Spec Boxster Build

[BruceH]

Looks awesome! Now don't park it on the street

[thstone]

First day at the track started out well and I got some laps in but then had problems with the fuel filter and fuel pump - both of which came from the donor car. The fuel filter clearly had not been changed in quite awhile and the fuel pump had 204,000 miles on it and might have been questionable - this is one of the risks of buying a car that doesn't run (lots of other things can be wrong).

With that being said, the general impression of the new car is that it is friggin' awesome! With the less weight, the car accelerates a bit faster and the handling felt great with more camber (-3.5 deg front/-3.0 deg rear).

Topless, thanks for stopping by and saying hi today.

HRG is going to try and swap out the fuel pump overnight, so I might be back at the track tomorrow (or might not). If not, then it will have to wait 2 weeks until Streets of Willow. No disappointment, there are bound to be a few things that need to be worked out on any new build of this magnitude.

[Ian c]

PlEase post if you make it out tommorow .
I've had the worst hangover ever today so had planned on making it there tommorow

[thstone]

The plan is to R/R the fuel pump tomorrow morning. My worry is that there is simply a lot of crap in the bottom of the fuel tank which keeps plugging up the fuel filter and changing the fuel pump won't fix that. We'll give it a go again tomorrow morning and see how it goes.

[Topless]

The car looks great Tom. Looking forward to tying those few loose ends and you posting some fast laps.

[Ian c]

We went today but got there very late .
A race had just started so we went strait to the stand to watch that .
And I flattened my phone batter making videos for youtube , so I couldn't call you

After that was the last set of time trials , and we heard an announcement for your group , but there was only 3 cars ??? 996tt , gt3rs , and a boxster ... So I take it you didn't get it fixed and went home ?

[thstone]

We got the car to run well in the morning but had fuel delivery problems again right after lunch so I left the track around 2pm. Sorry I missed you. We'll get a few things sorted and be ready for Streets of Willow in two weeks.

[Ian c]

We will meet you there !!!

[southernstar]

stone, she looks sensational! Good on ya!

Brad

[mmporsche]

Very nice build!

[jb92563]

Hows it going with the new car.

I imagine that there are always bugs to work out and then the suspension fine tuning and other things that us newbies have no clue about.

Care to shed some light on the process AFTER the new race build arrives and what the next steps are?

[thstone]

Sorry for the long delay in posting an update. To catch up, we got the new car onto the track and had a few teething problems - this should be expected when buying a non-running roller because there is no way to know if any of the engine accessories work or not.

Major symptom was lack of power over 3K rpm. Felt like fuel starvation. Replaced fuel filter (very dirty) and fuel pump as both were from the salvage chassis. This helped things quite a bit but then power became intermittant. Engine would run fine and then stumble and even die. Engine would re-start immediately and then run fine for awhile and then just when it seemed ok, it would stumble and die again.

Everything else checked out ok so the mechanics swapped ECU's (putting the original ECU from my totalled silver Boxster into the Black chassis) and this solved the problem completely. Hard to say why there was a problem with the ECU in the salvage chassis but it wouldn't be the first time that someone sold a rolling chassis and had already swapped out a part or two. Salvage chassis also had a leaky clutch master cylinder that needed replacement.

The car is still street legal (so I can still drive it to/from track) and passed the CA DMV validation inspection last week. The DMV examiner liked the car and wanted to hear more about how it handled on the track than checking to make sure that it had all of the required equipment to remain street legal! With all of the graphics on the car, I drive conservatively on the street as I'm sure it will be a cop magnet.

I haven't had a chance to get to the track the past few weeks (busy getting two son's moved back to their colleges) but I will try to get out as soon as possible and then I'll post up some first observations (and lap time differences) between the Spec and previous street versions.

[southernstar]

Thanks for the update, Stone. Very glad to hear how few problems you have encountered to date and looking forward, as always, to updates once you get her back on the track!

Brad

[thstone]

Here are a few more pic's (and one of the interior). I plan to be out at Willow Big Track this Sunday...







In this photo you can see the Momo removable steering wheel, Sparco seat, Schroth 6-pt harness, center console delete, center dash replaced with aluminum plate with switches and power for traction control off, AIM Solo lap timer, and Cool Shirt. Using good ol' banana plugs for power connectors (cheap, easy, and reliable)!

[Johnny Danger]

Looks good T Man !

[BruceH]

Extremely jealous! Good luck on Sunday

[AKnowles]

+1 on that. Looks really nice.

[Paseb]

looks like you relocate the fuse box on the left side of the seat like i did.

its alittle problem with me since i dont have any windows

what do you do to product them while your on track ?

[jsceash]

I think I'm jealous. That looks great

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Paseb

looks like you relocate the fuse box on the left side of the seat like i did.

its alittle problem with me since i dont have any windows

what do you do to product them while your on track ?

Yes, the fuse box is moved down on the lower door sill (if you missed this, look just over the top of the harness clasp in the interior photo and you'll see the colored fuses).

In regards to water, I also do not have windows but nothing was done to address water getting into the fuse box primarily because it just doesn't rain that much here in SoCal (<12in rain per year).