2004 Porsche 996 Carrera 4S

[Jefferson Steelflex]

I’ve had this 996 for 2 months but have only had use of it for a few weeks. Shortly after purchase, at 73k miles, it started showing signs of bore scoring (loud ticking, oil consumption and soot from lhs tail pipe). I paid £90 for an inspection at HP Motorsport who confirmed my diagnosis with scoring of Cyl4 amongst some other minor things that needed attention.

Luckily having purchased from a reputable dealer I was able to have the car fixed and after some negotiation I agreed to contribute to a full 6 cylinder engine rebuild and also had the clutch, flywheel and IMS bearing replaced.

I got the car back only last week, 7 weeks after it was taken away and it was delivered back by the garage that did the work (Ecu Solutions), who I have read a few negative things about but they were great for me and the engine rebuild has a full 2 year 20k warranty. I was not given any choice on where the work was done, which was a bit disconcerting, but I wanted to keep the car and hopefully it will be all ok. To be fair, it sounds night and day better than when I gave it back, and the garage also swapped out one of the exhaust manifolds which was leaking (this was actually picked up on the inspection but only as a 'leak from exhaust on bank 2', so fair play to them for sorting it).

So, the car spec is as follows:

Porsche 911 (996) Carrera 4S 2004MY
Manual
Slate Grey
Black leather interior
PCM2 Navigation with Bose
Fully Electric Seats
Heated seats
Xenon Headlights
Parking sensor
Painted centre tunnel in body colour
+ Dansk "Super Sound" Sports Exhaust

If anyone can decode this then please feel free. It's all faded so really hard to read some of them:


The car has good history, serviced every year despite the official 2 year intervals and plenty of receipts, although these only start in 2010 so either the car had nothing done in the first 6 years or there’s a few pieces missing, but nothing that concerns me as most of the usual jobs have been done once or twice in recent times (brakes, belts, etc.)

Annoyingly when I got the car back the radio wouldn’t turn on (and had no backlight at night) which led me to suspect the fuse at the back of the unit was gone. I’ve driven 200 miles since without any radio but I’ve had the pleasure of listening to the engine so it’s actually been quite nice. It’s a massive faff to get the radio out, but finally sorted and found the fuse had blown so all sorted with a replacement 10a fuse. I will say the exhaust is a little too loud for me - I wasn’t sure what exhaust it was as the invoice just says Dansk Sports Exhaust so I called the garage and asked how to identify it, they pointed me to the model number stamped on the rhs muffler and I did indeed find the marking to show it is the louder of the 2 options. I’ll comsider what to do with this in the coming months, I’d prefer something a little less conspicuous.

I’m currently running the engine in, no excessive revs or speed for 500 miles so I’m taking the car out for 50 miles trips as often as possible.

This is simply a fabulous car. It goes like a train, and the steering is the best I have ever experienced, so direct and it just feels so solid. It’s on original suspension, so I think that’s my next port of call, once I have some miles under my belt and I’m fully confident in the mechanicals, as having had a rebuild I still tend to drive it a but carefully and watch the dials constantly.

Anyway, here’s some pics which are from today without the car being cleaned(sorry):

Edited by Jefferson Steelflex on Sunday 12th November 18:11

Edited by Jefferson Steelflex on Monday 13th November 09:29

[chazwozza]

Nice. Often though about these but a 2wd. Let us know how the running costs go

[exgtt]

Love the colour and a fully sorted engine to boot. Here's to many glorious flat 6 miles!

Ps agreed on the sensible exhaust route with the 996.

Edited by exgtt on Sunday 12th November 16:53

[lewisf182]

Lovely car that very good spec especially the colour! I think its a pretty good thing that the engines gone pop as thats now something you don’t need to worry about! Shame you couldn’t have sent it to hartech or similar and got it bored to a 3.9 though...

I’m guessing the dansks aren’t switchable? I’ve got a topgear switchable on mine and its very quiet on the off setting but turning it on it’s a whole other beast - could be worthwhile buying that and selling yours to part fund it?

Enjoy! They are utterly brilliant.

[Jefferson Steelflex]

Thanks, yes I love the colour and I spent a short while trying to find one in the right spec and non-standard colour. The exhaust is non-switchable, to be honest the PSE was the only option this car was missing that I would have liked, so there's no switch on the dash.

Now I know it is the loudest version, I have some options at least to take it back to normal sports mode which would be 'better' than OEM, and price wise it doesn't look too expensive. As long as I can get the existing mufflers off without issue I will look to sell them on.

In terms of jobs for the short term, the current list is limited to stuff I can do myself on the driveway:

- Fit 997 shifter. I already have this ready to go on, just waiting for a reason to rip out the centre tunnel
- Try and move the exhaust tips so they are level both sides
- Semi solid engine mounts

Longer term:
- Fit spoiler switch on dashboard (a la Turbo)
- Full suspension refresh, probably keep it stock
- Retro cruise control

I still need to figure out why the windows don't auto up/down even though I have 'rre-programmed' them as per instructions.

[Paul O]

Looks very nice! If the decode numbers are too hard to read, you can request a Certificate of authenticity for your car, via the Porsche Club GB.

These certificates detail all of the options that came with your car.

[Jefferson Steelflex]

Had a constructive day off today playing with the car. Simple jobs first, fitted new bonnet struts so I no longer get whacked in the head when putting stuff in or taking stuff out of the frunk, and also replaced the wiper blades so I can actually see where I’m going in the rain.

Then moved on to my first piece of surgery, fitting the 997 shifter mechanism which gives the gearbox a slightly shorter throw. It’s a subtle mod but it does make a nice difference. I only took a few photos but it’s a relatively simple job, just 6 screws and a few connectors to remove the centre console and then unscrew all of the gear shifter connections. I sourced the shifter from eBay a few weeks back for £40 so a relatively cheap mod.





Took the car out for a spin afterwards to check everything was working fine and it really is a pleasing change. The standard 996 shift always felt a little long, so this is now a nice compromise.