2002 996.2 3.6 Coupe

[eldavo69]

On 14/04/2018 at 8:49 PM, NewNiceMrMe said:

It says 9.01pm on the car clock.

Are you being deliberately fecking stupid?

I think we’ve established that his usual bedtime is 7pm so probably was to him.

[eldavo69]

Took me all of 10mins to make myself a GT3. 

Edited April 18, 2018 by eldavo69

[eldavo69]

Picked up the replacement rear seats, they were filthy and sticky, etc. Factored that into the price and got to work. 

The blue on the seat bases is the reflection of blue skies through the kitchen windows - wow!

[eldavo69]

They got a proper clean, hot water, microfibres, nail brush, sticky stuff remover gel, Gliptone cleaner and AG Leather Balm (prefer the Gliptone stuff as it’s a less glossy finish but had run out). 

Very happy with how they came out when given a final buff. 

[eldavo69]

With the seats out and the nail brush to hand, I couldn’t resist the stripes. 

I’ve got all the parts for the heated seat retrofit now so am just making up some wiring looms too. 

Am much happier with the interior, it definitely updates it compared to the ruffled leather. 

[Rachel]

Lol...   The only other person I know with a chimp sidekick was in an anime when growing up, and then in a Warchowski kids movie...

GO SPEED RACER, GO!

[eldavo69]

Monkey still has his “ITV Digital” (remember that short-lived bit of tech) tag in his ear. 

[E-bmw]

Remember him very well before he became a tea chimp.

[eldavo69]

The previous owner fitted some 200 cell sport cats and some Dansk Stainless Sport Backboxes. The third and final part of the exhaust system is the manifolds themselves but they’re often a nightmare to fit - out of the 12 bolts holding the 2 manifolds on, it’s common for most (if not all of them) to snap in the head. They then need drilling out and potentially helicoiling - this can end up adding 4-6hours labour onto a 1 hour job. 

Luckily, when I had the tappets replaced, one of the exhaust manifolds had to be removed and came off with no snapped bolts - so I’m halfway in the clear. I was talking to my Porsche Indys about how people are fitting Titanium studs and K-Nuts to hold the manifolds on rather than the steel bolts. They told me that it’s such a problem for them that they’ve invested £600 in a special drilling jig and kit for removing the snapped bolts and offering titanium fixings as an option would be beneficial for them. 

They've now sourced a bulk supplier of the titanium fittings and have offered to do my car for the cost of the parts only as they’ll do a write-up and some pictures for their website. Sounds good to me - might as well change those rusty old bog standard manifolds for some nice equal-length stainless ones at the same time right?

Being fitted in a couple of weeks.

Edited April 19, 2018 by eldavo69

[eldavo69]

There is something called a Helmholz resonator built into the airbox- it’s basically a sealed enclosure that has an opening to the air inlet. As air passes across the opening it produces a tone in the same way as blowing across a bottle does, this tone is the opposite sound wave to low speed induction noise and therefore cancels out some of this for low speed drive-by noise reduction. 

Removing the resonator and capping it off frees up a bit more induction noise but more importantly the resonator blocks off about 1/3rd of the air filter. The filter has already been replaced with a BMC one which is the usual supporting modification so it was a no brainer to remove the resonator, cap the hole and fit a replacement silicon inlet hose without the resonator outlet. 

Total cost - £30, benefits - bit of induction growl and a useful 1/2 litre extra air in. 

[patently]

On 4/19/2018 at 10:02 PM, eldavo69 said:

Removing the resonator and capping it off frees up a bit more induction noise but more importantly the resonator blocks off about 1/3rd of the air filter. The filter has already been replaced with a BMC one which is the usual supporting modification so it was a no brainer to remove the resonator, cap the hole and fit a replacement silicon inlet hose without the resonator outlet.

Be a good chap and nip down here to show me.  Ta

[eldavo69]

14 hours ago, patently said:

Be a good chap and nip down here to show me.  Ta

Actually . . .

I may have all the spare bits to do another one and am down at the office in a month. If you’re about it’s a quick job and then we can go to that dodgy non-vat registered Thai place again.

 

[E-bmw]

Wheels of business well oiled.......

[patently]

On 4/24/2018 at 0:12 PM, eldavo69 said:

that dodgy non-vat registered Thai place again.

I should probably clarify that he is referring to a restaurant.  Which is actually an Indian restaurant.  Not a knocking shop.  That's about 200 yards up the road, on the left, just behind the roundabout. 

[eldavo69]

Is that VAT-registered though?

[garcon magnifique]

The only vat they have is full of massage oil.

Apparently.

[patently]

2 hours ago, eldavo69 said:

Is that VAT-registered though?

I wouldn't know....

 

(do you really think they'd give receipts?)

[eldavo69]

Dropped the car off yesterday for the manifolds to be fitted. 

All the titanium hardware had just arrived too. It’s nice and light - predictably. It shouldn’t resemble Spongebob’s Door Knocker after 5 minutes either! 

[eldavo69]

Oh yes - this sounds nice, best way to describe it is a harder edge to the exhaust note under load. No resonance, no drone - I’ve been advised to get a remap to bring everything together, will need to do my research on that as the benefits on a NA engine are slight. 

Had a wheel alignment done gratis too - a couple of tweaks to bring it into line after fitting the spacers and some potholes.

£100’s worth of Titanium studs, bolts and washers with £20’s worth of K-nuts. 

 

 

[Rachel]

looking good!

[eldavo69]

Managed to get the Bank Holiday afternoon all to myself so set about stripping the seats and centre console out of the car to fit the wiring looms I had already made up for retrofitting the heated seats. 

The switches are supposed to go in the “batwing” just in front of the gearstick but I wasn’t keen on putting them there. I had considered getting rid of a couple of switch blanks on the “horseshoe” either side of the radio but eventually decided to put them where the rear window switches go on the cabrio. This is where they are on a 986 Boxster so I bought the Boxster parts so that the diagram orientation was correct. Those blanks annoy me more than any others so it seemed a good enough reason to get rid. 

Install was slow but straightforward, running wiring looms down the sills and under the dashboard meant getting myself in some tricky positions upside down with not much room to work. 6 hours later everything was back together and working for when the weather no doubt goes freezing again shortly!

[patently]

2 hours ago, eldavo69 said:

eventually decided to put them where the rear window switches go on the cabrio.

How did you know that's where they go on the cabrio... oh

[eldavo69]

I’m off to the Nürburgring at the end of the week, so thought I’d give the car a going over. Since fitting the spacers I’d had a little bit of steering wheel vibration at motorway speeds so I pulled the front wheels off and wire brushed all the mating surfaces as there was a bit of crud on them - now sat perfectly true (got the micrometer out) so hopefully solved. 

Of course, with the wheels off it seemed daft not to give them a proper clean, de-tar, polish and sealed with Gtechniq and popped some new centre caps in (crests to the valves of course) as the old ones had gone a darker colour. Gave all the arches a clean up while I was in there and put some cavity wax on any exposed metal. 

Then on to the rears, same drill on the wheels but also removed the arch liners (3 10mm plastic nuts and pull) and cleaned the muck off the back of them. There are plastic rear sill trims on either side too and one wasn’t flush at the leading edge. This could mean it’s bent, full of crud or hiding a load of rust so that had to come off too. 

The metalwork was in perfect condition underneath, the trim was just a bit bent. There was quite a lot of dusty dirt in the back of the trim and when wet this would be sat against the metal at the end of the sill so well worth removing these for a clean out annually (I’m looking at you Patently). And then (because it’s me and the Mrs and Child were STILL at the MetroCentre) I cavity waxed all the rear arch and back of the sill before refitting the liners and plastics. 

I was just about to put the last wheel back on when the ice cream van stopped at the end of my drive, and then the rest of the family got home 10mins later - perfect timing!

*bloody picture uploads, that’s one way to make sure your ice cream doesn’t drip onto your hand!

[eldavo69]

Also whipped the headlights out (looks drastic, takes about 30secs each side) and gave them a light polish with some AG glass polish and Menzerna Final Finish - not bad for 90k miles and 16 years!

Gave it a quick wipe over and polish with AG SRP then some Chemical Guys Wet Mirror Finish that I had lying about - seems to bead well. Needs a full machine polish and some Gtechniq but that can wait. 

Also added a rubber EZ-lip to the bottom of the front bumper the other week, looks good (in my eyes) and is obviously creating so much downforce I can park the car upside down now - these photo uploads, grrrr. 

[CarMad]

I've done both cars in Crystal Serum Light and EXO v3 after a good buff and its incredible.

Water hardly even sits on the surface let alone bead, the car almost cleans itself its crazy how good it is, highly recommended if applied and worked properly.