Should I swap a V8 into my 2000 Boxster S?
 

Yes.

Of course I should.
Everyone should.
Anybody who says otherwise is a fun-hating communist.

In fact, I already did and would like to share with everyone the details on how I got here.

PREFACE:

I have been following the progress of Martinsink and BoxsterLS376's topics since the beginning. Rather than distract from their stories with another build log, I decided to wait until I was complete and offer up my story as one continuous start-to-finish post. While following Jay's and Vlad's build, I was given numerous tips and suggestions that I likely would not have figured out on my own. I would like to give a big shout-out to both of them for the insight they either directly or indirectly gave me.

On the otherside of the coin, I will give a very strong word of caution to anyone who views this project as a "kit". Anyone advertising a "kit" to do this project has a very liberal interpretation of what a "kit" otherwise is. There are no instructions, there are no design specifications, and there is VERY limited customer support. If I were to do this project over again, knowing what I know today, I would skip the "kit" all together and simply buy the engine to transmission adapter straight from Kennedy Engineering (Kennedy Engineered Products) and fabricate my own mounts.

Fabricate you say?

Yes, fabricate.

If measuring, cutting and welding cold hard steel is something you're not comfortable with... it's best to abandon the idea of doing this yourself. While you don't have to be an expert (I'm far from it) to do this, you do need to be quite comfortable with basic fabrication.


THE BEGINNING:

A few years back, an old friend called me up saying his 2000 Boxster S had an engine problem. After confirming the problem was NOT the IMS bearing, the well known Porsche shop quoted >$10,000 for a replacement engine. Rather than throwing good money after bad, he offered the car to me at a fire-sale price that I couldn't refuse.

http://i.imgur.com/54UhF38.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4PqXIZS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/82ypt5T.jpg

All the information I received up to this point indicated that a rod bearing was potentially spun. My initial plan was to pull the crank from the engine and then have it welded and reground to factory tolerance. However, I was in for a NASTY surprise when I finally freed the crank from the block.

http://i.imgur.com/LuDupwo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MdSbX2H.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/josDBoR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pAbBZZ3.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dv4NbEq.jpg

In my 20+ years of playing with engines, I have never seen a crankshaft fail like this. Needless to say, my confidence in this, or any other M96 engine had (has) been reduced to null.

Never fear, Captain America to the rescue!


THE PLAN:

After getting a quote of $4500 for a replacement crankshaft, I gave up all hope on putting this M96 back together. Instead, I set out on an ambitious mission to replace the original M96 with a Chevrolet LS based small block for the similar budget of a junk yard (aka: let's roll the dice and see how long THIS one last before something else catastrophically lunches itself) replacement engine... which is between $3500 and $4000.


STEP 1 - FIND AN ENGINE

With the help of my trusty side-kick, I located an all aluminum 5.3L V8 from a 2006 Chevy Silverado called the L33. What makes this motor special is that it shares the same head castings as the coveted LS6 motor that was used in the first (C5) Z06 Corvettes. However, most junk yards don't realize this, so I was able to grab a complete 120,000 mile running drop out for $700. This came with all the wiring and ECUs I needed to fire the engine up.

http://i.imgur.com/682bmvv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pwsBSS6.jpg


STEP 2 - BUY THE ADAPTERS

This was a painful part of the process. The adapter "kit" I bought was by far the most expensive part of the entire process (cost more than the car itself!) This was even after I opted to not buy the optional items like an upgraded clutch, eater pump and electric power steering pump. I was rightfully convinced that I could source and / or engineer more cost effective alternatives myself.

As I said in the preface above, I should have just bought the engine adapter and flywheel directly from Kennedy and fabricated my own motor mounts. While the components that were included in my kit were very pretty and powder coated... I didn't bother using half of the pieces, and the other half were mostly overkill.

http://i.imgur.com/FF7hfvO.jpg


STEP 3 - PREPARE THE ENGINE

In truck form, the L33 was simply never going to fit. The oil pan was too deep, and the intake was too tall. The oil pan, pickup and dipstick were replaced with a new factory original setup for the F-body LS1. The intake manifold was replaced with an aftermarket Chinese (Qualifier, I think) aluminum piece.

http://i.imgur.com/fCF0XoH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ahZnpWV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/33R2K66.jpg

Next, the crank pulley and accessories needed be addressed. When I say it's tight in the front of this engine setup... IT'S FRICKING TIGHT! The only way to make this work is to use the pulley from a front wheel drive LS motor (LS4) found in vertain Grand Prix GXP or Imapala SS (the bull**************** Impala SS, not those sweet Impalas from 1994 - 1996 that I spent many formidable years growing up in after graduation).

Before anyone starts talking about using the water pump or accessory drives from this engine in addition to the pulley, they won't fit. Plain and simple, nothing is going to fit above the center line of the crankshaft. This is the only way to run accessories off the front of the engine in this configuration while keeping any semblance of a stock appearing firewall.

http://i.imgur.com/bVygnqE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UX6YdKd.jpg

I warned you that it's tight:
http://i.imgur.com/Y7KvJLB.jpg

Before bolting the engine and trans together, I decided to pull the heads off and clean up the top end. I had the machine shop take off a previously-unheard-of-but promised -safe 0.030" from the heads. This bumped the compression up into low 11s. Additionally, I added a rather stout camshaft (~0.600" and ~230°@0.050" with 110° separation) and matching valve springs. This combo alone is said to make 450 - 470 hp at 6800 rpm. Truth be told, anything over 400 hp is gravy to me.

http://i.imgur.com/qGvEAPh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xoJWUYJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QEuLypH.jpg

With the motor together, it was time to bolt the engine and transmission together. The pieces from Kennedy are a work of art. I felt bad knowing that I'd be the only person to ever see the craftsmanship that went into the flywheel on this adapter. Absolutely stunning!

http://i.imgur.com/US18jZb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JWlcoXM.jpg

For the clutch, I bought the SPEC "stage 3" that is supposedly good to 500hp. However, this comes with a solid clutch disc since the Porsche M96 engine uses a dual mass flywheel. Martinsink was fortunate enough to have his clutch disc replaced with a sprung hub, but I wasn't as sharp and didn't realize this was an option. I decided to roll the dice and try the solid disc out (spoiler, it's fine. A sprung hub would be easier to drive, but the unsprung is totally manageable.) On a side note, buying the clutch through a third party vendor saved me almost $300 verse the option price from the kit supplier.

http://i.imgur.com/Ogc1mOK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PXpZipQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/q8rGxxy.jpg


STEP 4 - PREPARE THE CHASSIS

This step isn't for the faint of heart. Up until now, everything could have been undone. This was the moment of no-turning back. The biggest and most nerve racking part of this process is cutting the frame channel at the bottom of the firewall. This frame channel is used for the front motor mount in the original engine configuration. To make room for the engine and accessories, this must be removed. Additionally, the firewall access panel / hole needs to be significantly enlarged to accommodate the new engine. This means that the original engine cover will never be used again.

http://i.imgur.com/1wQWfHu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KYPvdWd.jpg

Next, I test fit the new structural components that would be holding up the engine mounts. The kit manufacturer has mistakenly sent me two driver side rails initially. This turned out to not be an issue as I later decided to not even use these pieces.

http://i.imgur.com/GU2pnl4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/66vkmhQ.jpg

Now it's time to start test fitting the engine in place and make some motor mounts. The front motor mounts were (kinda poorly, I've since gotten better) fabricated from scratch using a set of generic motor mount pucks I found on Amazon. The rear motor mounts were retained (even though the kit supplier said they wouldn't work and I needed to buy some fancy / expensive poly mount) after adding a spacer between the mount and cross member.

http://i.imgur.com/Lkk0w6F.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/be1Yw1d.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BqIWtuH.jpg

Oh wait, I forgot to mention that I DID wind up using those frame rails from the kit. The beauty of having a massive gaping hole in the firewall during initial test drives, is that you can watch how much the engine moves around during normal driving. I decided to add an outrigger to the lateral cross member to prevent it from rotating during acceleration and engine braking.

http://i.imgur.com/fzHMZQx.jpg

Now that everything is bolted in place nice and tight, let's rip it all out again and prepare for...


STEP 5 - START THE ENGINE

I will spare the wiring details. It's lost on most people anyway, but I LOVE a good wiring project. As an automotive powertrain controls engineer, it's part of my job. This project did not disappoint in terms of complexity. I estimate at least 50 hours of my personal time making the wire harness alone. To be fair I completely disassembled the entire GM harness, removed all unused wires and then custom fit each wire exactly to my specification. Again, I'm kind of a masochist when it comes to wiring projects. :)

http://i.imgur.com/3SadVqj.jpg

Before putting the engine back into the car, I decided to start the engine on my bench. This required me to finish the exhaust down pipes off the headers and quickly mock-up an intake system (yes, I know. The MAF is too close to the throttle body. This was moved further upstream once the engine was back in the car.)

http://i.imgur.com/7WqNWuG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0Gwcr5H.jpg

This LS engine uses a static fuel pressure that can easily be set with a C5 Corvette regulator / filter combo. I hooked up an electric pump I had laying around for bench testing.

http://i.imgur.com/5S8OTe4.jpg

Redneck engineering at its finest!

http://i.imgur.com/OOxvBdR.jpg

Fire it up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09KfmWPU5b0

Before going back into the car, I needed to address the mismatch between the Porsche electronic pedal, and the one that the Chevy controller was expecting. I really tried to keep the Porsche pedal and replace the original potentiometer with the guts from the Silverado pedal, but it simply would not work. In the end, I simply replaced the entire pedal assembly with one from a Silverado. On the positive side, I positioned it just perfectly for optimal heel-toe activation.

http://i.imgur.com/RvMwhED.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/u8MNwKl.jpg

STEP 6 - FINAL INTEGRATION

"Y0 dawg! I heard you like German Engineering, so we installed a German engineer into the trunk of your German automobile!" This is my friend and co-worker Ralf who lives in Frankfurt Germany. He had a free evening while in town so I decided to put him to use and help me test all the final wiring integration. The nicest thing about this project is that I able to reuse all of the original factory wiring for all of the engine functions. Cooling fans, fuel pump, temp gauge, tachometer and key switch all function exactly as they would in an otherwise stock vehicle.

http://i.imgur.com/ggkwumT.jpg

In order to get the incredibly tight air intake elbow to fit, I did have to trim a fair amount from the engine cover hole.

http://i.imgur.com/MOXCMGS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pPmnqAA.jpg

Exhaust fabrication took a fair amount of time, but was pretty straight forward otherwise. I had no expectations of this ever being a quiet vehicle... I mean, come on. It's a fricking V8! The Dynomax Bullet mufflers did not disappoint.

http://i.imgur.com/CGmVefS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9FGoSlJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/q7W0Xub.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc34uTyaJdY

Cooling system was one of the final pieces of integration. I do not recommend the approach that was suggested by the kit manufacturer. I have a full schematic drawing (just can't find it at the moment...) that I reviewed with multiple industry level professionals whose specialty is automotive thermal management and they all agreed my approach was the 'least-worse' of all other solutions. The relay for the electric water pump was wired to turn on in parallel with the fuel pump. I also added a manual override to keep water circulating with the engine off. This is very helpful when filling / burping the system.

http://i.imgur.com/tOjZ5os.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tuACmY1.jpg

Time to wrap it all up by sealing that gaping hole in the firewall. Following J's success with fiberglass, I tried a similar approach. However, I decided to skip the wire mesh reinforcement and instead used extra layers of cloth for strength. The idea was that this would give me the tightest fitting firewall possible. with my height being 6' 4", I did not want to sacrifice any legroom. With the initial fiberglass piece complete, I covered all sides in fire resistant ventilation wrap and then secured it to the firewall. Rather than using the original mounting holes, I simply used sheet metal screws to attach the new piece to the existing firewall. Yeah, it's kind of a cop-out solution, but this will never be seen and I have no intention of removing this firewall on a regular basis.

http://i.imgur.com/YegF5DQ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/X6iTmCE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VBqE6Gi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BaUIvbj.jpg

Time to put the interior back in and take it for a rip!

http://i.imgur.com/IKdc0uZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VsOtVQv.jpg

STEP 7 - DRIVE IT!

This car is an absolute riot. It's loud. It's fast. It infuriates purist to no avail. It's everything I ever hoped it would be, and then some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPJugPUTX8

http://i.imgur.com/K7ydPNm.jpg

In the end, I definitely spent more than what a junk yard engine would have otherwise cost me... but trust me when I tell you that is way more fun! Also, I'm sure I could do this for less money given another opportunity.

I still have a couple odds and ends to finish up like the AC lines, cruise control (yes, I plan on having full working cruise control) and the electric power steering pump from a 2012 V6 Durango that I picked up for $50... but it's good enough now for daily driving. I have logged about 200 miles on the conversion so far and have been loving every minutes of it.

I hope you enjoyed my quick little story. There are a lot of little details that I simply skipped in the interest of time. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Take care,
Andy

http://i.imgur.com/vIYx8Dq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/R4Yotfr.jpg

Thanks for sharing
 

Congrats on the project. Good write up. Enjoy!

Whew! I had to take a nap after reading all you did. Looks and sounds fantastic.:cheers:

Awesome man, glad you are finally getting to enjoy it! Totally worth the work eh? :D
Nice write up too, much easier read then my thread! :p
Congrats!
J

Found my picture of the cooling system. The only change to this drawing was the addition a thermostat before the radiator inlet:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1468454952.jpg

Thanks for all the help along the way. I was hoping to make a thread that captured the entire build in the first couple of posts. Kinda of bittersweet that this simple story took almost 18 months to complete. Better late than never!

Wow, very impressive :cheers:

Bayley, YOU ARE A MANIAC!

Enjoy your Porsche LS hot rod. :cool:

Nice work! I'm happy to see people doing more and more of the LS swaps. It doesn't seem like Renegade receives much love for their "kit". I've heard nothing but disappointment about their V8 Boxster kit.

Hello Andy,

first i thought where the hell did he get this no Stuttgart 21 sticker. Now i know. :D

All thumbs up for the V8 conversion. Sounds like a real sports car now.

Regards from near Stuttgart
Markus

Heh, I was wondering if anyone would catch that... or even would know what it is.

I spent some time in Feuerbach working on a project with Bosch. Also housed an exchange student from Esslingen many years back. So yeah, I've been through the area a few times. My only opinion of the Hauptbanhoff 21 is that the damn protesters would always detour my route from the airport to the office!

Thanks for the compliments.

Markus I was just in Stuttgart, I should have sent you a PM.

I went to the Porsche dealer to buy radnabenabdeckung for my 50th anniversary [emoji1]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...d5cc011980.jpg

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

What a great write up!
Have a blast with your rocket and run circles around any 911 you see

I love the car and the attention to detail with the wiring!

As much as I love the LS engines, I'd have a hard time cutting that much of the car up. I don't want to offend anyone, but if you have to cut that much structure of the car away to fit the engine, it probably isn't the best engine for the chassis. At that point, why stop at the LS, and not just swap in a VAG brand W12? I'm not a big fan of removing chunks of highly engineered structure from a vehicle, but that's just me.

With so many VAG engine options that bolt directly to the Boxster/Cayman transmissions, I don't understand why people go to the added expense and complexity of using an engine that requires transmission adaptors and that extreme amount of cutting. Is the added power really worth the extra cost and risk involved with the structural compromises?

Hopefully this winter I'll have an opportunity to see how one of those VAG engines fits.

Now that I've pissed you off, I'm wondering if you would be willing to share the Boxster-side wiring connections you made... :)

I was going to give you all my wiring information... but since you poo-poo'd all over my project, I'm instead reporting you to the moderator(s) as an unregistered sex offender!

:P

Joking aside,

There were 6 or 7 wires that from the factory harness that I tapped into.

The cooling fans (high and low speed) were pretty obvious. Both the Porsche and GM architecture use low side switching relays. This means that one side of the activation coil in the relay always has 12V applied while the other side of the coil is controlled by the ECU. When the ECU wants to activate this relay, it "sinks" the current on the pin... or in less fancy terms, it simply pulls the terminal to ground.

The fuel pump was a little tricky. The Porsche engine controller uses a low side side to power the fuel pump relay, but the Chevy ECU uses a high side switch. I had to swap the wiring around in the fuse box, but I got it to work with the factory Porsche relay.

Both the fuel pump and cooling fan relays pull power from a master power relay called T87. This relay is controlled by the engine controller and is designed as a safety function. If the engine controller ever goes dead, it will cut power to potential fire sources such as the fuel pump and fuel injectors (Chrysler calls this the ASD / 'Automatic Shut Down') The Chevy ECU has provision for it's own T87 relay, but the Chevy uses high side switching while the Porsche expects a low side switch. I fixed this issue by adding a poor-man's logic inverter with a simple 12V relay.

The ignition signal was a straight forward switched 12V signal, but the starter solenoid used a second redundant relay (for safety? Dunno...) The secondary relay for the starter circuit was bypassed.

Check engine engine light was a simple one-to-one connection.

I still need to hoop up the wires for the cruise control, but those too look like a simple one-to-one connection.

Like I previously mentioned, I'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to wiring stuff. :)

As for the structural integrity, you really need to poke around down there without an engine in place. The pieces that are removed are only used for the factory engine mount. There isn't any torsional rigidity that is lost. I didn't believe this either when I first started investigating this project, but once I had the engine completely out and the car on a lift that, I saw how this section of body wasn't important anymore.

Intredasting!

As I mentioned I'm hoping to do something cool this winter. I currently have an Audi 2.7tt sitting in my buddies garage, but I'm not sure that I want to deal with intercooler piping for two turbos. That same buddy also has a belt-drive 4.2L V8, so we'll see.

I recently did a 2.7tt swap into a B6 chassis A4 (the body style which came with the horrendous timing chain eating engine), so I've successfully pulled off a Motronic based swap and some of the wires you mentioned sound familiar. My Box is a 2003 so it's DBW which throws some confusion into the mix. But your wiring is a good help! Thank you!

Did you wire the OBDII/K-line connections to the GM ECU? I'm interested to see whether or not you can perform OBDII readings using the factory Porsche connection. Emissions testing around here is based on that function essentially.

Audi 2.7tt swap sounds like a horrible idea...

I LOVE IT!!!

For the OBD connector, the plan is to run the GM Class-2 (J1850) wire to the Porsche OBD connector in the driver foot well. I currently have a completely independent and separate OBD connector in the trunk for the the GM ECU. I'm pretty sure the J1850 wire is on a different pin that what the Porsche uses. If I can't pop an additional pin in the Porsche connector, I'll just re-wire a entire new connector that I have laying around at work.

Once this is complete, any diagnostic scanner would work the same as it would in any other car. They'll even be able to toggle the engine light to verify you didn't just yank the bulb.

IMO, the only advantage of the 2.7tt is the turbo noises. But the additional work required to install the engine that is attributed to the turbochargers of the 2.7tt seems like almost the same amount of work as would be require to simply turbocharge the 4.2L... so... there's that to consider...

Oh wow I didn't know they could do that with the lights. Definitely good to know!

The nice thing about the motronic ecu into motronic body was that the CAN bus was compatible. My car was actually emission tested with the 2.7tt in it and passed without issue. As far as pin-outs with your car goes... I'd imagine that Porsche follows the same protocols that VW/Audi/BMW does in this link, considering they are all Motronic based.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics#OBD-II_diagnostic_connector


It would be interesting to see what happens if you wired the GM CAN wires into the Porsche CAN circuit. I'm not an automotive controls engineer... I just work in the plants and figure out how to assemble them and keep the lines running... so you'd probably be better versed to figure that one out. Are the communication protocols consistent across all makes, whether it be a Motronic or Delphi based ECU...

Hello Andy,

well the centre of Stuttgart at the rail station area is still a very big building site now. But it's getting better. Worst was over the last year or so. Only one lane, where normally are 2 or 3 lanes. So always big traffic jams everywhere not only at rush hours. But as you might know this not only a project that concerns Stuttgart centre, it tries to change the whole infrastructure in the Stuttgart area. So railways, airport connections and also the complete old railway station area is now a building site.

http://bilder1.n-tv.de/img/incoming/origs17859416/3932732395-w1000-h960/Stuttgart-21.jpg

And they again run out of money. They wanted to finish the project in 2021, now they say 2023. We will see.

Hi GTsilber,

well, next time i can ship you a Radnabenabdeckung. Will be for a much cheaper than flying to Germany just to buy one. :D ;) Though it maybe was worth it, because you could see the Porsche plant and the Porsche museum in Stuttgart person. Hope you had the option for a factory tour too. And don't forget to visit Weissach and Leipzig. ;)

If you go to my Garage here on the forums, you see my other car in front of the Museum. Rare shot because today it's no longer allowed to park cars there. Especially if it's not a Porsche. ;)

Regards, Markus

There are many, many, many facets to the CAN bus that make them difficult, if not impossible, to play nicely with each other. In addition to (sometimes) different baud rates, manufacturers also use different message IDs on a platform-by-platform basis. Even if the message IDs match, each 8 byte (max) message is often broken up into multiple signals. Even when you're dealing with the same manufacturer, the CAN database descriptions are often modified for each platform and updated every couple of years with new information. Chrysler, surprise-surprise, is the only major OEM that updates their CAN definitions the least.

GM CAN bus is a whole unique beast unto itself. A "normal" CAN bus uses two wires; CAN_HIGH and CAN_LOW. The signal is a differential measurement between the HIGH and LOW wires. The two wires are used as a redundancy. If one of the two wires fail (shorts / disconnects) the CAN bus will still be operational albeit in fault mode. Good ole' GM decided to save a nickel on every vehicle and eliminate the CAN_LOW wire and force the CAN bus to operate in error mode at all times. This wonderful "invention" was named GM-LAN.

So yeah... wiring the GM and Porsche CAN nodes together will do nothing. :(



I haven't been to Stuttgart since spring of 2011, would be interesting to see the progress. Looks like I'll be in Munich and Regensburg the first week of August. I might have to pay the extended family in Esslingen a visit.

Whelp, had my first drive-line failure:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02...1469130410.jpg

To be fair, it was my own stupid accord that caused it.

I added some axle spacers to put the CV engagement back to stock geometry. These spacers required 15mm longer axle bolts. I scavenged the parts bin at work and found some M8 x 1.25 x 65 mm recessed hex head screws. I checked the grade and saw 8.8 and figured "Grade-8, these will be fine!"

Yeah, not so much. My dumb@ss forgot that these were METRIC bolts and 8.8 is more like a grade 5 bolt. I needed to find a 12.9 bolt.

Anyway, the threads of the 8.8 metric bolts ripped cleanly off the bolts and separated my axle from the transmission.

The good news is that the transmission flange and housing are both undamaged. Thankfully I was only going ~2 mph when the axle bolts gave up the ghost. Even the axle itself is rebuildable.

I ordered up a set of el'cheapo replacement axles and another spacer to get me back on the road. The long term plan is to buy a custom set of 23" long chromoly axles for 930 CV joints from a dune buggy shop. They cost $230 for the pair and will eliminate the need to run the spacer that (kinda) caused this problem in the first place.

DOH! Welcome to the club brother! :p

Yeah that sucks, i've been there and done that. Sounds like you know the problem though :)

FYI I'm dealing with a water pump gone bad right now. Meziere pump provided by Renegade took a ****************. Hopefully no damage done to the motor cause I don't think I can handle pulling that thing back out. What water pump are you running? You get the one from Renegade too?

Ops :eek: Metric 8.8 bolts is nono on a High Power machine .

Can you remember what you did?

Job well done
 

nice work it has the factory look A+.

Midwest LS Boxster meet!!! :cheers:

I doubled up on the 996 axle spacers on each side to compensate for the axle geometry

https://i.imgur.com/z6M7sLF.jpg

It seems like it won't fit or that they will bind but they dont at all, when the car is in the air the wheels/axle drop and push themselves towards the trans side and it seems like there's only room for one. If you jack the wheel up as if it were on the ground you'll see the axle pull away from the trans side, you get it high enough and you can fit two spacers in there once it's all bolted up and it's on the ground, there's play you got in there while its sitting (keyword SITTING, once you hit bumps the wheel is going up therefore, pulling the axle away from the trans not causing anything to bind all while keeping a good amount of cv joint on the wheel side cup.), no binding going on what so ever or any weird noises. I got the correct strength longer bolts for it. I've been driving on them for over 2000 miles now and no issues what so ever. I've launched it on sticky competition track tires and I haven't sheared any bolts off or damaged my axles so it's working so far :cool:

Edit:
Here's a similar spacer setup on a R32 Skyline. (I googled a bunch of drift vehicles suspension setups to get to my double/bigger spacer idea I figured that they get so low that their axle geometry has to get out of whack too and lo and behold theirs did!)

https://i.imgur.com/5xq4qe7.jpg