993 Carrera 2

spacers to the front to bring the Cup 2s out to the arches, though it still needs more, I feel.

Christmas presents from my wife included a pair of RS ducts to replace the fog lights – this should have been a quick modification, but I managed to get a little carried away… the front bumper was a little stone chipped, and I also fancied filling the number plate holes. So the front bumper and the ducts got shipped off to my body guy Simon at Wheel Works in Poole to be smoothed and painted. With the front bumper off I found that the brackets for the oil cooler and the air-con evaporator were a tiny bit flaky on the edges, and the fixings were a little past best. So I disassembled all of those, got a quote for having bits re-powder coated, and fixings replated in a yellow zinc plate. There are minimum charges for doing these, so I decided I would work back a little further to find other items that needed a little refinish to bring them back to prime condition. I ended up removing all the underside coverings, the fan and shroud and loads of brackets and fixings from inside the engine bay.

Meanwhile, I’d spent a good amount of time with industrial wet wipes cleaning the engine bay and all the plastics. It was such a huge pleasure putting it all back together, clean and fresh with the refinished parts. The bearing in the fan was getting towards the end of its life, so I decided to make things simpler with an RS fan pulley conversion. I haven’t seen any detrimental effects from this. The fan had the same platinum finish as the wheels, with the housing in a burnt orange ceramic coat finish as per a good few Singer builds.

I made a trim for the insulator pad that sits above the engine, which really neatens up this area. The engine bay really pops now.

While reassembling the front bumper with those ducts I changed my indicators and side repeaters to orange from white and had the headlights wrapped in yellow film for the French-look front end. I designed and made a magnetic mount for the front number plate so that I can remove it easily for cleaning

(cough cough). I also had the centre bar of the grille wrapped in black to disguise it and toughen up the appearance of the front bumper. The 993’s front end is now clean and purposeful.

My next project with the 911 was to attack its exhaust. I’d planned on going for some Fister mufflers, but my mufflers were too corroded to use for their exchange program. I had found a thread on one of the forums of a guy that had fitted valved bypass pipes to his standard mufflers, which proved too tempting to ignore. You can see where this is going… valves were duly purchased alongside a stainless tube, and the mufflers were removed and sent to a local sandblaster to see how bad they were. The standard mufflers are stainless steel, but they still corrode as they sit directly behind the rear wheels, and the blasting uncovered a few pin holes in the tubes, but otherwise they actually cleaned up quite nicely. I set about cutting holes in the inlet and outlet tubes of the muffler, and cutting lengths of tube to have the correct shape for creating the bypass sections that I needed to mount the valves. Kitchen roll inners were used as patterns to cut the tubes.

This was a long evening’s work, I can tell you! I had

a local welding company weld it all up for me, and then I refinished the whole muffler and some new Dansk exhaust tips in a black ceramic coat to slow down any further corrosion. Once complete, the mufflers were heat wrapped and reassembled, a wire was run from the unused front fog light switch to open and close the values, and I now had a quiet or loud exhaust note at will. I added ‘S’ exhaust surrounds to the rear bumper, again finished in black ceramic coat, to really finish off the bumper cutouts.

I’ve changed the engine mounts of lots of my cars over the years: it’s amazing the difference new engine mounts make to the handling of the car, you don’t get that secondary shift of weight that soft or knackered engine mounts give you. I changed the 993 mounts to RS mounts, but I went cheap and bought non-oem parts. That saying ‘Buy cheap, buy twice’ is so true, as the non-oem parts were shot within a few weeks. I’m now running WEVO engine mounts with the black coloured bushings, giving just the right amount of control with only a small amount more engine noise transmitting into the cabin.

The interior of my car was pretty nice when I got it, with retrimmed seats and that RS steering wheel, so the addition of a red tacho dial face with redline at 12 o’clock and an RS cubby hole in the centre console are the only mods I have made so far. I have plans for removing the radio and having just a Bluetooth kit delivering music from my phone via the amp and speakers already in the car. Not much else is needed inside… for now.

My last modification is a new engine cover with ducktail. By sheer chance, someone was actually selling one in Guards red on the 911UK forum at a bargain price, and so a six-hour round trip to collect it ensued. I think I will swap the engine covers depending upon mood.

The modifications I’ve carried out are not terribly expensive or in your face, but I hope you agree that I have managed to add my own flavour, giving it a ‘993 Touring’ feel.

I have a few future plans including a short shift kit, a mod I fully recommend from previous cars I have fitted them to. I had a full suspension health checkup at Center Gravity late last year, which has given me a list of things I need to attend to: a few bushings to replace, a full coilover setup, and some new CV joint boots. I also need to get some new tyres, and should I change wheels as well while I’m at it? There are decisions to be made! To help with all of the above I’ve just purchased a mid-rise lift to make raising the car so, so easy. I’m still so chuffed to finally have got that coveted Guards red 911 I always dreamed of, right from the day that G-bodied 911 overtook that milk float and powered up the hill back at Motspur Park. I’m known as the Chief Tinkerer on the

podcast I present alongside Lee Sibley and

Joe Williams. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing, so I doubt I’ll ever stop tinkering and dreaming of the next modification on my 993 – and there’s a thought: how about a 3.8-litre engine on independent throttle bodies?!