I finished pinning the coolant lines. No signs whatsoever of coolant weeping. The most difficult part is the two lines directly below the oil filter housing. The only way I would confidently get to this is by removing the drivers side intake manifold and turbo inlet bi-pipe. A complete pain in the butt! But, once removed not too bad. And a relief to not have a grenade with the pin pulled.

 

This part of the project I removed the open differential to install a GT3cup LSD. What is shown here is we are measuring with a precision height gauge what the ring gear flange to inner bearing race is. With this we derived a fairly close starting measurement of the shims required for the inner bearing to get a close ring gear depth. Once this is determined by comparing the original diff measurements to the new LSD we were able to determine inner shims needed. This will be double checked later once bearing preload is established.

With the inner shim stackup set we install the new LSD with the proper 3.8mm inner bearing shims with the honed out test bearing. The outer test bearing is installed with a 1.8mm spacer. This leaves space that will be measured with a depth gauge. Installed the LSD and with a magnetic depth gauge determined that the spare space plus .40mm equals 2.8mm. This takes internal space and adds .40mm for preload. Heat and install the ring gear, shims and honed out test bearings. Install with side cover. The side cover and inner case should have the actual bearing outer races. You will want to do a comparative measurement of the test bearing with the test outer race versus the one that will be installed to verify no variances. Any error should be accounted for and double checked. Install the diff, side cover(minus seal) with all bolts. Install a stub axle on the cover side with the bolt. Attached is a aluminum bar that has a line that measures the outer ring gear circumference. With a dial indicator perpendicular to the bar check gear lash. The ring gear has gear lash engraved. Mine showed "F00,14" which is .14mm. The manuals indicate allowable tolerance of under by .05mm, but not over. This is ~.003-~.005". Not much. Only check lash with preload or your measurements will be off. Adjust shims if necessary while ensuring proper bearing preload(total bearing stackup).

 

Decided to address a few other areas of concern. I decided to replace the coolant reservoir, fuel filter, main coolant feed hoses and some boost hoses. I also installed the transmission and the associated clutch fork pieces.

 

Very cool. Thanks for all the details and pics - especially on the diff install.

How is the suspension coming along? I too have a set of cup coilovers and just from some quick measurements I did, I think you might need more than a 1" spacer as Pwdrhound and Pete have mentioned.

 

Suspension is coming along well. The only hangup now is rear reservoir mounting. The cup shock reservoir hoses are not very long. On the cups they mount on the frame rails aft of the wheel. Basically right where our turbos and intercoolers mount. Not optimum. But I have some ideas.

I came to the same conclusion about the spacers. I now have 50mm. A little hint on the spacers, Toyota Tacoma lift kit shock spacers have the same bolt pattern. 😉

 

Longer hoses to the reservoirs is not an option? Mounting the reservoirs inside is obviously the nicest solution. I can easily imagine getting lines made up will cost more than it's worth, though.

 

It is an option. Prior to rebuild would be the beat time to do that. Seeing these are already rebuilt that is not an option. Once you remove those lines you have to bleed the bubbles out of the shocks which isn't really a DIY process on these. And for the expense to open up and re-bleed is not terribly off from another rebuild(per shock). So adapt and overcome.

And honestly, i like the idea of not seeing the reservoirs in the back seat area. And god help if you have a cage, fixed back racing seats and need to adjust those. Almost easier to reach into the wheel well area.

 

So i got the car back on the road mostly. I left a few trim pieces off so I can take the car for an alignment. Much easier with the rockers off.

So my plan is to set a basic ride height and alignment and shake down the car a little and make sure nothing needs to be addressed before doing a corner alignment. Thinking I will raise the car another .5" and maintain positive rake. Thoughts?

 

Hard to tell, but she looks pretty low. Can you measure from the guard to the ground.

would love some final photos of the suspension setup including spacer. What does the drop look like when the rear is lifted up.

Also - just saw your target front drop links. I really like the way they bolt to the front upright vs a bracket of the shock. I know the 997 rear do something similar. How did you do the rears??

 

I don't have any photos of the suspension unloaded. It has about 3.5" of droop in the rear and a little more in the front. Not bad considering. For anyone considering running these shocks with slightly softer springs , do not use the cup bumpstops unless you trim them. The cups use bumpstops that are designed for the extremely stiff springs that barely compress. You will risk bottoming out against the bump stops early. The shocks actually have a considerable amount of safe travel beyond the cup bump stops.

For the front drop links I am running tarrets that connect to the front upright shock clamp bolt. The 996 cups use a bracket that threads on the shock front and rear. The brackets actually are 993 parts carried over and getting difficult to find these days. I am using those in the rear but omitted them in front because the 997 cups omitted them in the fronts. Seeing the 997 cups have essentially a slightly modified 996 RSR upright they have two bolts and the attach point is higher. Not sure how the front link being attached to the upright will perform, honestly. Will have to try it. Worse case I can get the tarrett raised link bracket setup if it causes handling issues.

For the rear spacer i am running a 1.5" spacer and a .5" spacer. They are aluminum toyota tacoma lift spacers which share the same bolt pattern and can be purchased cheap on ebay. I went with two spacers just to be safe with suspension droop. Seeing I am running 1100lb rear I think I should be fine. The spacers are not exactly pretty, but seeing they are available and already made that makes it easy for something that is really about function seeing you won't really see them.

As for ride height, definitely will raise it. Everything should be settled now enough to make those adjustments.

 

Looks very nice!

Keep in mind the short drop link in the front mounted on the pinch bolt is not ideal as it causes binding at increased steering angles. This is a known issue. The longer the drop link the better. You actually have room for a longer DL as you can position the sway bar closer to the LCA. The Tarett extended brackets (pictured below) that attach the long drop links up high are the way to go as they have much better geometry. They work very well. Been there done that. You can also fit the OEM front drop link brackets which are threaded onto the shock above the upright. These are used on the 996GT3 and Cup.

Be cautious setting ride height so you dont end up with less droop in the rear than the front as that could give you snap oversteer in some instances. You always want more droop in the rear.

Ride height looks good. What is it measured off the factory points? 105/125 would be a good starting point.


[url=https://flic.kr/p/n5YYfX]

 

Where are the factory measure points?

 

They are pictured and described on pg 268 of the maintenance manual. It's in section 44 under vehicle height check. You can probably google it.

Keep in mind that the rear ride height on a GT2/3 will be higher than a turbo because the subframes are lower on a turbo if you have the OEM rubber subframe bushings. In other worlds, a GT2 at 125mm rear ride height will be identical as a TT at 118mm ride height due to the subframes being positioned lower on a TT. If you put in solid subframe bushings this no longer applies obviously.

 

I have solid subframe bushings. So should be the same.

 

I found this for the cup.