BoxsterLS376 introduction - LS3 conversion :)

[JRL]

Originally Posted by BoxsterLS376

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

[BoxsterLS376]

Originally Posted by JRL

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

[Bayley]

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.