I got a Zeintop! (pics attached)

[releese78]

For those of you who know Pat S. from these forums, he decided to sell his car and I purchased his Zeintop. I then had it painted at Ralph Perez Auto Body in Tampa to match my white car. It was originally Lapis Blue. I absolutely love it! Here are a few pictures:

[ekam]

Sweet! So how long does it take for you to remove the rear trunk lid and put this on?

[Dai]

I have one on order and wonder how it fits and does it squeaks?

[Pat S]

Looks good! I'm glad the paint turned out nice.

Pat

[releese78]

Only about 10-15 minutes, it takes two people though because the top is a little heavy and you want to be careful not to scratch the car. The first install took a couple hours because I had to install the spinlock inserts and wire harness, then there were several adjustments that needed to be made in order to make the body lines fit correctly.

I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the top. It's not quite "Porsche Perfect" but close. My only complaints are that I have a slight wind-noise on the driver's side near the windshield seal, I'm sure some more tweaking can fix this. The headliner needs a little work too because they basically wrap a large sheet of plastic and glue it as an insert in the center. Pat said that it fell down once on him. One day, I'll take it down and find something a little lighter to use up there. I also had to use some 3/4" tall rubber stand off's between the bottom side of the top and the rear clamshell adjusters on the car. This brought the rear of the top up even with the body line of the car, before it was sunk down a tad.

Wind-noise is significantly decreased versus the soft top, however at idle it seems louder because my exhaust isnt quite stock. Visibility is slightly less than out of the convertible top for me because I'm so tall. I lose a few inches of visibility that used to be there in the soft top, but it's not bad at all.

[RandallNeighbour]

I love the look of your car with that top on it. If you drove by rapidly, I would not know it from a Cayman if I wasn't staring at it to try and spot the differences.

I don't mean this as a criticism, but in your pix it looks like the rear bit (new trunk?) doesn't sit flush with the rear quarter panel "hips." Was it ajar or does it need more adjustment or is it just my imagination?

[RobZ]

Looks great! I may end up ordering one soon.

[releese78]

You're right, I noticed that too. I still need to do a few more adjustments to get it right. I just got it back from the paint shop today, so I'm sure I'll be tweaking all weekend to get it right!

[porsche986spyder]

Looks great! Now you just need to have all those windows tinted and it will look bad a$@!

[ekam]

I think it definitely looks best with these 18" Carrera wheels...



Hmm... I know what I'm saving up next after getting these wheels...

[Wingnut2u]

I've got a dumb question and please do not be insulted because I think the Zeintop looks great but why would you need this if you live in Florida? I would think there are too many topless days to be messing with the top like that, but what do I know

[releese78]

In Florida, it rains pretty much every day during the summer months, and seems to come out of nowhere. I rarely drove with the top down because of it. During the winter, it's pretty damn chilly here, so I never got much use out of the convertible.

Actually, today on the way to pick up this top from the paint shop, I got rained on....Heavily! (top down). When I left my house, there wasnt a dark cloud in the sky.

[Chippy]

I just ordered mine last week (from Zeintec South Africa - I presume yours originally came from Zeintec USA?).

Did you get the shims that fit on the spinlocks to adjust the height of it? 3/4" of rubber sounds alot??

When you fitted it, did you fit it as one piece or did you fit the top and then the hatch?

How easy was the wiring loom to fit?

Looks stunning though

[releese78]

I did use the shims, they fit with the spinlocks, I also used some 1/4" spacers which Pat made for it. That took care of the middle section. In the rear, there really isn't anything to hold it up other than the convertible top itself. I found that it "sagged" in the back (where the back edge of the clamshell used to sit.

The 3/4" rubber isolators actually fit between the bottom side of the top and the round clamshell adjusters. The bottom edge of the top is rolled over, so it's not raising it 3/4, more like 1/4" to make it fit flush height with the body. With any luck, yours may not need anything like this. I wasnt happy with the fit, so I decided to get creative.

I'm still not quite satisfied with the overall fit, hopefully I can fix this with some more adjustment. On mine, the body line is a little closer on one side than the other. Maybe I'm nit-picking.

I put it on in one piece. A word of advice...put some masking tape along the roofline where the top of the hatch opens during your adjustment stage. If you don't get it right, you can rub the paint right off when you open the hatch. Once you adjust it, and see that it doesnt rub, go ahead and remove the tape.

Also, I'd lay some tape along the back fenders, it's easy to scratch the bottom of the top there when installing because the spinlocks are set at an angle. Better safe than sorry!

Almost forgot, you asked about the wire harness. This was very easy to install. It took me all of 90 seconds to get it done. The most time consuming part of the whole process (other than adjusting everything) is installing the spinlock inserts. Luckily, this only needs to be done once.

I think you'll be very happy with it, I know I am. Be sure to post some pictures!

.....One thing I wanted to ask everyone out there, off topic. Does anyone in the Tampa area have any sort of tool that can turn on my OBC for me?

[Chippy]

Thanks for the info, will definitely use the masking tape idea. I had been thinking of laying a few layers of tape all around the edges of the wings just to be safe, so doing the roofline makes sense too.

I did see this pic a while ago and thought that that the shutlines between the hatch and the wings looked a little uneven.



I managed to get an electronic copy of the fitting instructions and whilst they are detailed for the most part, it was a little bare when it came to fitting and routing the wiring loom. I'm sure it'll be clearer when I get started.

Actually looks pretty nice without it on yours, but I also ordered the Zeinwing. Thought I might as well, as I got a huge discount on the top & wing and it also meant I saved on the shipping.

Just counting down the days 'til mine arrives!! :dance:

Will post some pics for sure. Mine's a silver one. Should look great with my wheels.

[releese78]

I see what you mean, it's very similar to mine. I'd imagine it can be fixed though. I also noticed in almost every Zeintop picture out there the hatch doesnt look like it sits all the way down as it should. It's something you really have to look close to notice though. I think I can live with it.

I just went out and laid some extra weatherstrip along the front line to work in conjunction with the supplied strip. It looks like it should fix my windnoise, I'll see tomorrow.

[Chippy]

Did you know that you can adjust the "pitch" of the windows for inward/outward movement? That apparently fixes with wind issue. There's adjustment bolts underneath the doors. I can scan a copy of the workshop manual page if it would be of use?

[releese78]

I didn't know that, if you could scan it that would be great! I appreciate it.

[RobZ]

Originally Posted by Chippy

Will post some pics for sure. Mine's a silver one.

Can't wait to see yours! I'm considering ordering one for my Arctic Silver '02. Lots of detailed poics please!

[Dai]

I also have one ordered from Zeintec Africa and will be looking out for your post. I am intended to use this top for winter driving here in Calgary, Canada. Will see how this top fare up.