Oh. Well now that they're painted you really can't tell. They do look nice. Let's see 'em mounted!

Better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous

Paint day 2.5. Sorry if I'm over posting on the paint pics but I love painting. I'm hoping this is the last of paint days. I needed to repaint the trunk spoiler and roll bar. I also bought a Cayman S spoiler and needed to paint it too. I ended up saving a pair of clear headlights. They were very yellow and took lots of wet sanding. I painted over the silver eyebrow and trimmed them in black like the newer Porsches have. I then threw a coat of clear to bring them back to looking new again.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps0abnuwsj.jpg

Nice work Woody! The headlights look great! We never get tired of pics:D

The paint shots look great, Woody! What kind of paint are you using? 2 part or 1 part? Base+clear or just single stage?

The wheels look so glossy, I can't tell if you snapped it before the wet paint coat flashed dry, or if it really dried that glossy. Either way, looks great and very little orange peel from what I can tell.

I had some painting projects to do here recently out of rattle cans with my jam-packed one car garage, and I had to wait until the rain stopped and humidity wasn't "breath fog" bad, take part outside, spray, return to indoors small heated garage to cure (setup with a small electric heater and two 500 watt quartz IR heater lights), repeat next part and next coat, etc. did a bunch of interior parts in soft touch black this way, probably had to redo about half of them for various reasons. Once piece seems to have these arc-shaped crack blemishes no matter how many times I redo it. (Those reappearing blemishes are really starting to bug me, and I'm not going to reinstall the part with them!)

Another piece I refinished was an aluminum-look shift knob insert. Had some issues with the metallic base coat (I think was quick drying lacquer) being messed up some by the clear coat. Redid it and it seemed to turn out a bit better the next time, still not perfect but good enough, although the clear I used was matte, so want to to polish it a bit more as its not perfectly glossy yet. Hope I don't burn through, though, because I already did that on a previous attempt. :)

It's all in good fun, but using a wadded up tape ball as a shift knob is getting a bit old. :o

Woody should open Boxster University! Build your own! and you could clear out some Boxster stuff you don't want

Lol, I'm not sure how good of a professor I would be. I consider myself an expert on how to dismantle them but that's about it. I guess I could teach that course? lol. I'm lost when it comes to diagnosing engine and electrical problems though. I wish Jake or JFP would start teaching those kind of classes.

Thanks Jakeru. The arena red base coat is spies hecker paint ($200 a quart!), and the clear coat is Nason. I went with SH base because it's suppose to match better with the factory color. At least that's what the counter guy told me. Nason is a generic brand from Dupont. There's not a lot of choices around here. If and when I repaint the whole car, I'll probably use SH for the base and clear. It's very difficult to get a good finish spraying a one stage metallic. I've done it, but only on cars that had a small budget for paint. Base coat/clear coat is the way to go for most paint jobs that you care about. Single stage paints do have their benefits too, and that's what I used for the black. I went single stage on the black because of the headlights and grill mesh. I needed single stage because I wanted to paint and not have to worry about going over with a clear within 24 hours. With a two stage paint you need to get the clear on within 24 hours. I ended up covering the single stage black with a clear though. I did that for two reasons. Mostly because I had lots of clear paint and darker single stage paints show scratches very easy. I painted a black truck in single stage once and it would take lots of buffing/polishing to remove swirl marks. I'd have to do that every few months and it got old quick.
The pic of the wheels are after they had dried. They are very glossy but all the lights inside my shop exacerbates the glossy look. They also have 1 coat of etching primer, 1 coat of building primer, 4 coats of black and 4 coats of clear. I had to put so many coats of paint on the because of all the angles of the spokes.

One more thing Jakeru, I've been painting as a hobbyist for 27 years. All those years I was using those cheap syphon spray guns. I finally upgraded to a german made Sata gun. Oh my what a difference. It really is like going from a Hyundai to a Porsche. I highly recommend a good gun if you plan on painting more.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psiiwnwhuj.jpg
Free to a good home. Cayman S style wing. You pay shipping. I thought I would like it but I think it's too much along with the trunk wing.

Wow Woody Those headlights look great :cheers:

I'll take you up on that, Woody. ;)

Hey woody I am planning on the same wing setup. I have to finish painting the trunk this spring

looking good Woody!
where are you putting the licence plates?

great painting.
matt

damn Ive been wanting a cayman wing for years

Sorry guys, but Charles beat you to it. It was only $100 on ebay. I would like to see what the build quality and mounting design of the more expensive one's are like. This one took a lot of work to get to the point it's at and probably could use some more. It came straight from China with no mounting instruction or any plugs for the access holes. You're on your own for drilling the mounting holes and clearing an area inside it for the mounting bolts. I'll take some pics today and show you what I'm talking about later tonight.

Thank you for your compliments and opinion. I see when you guys recommend me on other threads and I very much appreciate it.

Here's some pics of the Cayman S spoiler and why I wasn't too impressed with the quality. I had to dremel out the area for the mounting bolts because there was huge globs of fiberglass in both sides.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps93yq7lrf.jpg
The factory bolts aren't long enough and I had to use something else. The only bolts I had that were the right size were allen head bolts. I suggest finding normal six sided bolts for your instillation.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...pstjch7rtn.jpg
Here's a little tip for everyone. These little trim pieces come off very easy and are only held in place by two little pegs pressed into ribbed plastic holes. I get a call every month for some of these but I think by putting a dab of caulk on them before they come off, you might save yourself some grief in the future. They're really easy to remove by prying up underneath them.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psyi8givg0.jpg
The same goes for the 03-04 rear spoiler covers. The 97-02 are held on by plastic rivets and securely snap over the aluminum frame. The 03-04 have no rivets and are not as securely attached to the aluminum frame. It's my belief that by adding some caulk to the back side of the cover, that it's less likely to come off. You might need to remove the cover in the future, so you wouldn't want to put anything that would permanently attach it to the frame.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psismivron.jpg
Here's the rear with license plate. There's an aluminum bracket behind the plate and mesh that is attached to the bumper cover. I can unscrew the plate holder when I go to the track so more hot air can escape.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psb4efhvrg.jpg

Damn! You got me thinking! I like the mesh in the rear bumper. I lost the rear spoiler on the highway calk was a good idea. Did you remove the bracing behind the bumper?

I got a few inquiries about the rear bumper and mesh I installed on my boxster. Almost every spec boxster has the rear cut open like mine or very similar. They get their boxsters very hot during racing and never have issues of the rear bumper cover melting. At least that I know of. That being said, I'm still going to keep an eye on mine until I feel comfortable with it. Unlike them, I still need to mount a license plate back there and had to add bracing that they don't. I took a flat piece of aluminum and folded ti over on the top and bottom. You can see in these pics how I attached everything together. When it comes to the mesh. Most spec guys just screw it directly to the bumper cover. I didn't like that look, so I folded mine around the whole license plate area and have the plate holder sandwiching it down. I think it looks cleaner and hopefully will hold.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psrtgwiucx.jpg
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psyiiv7qnx.jpg

So with the bumper done, I moved on to finishing the clam latch. I have to thank sassmatt72 again for the great idea to use the rear trunk latch. It works wonderfully!:cheers:. I spent hours trying to make something out of aluminum but ended up using the mounting bracket from the top motor. It was so easy once I gave up on aluminum. A little plasma cutting here, and a little welding there. BAM! So easy and functions great. The emergency cable is also the perfect length to tuck up and hide right behind the driver's headrest.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psr0vcyvq7.jpg
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psbo9ssjdg.jpg

Exterior is done! I had to kick it out of the shop because I need to remove a motor from the boxster behind it. Next on the list is finishing the interior.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps2c1cvfro.jpg
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psivntf8es.jpg

Car is looking great! Love the wheel / tire combo.
I wonder if Boxsters are set to become the next "outlaw' porsches? Now that 911's and 356's are becoming too valuable to mess with. There seem to be more companies getting into making upgraded parts:).
Now that Magnus Walker is getting into water cooled stuff - how long until he gets an old Boxster?

The car looks damn good!!!

Looks terrific! Nice job!

Thanks guys. I realized I'm not completely done with the exterior. I have a fellow member who's going to be trading me an arena red hardtop for my seal grey hardtop. I also have decided to keep the red calipers. I have a black set but I feel they would get lost with the wheels. I might experiment with different colors down the road, but for now I'm satisfied with red.

Nicely done there, your Boxster looks incredible. What about making that black set of calipers arena red, to match your rollbar? Just a thought :cheers:

Someone had mentioned that before and it's my color of choice but I'm hesitant to paint them with automotive paint. I'm not sure how well it would hold up to the abuse. I prefer to powder coat them if I'm going to go through the effort. I have the equipment to powder coat but I'm not sure about where to get the right color matching powder. Eastwood sells some that look close but I want an exact match.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psgu1ttd9o.jpg

I painted my calipers red. I just went to advanced auto parts, got some high temp red and some white stickers off ebay. Cleaned with good cleaner couple coats of primer then several coats of the red, put the stickers on then several more coats of clear. Came out great. but my car is arctic silver

His are red, I think the question was about arena red, which is the same color his car is.

Woody, I think it looks great. You could probably do a contrast color like green or yellow and it would look ok. Be interesting to see some arena red calipers though. Could you paint it with arena red and then use some kind of high temp clear coat to seal them?

The calipers look great in red. I wouldn't change a thing ;)

Fantastic build! Nicely balanced design... love those painted headlights.:cheers:

Thanks. The headlights are one of my favorite mods' I've done so far.

A little update on progress. Re-greased the axles and put new boots on too. Boy that's a messy job! I also installed the 4 stalk and ran wiring for the OBC and oil pressure to the 996 cluster. Nothing too exciting so I didn't take pics. I did take pics of my 987 airbox install though. I kept hearing how the 987 airbox was so much better than anything aftermarket. So I decided to install one instead of using an aftermarket air filter that I had bought from a fellow member. The 987 airbox is far from a bolt in and probably should have read up on it more before going that route.
Here's the 987 airbox before modification.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psamp3gwxp.jpg
It wouldn't fit without notching the bottom and trimming the intake horn. After some trimming and fiberglass/JBWeld/screws and gasket maker, the three bolt holes line up perfectly.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...pskpvjb65l.jpg
Not the prettiest, but won't be seen once mounted
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psrpekgeo7.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...pscwvusw50.jpg

I worked on getting the 3.4 ready to be installed in the boxster and I also performed some preventive maintenance. I mostly followed the instructions from "101 boxster projects" on swapping a motor. The only thing I differed from so far was the instillation of the vacuum hoses. I didn't like Wayne's plumbing on the vacuum hose for the brake booster, so I'm going to attempt a different way. I kept the connection in the rear and used the 996 hose that connects to it. I plan on cutting off the 986 fitting and connecting a hose to it.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps4bsgpqol.jpg
I have some other ideas if it turns out that there's not enough room for my way. I also used the 996 gas tank vent valve, which seemed to fit better to me. I used some extra hose to protect the line from chafing against the A/C compressor.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps70d2ogdr.jpg
Everything else was pretty accurate and helpful on preforming the swap. I don't like the way he plumbed his fuel lines though, and have ideas to improve on what he did.
This is what you get with cheap Chinese headers. Otherwise they fit ok once I ground down the bolt head.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps7ptgyqqk.jpg
Here I am so far. Needs a little bath but otherwise ready to install once I get the LN IMS pro installed. I also replaced the water pump, sparkplug tubes, spark plugs and 160 thermostat.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psafulpnsz.jpg

Great thread! I've been following along and its been a great journey!

Thanks Tom. I've been following yours too, but haven't had much to say. Silent admirer :cheers:

Earlier in the thread I posted some pictures of the aftermarket front caster control arms I was using. I had one break on me very easily and I rewelded it back together. I had a friend who has used these on his race car tell me I should also drill the back side and weld there too. It sounds like a good idea so I followed his advice. I first drilled out until I reached the shaft.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps6xpdksnl.jpg
I then turned up the mig and laid some deep penetrating welds.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psvpiad8pa.jpg

I spent today loading my truck and trailer full of boxster parts. I'm taking my 3.4 to a friend of mine up in Dallas to install the IMS Pro. I believe he's the only person in Texas who's certified to be an installer for the LN IMS Solution. He can do the IMS in his sleep so I'll let him do it. I work on these things because I have to but I don't enjoy the mechanical side as much. I'd rather paint a car than rebuild a motor.
I let it be known in the racing community that I was coming up there and I got swamped with orders. This is going to be a big Saturday for me. I have three shops and my friends mancave to deliver parts to . One shop is at a race track and I was told if I get there early enough, he would take me out on it.:dance: I'll take some pic.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps968mjukf.jpg

The first stop was my friend's place where we replaced the ims with a LN IMS Pro. For those who have the single row ims, you're not going to replace that bearing with the pro unless you have the special tool created by LN engineering! While there my friend sold me a 4 inch under drive pulley that is suppose to give you back 10 hp(tested by Jake Raby on his dyno). It also slows down the power steering pump which is known to overheat and boil the fluid.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psoja4qaep.jpg
I had to grind down the block a little for it to fit
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psabtmhzkm.jpg
Here's a the factory and aftermarket comparison. Behind that you will notice the arena red hardtop I traded with Rick.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psh2c2zvkz.jpg
We met at the shop that was getting the red boxster body to fix two spec boxsters. Here's Rick on the right talking to the owner of the shop. I only got this one shot but there's more to the left.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psj1cbkysh.jpg
A real 914-6 straight out of the 70-80's
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...pswxjinkef.jpg

I think I win today's redneck engineering award. I normally don't have to get the car this high to get the motor out. My table lift has an engine and transmission on it so I used my transmission jack instead. It looks scarier than it really is.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps4iavjg3j.jpg
Then I lower the car and raise the jack.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psrhnrm4po.jpg

This is where I'm curious what other people have done when using aftermarket headers. On the 1997-99 boxsters and the 996's, the O2 sensors are connected to the secondary pipe. One is before the cat and the other O2 is after the cat. The 2000-04 have the O2's on the exhaust manifold/pre-cat. These exhaust headers give you two O2 bungs per side, but one has a horrible angle. What I did was I used the secondary pipe from a 99 and used the first bung for the second O2 sensor. Curious for opinions?
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...pswc5kztdj.jpg

That os most definitely a bubba setup you got going on there. A real "Hold my beer" moment :-)

So, no cats?? With no cat there is no way the ECU won't throw codes unless you use a fooler to make the o2 sensors read differently... I think. That all I got.

Please start to wear gloves. I hated them in the beginning but now I can't work without them. I will send you a box if you want.

Woody,
Go here 90 degree offsets for sensors.
Check Engine Light Eliminator

There is another place that sells them but I can't find the site.
I used them on my car with headers
Van

Looking at that rear end suspended out there made me cringe a little, but hey, it's Woody, things are cool. Now where is that beer.

The "two post lift guys" have a winning argument when it comes to removing and installing a motor on a Porsche, but I still wouldn't give up my four post over a two post. I've yet to come across anything that a two post can do that I couldn't do with mine too.
As for the O2 sensors. I moved the last two to behind the cat on the secondary pipe by making an extension wire harness out of two old O2 sensors and the connections from an old engine harness. I'll probably need to use those O2 foolers when I switch to bypass pipes. The headers are huge but those secondary pipes look so small and restrictive. I'm also thinking about making my own exhaust system at a later date. I'm not a fan of the factory system. Mostly because of the weight, but because it looks overly restrictive too.

If everything goes together fine and I get a thermostat gasket in today, I should have it running this weekend.:dance: Too bad we're getting 3-6 inches of rain over the next week though.:(. I'm dialing in the ride height of the motor. Even after notching the engine bay, I still have to lower the motor 1 inch. The flapper valve can't tilt forward anymore because of the AC lines.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psveeuneb1.jpg