986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - Boxster revival

Realized the motor was shot in Feb 2020 and then Covid hit. Began dealing with dropping the motor at the end of 2020 but lost momentum. Finally got it out in September of last year. Plans for the rebuild fell through due to logistics and parts issues.

I was lucky to find a replacement 3.6 M96-03 motor locally with just 40k on it in December. Snatched it up and it went in Boxster last week. Put in a new Sachs Competition Clutch and bearing and a FVD Brombacher deep sump with X51 baffle in it.

https://www.fvd.net/us-en/FVD20798801/fvd-brombacher-motorsport-oil-pan-increased-capacity-x51-style-baffle.html

I like this solution as it add oil but doesn't hang down too low and only has one gasket surface as opposed to the ones that put a spacer in there. Also put on a new water pump and low temp thermostat, although I have to admit - the ones I took off looked new. Since the car runs on a full custom Motec system - I needed an M9-03 to ensure that the wiring harness would work as well as the modified parts that my motor required.

Motor
http://rastta.com/images/boxster/new%20motor.jpg

In the interim, I installed an Porsche Motorsports electric power steering pump. I made the bracket out of some aluminum bar that I had. It's mounted to the floor. Since the car isn't stock and has no ignition switch (starter button) and the ABS module is on a toggle, I decided to power the PS pump with a toggle switch.

PS pump

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/pspump.jpg

The fuse panel or relay panel was never marked and I had no idea what some of the leads were and I had to sort out the 5 relays that were in there. After looking into it - I realized that I had a panel rated for 100 amps with 250 amps of fuses in it - and a few toasted areas on the panel. To make matters worse it was fed by a 6 gauge wire coming off the factory power distribution module on an 80 amp fuse. Also - 4 of the 5 relays were wired for a negative trigger.

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/old%20fuse%20panel.jpg

This lead to checking out the aftermarket fuse panel. There weren't any open fuses - as I suspected. I've always wanted to sort out the wiring in the car - since most of the stuff isn't working off the factory harness, such as the radiator fans, and aftermarket engine fans which sit atop the engine on a modified cover. The wires were also haphazardly run behind the dash and in the front of the engine compartment. Some leads, such as the wipers were on a hot lead with no fuse! I spent almost a week of working on this to sort all the wiring, tag it, separate it and sheath it.

Luckily I was able to source a new fuse panel/relay block rated at 250 amps and fully wired. I got it from https://12voltconnection.com/products/ols/products It's split into two sections - so I can negative trigger the one side with the four relays and positive trigger the other. It's also fully waterproof. They were awesome to deal with and considering what was included the price was very reasonable. The new power distribution block is now directly fed by a 0 gauge wire. Each section has a 125 amp fuse and used 4 gauge wire to the panel.

New wiring for power distribution

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/newdist.jpg

In order to take the dash off - I had to get the passenger side airbag cover off - it was glued on. This lead me to thinking - if I could make this open, it would be a good place the new fuse panel - as the wiring would feed the switches which were right next to in in the center panel. So I installed some articulating hinges on the bottom and a carbon fiber plate in it with reinforcements that mount to the factory dash mounting point and now I can access the panel easily. Yes it's upside down. Due to how the wires exit the panel, I couldn't mount it to the top. It's ok, I have the correct diagram which will be glued to the door.

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/newfuselocation.jpg

Since I needed new toggle on the dash, I decided to remake the Carbon panel in matte and use a bit thicker CF as the other one was a bit flexy. I also didn't like the old layout of the switches which was a bit haphazard as well. There was a toggle to switch screens on the Motec dash which I never liked and was hard to use while driving. The wiper switch was ugly as well. I had a push button on my steering wheel for my in car communications, so I made a new panel out of CF to mount on the wheel to accommodate two buttons. There were 5 wires in the cord, so I simply used another pair and wired the dash into a new matching button. I wired up a new plug and socket in the dash for the cable as well. I also made a new wiper switch and located it on the upper dash in a hole that was already there. I used a Gretsch guitar knob for the switch :-)

New wheel buttons and wiper switch

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/buttons.jpg

Old dash layout

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/old%20dash.jpg

New dash layout

http://rastta.com/images/boxster/new%20dash.jpg

Still have a lot to do. The PS pump needs to be plumbed to the rack (had to wait to do this after the motor install). As for the wiring, need to simply get the switches wired up, it's all ready to go. The motor just needs the top stuff put on - intake, etc. waiting on some new gaskets. Goal is an event at the end of this month. Wish me luck.