Ger's 2003 Porsche Boxster S

[RichRobby]

Ger,
Out of interest are you telling your insurance company about all your improvements?
You are obviously making the car a lot more desirable so increasing the insurance risk.
Interested to know what the increase in premium might be.

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk

[geraintthomas]

Things like the automatic roof and alcantara, no. Wheels and exhaust I have, and the premium hasn't risen.

Happy new year everyone! Thought I'd take some up to date photos of the car in its current form with the black badge, new rear lights and front DRL's:

[Anker]

Drool! Can't afford and don't have room for another Boxster, otherwise I would be sorely tempted!

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by Anker

Drool! Can't afford and don't have room for another Boxster, otherwise I would be sorely tempted!

You've got a 2004 S, so no need!

[BruceH]

Car looks great Ger

[particlewave]

What size are your bypass pipes?
They sound great!

[tommy583]

Yeah that exhaust sounds pretty sweet, car looks great as well

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by particlewave

What size are your bypass pipes?
They sound great!

1" pipes

Originally Posted by tommy583

Yeah that exhaust sounds pretty sweet, car looks great as well

Thank you!

[Nine8Six]

dbl-post sry

[geraintthomas]

No worries. About the pre-edited post, the bulbs are from a separate company that were built and designed by a specialist HID company - it's just the lenses that are from ebay, so don't worry

[Nine8Six]

Digging the Black Edition. Think its bad ars

Let us know how you've managed to get the tailpipe blacked out, I intent to do the same to cancel the shinny butt of my car. Just don't know where to begin with this (powder coat, hightemp paint, tar coatings, etc...).

That'll be interesting

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by Nine8Six

Digging the Black Edition. Think its bad ars

Let us know how you've managed to get the tailpipe blacked out, I intent to do the same to cancel the shinny butt of my car. Just don't know where to begin with this (powder coat, hightemp paint, tar coatings, etc...).

That'll be interesting

I'll be doing it with matt black spray and matt lacquer to be honest, I won't be using anything high temp. They're only tips so they wouldn't get that hot. I've used standard paint on calipers before and it has lasted years - unless you're putting it onto a rocker cover or actual exhaust pipes, then I'd just use normal paint

Matt black is ridiculously forgiving, you can get a stunning finish to it without even trying. Going to wait until the summer though to do it in one fell swoop.

[njbray]

I painted mine in barbecue paint - it dries to a mat charcoal color and handles the heat.
(they can get hot, especially after a hard drive).
The tips are custom made slip-on fitting. (when I go for smog I can remove them so the exhaust looks standard, so hopefully they don't notice it's bored out and has secondary cats removed!)

[Justin327]

I just sat here and read this whole thread, so much excellent work going in to a very low key package. Absolute class 100% of the way, I love the way it turned (is still turing) out!

[geraintthomas]

Originally Posted by Justin327

I just sat here and read this whole thread, so much excellent work going in to a very low key package. Absolute class 100% of the way, I love the way it turned (is still turing) out!

Thanks very much Justin, much appreciated

[geraintthomas]

So I'm in the middle of doing a radio upgrade...

I've decided to go down a different route to everyone else. I've got a CDR-23 so it's not an easy swap, but thankfully I've not got an amplifier so that does simplify things if only a little. I've gone down the route of an Android head unit by a Chinese company called Xtrons, as I wanted to make use of things like Google Maps, Spotify, and customise it completely to create a Porsche branded radio. Granted, these are made on the cheap but there's been great reviews, and I can tell you that so far it's incredible. Build quality is outstanding, and it's speed is fantastic. It just has to stand the test of time, but to be honest, what electrical component isn't made in China anyway? This wasn't an Ebay jobbie either, and was from the company themselves. They do a lot of custom radios, and are quite common.

It's not finished yet - I've ordered a custom surround as the Porsche double din one doesn't fit these which is a shame, so it won't be a perfect flush fit, but it'll look good nonetheless. I also need a radio antenna adaptor.

Here's the radio I've got:


It's got some incredible features. Being Android it's completely customisable. It's very fast, there's no horrible chrome buttons, the hardware buttons on the left and right are illuminated by RGB LED's and can be changed using any colour you can think of. It's lovely.

I powered it up using a laptop charger that I hacked into, so that I could customise it before fitting it.

Here's the home screen, with a custom Porsche background that neatly places a logo at the top left:


Customised the Android start screen to show my own designed Porsche startup logo:


Trying to make it feel OEM.

Got round to adding some apps (Google Maps, Spotify, etc)

Spotify:


Google Maps:


Notice the 'Porsche' app?




That's the Torque app, but I've customised the shortcut to show that. Torque now opens up custom designed layouts that match the car's interior, and gives me useful information.





Got round to fitting it:


The bezel should be here tomorrow, so it'll look a little nicer.

The awesome thing about it being android is that it's 100% customisable. I can install Netflix if I wished (obviously not going to). I can download Gmail, SoundCloud, even Facebook if I wanted to. It's perfect. The car radio can now diagnose its own problems through the OBD2 port and show real time information as shown above.

And the price? £190.

Now before anyone things "Awesome I'll order mine!", this was far from a plug and play job. I've had to run custom wires from the fuse box, cut the radio harness wires and wire them into the cars adapters myself while soldering spade connectors onto them, I've had to remove the plastic surround and dremel it to fit the new radio, etc. It's not pretty behind it all, but it's finally working.

The bezel is custom fit to the radio and not to the car, so as said before there won't be a flush fit, but it should look a lot better. I may even make a custom made one to fill the gaps, but I'll have to see. I'm also going to remove the alcantara on the horse shoe surround. It's alright but it's not perfect, and I don't want to sound like a snob but I'm not aiming for 'alright' with this car. It needs to be spot on.

As soon as the bezel's fitted I'll take some better photos!

[Nine8Six]

MAJESTICALLY AWESOME X1,000,000

Sooooo want the same

[geraintthomas]

I'm more than happy to help you if you want to buy the same

[Nine8Six]

Well, at that price + look & feel I'd be a fool not to do the same. I'll be in touch for sure - too kind bud

Seriously. It is by far the BEST dash unit I've seen so far for the 986. Speechless...those typeface & colors. ouch. Thanks for sharing this post

[geraintthomas]

The typeface on the Torque app is totally custom, just include your own font file

But yeah it's great, it's essentially an android tablet with a CD player and a car interface app permanently running on it. Stunning!