche H7 kit because H7 is not a Porsche design it's a universal light bulb they happen to be using. A lot of manufacturers use H7 in their design. Any ol HID kit will fit and work. Also as you can see in that thread guys even take OEM hid DS2 bulbs (from cars with HID's installed like an Audi or BMW) and just wired those in. The bulbs don't technically fit so you have to mess around with the little wire thing that holds the bulbs into the housing to make them even stay in there. Even those looked good and worked lol.. So basically just buy whatever the hell you want that is the cheapest. CQLight is 179 bux.. Had mine for 2 years now no probs.

N rating is who Porsche is currently in bed with. Get any tire that is rated highly. The best tires out there are not N rated.

I have seen a black interior car with the aluminum trim and it really looked nice. It was the stick on stuff and still it was quite sharp. I don't really like the look of interior parts painted the color of the car or painted at all. That looks cheap and tacky to me like you can't afford the the real trim kit you use used tremclad or something. When installed properly they look nice. They have a nice gloss on the top so it doesn't look like paint.

Great pics. finally somebody who knows how to use a digital camera. Many times close up pics are so blurry because people don't know how to take pictures. Kudos to you for great pics and write up. I'm guessing this will help many people down the road.

Yea Yea, I told my wife i was going to paint them Red then she said "But your car isn't an S". She isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so if she knew then.... So i painted them black. Just because you paint them red doesn't mean your trying to impersonate an S model. What happens if you get cross drilled rotors are you imitating an S then? How about an exhaust system with two tips instead of one? etc etc.. Do what you like, don't listen to others.

Why not just use the Porsche top protectant? It works great. I bought it at the dealer pretty cheap and you just spray it on and the top becomes pretty well water proof after a few applications. Water just beads off it like a nicely waxed hood.

I thought the same thing with my 95 GTI that I regularly raced. It had a 3.28 final drive and I bought a VW Motorsports 3.94 final drive for lower gearing. Honestly it was a mistake and I hated it all the way. It put the car in a high rpm buzz all the time and for daily driving it was terrible. I wanted exactly what you guys say, more grunt down low, no need for 100mph in 3rd kinda thing, but after swapping out the ring and pinion it honestly ruined the driveability of the car. You think it will make the car better with lower gearing etc, but simply changing the gearing lower really is why the 6 speed was born because you still need that lower gear in the end so your not doing 4000rpm while driving on the highway all the time. I remember on a trip from Toronto to NJ (English town) I followed my buddies Viper and we did about 100-120mph the whole way pretty well and my car was never below 5000rpm and it honestly ruined the whole trip, I wished for my stock gearing again. After having it for a while, I longed for the regular gearing again and to have the stock setup. Eventually I sold the car and tho I loved it I don't miss the lowered gearing thats for sure.

http://www.xenonmods.com/ Click on brake caliper decals on the side then scroll down to Porsche. They are $7.99. You just paint your calipers and stick the sticker on afterwards. The sticker will not come off or have any problem with the heat from the brake at all. You don't even need to clear coat after to hold it on or anything. It just sticks there no prob. Couldn't be easier then that.

They are all you will need, however after you take apart the suspension to put in the springs you will have to wait for two weeks to let them settle. Springs when you first install them don't lower your car to the said level it takes some more time sitting on them to get that compression. Then after the two weeks you need to get an alignment done once all the settling is completed. That is when your alignment will be back proper. Chances are after the suspension is taken apart and spring are put in your steering wheel will be off center for that two weeks because it's basically impossible to get everything back perfect when you re-assemble it all. We're talking fractions of an inch to make 1 degree of toe or camber or whatever, can't exactly eyeball that.