Finally back on the road with the 911.

Vince

Vince

Vince

Man of Honour
Joined
30 Oct 2003
Posts
14,156
Location
Essex
Today was MOT day and after a very very long wait the 911 is back on the road. Went on a 50 mile round trip to celebrate and she is running well and feels like she has more grunt than ever :D

Here are some pics of it after it's all back together getting a wash yesterday:











The list of stuff I have done to the car over what is almost now 3 years of ownership is crazy, but as my birthday is coming up I wanted just one more thing so over the weekend I also put in a new head unit, I created another thread in a model specific forum but will throw what I did in quotes below, I even made a video, and before somebody tells me, yes I know I sound like an idiot:

vince said:
With my MOT coming up on Monday there is only one thing left to do on the car, I had previously used a windows CE based unit that had terrible sound quality and that was temperamental as hell so some searching on the net and I come across the pioneer app radio. The IT guy in me just couldn't resist after reading about possible functionality with android and an app that some clever fella has put into beta, modifying the standard pioneer appradio app to produce an app called ARUnchained that can do so much more.

So I started looking and found an appradio at halfords, the model is a sph-da110 for £250, along with a pioneer cd-ah200 connection kit which I found for £48 on ebay from a company in the US. The aim? full mirroring of my android device plus hdmi passthrough of audio, nav, phone etc straight to my sound system.

Here is the kit I bought:





First thing I needed to do was dismantle the dash:









Old head unit out, the observant will notice that I have already custom fit an extra bit of plastic cut out of some dash parts of a boxster to the underside of the heaters to fill that gap, all I needed to do was pull this out and modify it again for the pioneer unit:











In the car:



I don't know how best to explain what it is like to use or the little techie bits so I made a little video of it in action:

Click to expand...
 
I like the functionality of that HU. Looks great. Not sure if I'd be brave enough to do it mind you, but like it loads.

Great looking 911 too.
 
That interior couldn't have looked current when the car was released, it's hideous!

I applaud you for sticking with the car though, I know it's caused some grief.
 
acemastr said:
That interior couldn't have looked current when the car was released, it's hideous!

I applaud you for sticking with the car though, I know it's caused some grief.
Click to expand...

That photo really isn't doing it any favours and the car is almost 16 years old, in the flesh its an ok place to be. Functional and focused but yea you are right the interior in these is not much of an upgrade over the 993. The drive and the engine make up for it :)
 
xs2man said:
I like the functionality of that HU. Looks great. Not sure if I'd be brave enough to do it mind you, but like it loads.

Great looking 911 too.
Click to expand...

It really isn't that difficult to do and it makes for a decent experience, far better than carrying a bunch of cd's around in the car.
 
pepsilol said:
Have you had your engine mounts checked recently? Tail pipes look like they're sagging a bit down.
Click to expand...

Mounts are fine I think, but I will check them again anyway, It's back to a shop for a new back screen hopefully thursday this week so might be able to get it up on a ramp again. I was under it today while it was being MOT'd and checked all the work I had done while the car was up to temp, this included a few rotten exhaust brackets, water pump, thermostat and rads etc and that all looked ok. I do have a minor leak on the left hand cam sensor though so need to order a new seal for that.

The car was also really good on emissions, where last MOT they struggled to squeeze it through. That's a good sign that the top end is in good nick after the rebuild.

Edit: forgot to mention that I did work out that there are some missing plastic brackets that would normally locate the silencers into the rear bumper which appear to be missing on my car
 
Last edited:
Good work on getting it back! Taken you ages, hopefully many miles of trouble free motoring now.
 
Well done Vince, looks like you've had erm, fun, and learnt a lot at least! The end result looks great though and I'm sure it'll give you many miles of hoonage.
 
SoliD said:
Good work on getting it back! Taken you ages, hopefully many miles of trouble free motoring now.
Click to expand...

Lets hope so, there are still a few things that I can do but at least it is roadworthy now. Family are starting to place bets on how long it will be before i break it. :p
 
Vince said:
I have you know that those particular plimsolls are very comfortable. :D
Click to expand...

Heh heh. I'll let you off! One thing though, car does look great but not sure if it's the pics...I'd be really tempted to replace the steering wheel as it looks a bit worn. Could just need a good cleaning!
 
pepsilol said:
So what was the actual end cost to get it back on the road? Was it the IMS that went bang or scores?
Click to expand...

The problem was that it had cracked a cylinder head. The end cost was far more than I could really afford but I decided to do some extra stuff along the way:

The list is something like this:

1st engine out:

Replaced oil cooler, oil cooler seals, several cooling pipes including some long metal ones that run from the coolant tank to down near the gearbox, all manifold bolts drilled out (all of them snapped) and replaced with captive nuts

total cost, approx: £2300

2nd engine out:

Stripped down to the block, both heads sent to benchsound, one cracked (epic search, couldn't find a good head, well I could but it was in Australia and I was priced out of it) so one head was welded and both were treated to porting, polishing and a skim.

Gaskets, head bolts, clutch, release bearing, another new oil cooler, 2x air con rads, air con deseccator(sp?), 2x coolant rads, coolant pipes, oil pressure sender, coolant level sensor, coolant pressure release valve, water pump, thermostat and housing, sparks, oil filter, pollen filter, air filter, drive belt all the fluids etc.


Total cost approx: £4800

Other bits that were not necessity's:

Wheel refurb (done by me, with too much over spray on tyres) £40
front bumper respray - prep done by myself £100
Head unit cables etc: £300 odd.

Call that £450

So approx 7.5k into it so far putting it right. I still have a problem where the rear screen is coming away from the material of the roof so we are looking at another £500 there and then I think I will be happy with it.
 
Dis86 said:
Heh heh. I'll let you off! One thing though, car does look great but not sure if it's the pics...I'd be really tempted to replace the steering wheel as it looks a bit worn. Could just need a good cleaning!
Click to expand...

That's probably the fact that my filthy greasy hands have been all over it. I still haven't cleaned inside but when I do I will get some better pics of it outside. It is a tad shiny though but will come up lovely with some leather cleaner.
 
It does make a hell of a difference cleaning and treating the leather.
Love the colour of the car and I'm impressed with the level of work and money you've put in to sorting it.
Good man!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom