By way of a belated introduction and hello to the forum; When I grew up, I'd always dreamed of owning a beautiful little sports car. I hadn't specifically picked out Porsche or a brand, but over the years I guess all roads led to Rome, and in my 40 things to do before I turn 40 wish list I had a line which stipulated "buy a Porsche."
As life happens, this changed to “buy a work van (Porsche), and my 40th came and went. There wasn't yet any beautiful little sports car on the horizon.
But as life happens, my wife and I blessed with a beautiful daughter - and a second one on the way on December ’23 - were told, sadly, that my mother-in-law’s cancer was back and back with a vengeance.
To sketch a quick background, prior to kids we both lived and worked in London, I have a business out in South Africa (commuted), and my UK business partner and I set up a beautiful showroom in Surrey (timelines not quite so accurate). Covid hit. We battened the hatches. We moved out of London to start a family, and we settled within the commuter belt because, you know, we need to go to the office.
The fact that we could work from home changed a lot of things, including our desire to be closer to our family in Devon. Little did we know that given the cancer scare, and the second comeback of it, that we would fast track that process by more than a country mile.
Our Renault Clio simply wouldn't cut it as a family car, especially with two children and all the paraphernalia needing to travel back-and-forth between Surrey and Devon, so we did with any sane couple would do we are upgraded to an SUV.
Having financed the vehicle with a specific mileage in mind, we continued blissfully unaware of events that were about to unfold. Suffice to say I clocked up a decent 22,000 miles and a very short period of time while mother in law was ill, wife was on maternity leave, and i was still building a showroom, and have for all intents and purposes, far exceeded the quota which the vehicle finance stipulates.
Relocating and putting in these miles however did bring up an interesting discussion, and one which I joked with my wife about, “giving back the SUV and buying a little runaround for the commute between Devon and Surrey”. As with her on mat leave, being down in Devon with her mum, and me commuting biweekly, surely it would make sense to have something smaller and more economical. (Economical on the finance that is - not the fuel, as it turns out, but actually still more economical all round).
My mother-in-law passed away, sadly, having faught a valiant battle. We'd uprooted our lives in Surrey and got to spend all of two weeks with her. C’est La Vie, but it left me with one resounding reaffirmation, and a grand takeaway; that life is for living. Buy the bloody Porsche.
So earlier this year, I started scouring the interwebs - in my own time, my off time, my downtime, my idle time… (ok so it was more a compulsive rabbit hole than not) - for a little [German] run around. After all, why not?
I stumbled upon an relisted, reduced ad. Local. Priced right. I messaged the owner. The negotiations took quite a while, but eventually, one random weeknight of back and forth about deposits, PPI’s, insurance, and a short test drive resulted in me taking ownership of a 12+ month SORN’d, slightly bruised and battered (Suspension, and more, but what did i know?!), 2007 Boxster S 3.4 in a bright light blue wrap. Can't miss it.
This is where the real story begins.
Having not been able to take the vehicle for a Pre Purchase Inspection given its SORN status, and the seller not willing to let it go to an independent without taking payment, we came to an agreement on the price and PPI became post-purchase inspection.
±£3000 worth of replacement battery, brake pipes, dampers, bump stops, top mounts, control arms, a roll bar, and more, I had a competently-roadworthy, MOT'd and insured, bright blue pocket rocket.
And of course, the first thing you want to do is make sure you can plug your phone in. So out went the Aliexpress head unit which had a random horizontal line through it, either displaying the bottom half or the top half of the controls, and it was replaced with an Xtrons one.
That in itself was a bit of a palaver, given that it didn't have any buttons, and didn't integrate with the vehicle, and didn't play nicely with Apple CarPlay.
And this was really my first foray into dismantling parts of Bluey and doing things myself; I had decided that the old school steering wheel without controls just had to go, and the head unit needed to be better, so down the rabbit hole of investigating which steering wheel where, how, what, which concluded in also replacing the Xtrons with PCCM+.
Initially, I considered purchasing one from Custom Steering Wheels London, but realised that Aliexpress to exactly the same wheels for a fraction of the price (oh so naïve). I'll probably start a different thread in another part of the forum about what it took to replace my existing non-multifunction wheel with a fully integrated multifunction sports steering wheel with paddle shift, the components needed, the programming in PIWIS, the horror of completely erasing the car (well, i thought i did - it all went black!), recalibrating the steering column, etc, but, in the meantime the story continues...
Long prior to the steering wheel escapade, and upon embarking on my first few sets of extended journeys between Surrey and Devon, I realised that the “custom” exhaust which was fitted with the car - not the stock one - had a terrible drone at 2 to 3000 RPM, and was just a boy racer Loud. Not the sort of thing that I was looking for. Ironically also not the sort of thing that I picked up on immediately when test driving it considering excitement of purchase, adrenaline pumping, I'm buying my first Porsche mindset and emotions.
The exhaust had to go. So I plumbed for a valved Designtek from Design911 - whom, I've come very quickly to realise, can extract a lot of money, very quickly, from a bank account.
With a new exhaust arriving, and grabbing frustrations with not being able to book a slot to have the change over done by the independent, I asked one of my local garages if I could use their ramp, and they actually offered to help change over the exhaust. It was fitted, we found a few leaks, we fixed them, and we got everything besides the valves up and running. (9E eventually did me a solid there - for a fee, of course, as they should).
After the exhaust, I swiftly came to the conclusion that there was something not quite right with how the engine fired. Every now and then it would simply not - so before considering the (still to be tackled) squealy squeaky starting motor, the spark plugs and coil packs went, and barring a small hiccup with some old wiring not quite making a clean connection, all was good with the world. But it didnt solve the misfire - which by now was diagnosed to a consistent bank of the engine.
Two new VVT actuators and some ramp time later, and the engine was back purring like a kitten, and actually, for the most part, now been running exactly like that for the past 6500 or so miles.
Having not had an oil change done since ownership, (and PPI, which conculded along with another service observation that the engine is 'overfilled'), it was time to get cracking on this. So; new Rohler adapter for some spin on filters, a magnetic sump plug, and some Mobil 5w40 and off we went. Oil change went smoothly - the old oil was squeaky clean, and translucent (against the backlight) while pouring out. 7.7L of old oil. Fitted the bits, cleaned up a few things, in went 7.7L of new oil, and yet the guage still shows its overfilled... so the plot thickens and 9E will have to look at this in the future (aka currently beyond my capacity - even for a heftyDIY'er).
Whilst there, I got wondering about the belts and the (also) rattling - wheezing airconditioning unit. So ordered a replacement belt kit and pulleys, and did that too. Wheezing is still there, but overall the previous belt was fairly brittle, and while not falling apart, was definitely due replacement.
When purchased there was a rear spoiler / wing installed (upgraded to a 'proper' one now - just busy de-badging it of the GT4RS imprint. I mean, I like the look, but in now way am I'm professing for her to be something she's not). Along with the added bits to the front bumper giving a fairly sporty gleam, I sized up the 19" alloys to 20", replaced the F1's with PS4S's and added some spacers, and with the fairly in your face blue colour - my girls have christened her 'Bluey', and they have a raging time jumping around on between the seats while I'm trying to work on things!
So the next adventures that await are - (in no particular order)
As life happens, this changed to “buy a work van (Porsche), and my 40th came and went. There wasn't yet any beautiful little sports car on the horizon.
But as life happens, my wife and I blessed with a beautiful daughter - and a second one on the way on December ’23 - were told, sadly, that my mother-in-law’s cancer was back and back with a vengeance.
To sketch a quick background, prior to kids we both lived and worked in London, I have a business out in South Africa (commuted), and my UK business partner and I set up a beautiful showroom in Surrey (timelines not quite so accurate). Covid hit. We battened the hatches. We moved out of London to start a family, and we settled within the commuter belt because, you know, we need to go to the office.
The fact that we could work from home changed a lot of things, including our desire to be closer to our family in Devon. Little did we know that given the cancer scare, and the second comeback of it, that we would fast track that process by more than a country mile.
Our Renault Clio simply wouldn't cut it as a family car, especially with two children and all the paraphernalia needing to travel back-and-forth between Surrey and Devon, so we did with any sane couple would do we are upgraded to an SUV.
Having financed the vehicle with a specific mileage in mind, we continued blissfully unaware of events that were about to unfold. Suffice to say I clocked up a decent 22,000 miles and a very short period of time while mother in law was ill, wife was on maternity leave, and i was still building a showroom, and have for all intents and purposes, far exceeded the quota which the vehicle finance stipulates.
Relocating and putting in these miles however did bring up an interesting discussion, and one which I joked with my wife about, “giving back the SUV and buying a little runaround for the commute between Devon and Surrey”. As with her on mat leave, being down in Devon with her mum, and me commuting biweekly, surely it would make sense to have something smaller and more economical. (Economical on the finance that is - not the fuel, as it turns out, but actually still more economical all round).
My mother-in-law passed away, sadly, having faught a valiant battle. We'd uprooted our lives in Surrey and got to spend all of two weeks with her. C’est La Vie, but it left me with one resounding reaffirmation, and a grand takeaway; that life is for living. Buy the bloody Porsche.
So earlier this year, I started scouring the interwebs - in my own time, my off time, my downtime, my idle time… (ok so it was more a compulsive rabbit hole than not) - for a little [German] run around. After all, why not?
I stumbled upon an relisted, reduced ad. Local. Priced right. I messaged the owner. The negotiations took quite a while, but eventually, one random weeknight of back and forth about deposits, PPI’s, insurance, and a short test drive resulted in me taking ownership of a 12+ month SORN’d, slightly bruised and battered (Suspension, and more, but what did i know?!), 2007 Boxster S 3.4 in a bright light blue wrap. Can't miss it.
This is where the real story begins.
Having not been able to take the vehicle for a Pre Purchase Inspection given its SORN status, and the seller not willing to let it go to an independent without taking payment, we came to an agreement on the price and PPI became post-purchase inspection.
±£3000 worth of replacement battery, brake pipes, dampers, bump stops, top mounts, control arms, a roll bar, and more, I had a competently-roadworthy, MOT'd and insured, bright blue pocket rocket.
And of course, the first thing you want to do is make sure you can plug your phone in. So out went the Aliexpress head unit which had a random horizontal line through it, either displaying the bottom half or the top half of the controls, and it was replaced with an Xtrons one.
That in itself was a bit of a palaver, given that it didn't have any buttons, and didn't integrate with the vehicle, and didn't play nicely with Apple CarPlay.
And this was really my first foray into dismantling parts of Bluey and doing things myself; I had decided that the old school steering wheel without controls just had to go, and the head unit needed to be better, so down the rabbit hole of investigating which steering wheel where, how, what, which concluded in also replacing the Xtrons with PCCM+.
Initially, I considered purchasing one from Custom Steering Wheels London, but realised that Aliexpress to exactly the same wheels for a fraction of the price (oh so naïve). I'll probably start a different thread in another part of the forum about what it took to replace my existing non-multifunction wheel with a fully integrated multifunction sports steering wheel with paddle shift, the components needed, the programming in PIWIS, the horror of completely erasing the car (well, i thought i did - it all went black!), recalibrating the steering column, etc, but, in the meantime the story continues...
Long prior to the steering wheel escapade, and upon embarking on my first few sets of extended journeys between Surrey and Devon, I realised that the “custom” exhaust which was fitted with the car - not the stock one - had a terrible drone at 2 to 3000 RPM, and was just a boy racer Loud. Not the sort of thing that I was looking for. Ironically also not the sort of thing that I picked up on immediately when test driving it considering excitement of purchase, adrenaline pumping, I'm buying my first Porsche mindset and emotions.
The exhaust had to go. So I plumbed for a valved Designtek from Design911 - whom, I've come very quickly to realise, can extract a lot of money, very quickly, from a bank account.
With a new exhaust arriving, and grabbing frustrations with not being able to book a slot to have the change over done by the independent, I asked one of my local garages if I could use their ramp, and they actually offered to help change over the exhaust. It was fitted, we found a few leaks, we fixed them, and we got everything besides the valves up and running. (9E eventually did me a solid there - for a fee, of course, as they should).
After the exhaust, I swiftly came to the conclusion that there was something not quite right with how the engine fired. Every now and then it would simply not - so before considering the (still to be tackled) squealy squeaky starting motor, the spark plugs and coil packs went, and barring a small hiccup with some old wiring not quite making a clean connection, all was good with the world. But it didnt solve the misfire - which by now was diagnosed to a consistent bank of the engine.
Two new VVT actuators and some ramp time later, and the engine was back purring like a kitten, and actually, for the most part, now been running exactly like that for the past 6500 or so miles.
Having not had an oil change done since ownership, (and PPI, which conculded along with another service observation that the engine is 'overfilled'), it was time to get cracking on this. So; new Rohler adapter for some spin on filters, a magnetic sump plug, and some Mobil 5w40 and off we went. Oil change went smoothly - the old oil was squeaky clean, and translucent (against the backlight) while pouring out. 7.7L of old oil. Fitted the bits, cleaned up a few things, in went 7.7L of new oil, and yet the guage still shows its overfilled... so the plot thickens and 9E will have to look at this in the future (aka currently beyond my capacity - even for a heftyDIY'er).
Whilst there, I got wondering about the belts and the (also) rattling - wheezing airconditioning unit. So ordered a replacement belt kit and pulleys, and did that too. Wheezing is still there, but overall the previous belt was fairly brittle, and while not falling apart, was definitely due replacement.
When purchased there was a rear spoiler / wing installed (upgraded to a 'proper' one now - just busy de-badging it of the GT4RS imprint. I mean, I like the look, but in now way am I'm professing for her to be something she's not). Along with the added bits to the front bumper giving a fairly sporty gleam, I sized up the 19" alloys to 20", replaced the F1's with PS4S's and added some spacers, and with the fairly in your face blue colour - my girls have christened her 'Bluey', and they have a raging time jumping around on between the seats while I'm trying to work on things!
So the next adventures that await are - (in no particular order)
- Continue to drive the hell out of her - averaging 1200 miles a month
- Upgrade the seats with some heating - it might not be OEM, but my butt will be warm in the coming months.
- Figure out if the leaks in the manifolds can be contained, and or if its just worth biting the bullet and replacing them (with the Designtek set i have... oh but the labour, and i need another tool... damnit).
- Finish changing over the engine air filter, and while I'm in there, replace the starter motor.
- Fix the holes in the trunk from the previous spoiler - which requires a re-wrap of the bootlid, which I'm now struggling to find the colour match of (its not Miami Blue, its not in the 3M range, it might be in the CSK range), and then while I'm at that, fix the fairly hefty scratch in the drivers door (FML, just wrong place wrong time wasnt it - McDonalds car park at 5am from what i can surmise)
- Play the game of "Is it bore score or not... " Jeremy Carr needs to present this show. 100%. His deadpan humour and surname, well, it just gels.
- Replace the AC compressor and have the AC re-gassed to fix that annoyance (all the fucntions work fine).
- Finally (finally) get round to stiching the roof elastics so that corner slippage doesnt occur.
- Maybe (who knows...) change the front bumper for a GT4 style one.
