Here are the parts that I believe should be in the 993 toolkit.
I had the misfortune of my car breaking an alternator belt at the
track and finding that my toolkit was missing tools.

Note: Posted by David Edwards (dwe8922@yahoo.com)

A while back, I had a problem of my car not starting. It would turn over, and not fire. After much searching, I narrowed it down to the DME relay. I bought a new one, and kept it in the car until the problem arose. It did today, and after I popped in the new relay, it worked fine.
I mentioned this in tangent on a thread already, but its worth mentioning again. Porsched used a relay with a 944. part # prefix well into the 993 run, and later replaced that part with part # 993.615.227.00. The 944. relay was found to be faulty. My hometown dealer says they replace the 944. relay on all the cars they service as a precaution. At $15 from Hendrick Porsche, its cheap insurance.

Hi All...

A while back, I wrote to the board about hearing some debris in my left front wheel. Here's the original posting: http://boards.rennlist.com/cgi-bin/993/993.pl?read=54640

I contacted a person here in the Bay Area who specializes in wheels ( Weideman's Wheels ) and he said that this was a common problem with hollow spoke wheels. He stated that the steel beads used to remove the paint commonly end up in the hollow spokes if the valve stem is not properly plugged up.

Well, he didn't find any steel beads in my rims, but instead, metal flakes!

Here's a picture of what came out of the wheel:

So, what do you guys think? I am leaning towards selling these wheels and getting a polished (not chromed) set of hollow spokes.

Anybody seen this before?

I got all my belts changed and the alternator pulley update installed.
I had a question about the install though. In the TSB, it states that you do not need the outer alternator shaft spacer anymore. The one closest to the 24mm nut. But you still need to install the inner spacer, the one closest to the fan pulley.

For clarification, the spacers are the two things that go on the _outside_ of the pulley halves. They are quarter sized and rounded on the edge.

However, when we put the inner spacer and the updated pulley on, the fan belt angle was pretty severe, definately not straight relative to the fan belt. Additionally, the outer pulley would have been on the threads of the alternator shaft and not the smooth portion.

When we installed the pulley update without the inner spacer, the belt angle was perfect. It didn't really matter if the outer spacer was installed or not.

Has anybody else done the alternator update and can comment on this? Did Porsche screw up on their TSB documentation and switch the outer and inner spacer? Maybe I read the documentation wrong?

Also, Robin, here are the correct sizes for the belts for a TT that you can use to update your web site.

Fan 9.5 x 760
Alt 9.5 x 753 ( 9.5 x 757 with pulley update )
AC 13 x 1085

Jeff

ps, fyi, chiseling off a bolt was a great trick to get the flywheel pulley off when we stripped the bolts. Sounds scary, but it isn't. You just use a sharpened chisel and tap the side of the head of the bolt, a bit off center, so that it unscrews. The chisel should be at enought of an angle to dig into the head. It destroys the bolt, but gets it off quick! Expecially working in the tight confines of the TT, it was almost easier than using the socket wrench!

Just finished changing my transmission oil and it was pretty easy and my shifting action is much smoother.. It also gives me more peace of mind. There aren't any filters in the trans! Really the hardest part was jacking up the car onto 4 jack stands.
I used 4 quarts of Amsoil 75W90 syntethic oil. Interestingly, it was pretty difficult to find Mobil 1 gear oil, which was my first choice. I found mostly Amsoil and Redline in shops. This oil wins the more colorful prize. It was a light blue color.

The manufacturer recommends doing this change at 30K, but at 19K miles, my trans oil was pretty dark and murky. There were a few shavings on the magnetic plug, which I cleaned off. ( See pic below. )

Thanks to Robin for a wonderful DIY. It helped me tremendously. Here are a few tips for the first time DIY'er that would be helpful.

a) You may need to put blocks under the rear wheels while jacking up the front of the car. With the front already on jack stands, the jack has less clearance to get under the tail of the car. My car isn't lowered, but I needed the cinder blocks in the picture to get the jack under there. I used the rear engine jacking point without problem. The hockey puck trick worked great!

b) Definately use a 10 MM allen key socket. I had to purchase a 3/8" to 1/2" drive adapter to use a bigger ratchet handle. Those bolts are on pretty tight.

c) Robin's DIY recommends that you remove the filler plug first, which is a good idea. However, it makes more sense to just make sure that you can loosen both the filler and drain plugs. You don't have to remove them right there, otherwise, trans oil will start to flow out of the filler.

d) If you wait about 1/2 an hour for all the old transmission fluid to drain out, it will take all 4 quarts of the new fluid without spilling out of the filler tube. Just keeps things a bit cleaner. I liked the "oil bong" technique. It worked great. I used 7/8" tubing and shaved down the end a bit. I then screwed it into the filler plug. If I were to do it again, I would have purchased an extra quart of AMsOIL to run through the transmission case to flush out any extra impurities.

e) Also, you will have to take off the driver rear wheel. I ended up taking off both rear wheels, becuase I couldn't tell in Robin's picture which one to do.

Lifting the front of the car ( Hey, there's Suwipin in the background with his new C4s! )

Me working the jack:

Up on all 4 wheels:

Condition of the Transmission Drain Plug:

Another shot of the transmission drain plug:

Some oil traces:

Transmission oil ( this stuff is blue ):

Oil Bong:

Now that I have all the tools, if anybody in the Menlo Park area wants to change their transmission fluid, or do other DIY projects, you are welcome to use my house and tools.

The next step for me is to do an oil change and bleed the brakes!

I just got back from the pca autocross in dublin. I was hoping to get a better understanding of car control at the limit in a wide open area. This was the last pca autoX this year and it was held in dublin. Interesting enough, this was held at the sheriff's facility and there was a prision near by also.

My initial impressions were that the lot was pretty small. There were walls and a few light sanctions. The walls were the biggest problem, which really kept me from pushing my car as hard as I would have liked at an autoX. Of the time that I did have on the course, it was pretty fun. But time was my biggest complaint also. I got there about 10:30 and left at 4:30. I had had a total of less than 3 minutes of time on the course.

I guess I got spoiled with all the track time that Todd's events have. I think that I really could have learned a lot from autoX, but before you even get comfortable with the track, it's time to turn off and wait for a few hours... It was pretty frustrating. I met some other people there who were thinking that autoX was a good prelude to track events, but I dissuaded them. Definately, jump right in to track events.