2001 Porsche 996 LS1 Conversion Thread by 1dirtyZ

11 minute(s) of a 536 minute read

got the window to roll down all the way thanks to marky's tip, i also put in the speaker in place and then proceeded to put the door panel on , then i found out i'm missing a few pastic rivet thingies that hold the panel in ( no problem there) as well as the storage compartment cover ( on the door). so i need to do something about it . anyway here is how the speaker looks installed ( it has some sort of sound enhansing expansion chamber deal which maked the whole assembly quite huge) :

also took the water pump off and the balancer ( again ,,,) so i can fix the front main seal , also will be replacing the passenger side hard coolant hose i made with a 1.5" hard hose and route it slightly diffrently inorder to make room for the intake tubes.

another odd thing i found was this thing ( it was in a bag i used to put parts i found in the car when i got it , any idea what it is? :

and finally , i got a bunch of parts in , most importantly the heater hoses and a few other things so i'm almost at the point of calling the cooling system done !

03.01.11

i got the trigger wheel back from the machine shop with the proper holes drilled in it :

and i also had these made a few weeks ago ; they go between the trigger wheel and the balancer shell because the shell uses counter sunk holes for the bolts so if you tighten the bolts they will try to pull in the balance into the hole and distort it .

and here is how the the whole thing looks :

also got the front main seal in , it turns out the leak was because of an off center cover that was caused by the two front hoes in the oil pan ( the ones that go into the timing chain cover) not being aligned with the cover , which caused the cover to be pulled to one side when tigtened . so knowing that , i left the two front bolts off and will enlarge the bolts next oil change .

needless to say , the balancer is back on 

and like i said before, the elusive heater hoses showed up

now its just a matter of clamping them on, and redoing the coolant tubes and be done with the cooling system

03.04.11

got cracking on the cooling system again : i decided to swap the driver side coolant pipe with something a bit smaller so the intake tube would fit in there. and inorder to do so i had to replace the thermostat housing with one that fits the smaller tube . i just need to weld a bead on its end and find the correct rubber coupler peice .

i also changed the water pump outlet peice to a better looking and fitting peice , i just need to weld the two peices that form it and place a bead on both ends .

i also fitted the heater hoses under the car and routed the rubber lines toward the water pump outlets , i'll be using stock f-body hoses from the water pump ( wich fit nicely by the way ) to the original lines on the car .

after i'm done with that i'll drop the pipes off at the powdercoaters and be done with that 

(sorry no pics cause i forgot the camera )

another thing i did was check if the front main seal leaked or not , and happy to report that its doing ok so far also checked the trigger wheel for wobble or out of roundness and it spun perfect 

i also decided to finish the whole powersteering delima once and for all : i cut both hard lines and will be flaring the pressure side and making a new pressure hose from the ps pump to the hard line . the return line will just be clamped on both ends .

so , up next on the list is :

- have the hoses welded up and powder coated 

- clamp all hoses in place and call the cooling system done 

- make a new pressure side hose to replace the leaky stock one 

- flare the hard ps line and connect it to the hose above , and with that the power steering should be done.

- take it for a spin and romp on it 

03.06.11

any how here are a few pics of recent progress :

i welded up the updated hard lines and fit them on the car to check how well they fit , and they fit good 

i think i'm getting good at this whole welding thing :

the finished hard lines before powder coating :

and here is how they fit in the compartment :

and these are the f-body heater lines ( and they say saving old parts is useless )

i had to weld a small peice at the end of the smaller tube so i can slide a 3/4 hose over it just like the other line :

and this is how nicely it fit ( i told you all cars were designed to have an LS engines in them )

and finally i cut the powersteering lines so i can replace the fittings on them , on the return side i'll just slide a hose on it and clamp it on both sides, as for the pressure side i just flared it and used a JIC fitting on it ( just like an -AN fitting ) and a Male-Male coupler to connect it to the powersteering pressure hose :

so now i have to drop off the hard hoses to the powdercoaters , and while they are being done i'll bolt in the powersteering pump again and check it for leaks ,,,, again 

i'll also bolt on the A/C compressor and see what i can do about routing the A/C lines .

also next i should start on making the crank position sensor bracket to hold the porsche crank sensor so i can get the RPM guage to work .

03.10.11

got some work done today 

i got the coolant hard pipes back from the powdercoaters, had them coated in silver:

so i got those on the car and clamped everytheying in sight - which includes the heater hoses 

i also got the powersteering hose modified so it has a longer flexible part - to make it easier to get the pump on and off . i also got that on along with the pump and connected everything .

so here is how it all looked when i was done :

after that i fired it up to check for leakes and happy to say it was dry,,,,,, untill the power steering fluid started foaming out of the cap . i'm not sure why that happened , so i cleaned up the mess and tried again , but this time it foamed and spilled after i shut the car down . any idea why this would happen ? i know its caused by trapped air in the system , but where would it come from ? i turned the wheel from lock to lock but it still foamed the second time . i have a hunch that it could be the pressure hose that sits higher than the reservoir , but i'll have to look into that later .

soooooo after that it was test drive time !! 

here's a stupid vid i made of the test drive, i had this camera just outside the garage and the other one is using my phone and in the car .

nothing much going on, you can see me giving it some gas as i got back and you can see that the front tires do spin on the gravel 

and don't get your hopes up with this vid , i was trying to drive and shift and get a video at the same time , so i just ditched the camera as soon as down shifted to floor it 

aaaaand don't mind the whining noise , its the power steering pump. aaaaaaand don't mind the messy interior , its not done yet 

so, what have i learned from this outing :

this thing is more fun than a barrell of monkeys ,, it pulls in every gear ! i'm not sure how high i reved it but having the ring and pinion ratio numerically high sure helps 

another thing is i need to rebleed the brakes , cause i had to pump the pedal a few times . i think i have some air trapped in the ABS system.

i'm also thinking of adding some more insulation behind the rear seat ( engine compartment bulge) just to make it quiter , granted i didn't have the factory carpet on there or the panels , but still a little more insulation wouldn't hurt 

so next up is to hook hp tuners to it to make sure everything is kosher , then finish the interior , and then put it back on the lift to finish other various stuff like the suspension braces and ac lines and what not .

03.17.11

not much to report , i managed to install one of the suspension braces under the car . 

i also managed to scan the car while ideling , the car has a base tune , just to get it running , so i guess the findings are normal ; the car idles fine , but temprature slowly crept up to 233 degrees , the fans were working , but it could be that the coolant system still has air in it . if the problem presists i'll try to put a restrictor in the system to see if it helps.

i'm also not sure about the timing , as the the exhaust ( the stainless part) started bluing , which means either the timing is to retarted or afr is to lean or both , but i'll check that later when i hook up a wideband and fine tune it.

in a step backwards, i decided to install the new tail lights i got , and guess what ! they're for a normal 996 and not for a turbo !!! i'll get in contact with them and see what they have to say.