THANKS EVERYONE!!

I really appreciate it! Was able to get the tach working today although I don't think it is reading correctly. Turns out the biggest problem was with the tap I was using on the wire, doh! This is why I usually solder everything, oh well at least it is working now.

I am hoping to have it buttoned up a bit more and trying to get it ready to go to the Caffeine and Octane car show next weekend. I'll double check with good ol' Pep Boys and see if their invitation still stands to set the car up in their little tent cause it's freaking hot out there!

Anyone in the Atlanta area planning on going to C&O? If so let me know and you can come by and check out the new beast!

Thanks
J

Is it this one? If not then when and where?

Caffeine & Octane | Automotive Lifestyle & Events

Yup that's the one!

If you haven't been be forewarned - get there early - it fills up fast - really fast.

Looks and sounds great! Awesome job man.

Now we need a burn-out video, haha!

Speaking of videos when are you going to do one that gives the car justice :)

I have a couple of Porsche buddies that will pee their pants :D

Hey everyone,

Went out to the show this morning but not sure if I caught up to any of you there or not. One thing I can say for sure is that it is a sleeper... NO ONE expects to find a V8 in this car. I had a small group of people who heard me pull in who chased me across the parking lot as I pulled in, those with keen ears I guess :)

One thing for sure is that the car doesn't display well, way too much stuff in the way with the top on etc. but those who saw it all seemed pretty impressed.

I have put about 200 miles on the car so far and have figured out a few other things which need to be addressed, but overall I'm very happy with it. I need to wire the low speed fans on, right now the Chevy ECU is just hooked up to the high speed so unless you are moving the temp gauge starts to climb to about 205* or so. Once you start moving it goes back down in the 180ish range... Keep in mind right now I also have a gutted thermostat in it so the system is constantly flowing through the radiators, need to get a lower temp t-stat like 165 or something. The biggest problem seems to be that once it does heat up a bit I think the reservoir fills up with steam and pushes the coolant into the system emptying the reservoir so all of a sudden you have a light flashing on the dash for low coolant. Stop the car for a minute and the reservoir fills back up like nothing happened... weird.

The only other major outstanding issue is the firewall which really does need to be better then the cardboard I have in there now :) Actually in the morning it was quite nice to have the extra heat from the engine compartment blowing in on you... but by the time it is 80*+ out you wish it wasn't! Oh well little things. Oh like the tach too, only working at half mast, but at least it is working!



The other thing I've realized over the past few weeks of having this car together is that I'm a crackhead when it comes to playing with cars, and unfortunately since my career change from computers to cars I don't have car/crackhead money anymore :( Looks like i'll have to build and sell a few of these things before I can actually afford one myself! On that note if anyone out there is looking for a unique 1 off sleeper Boxster with 480 horsepower on tap, let me know.

To be honest I've been pretty bad about adding everything up lately, but all told I have spent about $28,000 on the car and parts, and have easily put 150+ hours of work into the car. There are some things which need to be addressed still but the more I take care of the higher the price goes :) The car is not perfect, after all it is 15 years old, but it is probably the only one with a V8 available for sale out there so don't be too picky :D Asking $42,500 as is or 400 Benjamins, 4,000 Hamiltons or 40,000 Washingtons if you happen to own a strip club :cool:

On a side note as soon as I sell this one i'll build another. I'm a glutton for punishment I guess :)

Thanks~
J

I decided at the last minute to stay home and work on my major deck / outdoor kitchen remodel. I figured with the crappy weather not many folks would show - guess I was wrong.

I'm going to get by the shop next week for sure - need to put eyes on this beast.

Let me know when you are going to come by as after today i'll be keeping the car at home as we are low on inside space at the shop.

Any particular day that works best? I'm retired and flexible.

If you can come by today that would be great as I have the car here now, otherwise i'll just have to keep an eye on the weather later this week. i'll be back at the shop by 1:30-2pm if you want to come by.

Did you use LS1 flywheel bolts?

Sorry not sure off hand if they were Chevy or Porsche as they came with the Adapter plate/clutch setup, but I would figure they are Chevy LS bolts to bolt to the Chevy crank.

How's yours coming along?

Slowly but surely :D:barf:

Which alternator and ac compressor?
 

Which alternator and ac compressor Porsche or Chevy?

Porsche, GM starter though.

Selling already? :(

I guess selling is a strong word as I'm not putting it on craigslist or posting it to Ebay just yet. More like making it available here to someone else to see if I can make converting these a viable business, or just a side hobby to make myself a weekend hot rod.

It is awesome to drive and very fast, if I can start building these for people and make a living doing it then I'd be willing to sell it. But not everyone wants to drop $30K on a $10K car. If no one else wants it then I have no problem keeping it :) If someone else wants it then i'll gladly build another one and so on. I think everyone needs a V8 Boxster!!!

Reality is that anyone wanting to build one of these on a strict budget can certainly do it, but there will always be more to do. You can't double the HP of a car and expect everything to be hunky dory. I could very easily spend another $10K on this car right now on mechanical upgrades that I think would benefit it but I don't have it.

2 biggest things I would upgrade would both be in the transmission. I would put in a Guard LSD and a taller ring & pinion. I think the stock ratio is something like 3.444 and could probably benefit from something closer to 3.0 as first gear is too short and the rest are ok but you can easily spend most of your time in 5th and 6th and not worry about downshifting. I'm sure there are R&P's for racing out there to shorten everything up but not sure if anyone makes a taller one or not.

While the suspension on the car is good, it could always be better... I figure any 15 year old car would feel better with all new bushings, shocks or coil overs etc. but you better be in for a bit of a bumpy ride as upgrading to the basically solid mounts you already definitely feel the road!

Brakes are also very good but probably also a good idea to upgrade them, if not a full caliper/rotor upgrade, at the very least upgrade to some Hawk racing pads to help slow this animal down as it always wants to go fast!!

From there you could easily spend another 10K on cosmetic upgrades such as that sweet ass widebody kit and 997 conversion Lcrivers816 is doing!

But in the end it is all about what you are really looking for... If you are not a DIY guy spending $60K+ for a well sorted out Boxster with a V8 is a lot but you have something very unique and fun to play with that you can't just walk into a dealership and buy. You can daily drive it, track it take it to Porsche meetings, hot rod shows, exotic shows or to the drag strip and have a great time wherever you go.

Sorry I feel like I'm starting to ramble - What can I say it's hot and I'm bored at work :)

Have a good one~
J

How is it going? Still waiting on the clutch on mine =(

Going well thanks. The car is living mostly at home now as pretty much everything is complete and working. I would like to give a quick shout out to Steve @ Renegade. Always friendly and willing to answer calls and questions~

The biggest issues are all sorted... ish! A tach adapter got my tach working properly so that is good. The only other issue still remains with the cooling system although I've got that worked out on a temporary basis at least for now with a toggle switch for the fans. I haven't let it get too warm lately so it hasn't done it but seems like once it would reach about 210* or so the coolant would all rush out of the reservoir (causing PIA light on dash to flash) everything was still cooling fine but won't refill the coolant tank until you shut off the motor for a few minutes, then it fills back up and all is good. Weird. Could have just been more air in the system but for now flicking on the fans keeps everything under control.

I still have the t-stat gutted right now although that needs to be sorted. The GM computer isn't set to turn the fans on until 207*F which is probably fine but I've found that flicking them on around 180* keep everything pretty cool, even driving it around here in Georgia showing 96* on the dash the car runs about 195*~ Last night on my way home it was chilling at around 175*

Oh and I'm getting a check engine light for "Idle higher then expected" which kinda sucks but I believe that can be programmed down unless there is a leak that my smoke test didn't show.

Otherwise been driving the car pretty regularly and have logged about 350 miles on it so far. It is a completely different animal and I think the biggest problem so far is that I drive it way to fast. Luckily I'm not a complete idiot anymore when it comes to speeding but I'm bound to get into trouble eventually :)

I actually made a new video on the way home last night although I didn't post it for fear of self incrimination. Maybe i'll post it as a private video like the last one. It is a short cruising video with a quick 6th gear run from about 55mph to 90 mph... takes about 6 seconds and the MPH climb 4 MPH per tick on the digital speedo so it. Also dropped it into 4th for a quick blast and it didn't take long at all :)

I tried to sign up for the "wanna go fast" event here in Georgia in September but it is already sold out :( Maybe a trip to the drapstrip is in order - daddy needs some official times!!! :)

Thanks
J

That's awesome to hear! Did you get the AC going too? Steve 2 day priority shipped over the flywheel bolts were missing from the kit :ah: Spec sent me the wrong clutch disc (ended up with a regular clutch, they had my flywheel 3 months and nothing in regards to the twin disc). It wouldn't be a project if everything didnt go wrong lol.

Flywheel bolts were supposed to come with the kit?!

...add that to my list as well. :mad:

Sucks to hear about your clutch, hopefully you get it soon, we need updates man!!

I actually started to test fit the AC lines the other day and did some figuring... I figured that the way I have things set up the factory lines bolt right up to the compressor with just enough clearance to get by, just need to have the fittings removed from the other end, cut down the lines and have them re-crimped, bada bing. I also need to sort out the belt but that shouldn't be that big of a deal now that the alternator is sorted, although I think i'll need a bit shorter belt.

I'm gonna take the car to work tomorrow and think i'll mess with that a bit, it would be nice to have A/C!! I also need to see if I can get the rear firewall made and perhaps a cold air box for the air filter as well, hopefully that guy will be around tomorrow.

Regarding flywheel bolts, mine came with the kit but I bought the upgraded clutch kit for $1000~ so it was all nicely packaged together if I recall. All of the bolts for the clutch/flywheel were in a 3 section plastic bag which was heat sealed. If you didn't buy the upgraded clutch not sure if you would get them or not.

Good luck!
J

Yup, the flywheel bolts were supposed to be there. I didn't purchase the clutch

Well i finally broke it~
 

So just a quick little update...

Well I figured it would happen eventually but was hoping it would last more then 600~ miles

Hopefully i'll be able to come up with some better videos here in a bit as I got a little gopro type camera, which I was testing on the way home from work Friday and came around one of my favorite corners in 2nd gear, gave it the beans and BAM KLING KLUNK RATTLE :( Turns out I found the limits on the axle as it came apart on me on the ride home, WAH WAH WAH.

Doesn't look like anything broke in particular but rather came apart because of too much angle to the dangle. That and I was stressing it out about as much as possible making a right hand 120* uphill turn. Was it my fault, yeah sure, but what is the point of having a car like this and not driving it like an ass a bit?!?! :)

So I ghetto repaired one of my original axles and put it in for temporary purposes... now I really need to look into upgraded axles, only problem is that I don't think anyone has made any, including Renegade. They were talking about it a few months back but haven't heard anything going into production.

I found a few companies out there who will make custom axles etc. so may just have to have a set made up special for it. If I go this route I may have them made just a bit longer to help compensate for the transmission being back a bit further.



So to recap, if anyone has suggestions for upgraded axles, please let me know!

Also can anyone suggest a decent easy to use program for editing .MOV video files? I'll post the video of the axle blowout as soon as I can cut the video down to size as I'm sure no one really want to watch my whole ride home :)

Thanks
J

Any idea what actually failed?

I'm wondering if the CV joint is popping out of the cup after having the transmission moved backwards that extra inch. I've recently learned the importance of having proper CV to cup engagement after having my race car (don't get all excited, it's a 1992 Plymouth Sundance...) pop the axle on lap 1 of a 24 hour endurance race.

We swapped to a more modern engine and redesigned all the motor mounts. Unfortunately, the geometry wasn't quite spot-on and we were blowing passenger axles within a lap or two. We eventually made a 1/2" spacer between the outer CV axle and the hub that pushed the axle further back into the trans. Once the spacer was added, the axles stopped failing.

Just throwing this out there because I have my concerns about moving the transmission back without lengthening the CV axles.

Thanks Bayley,

Yes that is actually what we are going to try first because I do suspect that moving the transmission back just a little is the cause. I'm gonna get the bad axle cleaned up and see what went bad other then just pulling apart. I know there are a few raised areas on the outer portion that I saw but could be more - find out soon enough!
Thanks
J

Hey, did you find anything suspicious when you pulled apart the axle? I'm trying to get my car on the road next week and I really hope this doesn't happen to me.

I found them to be suspiciously short :) No but really it appears to have just pulled apart for the most part. The outer CV joint appeared to be riding on the very outside of the joint from the wear I can see and the combination of a heavy load with an uphill right hand turn pushed it to the limit. You can see 2 spots where the metal gave way when it finally let go and pulled apart on the outer portion of the CV joint. The cage itself it still fully intact although it does have a crack that I can see but I think that was not the cause of it.

I think I have a solution though which for testing purposes will be fine and could be a permanent solution. Hopefully a spacer on the transmission side will be all that it needs so I'm going to get my CNC guy to make some up then will need to get some longer bolts. I'll start with 1/4" and will get a 1/2" one made as well.

I've got everything I need to rebuild my factory axles now although I'm in no hurry until I can get this damn check engine light sorted out, technically the tag is expired now so I need to find some one who can turn the idle down on it but so far no luck :(

I might be interested in those spacers. Let us know how it goes.

tarett sells rear axle spacers. not sure what tranny you are running (thread way too long) but 's' axles are longer but would require you swap the hubs as well.

Yup the kit they sell is exactly what I was thinking...
Axle Spacer Kit, Rear, 15mm, 986 /987/996/997

It would be easier to buy one from them but @ $185 I think I'd rather wait and see if my guys can cut a few out. I'll may call them up and see if they will hook me up... I'm not very patient :D

...I like this option. Thanks guys!

Me too!! Give Ira @ Tarrett a shout and he can set you up - iraramin@tarett.com. I was going to have my CNC fab guy up the road make a set but by the time they do all the CNC drawings raw materials etc. it would cost me that much, take longer to get done, and I'd still have to find the bolts!

Thanks to The Radium King for pointing these out to me!!

I took the time last week to rebuild one of my factory axles and installed it on the car Friday. I was checking the amount of room I had between the axle and transmission when the outer CV is compressed and there is over an inch of travel so these 15mm spacers are going to fill the gap nicely!!

Only thing left to make me feel 100% about it would be an LSD... which technically I have I just need to pay my boss for it! Of course if I pull the transmission out to do that then I'll go ahead and get all of the gears cryoed and REMed to make it as strong as possible. I think I took some pictures of a few 914 V8 gear boxes we just put together, it pretty sweet. Takes all of the surface imperfections off the gears, almost looks like they have been polished/chromed. I don't really want to have the car down that long right now as we are coming up on perfect driving weather here in Georgia soon!

I don't suppose anyone has a spare 6-speed S gearbox they want to donate or sell REALLY cheap eh?? :D Can find them on Ebay for about $1200~ but I'm so tapped out on this project it is not even funny so it'll likely have to wait!

Thanks
J

:troll:
:mad:

Soooo... this morning started out well, it's been pretty nice so I decided to go ahead and drive the Boxster in today... took a back road in and saw about 5 deer grazing, it was great!

Ever since I put my factory axle back on I've been getting a little vibration under acceleration which can't be good. This morning was no different but I persevered anyway. So I was almost to work when I pulled out onto highway 41 second gear and leaned into it around 3K or so once I was going pretty much perfectly straight and moments later BAM!! ********************. :mad:

This time it was the drivers side which is still the brand new aftermarket axle... starting to think these aftermarket axles just aren't up to this task. Luckily I was almost done rebuilding my other factory axle so I got a ride to the shop and finished putting it back together, went back and swapped it out in the parking lot I broke down in. What a PITA. It is really not that bad of a job but I'm getting sick and tired of doing it!!!

So needless to say I got it going again and limped it back to the shop where it will stay parked until my Tarrett Engineering axle spacers show up sometime next week. Hopefully that alleviates the problem.

I tell you what shocks the piss outta me is that in my last conversation with Steve @ Renegade when I told him what happened with my first axle he reassured me that they haven't broken any axles except on a track car which had been running for 6+ months. They just run stock axles, no mention of custom anything, spacers, LSD, nothing. I just don't buy it. Does my engine/transmission somehow sit further back then theirs do? I dunno but once I put in these spacers I'm gonna run the piss out of it here on the street in front of my shop so I don't get stuck in a random parking lot again. Hopefully it solves the problem.

The axle geometry was always my biggest concern on this transformation. However all the sand rails I've seen built have more abrupt angles and seem to have no issues but the sand gives a bit unlike pavement and wanting traction. I'm also not surprised that Renegade was not forthcoming on anyone having axle issues but i bet they have them. Hope the Tarret spacers fix the issue.

Tarett Engineering Axle spacers save the day!!
 

You sir seem to be correct! I don't believe it to be the angle of the dangle but rather the distance between A and B!


Greetings all!

If you have been following along the you know I've had a few axle issues lately :) The outer CV joints were getting stressed to much and pulling apart due to the transmission being set back further in the chassis.
I wanted to get longer axles when we came up with the idea to just add spacers! Waaay cheaper and better option, at least for testing purposes, and if they work out fantastic! So I put my idea out here, got some great feedback and found out that the spacers I was going to have custom made already existed!! w00T w00T!!
Thanks again to "The Radium King" for pointing out that Tarett Engineering who are well know for competition level suspension systems already had spacer kits available!!! OUTSTANDING!@!
Axle Spacer Kit, Rear, 15mm, 986 /987/996/997

The spacers are 15mm and their kit comes with the appropriate sized bolts in 12.9 grade!!! Took less then an hour to install and fit perfectly...
Better yet I can already report that this has made a VAST improvement to the overall feel of the car. After installing my recently rebuild factory axle I had been getting some vibration under acceleration which seems to be gone although some longer term testing will need to be done to be sure.
Also gave it the good 1-2 in front of the shop a few times and haven't broken anything yet! I've got a video of that too which won't be publicly posted to youtube just because :)

Here's a look at the Tarett Engineering Axle kit which has saved the day and hopefully saved me from having to do any more parking lot axle swaps!!! :D

Video should be done uploading in just a few minutes~
http://youtu.be/2oEJ-wPirb4

Thanks!
J

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1441531840.jpg

So quick update, no more check engine light! w00T w00T!!

The car has now officially passed Georgia emissions, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Turns out I had a vacuum line in the wrong place basically. The fuel tank vent/purge line was the problem, for convenience I plumbed it directly to the intake manifold which on the Porsche motor is about how it is except that it has a purge valve on it so as not to create a vacuum leak.

Seems that the Chevy motor didn't like the extra fuel vapor/vacuum it was getting and was causing the idle to be "higher then expected", even though there is no noticeable difference in the idle. Once I re-routed the line and fired it back up, light was gone, YAY.

Cars running like stock Boxster awesome.
 

Congrats on passing the test!

Yes, big time congrats
 

I had a few head to head issues with those guys back in the middle 90's and our fleet cars back then........Oh the good ole days when you could actually make a decent living .....LOL