Paul_S
Well-known member
- Joined
- 3 Mar 2018
- Messages
- 233
Hi all,
Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum, I've been browsing for a while so good to finally be official. I thought I would start my own ownership thread so I could document the journey with my 996 which started on 2nd September 2017.
I'm always looking to tinker and upgrade but I'm an advocate of keeping it original as much as possible. So I was most attracted to the Slate Grey 2004 C4S which appeared at Mr911 in August 17 for both its great colour and the originality it showed (apart from the back boxes, which I'll get to later). I was happy enough with the car and the price, it had 73k miles and a decent (but not perfect) history but was in superb condition and I was willing to compromise on a shortage of some pieces of paperwork for originality and condition. Oh, and it had had 11 previous owners....
Spec includes heated electric seats, litronics, PCM2 with Bose, parking sensors and a few bits I couldn't decipher from the sticker as it was all faded...
From the outset the car had a super stiff clutch pedal, and combined with a high biting point I knew it needed a new clutch but I was happy to wait a bit for that. However, a few weeks into ownership (and only 400 miles) the car had done half of its oil and was very smoky on start up from the left exhaust, so I knew I had an issue. I paid for an inspection at HP Motorsport in Hainault and they confirmed bore scoring to Bank 2 and a few other minor bits, but apart from that it was supposedly a solid car
:grin:
I was always happy to take the car without an inspection as Clive (Mr 911) has a great reputation and I knew where he lived, so I was happy with the warranty he offered. He was superb, having had the car inspected himself he confirmed the diagnosis and after some to-ing and fro-ing we agreed on a full 6cyl rebuild and clutch/flywheel while it was there, and I contributed a little to the deal which I was happy with. Now, the rebuild itself took a lot longer than I wanted, I had no say on where the work was done and the garage (ECU Solutions) had a bit of a reputation on this forum for other work on members cars but it was part of the process. To be honest, apart from the secretive location and lack of regular contact, which was an issue at the time, the final result and subsequent customer service have thus far been very good.
So I ended up with a C4S with a full rebuild and new clutch, warranted for 2 years. This is the picture on the day I got it back (6 weeks later...)
I'm not one for washing and detailing, so I was glad to get it back clean. Sadly, the radio wouldn't turn on and after a bit of fannying about I found the fuse on the back of the PCM unit had blown so a simple but frustrating fix.
Having the car back I was now turning thoughts to how I could make it better, and so the list of jobs includes:
Fit a 997 shifter to shorten the throw a little
Get rid of the awful Dansk Super Sound exhaust as it is just too loud for me
Find out why the exhaust pipes are not level (both horizontal and vertical)
Renew suspension, including new M030 kit
So that's it for now, next instalment coming shortly as I need to bring the thread up to the present day (the first two jobs on that list have been done)
Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum, I've been browsing for a while so good to finally be official. I thought I would start my own ownership thread so I could document the journey with my 996 which started on 2nd September 2017.
I'm always looking to tinker and upgrade but I'm an advocate of keeping it original as much as possible. So I was most attracted to the Slate Grey 2004 C4S which appeared at Mr911 in August 17 for both its great colour and the originality it showed (apart from the back boxes, which I'll get to later). I was happy enough with the car and the price, it had 73k miles and a decent (but not perfect) history but was in superb condition and I was willing to compromise on a shortage of some pieces of paperwork for originality and condition. Oh, and it had had 11 previous owners....
Spec includes heated electric seats, litronics, PCM2 with Bose, parking sensors and a few bits I couldn't decipher from the sticker as it was all faded...
From the outset the car had a super stiff clutch pedal, and combined with a high biting point I knew it needed a new clutch but I was happy to wait a bit for that. However, a few weeks into ownership (and only 400 miles) the car had done half of its oil and was very smoky on start up from the left exhaust, so I knew I had an issue. I paid for an inspection at HP Motorsport in Hainault and they confirmed bore scoring to Bank 2 and a few other minor bits, but apart from that it was supposedly a solid car
:grin:
I was always happy to take the car without an inspection as Clive (Mr 911) has a great reputation and I knew where he lived, so I was happy with the warranty he offered. He was superb, having had the car inspected himself he confirmed the diagnosis and after some to-ing and fro-ing we agreed on a full 6cyl rebuild and clutch/flywheel while it was there, and I contributed a little to the deal which I was happy with. Now, the rebuild itself took a lot longer than I wanted, I had no say on where the work was done and the garage (ECU Solutions) had a bit of a reputation on this forum for other work on members cars but it was part of the process. To be honest, apart from the secretive location and lack of regular contact, which was an issue at the time, the final result and subsequent customer service have thus far been very good.
So I ended up with a C4S with a full rebuild and new clutch, warranted for 2 years. This is the picture on the day I got it back (6 weeks later...)
I'm not one for washing and detailing, so I was glad to get it back clean. Sadly, the radio wouldn't turn on and after a bit of fannying about I found the fuse on the back of the PCM unit had blown so a simple but frustrating fix.
Having the car back I was now turning thoughts to how I could make it better, and so the list of jobs includes:
Fit a 997 shifter to shorten the throw a little
Get rid of the awful Dansk Super Sound exhaust as it is just too loud for me
Find out why the exhaust pipes are not level (both horizontal and vertical)
Renew suspension, including new M030 kit
So that's it for now, next instalment coming shortly as I need to bring the thread up to the present day (the first two jobs on that list have been done)