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inveniam viam aut faciam
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Arvada, CO
Posts: 441
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FWIW, I do this kind of work as part of my business. I have done nine spec Boxsters, five SCCA World Challenge VWs, two World Challenge Volvos (working with factory engineers), a bunch of "weekend warrior" cars, twenty or so engines conversion harnesses (putting engines in cars that weren't original) and lots of odds and ends. Once I do these, my goal is to never hear back from the customer when it is done. It just works.
As far as how much weight you lose on a Boxster, that depends a lot on what options the car had, what you are setting it up for, and what you include in "removed weight". From an already minimized electrical system (no door harnesses, no heater harness, no wire guides or brackets) on a car with lights, you might get five to eight lbs. out of it. If you count those other harnesses, and had a loaded car with amplifier, memory seats, etc., you might get 15lbs out of it. If you are making an absolute minimal configuration with no lights, fans, cluster (use Motec, AIM, etc.) etc., <30lbs is probably is the most you could get out of one. To me though, the weight savings is not the most important reason to go through the harness.
The biggest advantage to simplifying the harnesses is to make the car more reliable and easier to work on. I know of two pro teams that missed events or had DNFs due to electrical gremlins that could have been avoided. Think about how much that would cost. There are people that just cut off connectors or branches of harnesses, tape them off and remove fuses. Those are nightmares. The proper way (IMO) is to completely unwrap harnesses, remove all unneeded circuits by depinning connectors, add in (with factory terminations and lightweight motorsport/mil spec wiring) and or re-purpose circuits for added equipment (cool suits, transponders, radios, telemetry, etc.) at factory splices and fuse blocks, then rewrap with factory or better harness tape or mill spec shrink tube. (I hate split loom). It is tedious, but when you are done it is simple, clean and dead reliable. When done, it should look like it rolled out of Porsche Motorsport that way.
Different customers have different ideas as to how they want the cars configured. One shop might want the cars set up like the factory Cup cars, with the fuse box in the stock location, factory light switches and stalks, etc. Others want no stalks, all toggle switches in the center, relocated Immo boxes and fuseboxes, steering wheel controls, etc. That is personal preference, but the more it deviates from the factory setup, the longer it takes, so the more it costs.
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'03 S, manual, 18" Carrera wheels, PSM, PSE, Litronic, 996 Cluster, +
Last edited by Qmulus; 01-13-2016 at 04:05 PM.
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