Completed my 997.2 tail light upgrade with part numbers and help from this forum.

The lights were all working fine (all functions works perfect visually from the outside) except for the 'very fast' indictor flashing on the dash board when switching on either indicator and a warning message to check left and right indicator.

My 09 front and rear control module is the same as the 2010-13 front and rear control module. The tech opened up connectors to for the front module and i saw that it was a PITA to carefully do the swap. Hence i decided on buying the FVD control modules.

- Why would the newer control units still require a pin swap?
- On doing some search, i have a feeling that the FVD connectors is just some sort of resistor box. Is this true?

These questions may not make sense but this is just to calm down the 'curious' me .

I am not an electronics genius so please excuse my ignorance. I am sure that there is a very simple explanation for all of this.

 

I'm curious of these same questions as I'm about to buy parts for the upgrade. Did you ever get answers?

 

not yet. the FVD units dont work on an 09'. If you have an 07 or 08 model, hooking up the new tail lights to the fvd control module will work. If not, pin swap is the only route for the 09.

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...idnt-work.html

The pin swap takes only about 15mins.

I have done the conversion already and its worth it. Best of luck!

 

Thanks for the reply... I have a late production '08 C4 which I'm pretty sure has the same front & rear modules as in your '09 Turbo. I confirmed I have the 997 618 260 08 rear control module under drivers seat. Do you think I just need to perform the pin swap? What wires are you swapping exactly? Did you have to have Porsche dealer "activate LED" for both front and rear?

I have all the parts for the front bumper conversion, bought the mini wire looms for the front DRL's and they appear to work fine with no errors, just had to splice wires, no programming changes., so that was easy!

I'm unsure after reading a ton of posts about the rear taillights....specifically if you already have the updated rear module:
1) do you still need the dealer to activate the LEDs to make the rear work without errors, you'd think having the newer control unit they'd be "active", but perhaps not for LED but incandescent
2) Do I need to do a pin swap? It looks like the pin out for old vs new taillights has only one wire in a different position and I was thinking I'd need to swap at the taillight connector...

 

these are my part numbers:

2009 Front control unit Part# 997 618 513 01

2009 Rear control unit Part# 997 618 260 08

Yes pin swap is the only way for you.

I am not really sure how the tech did the pin swap but i can tell you that he only fiddled with the front control unit only. He did not do anything to the rear.

This is what you should do:

- Install everything.
- The front DRL may/ maynot work correctly and if you did get it work, you will need to go to your options (controlled via the left stalk on steering wheel) and toggle daylight on/off (if you have that option on the C4) and see whether it activates the headlight instead. (all 09 turbo models have the main headlight as the default DRL) If this is the case, then what you have done is only partly working and hence you need PIWIS to code in the 'LED' option instead of the 'incandescent' option for the fog lamps.
-When you start the car without making revisions using PIWIS, you will get a rear tail light warning on your cluster. And when you switch on indicators, it will flash very fast on the cluster. But outside, the lamps will be blinking correctly.
- So you can drive to the dealers to code in the correct settings.
- Before you do that, you need to make sure that the dealer knows how to do the pin swap. If the swap isn't done and the dealer codes in the revisions, you tail light will act funny and blink intermittently.
- On the forums it is mentioned that you will need to swap pin 11 to 36 and pin 42 to 31 on the control units. This i am unsure about but as i mentioned, my tech swapped pins only in front of the car. I am pretty sure that the rear control unit swaps are only for the 07 and 08 models.
- you dont need to change the connectors atleast for the turbo models. You will need to shave off a portion of the connector to fit it into the older connector that is currently on the car. This is for the light assembly.


1) do you still need the dealer to activate the LEDs to make the rear work without errors, you'd think having the newer control unit they'd be "active", but perhaps not for LED but incandescent

This is what i thought too. I think the OP on the below thread did the swap first. His shop will be able to explain the pin swap question.

http://teamspeed.com/forums/991-997-...-led-swap.html

2) Do I need to do a pin swap? It looks like the pin out for old vs new taillights has only one wire in a different position and I was thinking I'd need to swap at the taillight connector...

The pin swap is done on the connectors to the control modules.

Hope this helps. Best of luck!

 

So I got the OEM taillight yesterday and tried them out. As I mentioned my '08 has the 2009 Rear control unit Part# 997 618 260 08. When I turn on the ignition I get every error possible! I connected a cheap resistor to each wire lead individually and the errors went away as I connected to each. I'm thinking of making a small resistor box to fix the problem as I got some time to play around until I buy the rear bumper and other parts for the conversion.

I wonder if the dealer used PIWIS to code in the 'LED' option instead of the 'incandescent' for the rear only if this would fix the problem? I'm not sure yet what front control unit I have., but I don't get any errors when I hook up the OEM DRL's and everything works fine (I have the diode hack to keep DRL's on)...

I'm still unclear of why any PIN's / wires need to be swapped if you already have the newer rear control unit, specifically what the wires control?

 

When you say "OEM taillight" are you referring to 997.1 or 997.2? I'm guessing 997.2 since it was LED (I believe)...but isn't it a different shape to fit in the 997.1 bumper? Maybe you're just in the testing stage and not install.

Also, you might be able to use a Durametric Pro instead of the PIWIS to code the option you need.

 

Yes, I plan on doing the full rear bumper conversion from 997.1 to 997.2. I got the front conversion all figured out. I've read just about every post on this topic, but it's not clear what needs to be done for a non-turbo model as most of the info was from a rear conversion on a turbo or GT2.

I wish I had a Duarmetric Pro to test this out, but don't want to pay $700 in the name of research! Wonder if anyone would be willing to loan me theirs for a small fee if I posted a listing? WTB (B=Borrow)?

As far as the PIN swap, I think I found my answer. "Turns out the control unit has the correct outputs for LED and normal bulbs, but the pins have to be moved from the regular bulb output to the LED output"...so that explains that.

Until I'm able to change the coding of my rear control unit to LED I won't know what the answer is. It's unclear if I need to swap just two pins or 4, I think just 2 since the turbo / GT2 have LED front light where the 997.2 non-turbo is regular filament bulbs., so that could be the difference.

 

I have an 06 and purchased the Oem led tails and Oem rear bumper. If I purchase the fvd connectors will they function properly? Or do I still need to buy the new modules underneath the seats?

 

Update: turns out on a non-turbo, NO PIN swapping is necessary. And since I did the front 997.2 conversion first I didn't end up needing resistors for the turn signals (no hyper-flashing)!

 

thank you!

 

I have a late production '08 C4 which I'm pretty sure has the same front & rear modules as in your '09 Turbo.

 

umm, i dont think the fronts, the turbo fronts have separate fogs/drls.