All done now!
Finally the Porsche looks how it should - why on earth did they decide to use that silver colour?

Sprayed the radio and steering wheel Airbag rim a generic Satin black, 4 coats lightly sprayed. It is still cold here so I got a tiny bit of orange peel effect but I can live with it.
Colour - matches the radio buttons and other units perfectly!! Pure luck - I grabbed one of many - It appears my wife was wrong, I can tell the difference between colours - so long as they are black

Thanks to all who have posted how-to's - TYE, joelpirela & littlemilla3 - the removal and swap was daunting and your step by steps really helped out.

images in daylight below (i took a night shot to show all lights working!

 

Oh and one last thing - if anybody is thinking about adding the burton bank send me a message if you want some tips

oh and apologies for my wearing crocks - sinful I know. won't happen again.

 

Hi Littlemilla3 - I thought my install had worked 100% but it is clear now the sun is shining that the A/C is not working...

I noticed that in the warm I was getting hot and tried the system on LOW setting with aircon on and off - no difference.

I re-installed the old controller and i got freezing cold air again so obviously something is wrong here... Is yours still 100% fine and the Aircon turning on and blowing freezing cold Air?

Sprayed the old unit black for now but i now have the crappy peeling buttons
:-(

 

Well I just tried mine and think I have the same problem. The temperature is being controlled but the unit is not engaging the AC compressor. When I did this it was in the dead of winter so of course the air was coming out ice cold. I haven't had to use the AC since then so I never realized that the compressor wasn't being engaged. Now I feel really stupid. I'm very sorry to give misinformation.

I did some searching and found this thread, in which somebody has this conversion working, but he needed to do some tinkering. Something about the 997.1 using a relay for the compressor "on" signal and 997.2 not using a relay. But there aren't any clear instructions in that thread.
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...n-done-19.html

I'm going to reinstall my painted old AC controls for the summer at least, and hopefully somebody in that thread will shed some light on the problem.

 

Yeah I saw this thread... It appear we need a relay..
Would need The detail on what relay - and which of the 30 wires it needs to be connected to....

 

997.1 uses a relay to trigger the Ac, the 997.2 does not. So those that did the swap wired direct to Ac.

 

Hi TYE - is there any thread you know of which a how to?
I would need to know the actual cable to change and hoe to wire it directly.. I am practical but not an electrical engineer.

 

[QUOTE=Littlemilla3;

I'm going to reinstall my painted old AC controls for the summer at least, and hopefully somebody in that thread will shed some light on the problem.[/QUOTE]

Yep - done the same and ordered the stickers for the fan and temp buttons...
doesn't look as good though :-(

 

I'm trying to think this through. I wonder why they would change it so that A/C clutch doesn't use a relay in 997.2 cars. Doesn't it draw a lot of current? My understanding of relays is they use a low current to switch on/off a higher current, so the low current from the climate control unit switches the high current to the compressor clutch on 997.1 cars.

So is it as simple as bypassing the A/C relay completely and wiring the output of the climate control unit to the compressor switch directly? I don't know enough about electronics to understand this completely...

This thread shows the relay is located behind the rear seats (at least in a 996, I'm assuming it's the same in a 997)
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...-location.html

 

Have you guys been able to get the 997.2 ACcontrol unit/ Sport button units to work normally?

 

Sport button - yes, you need to re-wire the connector.

A/C - no.

see attached thread for more detail on doing this.

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...n-done-19.html