27Mar2016
SPB 02 Damage Repair

Got the Boxster back from paint a last week. She got T-boned at COTA in February, so the boys at Pirello Collision got her straightened out enough for me to put back together. With the side painted, they left the bumper off so I could replaced the bent radiator. She took a really hard hit and didn’t leak a drop. This is why I recommend using CSF all aluminum radiators on all water-cooled Porsches, track or street driven. The OEM …
01Dec2015
The Waterpumper Blues

Had a little boxster come into the shop last week with a big coolant leak and grinding noise. Typically when I hear “grinding noise” complaints with an M96 or M97 engine, it means the waterpump is going to be in pieces, which isn’t a good thing. I can’t recommend enough replacing these waterpumps every 40k miles or 5 years. When the impellers come apart, the plastic bits will become lodged in the cylinder heads, leading to cracking and coolant intermix …
05Apr2015
986S Chain Tensioner Pad Replacement

Oh boy, so many blogs to post, so little time! This was a project in the shop last week. A nice little Booster S with about 50k miles on the clock. Owner has already done the IMS bearing, but wanted to get the chain tensioner pads replaced as we are seeing them fall apart on a regular basis now She was pretty dirty and oil underneath from a few various oil leaks and a previous seeping IMS/RMS. And a leaking …
10Feb2015
M96 IMS Solution Install

Another IMS solution went in a week ago or so. Had the motor out for some other things, so after going through some predirectives, we went ahead and installed the IMS solution which is another recent solution to the IMS bearing failure problem. There are a couple of factors that play into the failure of the IMS bearing, including oil seepage past the seal which washes the old grease out and cooks inside the bearing, thus starving it of lubrication, …

This week got away from me with various stuff around the shop and getting ready for a race in Texas, but got the boxster cam pads put all back together and up and running. Now I will run it for awhile, flush the oil system a few times, drop the sump plate again and make sure there is no debris it before moving forward with an IMS replacement. Here you can see the old pads next to a new set …
08Dec2014
2002 Boxster Engine Maintenance

Going through this little Boxster before the end of the year. With almost 100k miles on the clock, I noticed some pretty significant plastic chain tensioner debris in the oil filter when the customer brought it in for an oil change, along with some out of spec camshaft deviation numbers, which tells us we are getting play in the chain system as the pads erode. Along with a significant oil leak coming from the IMS area, it was time to …
03Aug2014
SPEC Boxster 002 Testing

Friday we headed up to MAM for fast fridays to do some testing on the Boxster. Thursday the guys finished the wrap on the car and it looks incredible. Everything went as planned and ran great. Car is very fast, significantly faster than 001.
24Jul2014
Spec Boxster #2 Continued

Got a lot of stuff knocked out on the Spec Boxster build this week. Tomorrow we meet with the graphics guys bright and early to figure out a design for the car. Man I miss the white car. Seat installed, fire extinguisher system finished, lightweight battery and kill switch installed, window nets, gauges, etc. I did remove the passenger seat floor mount (lots of spot weld drilling!), and that allowed a lot more flexibility for mounting the coolshirt cooler and …
24May2014
Parts Trip To Oklahoma Foreign
Hooked up BWT to the trailer on Thursday and headed down to Oklahoma City to Oklahoma Foreign auto parts to pick up some much needed parts. Probably not good to get spoiled driving a brand new rig that can roast the tires with a 24 foot trailer behind it. It just don’t care what is behind it. HP sells cars, torque wins races 🙂 Jager ready to roll! 5 down, 5 back, and a few hanging out at OK foreign. …
01Feb2014
987 IMS Bearing Issues Continued

So we decided to drop the motor and see if we could save the engine with a new IMS bearing. Since the car is a tiptronic with the glass window, it is just easier to drop the entire assembly rather than pull the tiptronic out…..and since we were throwing that crank position code, it just makes things easier in case we have to pull things apart. With the engine out, we can see that the center support stud of the …