Not even going to go back and look at what all this axle talk is about.

I know a couple things though... (1) Never have a place in Kansas design custom axles for you. (2) If you need any kind of custom axle designed, especially Porsche-based CV axles, you go straight to a company called The Driveshaft Shop, and you don't look back.

The Driveshaft Shop | Home page

Well you should read back a bit, the drive shaft shop is great but want close to $4,000 for a pair of axles and I am not spending that much more on this car. I will chew up 40 $100 axles before i do.

JJ that shop I gave you the info on will do bullet proof axles for less than $1,000. My buddy is running 600 + HP through his Porsche box with absolutely no axle issues and his driveshaft angles are MUCH more severe than yours.

The angle is not the problem, it is simply chewing up the outer CVs that I'm worried about. His solution does not address that at all, so he needs a preferably NEW set of Porsche factory axles at a cost of about $900 each that puts his solution at close to $3K. Plus I wanted to REM and Cryo the CVs to try and prevent them from wearing out after 3000 miles and that would add another couple hundred bucks, so if I spend that much why not just spend the $4K and get the really really good ones.

I have just got the car going again after sitting for a month due to a failed water pump. Luckily because I bought everything new and it was covered under warranty. For now I have installed a different set of cheap axles that cost me about $240 for the pair and feel great. I don't plan on drag racing the car and if I do i'll bring a spare set of axles as I can swap them out in about 40 minutes, but at this point that is all I'm doing.

I simply don't have the money to pump into a solution for this as I am already $40K into the hole on this project and simply don't have an endless bucket of money or money tree. If I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation and would have just bought the drive shaft shop axles and been done with it. You have to remember this was a project car to begin with, with a budget of around $25K planned.

Now that it is up and running again I am going to test drive it over the weekend, get the emissions done so my tags don't expire and put it up on Ebay and hope for the best. If it doesn't sell then i'll just keep it and drive it.

Thanks for the clarification. My buddy already had the factory axles so his cost was about $900 for the fix.

I fully understand the lack of a money tree. I originally thought (based on Renegade info) that I could do a car for around $30 K - when I realized $40 K + was more realistic I decided to go in the direction I ended up going.

I really hope you have success with Ebay - keep us posted when you list the car.

Yeah as I have said before, unfortunately Renegade does a good job of "Selling the dream" with their v8 conversion "kit". I guess i was simply a guinea pig this time.

I don't regret it at all, if I had $40K to spend on a car I can't think of anything I would rather replace it with. I just spent an hour or two driving around tonight as I am due for emissions and had to clear the codes when the water pump took a poop. I drove it about 50 miles up and down the highway, mufflers on :)

I've had quite a bit of fun with it. If it does not sell the first time I list it, I will probably keep it over the winter time and do a few more things to it. I would really like to make a "valve-tronic" type exhaust for it so it is a bit louder when muffled, then rowdy at the flick of a switch... we will see.

This may interest Markus and other swap enthusiasts? Ford Coyote V8 swap !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTAJqax1TQo

Like that Cayman. Maybe he needs a scoop engine air intake system like the Ruf CTR 3:

http://i.auto-bild.de/ir_img/1/0/4/3...e07f316e97.jpg
http://i.auto-bild.de/ir_img/1/0/4/3...b0025d0a99.jpg
http://image.superstreetonline.com/f...ort-group-c-08

Regards, Markus

Hi everyone,

This is definitely the hardest post i've made here because as much as it pains me it is officially time to sell the V8 car, no more excuses.

Been putting this off for too long now... Mostly because I don't want to but you do what you gotta do so... I have officially listed my 2000 Porsche Boxster S V8 LS3 Conversion car for sale on Ebay.

Do me a favor and share it around, maybe someone could submit it to bring a trailer? :) Oh and feel free to bid away, reserve is set in the high $30K range~

It has been a lot of work, but loads of fun. Thanks to everyone for your support. Hopefully I'll be able to recover from this and come up with another interesting project in the future, you all will be the first to know.
Thanks
:'(
J
Porsche Boxster LS376 480 | eBay

Best of luck JJ - I'll share the ebay link with some friends.

Not sure if this has been covered yet on this thread but what is the 0-60??

0-60 mp/h ;)

Hi John,

hm, just US $10,400.00 as a highest bid. :(

Just keep the car. ;)

Regards, Markus

Update - I'm still here~
 

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the absence, life took over for a while and just haven't had the time to play. New job which i'll let you all know about once I get settled in - might be able to help you all out a bit more :) Obviously I did not sell the car and while it has always been and probably will always be for sale, I won't be giving it away any time soon, it is just way to awesome :) That said I need to get some updated pictures and videos up. I have done a few things to the car and while I do not have all the issues sorted out just yet, I think I have them all figured out so it is just a matter of spending more time with it.

Well that and the car pissed me off a bit at the end of the summer as the electric water pump decided it had a bearing that wanted to go bad and really put me a a fowl mood. The pump was fixed under warranty but it took a while and got me worried as hell about running the electric pump and was looking into different setups. Ultimately everything has been just fine but I've been thinking of getting a spare water pump just in case but at $500 a pop it has not been on the top of my list as long as it keeps working!

Other updates...

Upgraded to sport seats - found a guy who was converting his car to a track car and was able to pick up a pair of black sport seats to replace my worn out drivers seat - passenger seat still good if anyone needs one! The guy I bought them from took the rails so I ended up having to convert all of the stuff from my seats to the new ones. Sporties also have seat heaters although I haven't bothered to try and hook those up yet, need to get the switches etc., maybe before next winter :)

Removed oil cooler in lieu of AIR CONDITIONING~ So for some reason when I officially put the car up for sale all sorts of people were concerned about the AC working... OK. I understand I guess but come on, people used to be satisfied just getting a conversion to work yet alone make sure it has AC! So anyway I had the oil cooler set up in the way of where the AC compressor mounts and have removed that for now until I can figure out where to put it. Took some time but I was able to modify the Renegade AC bracket and finally got everything to line up straight, although I need to add a spring loaded tensioner as it is tough to get the belt tight enough to not slip as I don't have it wrapping around the crank fully quite well enough so it will slip every once in a while - but so far so good. Unfortunately after I got it all hooked up and charged I hit the AC button and nothing happened?!?! DOH! Turns out that I have hacked a few wires out of the harness I shouldn't have but should have that sorted out soon.

Speaking of sorting things out, the only real outstanding issue with the car has been the stupid flashing coolant light. Well I finally put some effort into figuring it out and while I initially thought it was a air bubble or bleeding issue turned out to be quite the opposite. It happens so regularly and right on cue that it couldn't be a coolant level issue, but the car never had any other codes, well turns out it did have codes, but they would just go away because I was shutting the car down before scanning it!! DOH! So I finally scanned it while it was running and VOILA! Turns out the stupid light was just telling me that the low speed cooling fan circuit was not working properly. YAY! So in putting 2 and 2 together it looks like there are 2 wires I hacked out that I need to wire back up, once I do that it should resolve both the coolant light issue, as well as the A/C problem! wooT wooT!!

Upgraded the exhaust... again. So whole I really wanted to build a true Jekyll/Hyde exhaust with electric valves, it just wasn't in the budget at the time. The muffler setup was just to quiet for my taste and while I love the straight pipes, they could be a bit much at times. I wanted to re-do one of the down pipes so I did that and did away with the X-pipe setup, then added a pair of small resonators and I think that did the trick! Car still sounds very aggressive while not being over the top loud, plus without the x-pipe it definitely changed the final sound, especially on deceleration. Now with the updated exhaust I may be able to still the oil cooler back there somewhere - just need more time to mess with it!!



The next thing I am thinking about is re-doing the brakes as the Hawk pads are really starting to annoy. I started a thread in the general discussion area about possibly upgrading to the Porsche PCCBs - yes I am well versed on all aspects of them so no need in going over that and with 480HP the car could definitely benefit from them, trust me.


Can't say I know off hand because I don't like breaking things! I guess it depends on how hard you run it but based on my 1/2 mile drag racing event I would guess in the 4-4.5 second range~ Here is the video, haven't checked lately but pretty sure 2nd gear is right at 60 mph... https://youtu.be/IQnfV9x5uGA

THANKS!
J

Glad to see you haven't sold it and glad to see you're back! Great thread and every single person who talks to me about putting a V8 in a boxster has read this thread.

Thanks Woody, i appreciate it! I'm not sure the average Porsche person has any idea how good a Boxster is with V8 power! Hopefully with my new job, a bit more time and money i'll just hang onto it and make it better and better :) While I no longer have dreams of doing conversions for anyone else, i'm always glad to help!
Thanks!
J

I'm sad to see the dream die - I can't tell you how badly I wanted to do a conversion right up until the price point didn't work for this old curmudgeon.

I assume you are no longer working in the shop - let me know where you land. I'd enjoy meeting up again and discussing cool projects that may be in the future.

Randy

Hi Randy,

Yup, price point is a big factor. For what you can get these days for $40K+ it is hard to justify that on a conversion car, and that is DIY to do it at my level. It could be done for less but there are always compromises you can make. I stopped adding up the amount spent a long time ago but I figure including the car I have every bit of $36K+ in it, plus no less then 250 hours in it and probably a lot more then that.

That's not to say i'll never do another conversion for myself, but given the new job I won't be trying to do conversions for customers. I'm actually eyeballing a nice 997TT that would be a good conversion candidate but doubt it will be cheap enough to make a feasible project out of it, but you never know :) Speaking of the new job, i've just taken over the service department over at Automobile Atlanta and am in the process of trying to get things sorted out there, but there is a lot of sorting to do! I'll keep everyone posted once I get settled in a bit more.
Thanks!
J

I've gotten a few people who ask me "how much" to do this to their car as well. As I'm sure you're well aware, things are ALWAYS breaking or need adjustment.

Can you imagine if you did a swap for somebody else and the water pump died on THEM, and in turn smoked their ~$ 10K crate engine? Your name would be dragged all across the internet coals as the guy responsible for the failure. I can empathize 100% with your feeling of not wanting to do this for anyone else.

Speaking of water pumps, have you come up with any alternative solutions? I too have concerns about an electric water pump running at 100% duty cycle. Mine hasn't failed yet (knock on wood), but I figure it's only a matter of time.

I'm giving serious consideration into swapping a modern BMW electric water pump. The parts are actually engineered and tested to a standard, compared to the 3 second "It works, ship it!" validation testing performed on aftermarket components. Of course, I'd have to engineer a CAN bus gateway to set the speed, or otherwise run it in fail-safe mode... which is likely 100%.

I also played around with the idea of running a marine style sea-water pump. Of course, I would have to put this in place of the AC compressor and you just mentioned that you are trying to keep the AC. Originally, I assumed that I would want to keep the AC but there wasn't a single time last summer where I heard myself saying: "Maaan, I really wish I had that AC hooked up..."

Thanks for the updates, hopefully I'll see you on the road somewhere this summer.

If you do go with a BMW pump, stay away from the pump used on the N54 motors. They're a common failure point.

Boxsterls376-question ..........I am wrapping up a ls1 in a 1999 996 build .One loose end interfacing the vehicle speed signal to the gm ecu .How did you do it ?
By the way thanks for taking the time to document your build .Both the build and the documentation are outstanding
Dave

Hey man,

Yeah with this kind of modifications it will pretty much always be a "project car". To be honest mine dosen't really break much, aside from the water pump which was pretty frustrating, car is pretty damn solid. Just been doing oil changes and once I get motivated again i'll take care of the other small issues and the AC. So far so good~

Speaking of the water pump etc. yeah I certainly would not want to be responsible for anyone else stuff breaking. I have not come up with any solution other then not taking trips far from home, or getting a spare and keeping it with me in the car along with all the tools to fix it :) I've thought about getting a second pump as a backup so if there ever is an issue I could switch it on manually. I would think BMW pump may work as long as it delivers the same GPH or similar. Those motors are pretty high HP so I would think they do a good job.

Weather is starting to get warm down here so I may have to fix that AC sooner then I thought :) Should only be 2 wires but I've had so much going on lately just haven;t thought about it. I'm sure that first time crawling into the black seats after the Georgia sun has been beating down on them will motivate me!

Thanks!
J

Greetings young Padawan :) Glad my build thread could help! Clearly you need to go back through and read it again because I have already gone over that.
Thanks
J



JUST KIDDING!

No big deal there and actually I dreamed it up in my head and then found that someone had already built what I needed! Check out TACH-ADAPT

I think it's like $80 and will make your life a lot easier! Good luck with the project, got any pictures or posts about it?
Thanks
J

Boxster ls376 -knew about the tach -was hoping you had connected the vehicle speed input from the abs to the gm ecu .The fundamental issue is what are the abs vss signal characteristics ?Once that is known should not be hard to convert to gm specs .
Perhaps you could point me to some likely sources to figure out what that signal is ?
Thanks

Ahh ok my bad. Are you trying to get the traction control working or something? Not sure why you need the GM ECU to see the ABS stuff otherwise. Almost sounds like you are trying to get the speedo to work, which in that case I can't really help either as the Boxster picks up the speed from a plug on the transmission. Does the 911 pick up speed from the ABS?

Regarding the ABS signal stuff - The short answer to your questions is unfortunately no. Google was my best friend during the build but that was not something I ever dealt with, sorry.
Thanks
J

Need the vehicle speed for emissions drive cycle tests .The ecu needs to know the car is moving The 996 abs right rear wheel sensor is used for the vehicle speed signal .The abs control unit does something to that signal .Don't know what and so far google doesn't know either .
Thanks for the speedy responses

You are welcome. Hrm... Yep never had to deal with that. I simply installed the GM ECU OBD plug in the trunk of the Boxster and tell the emissions guys to plug into that one. Voila~

GM ECU don't give a crap about speed etc. - are emissions very strict in your area? Any reason you can't just direct them to the GM plug? Here we just drive to the little booth, they plug in, see that it is OK, then you're good to go. No intense inspections of any kind.

Thanks
J

[QUOTE=BoxsterLS376;532424]You are welcome. Hrm... Yep never had to deal with that. I simply installed the GM ECU OBD plug in the trunk of the Boxster and tell the emissions guys to plug into that one. Voila~

GM ECU don't give a crap about speed etc. - are emissions very strict in your area? Any reason you can't just direct them to the GM plug? Here we just drive to the little booth, they plug in, see that it is OK, then you're good to go. No intense inspections of any kind.

Thanks
J[/QUO

Unfortunately I need the drive cycles .

Unfortunately, I too have the same issue with vehicle speed signals.

The short answer is that there is no easy way to do this with simple wire splicing. :(

The PCM uses a frequency generated signal to measure inductive pulses through a "tone wheel" inside a GM transmission (usually on the output shaft). If you try to splice into an existing ABS sensor wires, you are now inducing a second frequency into a sensor that is already getting excited by the ABS module. Neither module will be able to read the sensor correctly in this case.

The best concept / idea that I came up with is to add an additional tone-ring to the inboard CV joint of a drive axle. Next, fabricate a bracket that would hold a factory GM vehicle speed sensor up to that ring. You would then need to recalibrate your ECU properly match the tone pulses to actual vehicle speed, but I see no reason why this shouldn't work.

Good luck and let us know if you come up with anything different.

Dakota digital has a gps sender that I think will work .It is compatible with the gm ecu and looks like a simple , clean installation .If I hit many more dead ends that is what I will try .I keep thinking there is a way to take the speedometer signal and convert it to a ac sine wave for the gm ecu .So far -no .

Greetings everyone,

Finally got off my ass made made an update video! Covers some of the things I have done to the car in the last few months as well as more information on wiring which everyone seems to have questions about.

Here are a few things which have been done since my last updates...

Black Sport Seats! Got rid of the worn our regular grey ones finally!

Replaced Porsche Wiring harness - Nothing cut, just rearranged!

Flashing coolant light on dash - FIXED!

Air Conditioning - INSTALLED AND WORKING!

Oil Cooler - FOUND ROOM FOR IT!!! w00T w00T!! It now lives behind the drivers side rear tire where the muffler should be~

Exhaust changes - I remade the down pipes into 2 pieces so now I have about a 6 inch section of pipe bolted to the factory manifold that has the Oxygen sensor on it and a V-Band clamp on the bottom to make removing the downpipes easier - Nice thing is that you can get the entire exhaust system off in like 10 minutes.

More exhaust - No more mufflers, no more straight pipes! I have now installed a pair of 2.5" resonators which gives it a very nice crisp tuned sound - still plenty loud though! Skip to the end of the video if you want to hear it :)


*** WIRING INFORMATION ***

I explained this in my video, but for the record... This is how my car is currently set up.

The Porsche ECU and the GM ECU run in conjunction with one another to make everything function properly - All Factory Hardware - no aftermarket harnesses etc.

GM Crate motor wiring harness - AKA the "ENGINE CONTROLLER KIT" GM Part #19354330

Get the installation guide for this and it will explain everything you have to do in order to get the Chevy motor working properly in the car from wiring to MAF and O2 sensor setup etc. Can't seem to find a link to it at the moment but will post it when I do.

PORSCHE HARNESS - WHAT DO I NEED?!?!

Keep all ground wires
Coolant Temperature Sensor Wires - Older models i.e.. 2000 have a 4 pin coolant sensor while later ones have only 2 pins. Either one will work with a bit of effort.
Starter wires - 2 -Power and exciter wire
A/C Compressor wire - You'll need this if you ever want to run A/C!
Transmission speedometer wire - 2 pin connector, longest wire in the harness - Makes the speedo work.
Engine compartment temperature sensor - didn't have this running before but can't hurt right!
Engine Compartment cooling fan wires - Figure I'll try and get everything working properly!

**THATS IT**
Everything else can be cut out or stashed off to the side!

**TACHOMETER**
BUY TACH-ADAPT!!! This will make your life much easier. TRUST ME.
TACH-ADAPT

That about cover things for now...WAIT.

OK so I last thing, If I can get enough interest and possibly and Guinea Pig I was thinking of doing a "BUDGET BOXSTER V8" build... Making the mounts myself and trying to figure out a cheap was to get an LS motor in these cars without breaking the budget. Just a thought for now but if you are thinking of doing a swap get in touch and maybe we can work something out.

One last thing before the video - Please do me a favor and help me out a bit. Trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life and may finally have an opportunity to start my own business If you have enjoyed my videos then please LIKE/SHARE/SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube Channel and I will keep you all posted as to what I'm doing!!

https://youtu.be/7VBXhLaYac8

THANKS!!!
J

Glad to see you are back. What is this NEW business opportunity? The car sounds perfect and WICKED :cheers:

Hey Randy,

Well the opportunity is just that for now, an opportunity. I need to try and make something of it! If you guys have any ideas I'm all ears!

I would like to do these conversions for people, although to be honest i'll probably have to do a 911 next just because those cars are a bit more popular then the Boxsters. Well that and find people who want to do them! Maybe come up with an actually reasonably priced conversion kit that is complete, haha.

Seriously though it could be a good opportunity to build some kind of automotive based business so if you all have any ideas let me know. I have a friend who is a good Porsche tech so I may be able to get him on board and actually start a shop but will need to do more then just that, plus not sure i'll be able to get him on board right away as he has a new wife and child on the way!

Oh yeah the car does sound good doesn't it?!?! :)

ALSO does anyone have a spare engine compartment temperature sensor they are not using?? Got my engine compartment fan installed now I just need the sensor which is gone with my old motor! DOH!

THANKS!
J

Car is still for sale if anyone is interested. Time to move onto different things.
Thanks
J

Wow, that was a lot of work. Sounds great. I can't help but think the oil cooler is an oil heater sitting next to the exhaust.

Belt Squeal
 

John, I started my V8 conversion shortly after yours on a 2006 BoxsterS - I've enjoyed your videos... but did not know about them till well into my conversion. I used the same crate engine as you did and really went through a lot of the same discovery processes as you. I'm up and running and all is working reasonably well - except that serpentine belt squeal!!! I noticed you had the same squeal on your videos and was wondering how you resolved it? I've already remachined a bunch of the Renegade mounts and am about to make some of my own to give more belt wrap on the crank pulley... so how did you do it? Would really like to sit down over a couple of beers with you someday. Thanks, Doug My email is dougbehning@gmail.com

No not at all. It is not as close as it looks, closest part is the line that runs over it and it is several inches away. The cooler allows about an extra 1.5Q of oil and the cooler does just fine. I'll get some temps with my pyrometer next time I think about it.

Hi Doug, thank you, I'm glad my videos have helped! Yeah, the belt. UGH. Haha. That has been somewhat of an issue with or without the A/C. Without the A/C it was better, but with the alternator mount having the only adjustment you are pretty limited in both cases. I still had to cut/grind on the engine itself to get more adjustment as well as going through about 10 different sized belts to find one I could slip over the pulleys and still make it tight enough not to squeal

Currently I am running the A/C compressor and when I put it on I had to come up with a better solution to tighten it more. I decided to make an adjustable tensioning rod out of heim joints sort or like Porsche used on the old 944's - You can google Adjustable heim joint mount and you can see what I'm talking about. I ended up needing a pretty small one so I bought the parts from https://www.mcmaster.com and made a custom sized one. It didn't give me a whole lot more adjustability but has been ok, plus you still need to get just the right belt so it fits over the pulleys and doesn't max out. Now that the weather is cooling down it is starting to loosen up a bit so may need to look into it again.

The best solution would be to put a roller pulley in between the crank pulley and the alternator to get better wrap around the crank but really not enough room to do that, not without making some kind of custom bracket. Best advice I could give on the subject is to make sure your belts are 100% perfect before putting the motor in the car - otherwise it is a pain in the ass to deal with!

We could definitely get together for a beer sometime! I think we have a few V8 Boxsters down south here, maybe we can all get together at an event sometime??

I must ask this question again
 

preface this with I have never done a engine change in anything other than a Toyota and Honda. With all the speculation about a drop in engine for a replacement why has no one considered a Cayenne V8 ???. is it just too big or ??? the seem to be cheap compared to Boxster and 911 engines

So I pretty much forgot about these... can't seem to get the original files from my buddy so hopefully this works!

These are spectator videos of the 1/2 mile drag racing event I did last year, some decent outside of the car sound.

Me vs. Mustang - not much of a race :)
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.merrick.378/videos/1154879711213532/

Me vs. 498 RWHP C6 Corvette - GOOD RACE!!!!
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.merrick.378/videos/1154882014546635/

Me vs. Porsche 928 - Not much of a race either, it was stock :)
https://www.facebook.com/jeff.merrick.378/videos/1154878871213616/


Someone please let me know if you can view these, I can but I want to make sure you can see them too.
Thanks!
J

Yep to big and probably to complicated, but mostly to big! It is a very tall motor and while like anything if you wanted to I'm sure you could make it fit but not without serious modification~

Hey John what are you up to these days?