Wayne Dempsey . - 101 Projects for Your Porsche 911, 996 and 997 1998-2008

By Wayne R. Dempsey

First published in 2013 by Motorbooks, an imprint of MBI Publishing Company, 400 First Avenue North, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

2013 Motorbooks

Text and photography 2013 Wayne R. Dempsey

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Digital edition: 978-1-62788-134-0

Softcover edition: 978-0-76034-403-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dempsey, Wayne R., 1972

101 projects for your Porsche 911, 996, and 997, 1998-2008 / by Wayne Dempsey.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-7603-4403-3 (softcover)

1. Porsche automobiles--Customizing. 2. Porsche automobiles--Maintenance and repair. I. Title. II. Title: One hundred and one projects for your Porsche 911, 996, and 997, 1998-2008.

TL215.P75D4623 2013

629.28722--dc23

2013029091

Editor: Jordan Wiklund

Design Manager: Brad Springer

Layout: Danielle Smith

101 Projects Website

Please visit the official website for this book: www.101projects.com. This website contains book updates, exclusive photos not published in the book, a Porsche Boxster forum, links to additional sites for more information, and locations where you can purchase the parts and tools mentioned in this book.

Other titles by Wayne R. Dempsey

101 Projects for Your Porsche 911 (1965-89)

How to Rebuild and Modify Porsche 911 Engines

101 Projects for Your BMW 3-Series (E30/E36)

101 Projects for Your Porsche Boxster

I ts obvious that a book of this magnitude does not simply write itself, but needs a cooperative effort from many people in all walks of life. Many people have helped me with this book over the past five years and have joined in my enthusiastic vision of what I wanted it to be. First on the list is Jared Fenton, who assisted me greatly with both the projects and photos for this book. Next is Steve Vernon, who spearheaded the project to convert our Boxster content to a format suitable for a 911 Carrera book. I would like to thank my very patient wife Nori, whom without her unending support and patience this project would never have gotten finished. Also thanks to my three young children, Sean, Holly, and Patrick, to whom this book is dedicated. Special thanks and consideration are due to Tony Callas, Tom Prine, and Casey Gervig of Callas Rennsport who have volunteered their time and resources on countless occasions in order to make this book great. Boxster guru Todd Holyoak deserves a notable shout-out for assisting with the engine information section and for helping to edit and review the entire book. Scott Slauson of Softronic was very helpful with reprogramming the DME and also in giving hints and tips about the cars that werent common knowledge. Special thanks to Charles Navarro of LN Engineering for all of his help with the engine projects. For their help on both the Boxster and this book in the 101 Projects series, special thanks are due to Peter Schletty, Chris Fayers, Jim Michaels, Becky Pagel, Carol Droutman, Brad Springer, and Jordan Wiklund for packaging my wordy content into a concise and useable format. Special thanks to Zack Miller for giving me more space to add more content and for putting up with my occasional irascible temper. Of course, no good acknowledgments section would be complete without a note of thanks to my parents, Meg and Ed Dempsey. In the beginning, Im certain they thought I was headed for trouble, but somehow they managed to turn the tide, and this book is one of many accomplishments that they have been proud of over the years. Also very helpful were Jim Michaels, Ken Fund, Jorge Martinez, Trinidad Winters, John Nutt, Tim Suddard, Jim Schrager, Joe Fabiani, Art Chavez, Lennie Yee, Paul Guard, Bruce Anderson, Gary Hand, Peter Bodensteiner, Pedro Bonilla, Jake Raby, Ray Crawford, Owen Stutton, Michael C. Harley, Stefan Wilhelmy, Joel Reiser, Scott Shores, Loren Cook, Stephen Kaspar, Hans Kopecky, Fletcher Benton, Richard Grauman, Frank Hernandez, Jim Scott, the folks at GMG and VF Engineering, Jay Horak, Randy Leffingwell, and a whole host of others who have given me help and encouragement with this great book.

O ver its 50-year lifespan, the Porsche 911 has earned itself a reputation as one of the worlds greatest sports cars. Not only has the 911 been improved and refined over the years to a near state of perfection, but it has also garnered a huge, loyal following of people who love to restore them. Porsche 911 owners tend to adore their cars with a passion and also enjoy restoring, modifying, and maintaining them to the finest level of perfection. If youre one of these people, then this book was written especially for you.

Information is the key to success in any project or endeavor. Without the proper knowledge, you can make costly mistakes and waste your time as you trudge through the learning process. The projects in this book aim to eliminate any guesswork that you may have while working on your Carrera. My slogan has always been, Let me make the mistakes and warn you about them, so you wont do the same. Believe me, Ive made many mistakes and learned the hard way the best and worst way to repair, restore, and modify these cars. My lessons, as well as the lessons learned by the expert mechanics Ive consulted with, are compiled here for you.

Who am I? I am the owner of one of the largest European online parts retailers, PelicanParts.com. I designed and built Pelican Parts especially for the do-it-yourself (DIY) mechanics who love to work on their own carspeople just like me. Our website has hundreds of Porsche technical articles that are the foundation for most of the projects in this book. If you like what you see in this book, you will definitely enjoy more of the same at our website, www.PelicanParts.com.

Lets talk for a moment about the cars themselves. This book covers the first water-cooled Porsche 911, which is also called the 996 internally by Porsche and many other people in the enthusiast community. The first model was produced for the 1998 model year in Europe; in the United States, the first 996 available was the 1999 model year. The Porsche Carrera 996 was produced through 2005. In 2005, Porsche introduced the successor to the 996, called the 997. The first series of the 997 was produced from 2005 through 2008, and the second series was produced from 2009 through 2012. So there is an overlap in the year 2005, which could cause confusion if you dont know which car you have. In general, the 997 has round headlamps, while the 996 has what are known as teardrop headlamps. This book was written only to cover the first series of the 997 (20052008); however, a lot of systems on the 2009 and later cars are nearly identical to the earlier cars. So the book is quite applicable to those cars as well, with the exception of the engine, which changed to a completely new direct fuel injection (DFI) engine in 2009.