2003 Porsche Boxster S

[geraintthomas]

M77MWW said:

Absolutely stunning cat and a real tribute to yourself buddy love it! Huge fan of the oem+ look and I'll be ordering some of that alcantara for my Megane rs haha

Thanks very much really appreciate the comments, makes me carry on with what I'm doing with a means to do it when other people appreciate it. The alcantara really makes the interior into something else. I'm going to re-do some of it tomorrow - turns out spray mount isn't the strongest when in the sun after a while, but some people have said even wood glue would do it when painted on with a brush. Should be back to normal tomorrow afternoon.

I was going to pop to the garage to get the lights done, but they weren't open. Instead I did it myself, and they've turned out great

Used a box with lines on, to get the initial rotation right and height comparison with the two


Here's the beam pattern. If you're wondering if £18 ebay projectors are any good, here's your proof:


The cut off is stunning. Lovely small blue fringe to the tips, no curve (although that's fixable by bending the shield as ParticleWave mentioned), the bi-xenon part of it where it flicks the light upwards works fantastic too. The only thing I have to worry about now is if they last. If they do, they'd be bargain of the century.

Performance and visual upgrade in one

[geraintthomas]

Alcantara was very easy to work with and cheap too. It's the faux stuff, 1m x 1.5m for about £10 and that's all I needed. I need to re-do a couple of bits today as the glue I used wasn't strong enough by the looks of it. Looks fantastic though.

[geraintthomas]

I've just ordered DRL's:



So that should solve the problem of the parking lights being obscured by the projectors  They're Cree LED too, so should be very white and very bright.

[geraintthomas]

shalmaneser said:

Do you have a link to the projector modules you fitted?

I'm having a play around with some e36 projector headlights and am tempted to attempt a similar swap to you - your results look excellent!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152028284543?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

There you go mate. £18! Best £18 I've spent on the car.

I bought my HID's from HID-Direct, but to be honest I'd never recommend these. I've had about 7 replacement ballasts in the past few years, and last night had to replace another with a spare. It's ridiculous. Their service is great, but the products are poorly made. I'm tempted to fork out on a more expensive set, or even LED with ballasts as they don't have any warm up time.

lewisf182 said:

Your boxster looks absolutely stunning IMHO, such great attention to detail and I love the OEM+ look so much, wish I had a bit more know how to do the stuff you do! If I ever get a 996 I'll be returning to this thread

Thanks for the kind words I've just taught and done everything myself to be honest bud. YouTube and forums are pretty much how I've done anything on the car.

I was tempted to get a 996 but, for the money it's not a big enough upgrade over the 986 S. Yeah it's got rear seats, but it hasn't got a rear boot. Yeah it's got a 3.4 in there, but the Boxster is mid-engined (far superior handling and balance). And yeah it's got a higher top speed but, honestly, when am I ever going to do 180+mph. The 0-60 time is only about 0.3 seconds quicker, and considering all those facts, the 996 is literally double the price of a Boxster 986 S. I bought mine for £7,500, and a 996 is around £14,000 for a semi-decent one. So for £7,000 more you get an engine in a different location and rear seats (but no rear boot).

Don't get me wrong, if someone handed me a Boxster or a 911 for free and asked me to pick, I'd pick the 911 any day. It's just purely the fact that because I already have a 986 S, compared to my car, it's definitely not worth twice the amount of money for the upgrade.

Edited by geraintthomas on Wednesday 16th November 12:39

[geraintthomas]

All had IMS issues, but mainly ones that were garage queens and weren't used properly. Rubbers don't get used, they seize up and leak. An oil change can tell if it's good or bad as you'd see metal flakes. Mine has 90,000 on it and it's perfect. There's also a guy on the forums that has one with 350,000 on it and didn't know what an IMS bearing was.

The chances are very, VERY low of it happening!

[geraintthomas]

To recap, my main beams don't come on when I flash people with the dipped beams off in the day time, as the main beams are linked to the bi-xenon Projectors, so when I pull on the stick to flash people, there's no light to flick up due to the dipped beams being off. So for a work around, I needed a relay to switch circuits when needed.

Created the main beam changeover relay today.

Ready to make it:



Done:



Installed:



Works perfectly! If the xenons aren't on, pulling on the main beam will flash the old separate main beam bulb (perfect for day time flashing). The bulb is now a Cree LED a bulb with a forward facing projector on it, so that it's bright. When the xenons are on though, it'll use the bi-xenon solenoid to flick the projector light upwards and the main beam bulb won't be used.

Perfect.

[geraintthomas]

One of the things I've been meaning to do is to lower and space it. Lower it with the H&R 10mm springs, and space it using hubcentric spacers - most likely 12mm front, 18mm rear (or something similar).

Using an old photo, I've done a rough photoshop of the drop and space.

Before:



After:



Love the look. Considering it's only around £250 for springs and spacers, and as I'd do the work myself, it'll be well worth it.

[geraintthomas]

M77MWW said:

Will look great so get on it

I'm starting a new job in January, so I kind of need to be careful with cash until everything smooths out!

[geraintthomas]

Alcantara wasn't working on the ash tray - got dirty too quickly with bits and the door kept rubbing.

Decided to spray it metallic silver instead to match the gearknob and door handles.





Turned out great - sorry for the bad photos, it's dark and raining here so will take a better photograph in the morning.

[geraintthomas]

alec.e said:

Got a link to the Alcantara for sale? Is it true black, I got some black faux stuff that had an annoying blueish tint to it... Thanks!

It's black with an ever slight blue shade to it in certain light. It's hard to find alcantara that's not! The link is a few pages back somewhere, haven't got it on my Ebay anymore.

Gave it a thorough clean today, along with sealant and wax for the winter.



First proper photo with those headlights too. Ignore the condensation, that appeared after fiddling with the HID's with no back cover on. Will have to hair dryer it off!

[geraintthomas]

Worked on the front DRL's today. I wired them up to the sidelights as the projectors are covering the old sidelight bulbs (as explained before), so these will be the new sidelights. The kit comes with a relay with three wires (ground, 12v, and headlight), and if you plug the extra headlight wire into the headlights, it'll turn them off when the headlights are turned on. Haven't used that for now, but I may wire it in at a later date.

I'm a bit picky with colours of lights, don't want them to clash if there's a drastic difference in kelvin temperature between the DRL's and the headlights. If it is, I'll just have them turn off when I turn the headlights on.

I was going to drill two holes in the fins or up under the bumper in the grill, but I used very small but strong cable ties instead to attach the fixture on which the DRL's attach to, so it's very secure without it permanently altering the car. The wires are fed along the bumper, and if you pop the headlight out you can see the grills, so they go up through there and into the headlight through a hole in the back of the headlight cover (already existing for HID ballasts). They then plug into the sidelight bulb socket instead of an actual bulb. The beauty of this is that I don't need to take the front bumper off to do it.

Started work on it:



And voila!



And off.



They look great  I'll get proper DSLR photos soon.

[geraintthomas]

FELIX_5 said:

I've been following this thread with interest, as I fancy scratching the Boxster itch at some point. Really like your attention to detail. There seems to be a lot of hate on here for aftermarket DRL's, but those look like a really neat fit and could almost have been fitted from the factory, good work!

Thanks. I bought decent Cree LED ones as most people buy the cheapest ones they can buy, with multi-LED strips and they look blue and terrible. These are high quality ones.

ManOpener said:

So many of those DRL kits look incredibly naff and actually age the car, but those look so OEM and really modernise it.

Cheers

LordHaveMurci said:

Considering bore score etc I'd be worried about blocking the rads, probably just paranoia.

Looks great though, love your attention to detail.

Escy said:

I agree, lots of the engine problems like cracked heads seem to be traced back to cooling issues, these lights (which look nice ) are blocking a large area of the intake for the side radiators.

I had this in mind, but these lights are a lot smaller than they look - the profile of them is quite small and they don't block that much at all. Cheers for the concern though glad I wasn't wrong in thinking about it too lol.

[geraintthomas]

LordHaveMurci said:

As usual, great attention to detail

Many thanks

LanceRS said:

Unless you have just been on the M40, you have started something here. I've just seen a first gen, black D
Boxter with DRLs mounted about there.
I didn't get to see the plates properly and it looked too dirty to be yours.

Haha, could well have! I've only seen 1 other Boxster 986 with them, but they had cheap ones.

I've just bought new rear lamps. Decided to go for LED's, with a smoked top to match the black paintwork. The cleaner lamps modernises it to no extent.

These are the lamps:



Old ones:



New ones:



Together:



New lamps at night (brakes):





And what they look like in the day:







Very pleased with the way they've turned out.

[geraintthomas]

squareflops said:

great read, just noticed on going back to the beginning of the thread that you're in Cardiff too, ours look very similar! Well mine does to yours when you first bought it anyway!

I'll wave if I see you around

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Awesome! Shame you didn't say sooner, a few weeks back me and 6 other Boxsters went to mid-wales and back. We'll have to go for a drive

Yours looked exactly like mine did! Any plans?

alec.e said:

I agree with the above, this is not helping my want for a 2000s era Porsche!

Go get one! If you need any advice, let me know

[geraintthomas]

So after aiming for a more sleek, aggressive but still OEM approach, I've finally nailed the look I'm going for. The 987 Black Edition was something I didn't even know existed until earlier today.

Check it out:







That's kind of what I'm aiming for. The rear lights have some similarities with my newer ones. Those satin black tail pipes, matt black rear badge, and even the gloss black wheels could look great on mine.

These are my wheels but in gloss black:



Gorgeous. I'd want to get lower suspension (10mm) first before doing the wheels as a big wheel arch ruins a gloss black wheel, but I think these could look lovely.

When I refurb the wheels black, I'll do the inners silver and will put a very thin silver line on the edges, like the 987 Black Edition. Here's a Cayman with similar style wheels - black faces, silver inside barrels and a silver rim.



Ohh yes.

[geraintthomas]

I've also been playing around with ideas for the diffuser. I've never liked it as it seems a little fussy, so I'm making more of a feature of it.

See the newer ones?



Same shape, except they're matt black and plastic. It's a nice contrast between the paintwork and bringing out the exhaust area. Makes it look purposeful too, so I'm going down the same route.

I've photoshopped it up roughly, but I've done the following:

- Fins sprayed matt black
- Exhaust surround matt blakc
- Exhaust tips satin black
- Bypass pipes (and exhaust backing plate) black, to hide them
- Honeycomb grill behind the fins

Here's the difference:





Makes it look a lot newer in my opinion, and very easy to do. Will get round to doing it when the weather's good

[geraintthomas]

GrantB5 said:

Love this, keep it up! Taking some years off too.

Thanks very much!

Heaveho said:

Hi, Geraint, dunno if you recognise my username on here, it's Andy that sold you the alloys early on in the year. You've never mentioned it, so maybe it's not something that bothers you, but one of the first things I do with mine ( bought another in the summer! ) is to fit OPC plates. Just helps ( in my opinion ) the appearance to my eyes. Porsche Newcastle only charged me £20 the pair, and said that if I cracked one drilling it, they'd make me another free!

The car looks fantastic, all the best.

Ah hey Andy, hope all is well?

Now that's interesting. So Porsche will give you their plates with your reg on? What kind of things are on the number plate?

[geraintthomas]

Heaveho said:

Hi, all good here, thanks. The plates are nothing special, other than having the name of the dealer written on them ( Porsche Centre Newcastle, in my case ), but for someone with an eye for detail, it's worth having, especially at the price they charged me, as said, £20 a pair. They replaced the plates that had something like TK Motor factors written on the bottom of them, which I found offensive! Perhaps unsurprisingly, when I was living in Southampton last year the dealer local to me then charged me £36 for the same privilege, maybe proving that the north/south divide is alive and well!

I may actually get round to doing that, would love that detail on the plates Thanks for that!


Finally redid the rear badge in black.

Took the badge off the car



Put 1mm pad tape on the back



Cut around it with a scalpel to have a neat edge



Sprayed in matt black





On the car





Showing the rear lights up close



And while we're on the subject of lights...







Apologies for the filthy car!

At night:







Very happy with the way the car's turning out

[geraintthomas]

Some more photos of it up to date with its DRL's in place and after a well deserved winter clean:













Going to replace the rear control arms in a few weeks time as they're starting to knock a little. Common fault, they're only £65 each so I'll buy one for either side and will get to work when the weather dries up a little.

[geraintthomas]

squareflops said:

Liking the interior lights addition dude; quite fancy that myself.

This exhaust mod is something I'm seriously considering too. Charlie has built a few exhaust systems for me before so know his work is great. How does it sound on a run? Is it at all intrusive? We do pop over to France quite a bit so want to avoid a drone at cruising speeds but yours does sound fantastic compared to standard. £130 is a bargain from Propseed!

It sounds fantastic. You can drive this thing totally silent if need be, as tickling the throttle gives the same exhaust note as standard. On the motorway, there's very little resonating; there may even be less. You get that same slight drone at around 60mph, but anything above that is fine. I'm a stickler for having a quiet car on the motorway and I'm fine with this

Let me know if you ever want to do the interior lights, I'll talk you through it.