2001 Porsche 996 LS1 Conversion Thread by 1dirtyZ

11 minute(s) of a 536 minute read

not much to report i guess, other than the new harness arriving today .

i sat down and started cutting out all the unnecissary wires from it before i put it in , and i guess i found a few surprises : the good one is that i have all the missing connectors and burnt ones before (third brake light, brake sensor plug etc ) , the bad surprise is that the harness is not for that specific car , i couldn't find the alt. charge indicator light, and the rear wiper plug is not available and so on . and the worrying thing is that on the side connectors ( just next to the driver and passenger hips) there are a few missing wires and a few extra ones, and there is a small computer thingie on the passenger side that had part of the old harness plug into , but the new harness does not have any provisions for that ( i'm assuming its the transmission contoller when the car was an automatic).

anyhow , after a few hours of cutting and splicing and routing the harness ( man does it feel good to work on a dry, non- gooey harness ) i think i have the thing almost done , i just need to jack the car up and remove the rear tires so i can connect the brake sensor, speed sensor, headlight level sensor, and what i think is the reverse light sensor thingie.

i did cycle the ignition and the water pump worked, and so did the fuel pump which means the LS1 PCM is working. the bummer is that the hood release thingie still doesn't work! i still have to dig into the diagrams and see what i can do , worst case scenario i could just rewire the latch.

another thing that caught my attention is that i got an airbag warning on the instrument cluster 

and did i mention that JB weld and brake fluid don't go well together? the master cylinder was leaking and after inspecting it i found that a small repair i did didn't go as planned i should have the fix by tomorow.

so i'm hoping tomorow to connect the brake lights and see if they work now, replace the headlight bracket , install the airbag covers , bleed the clutch and start the car and let it idle for a while to see if everything else works 

if it all goes ok ( i hope ) then the interior goes back in and off to the AC shop !

07.05.11

more updates, the harness is fially in place and everything connected , and since i didn't post any pics for a while , here are some 

this is how it looks back there with the insulation and harness :

i also messed with the latch and its diagram and found out why it wasn't working : apparently ( and you got to love how germans wired this car) the latch power comes from the retractable wing power source , so the wing has to work inorder for the latch to work :/

since the rear wing harness was BBQed i just wired the latch to an all time power that way i can pop the latch without having the key in ,,, so scratch that off the list! 

but the bad news is thatg i connected the tail lights and still nothing the fog light just comes on and nothing else. i'm not sure whats going on , but i still have two more options to check out : the first is swap out the light switch ans see if that fixes it , or run through the harness wire by wire and try to figure out whats going on .

if all else fails i'll just build my own light harness .

i also popped in the driver door airbag cover :

and i placed the passenger side dash airbag cover in , just have to figure out a way to fix it in there without the airbag to hold it in.

also took the driver headlight assembly out to replace its bracket ( had the part that holds the connector broken off) and swapped the bracket out with this little gem

i held off on putting the headlight assembly back in till i get new bulbs swapped in tomorow.

and i finally got around to welding the intake Y , took me quite a while to get the peices to fit properly , i just need to grind the protruding peices from the inside then weld the rest of the tubes. here is what i got done :

the other thing i noticed is that even with the key in the off position , i had two relays get real het ( O2 sensor and MFI+DFI - think thats what its called- relays) 

i don't know whey they were always on but just in case i pulled both of them out and started the car just to make sure everything still worked ( by everything i mean the dash and LS1 PCM ) 

i still need to fix the master cylinder thingy , and bleed it , and i have to figure something out regarding the lights and remount the relay panel on the holder that i sent off to get powdercoated .

after doing that i think i can put the interior back in , i can also put the darn AC compressor in and get that over with finally 

and in other news ,,, i think i found the project after the project after this project 

i'm working on getting another project car to keep me busy after finishing the porsche and the scout ,,,, but more details on that later

07.28.11

finally some progress 

i've been real busy lately and didn't get to work on the car much , but aftger forcing myself i finally got something major done ( well major in my book ) ; i got my *** in the car and started tracing all the brake wiring , and finally got the tail lights to work 

it turns out i had the clutch switch and the brake switch mixed up , as well as having the bracket that holds the switch bent out of place which caused the brake switch not work . 

all i have to do now is replace the relay/flasher thingy for the turn signals , i remeber taking it out a while back and now i have no clue where i removed it from 

i also have to find where i put the brake light brackets ,,,,, i know i got some new ones to replace the broken ones on the car , but i could not find them anywhere! damn mice 

and i found out another interesting "anomily" with this porsche : the brake lights don't work if the ignition is not on i don't know why but it could be due to the wiring job i done 

i also started putting the interior back in and should have it all buttoned up soon 

so next up should be finishing installing the interior and seats, fixing the clutch master cylinder and bleeding it , swapping the TR8 plugs to TR6 , install the headlight bulbs, and maybe slap the rear bumper on and finally get to drive the thing .

08.22.11

finally some progress to report ,,,, and regress 

i got the interior panels back in , and got the master cylinder fixed and bled, and finally swapped the spark plugs. i never got to buying the bulbs for the the headlight and taillights but i decided to slap them on and replace the bulbs when ever i get a chance. 

and i also finalized the rear shelf cover thingy- all thats left for it is carpeting. and i finally got the ac compressor mounted. just need tot wait for the fittings to show up so i can make some lines.

after that i started working on the intake piping , like i mentioned before its a tight fit but i think i have it pretty much nailed down , it also has a provision for th IAT sensor. the best part is that i can use this intake tube for now and for when i get the turbo's on there 

here is how it looks in the engine compartment :

and how much it sticks out in the fenders , this is where the intercoolers will attatch later on :

and the other side :

after that i attatched the air filters where the intercoolers used to sit:

and now for the bad news :

after finishing all that i decided to take the car out for a spin , which didn't happen ,,,, because the shifter linkage under the shifter decided to break 

so now i have to wait till i get the replacement ones in . 

i also noticed that the water temp and RPM guages were not working, so this means i have to retrace the wires back to the DME (pcm) ,,, which i'm sick of doing 

so i guess i have to wait now till the parts show up , i also have to take the intake pipes and and have them cleaned up (the ugly welds ) and weld some beads on the ends of the pipes , then take them to be powdercoated and call them done 

and hopefully by the next update the the AC lines will be finished and the lights will be done too

10.09.11

if its not one thing , its the other ! 

i finally got the linkage in and installed it , started the car and shifted it a few times in several gears just to make sure the linkage was adjusted properly, then shut it down for the night cause i wanted to take it to buddy of mine to fine tune cold idle and startup.

so i come back after two days and i try to start it and it would bearly start and can barely hold idle , then it would just sputter and die after a few seconds. it would imediatly die if i even looked at the throttle . 

so anyhow , i statrt trouble shooting , so the first thing i do is pop the spark plugs and take a look , they were sooty and i cleaned them ,,, no luck there , then i decide to take a look at the gas tank ( i don't recall ever filling it ) and wouldn't you know it the sending unit ( aka the bucket ) was dry , so i thought AHA! , so i run down and get me some gas and fill it up untill i made sure the fuel pump was submerged and fired it up ,,,, and it did the same thing 

any how the tuner comes around to see what we can check ( i didn't have a fuel pressure guage or scanner so i couldn't check sensor operation nor verify fule pressure , which meant i could not tell if it was being caused by a bad pump , clogged filter or what have you) 

so we hooked up the scan tool and checked, nothing there - everyhing was reading fine but nothing was happening ,,,,, untill he changed the commanded AFR to something like 8 ! and viola!!! it idled smooth and reved ok ! 

so we take it to his shop and checked the fuel pressure and guess what : i had a whopping 9 psi 

so apparently there is a fueling issue ,,,, so i took the filter off and checked it , it was ok ( used the blow through test ) which means its somewhere up front : either the pump is bad or the hose from the pump to the top of the tank is ruptured somhow ( i didn't take a good look when i poped the sending unit out )

i stopped there and decided to continue later , so now i have to double check the hoses in the tank , make sure pump is ok , and in the odd case that isn't the issu swap out the fuel filter/regulator with a new one.