1999 Porsche 996 Carrera

I've had a quiet summer with the car.

I failed to get the broken lambda sensor out of the exhaust with it insitu, even with a MAP gas torch and Normfest super-crack which came highly recommended (and has helped with numerous other things) it wasn't budging. I think it's original, so perhaps not surprising.

A month or so ago I set about removing the rear bumper, cats and silencers. I had a scare after removing the cat for the nearside bank and found it moist inside, which I was concerned might be a head-gasket or cracked head issue - more on that in a bit.

I dropped the silencers, tailpipes and cats off with Kevin at Zero exhausts in Bethersden; the plan was that he would remove both lambda sensors, and if the threads were beyond saving weld in new bosses to the cats - thankfully the threads were fine. He also de-gundo hacked the silencers. The CarGraphic silencers have a shorter outlet than the standard silencers, so the bypass/link pipe/gundo was between the inlet and the tailpipe. Kevin did a nice job and it wasn't expensive.



I was hoping to get it all back together over the weekend, but realised I had ordered 1 too few exhaust clamp. I needed 1 more than standard as the CarGraphic silencers have an extra section and I had to cut one of the clamps for this off to get the silencers off. I got the cats and lambdas on and the silencers build up with new hardware where needed. It sounded good getting it up on the ramps with no cats or silencers!





With the tax expiring at the end of month, I wanted to get it all back together and a decent journey (60 mile each way commute) under its belt before the end of the month. Last night I had a late one getting it back together, a bit of a palaver with the bumper on and off a few times to get the exhaust tips lines up, but otherwise it all went back together easily enough.

New fasteners for the rear bumper and heatshields.


My rearbumper has always sat too far back and slightly low on the returns towards therear wheels, that’s now sorted too with the frames for the heat shield set to their correct height (they have a little tab that sits above to set the correct position).



It feels smoother throughout the revs, and without the gundo hack is less antisocial for the neighbours when I leave early, and seems better at motorway speeds.

There was no sign of any intermix in either the water or the oil, and it hasn't used any water over 120miles today, so I'm confident the moisture seen was just condensation from the heat applied when I was trying to remove the lambda sensor.

There's a few things on the winter to do list but nothing major: painting the wipers, sorting a heat shield rattle, and possibly a wheel refurb. I'm hoping to do more with it next year.