2001 Porsche 996 LS1 Conversion Thread by 1dirtyZ

7 minute(s) of a 536 minute read

I managed to get a few things done last night ,,,, mainly charge pipes and finishing up the fuel system and hooking up the lines and wires. I did manage to make the charge pipes from the turbos to the intercooler, I just need to have them powder coated and I can slap them on there next.

here is how the fuel pump setup looks now :



after priming the pump up and checking for leaks I moved on to the cooling system where I began filling it and tightening what I forgot to tighten. I also primed the system with the electric water pump and got that off the list.

next up was installing the newly flashed PCM and dumping some oil in the thing ,,,,then it was time

at 11:09 local it fired up for a few seconds enough for it to fill the lifters with oil idle a for a few seconds

so now that I just crossed a major milestone I kinda feel a bit more excited to finish this thing I guess looking at it now all that is left is a few simple things ( mainly wiring) before she is road worthy again .

so next up on the list is :

- bleed clutch
- install charge pipes from turbo to intercooler
- hookup Porsche crank signal (rpm gauge) and oil pressure sensor
- run wideband wiring and fuel pressure gauge wiring to front of cabin
- install serp. belts and catch can hoses
- install inner fender screws and then wheels and tires
- get her off the lift and start fabbing the intercooler to throttle body pipes and BOVs

11-1-2015

time for an update I guess

I managed to finish the to do list above ; the clutch is bled , charge pipes are done , crank signal done , wideband and fuel pressure gauges done , belt & fender screws are done and she is off the lift.


here are how the charge pipes look before I took them to get powdercoated:







since the car was off the lift it was time to work on the top side of the engine ; I fabbed up the charge pipes from the intercooler to the throttle body and welded the BOV flanges :





after that I finalized all the plumbing for the vacuum hoses and what not and had my buddy and tuner load a base tune just to get it to idle and putt around till we get it to the dyno and to check for leaks and that everything is ok.

well the car idles just fine and no major leaks to report but there is the issue of the oil pressure sensor , for some reason it quit working after the swap and even after putting in a new one I still can't get a reading on the stock gauge ( I checked with an external gauge and we have pressure )

the cool thing is the car's exhaust note is a lot tamer than before even though it has 2 less mufflers . the thing sounds pretty damn stock

so then it was time for the dyno ! I drove it over there and man this things drives great! it idles great and pulls good and smooth . on the dyno we found out there was a fueling issue ; fuel pressure would drop to 36 psi even though the regulator is a boost referenced one.

the good news is that the thing made 500 RWHP at 5000 rpm at 10 psi

so things are looking good so far, so I took it back to the shop and got to tinkering with it again ,,,, I was trying to figure out why the sudden drop in fuel pressure ; so the logical way is to start ruling out the easy free stuff first ( so no changing the fuel pump for now ).
I was going to pull the sending unit out and check if there was a leak in the pickup tube and if it was siphoning up some air ,,,,, but then it dawned on me : what about the fuel filter ?? I installed a puny little filter to get the car running cause the one I was planning to use did not arrive yet when I did so , and I forgot to install it

here is the filter I'm talking about that is on the car :



so I promptly took that thing out and put the big one back in ,,, waiting to see the results and if it fixed the issue .

one last thing I did was finally get around to polishing the headlights ,,, and man what a difference did that make! here's a before and after shot :







now all I have left to do is get the one light to work ,,, which I guess involves getting a new ballast for it .

so now that the car is up and running, I have a few more odds and ends to finish before I can take it home and start messing with the tune again :

- connect the AC wire signal to the compressor
- charge the AC system
- check if the fuel pressure issue is fixed
- reinstall the front driveshaft ( took it off for the dyno)
- figure out why the oil pressure sensor is not sending a signal
- calibrate gas gauge
- get some new tires instead of these 2005 ones I have on there !