u/siggystabs

One of the things I wish someone told me before I got into this was completing the whole job on the early
Boxsters (and possibly 911s) is similar difficulty to accessing the water pump on the 2014 Audi I used to own.

Honestly, it took longer to get over my nerves and jack the car high enough than it did to access, drain, remove, replace, fill. Did the bleeding the next day, took 30 minutes. It’s now been two days and no leaks, coolant level stable, cooling seems great.

The cost savings were tremendous versus going to a shop. I called around in the DC/Baltimore area and got estimates between $1700 and $2500 including parts. I found the same kit on FCP Euro for $484 free shipping. I also did not need any special tools, the most exotic was a flex socket and an extension.

What else? Oh how did I get here. Well I’m an idiot and didn’t let the car cool down before shutting it down, numerous times. Did you know if do it bad enough, it shoots coolant out of the pressure release in the cap and eventually runs dry. Then you open the system while pressurized while on a long trip. And then you track it until the pump dies for real lol.

Lessons learned:
- Always do cool down laps, or at the very least leave the car running while in the paddock so coolant circulates.
- Never open the system while pressurized.
- Spend money on seat time, not shop labor.

Anyway thank you for coming to my Ted Talk hope this inspires at least one of you to DIY something.

If you guys have driven a 986 or 996 at night, even with litronics, you’d probably notice the headlights are pretty bad compared to modern cars.

I always knew you could retrofit new ones but I figured it was time-consuming and risky. To give an example, most videos I watched involved baking your headlight in an oven and removing the glued-on glass. Tabled that thought.

After a recent sketchy incident while driving some canyon roads at night, my desire for better lights got reinvigorated. I ordered a kit including bixenon projectors, bulbs, and wiring. I already had litronics so I wanted to use my existing ballasts. I was dreading the install. However this time while I was doing research I found this video: https://youtu.be/t\_OeH7Zz1fE?is=W086HMYYCBEnKbBe

Apparently if your car already has projectors installed, i.e from the 986/996 litronics, you do not need to bake your lights and remove the glass. You can just unscrew the components and pull it out from the access panel. This literally redefined the job from one that required heating and removing adhesives into one that just needs a screwdriver and torx bit.

Anyway, just a few hours later and I got my headlights installed. I now have really good low beams and high beams, for the cost of maybe a tire or two.

The high beams I’m really excited about because they use both the halogen bulb and raise the bixenon cutoff. Game changer on night drives.

I don’t know if this applies to the 987 as well, but if you have a 986 with litronics and are unsatisfied with the light output, check it out!