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My 996 turbo, the story so far.....

While taking a break from modifying I wanted to spend some time actually driving my car a bit more instead. I was out for a drive with a few friends around South Wales when these were taken.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

It was a great day out. The noise the M5 made was awesome and the Evora looked very special on the road.
 
Great photos. Is it a trick of the photo that makes the Evora look so big?
 
Also like to add how pics 1 and 2 show just how clever your mod to the lights is.
 
lofi said:
Also like to add how pics 1 and 2 show just how clever your mod to the lights is.

+1 :worship:
 
lofi – Thanks again for the kind words mate, always appreciated. I know what you mean, the Evora looks huge in that photo. We took a few that day and for some reason in that one it just looked massive. In the photo below it seems to be the opposite. I think both were taken with different cameras.

T8 – Thanks very much again, glad you're a fan of the lights.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr
 
This next one is fairly subtle. I've always thought the vents in the front splitter are very angular, compared to the rest of the front end, which is more rounded. Looking at the aerokit and C4S front splitters they both have more curved vents and, in my opinion, look better suited. I liked the vents but wanted to keep the standard front splitter, as I prefer the overall design of the standard splitter compared to the other two. The photo below is the standard splitter.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Below is what I had in mind. As I said, fairly subtle. I just wanted to try and adjust the shape of the vents to better suit the shape of the front grills. Excuse my poor 'photoshop' attempt.

by Dave W, on Flickr

Unfortunately, I'd lost a lot of the photos I'd taken while I was making these vents larger and repainting them. This was how they turned out though.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

The 997 C2S in the photos belongs to the same friend who owned the M5 in the previous photos. He's a member on here too.
 
My spoiler mechanism started to show signs of failure as one side wasn't raising as high as the other. A replacement hydraulic unit apparently costs quite a lot. I'd also read up about the option of re-bleeding the hydraulics as a temporary fix.

Any option I looked at seemed to require the full spoiler assembly be removed, so I decided to remove the spoiler mechanism and decide what to do from there. After familiarising myself with the way it was all put together, it was fairly easy to see how a little bit of hardware would allow you to permanently fix the spoiler in the up position. Two lengths of threaded rod, a few nuts and some washers was all that was needed to securely fix the spoiler at any height you wanted. All that was left to do was refinish the chrome struts in matte black.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

I'm sure most people would never even consider doing something like this, but as I wanted the spoiler in the raised position almost all of the time, it made more sense to me. I know a lot of people hate to see adjustable spoilers artificially in the up position, on parked cars etc. but I like it. I've kept all the parts for the hydraulics, so they can be refitted and re-bled at any time.
 
That has to be one of the most attractive 996 I've seen. I love the subtlety and OE look of your modifications. Well done and keep the thread going :thumb:
 
s70rjw - Thanks very much. I'll do my best to keep the thread going as long as I can. I've still got a few more mods to go before I'm up to date. The next one's not too subtle though.

APL911 - Thanks again mate, appreciate that.
 
Mate are all your spoiler parts in working order? Rebleeding / fixing is a much easier job then you'd be led to believe.

I had a broken plastic part in mine, sourced a replacement, rebleed - been fine since. The key is to submerge the lines in fluid and cycle the pump using a 12v battery charger, just reverse the polarity to cycle it the other way, I've got a short DIY I put on here somewhere,
 
Jamesyg - Hey mate, yeah as far as I know the spoiler assembly is all good. It just started to throw up an error light on the dash and wasn't raising all the way up on one side. I couldn't see any sign of leaking fluid anywhere. Thanks for the heads up on the re-bleed DIY, I'll definitely check it out.

Did you pull the trigger on that Momo wheel or are you still undecided?
 
Some modifications you decide to do straight away, others you spend a bit longer agonising over. This one took a full two years before I actually decided to go ahead with it. All the GT cars since the 996 GT2 and GT3RS have had an air vent at the top of the front bumper. The air flows through the central radiator and out through these vents over the top of the bonnet. I've always been a fan of these vents from an aesthetic point of view.

I'd chosen to base mine on the 996 GT3RS style vents, using the templates from a rennlist member as the starting point. I'd adjusted the templates slightly to give the spacing I wanted for the uprights and to give me the extra curvature I was looking for along the lower edge.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Unfortunately, when I lost all my photos, the majority of the ones I'd lost were from this project. I had some of the templates being trial fitted. There was also one I'd taken after I'd made the first cut with the dremel, at the point of no return. I sat there staring at it for a few minutes questioning whether or not I'd made the right decision......

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

The photos resumed again at this point, after I had picked up the bumper from painting. It still needed to have all the original grills refitted and the mesh installed.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

I used the same aluminium mesh that I'd used in the front grills. 3mm thick MDF templates, cut slightly smaller than the opening, with the edges rounded off were used for shaping the mesh. This process gave it an embossed finish so it now sits level with the top of the bumper.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

All fitted and almost ready to go back on the car.
 
I considered making the necessary adjustments to the central radiator setup to make the vent functional like a GT2. I decided though, at this stage, to leave it as an aesthetic change and look to make it functional at a later date.

I'd seen several photos of cars that have done this type of modification. After the bumper is fitted, it's possible to see through the mesh and some of the silver components tend to stand out. So I decided to try and make them less obvious with a coat of high temperature black paint.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

This was before. I'd already painted the front impact bar matte black to try and disguise it behind the lower grills.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

All painted. Not a huge change but everything should now be less visible behind the black mesh. I was now ready to refit the front bumper.
 
All fitted back on the car. After spending such a long time imagining how this might look, I'm pleased to say I wasn't disappointed with the results.

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

Untitled by Dave W, on Flickr

As always, with a lot of the things I do to my car, I'm sure some people will see what I've done as an abomination. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out, however, and feel the front end now looks a lot more aggressive.
 

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