Kirk's Ride... - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

fragdude · 07-21-2008, 09:30 PM

This is about the exhaust/rear bumper (woulda asked earlier, but I hadn't bought a Box yet), I know 9ff make a rear bumper/exhaust combo like the one you have. Is theres the same thing as the gembella or are they different? anyone know? just curious

Kirk · 07-22-2008, 08:56 AM

The 9ff rear bumper is completely different from the Gemballa GT. The only thing they have in common is the exhaust exiting in the center (vertically) of the bumper. The spacing of the exhaust tips is different from Gemballa too, so the underlying exhaust itself is different too. I've got pictures if you want me to post them...

fragdude · 07-22-2008, 09:22 AM

just curious, you said there wasn't much of a difference in exhaust note and weight between the gembella and stock. It would be interesting for someone to put the 9ff and get a side by side comparison

Car looks cool, I don't mind the LED lights, but I think I saw a more "conventional" pair on ebay for people who are interesting in a LED look thats a bit less "radical"

Kirk · 07-26-2008, 11:02 AM

Just some pictures to show off the LED turn signal bulbs that are now making it onto the shelves of your local auto parts stores (AutoZone, Kragens, etc.). I bought a non-standard bulb, the 1156, with the incorrect prong spacing. It's just barely off though, so you can simply bend back the bulb socket to fit them in and then bend or clamp the socket back into place to hold the bulb tight. Here's a pic of what I bought for $17. They're red instead of yellow, but that's legal (in the back only) in California any way:

And here's a before and after comparison of the change, note how the yellow disappears around the standard filament turn signal bulb.

BEFORE

AFTER

Here's the LED version of the side marker light bulb. Again, available at a local auto parts store for $10. These glow amber and were a drop-in replacement in my Porsche OEM smoked/clear side marker housings. No fit or wiring issues, just simply swap out the bulbs.

Kirk

Kirk · 07-26-2008, 11:04 AM

Just sharing my latest father/son project. My 16 year old son is really into Need For Speed Underground, Midnight Club, and other games like that where you can really customize your car, including neon and wild graphics.

We did something a little more mild in the front trunk of the Boxster:

First a switch was installed to turn the trunk light on and off. This is nice since I often leave the front trunk open for extended periods when working on the car. I've just left the bulb out for months now. With this switch I can determine whether the trunk light will come on or not.

Next we replaced the trunk light bulb with a red one and installed some red LED lights under the front covers. The LED lights are also tied into the switch.

A closer look, along with my son's battery cover mod:

Total cost was $3 for the switch since I already had the LED bulbs (thanks Gary in BR) and I modified some old motorcycle auxiliary light internals to hold them. Well it may not be underbody neon, but my son still thinks it's kewl and he got to learn how to solder and apply shrink tubing as a part of this project.

Kirk

Stunin_Stud · 07-26-2008, 06:59 PM

I saw someone with your tail lights and they reded them out with red vinyl, it actualy looked cook with a silver car and gave the light a Carrera Gt look. 30 bucks for a roll if you want to experiment.

but Kirk
I wanted to ask you this earlier but I forgot. how did they match your paint? did you give them something or did you leave your car at the shop? I gave them my side vent and the paint matched but it was slighltly lighter than the actual car( no one notices it but me and it bugs me)

Kirk · 07-27-2008, 10:02 AM

Stud, thanks for the suggestion on the tail lights.

As for the paint... well I was going to do the bumper myself with a buddy's paint rig. I took the whole bumper to a shop to have the paint matched. They did a great job. But then when spraying the primer I found out that the paint equipment was not going to give me the quality of job that I wanted. So I broke down and took it to a body shop that used the same paint system as what I had purchased. They then used my materials to paint the car and to adjust the tone if necessary. They had the car on-hand for the match. They painted a part of the old front bumper and a section of the front fender to check the color match and then just cleaned the paint off when done. I'm not sure if they had to adjust the color or not, but the match came out pretty good. It's still not perfect and probably wouldn't be unless they blended it in with the surrounding panels. But it's good enough for me and I'm pretty discerning.

I think I'm mostly happy because I took the time to really discuss it with them ahead of time and make sure they understood fully what my standards were and what my expectations were. They then worked to do the job to those standards and I was happy. Whether with painting or managing people (I'm an engineering manager) I think that's half the battle towards getting good results - just making sure people understand what's expected of them when doing a job. Now that's not to say that they can't still screw it up, which may be what happened in your case. But if you've clearly spelled out your expectations ahead of time and they don't do it right, then that's when you say, "Nope, that's not good enough, do it again (at their cost of course)".