996 diy?
 

Thinking about a 996. How DIY friendly are they?

I was surprised that there is no 101 projects or Bentley guide for the 996. How much overlap is there with the Boxster, such that having one of those guides would make sense?

Quite. In many ways "easier" than air-cooled 911s.

I had one and found it to be quite DIY friendly. For one thing, it never broke and the scheduled maintenance is a breeze compared to an old 911, (no valve adjustments), things like brake pads and rotors were the easiest I've ever seen. A clutch job is a cakewalk for an experienced tech, there is a guy @ Beverly Hills Porsche who can do one in under 2 hrs. total, in and out. He gets paid something like 8 hrs. book for it.

Easy. The common maintenance stuff is a breeze. Every 30k you do air filter, pollen filter, fuel filter (on the early ones), spark plugs, serpentine belt, brake bleed. Transaxle fluid is 90k (I think). The only hassle is removing the mufflers to get easier access to the plugs, but that's maybe 20 minutes if the nuts are stubborn. Even pausing to drink a few beers you can do an entire tune-up in under three hours easily.

There are some pretty good Pelican tech articles available on the home page.

So my Boxster has been the easiest car I've ever owned to work on, partially because of the way it was designed and partially because it's relatively new, so no stuck bolts.

The 986/996 was a real step forward for Porsche engineering not just due to the obvious reasons but also with simpler things like bolt coatings, corrosion coatings, stainless steels, etc. used on more parts and used better. This makes things like dropping an exhaust manifold a 10 minute job instead of a 2 hour job involving a grinder and cursing.

With the better use of CAD tools when designing the car, it was ensured that things actually have tool access when working on them, so there is not a lot of bolt or nuts in places that are impossible to access for things that need serviced regularly.

Very DIY friendly, same goes for the 986/987/997 family. The early aircooled cars are simple cars, but like mentioned above suffer from being "old".

That said, already we have started seeing 996/987/996 cars that have been messed with. We have had a few here where we need to fix previous work done. Stripped fasteners, wrong hardware etc. But that goes for any make/model.

Cheers

Other than web articles, are there any books like i'm used to having with my SC that I'm missing?

There's a few manuals on this page that might be of interest. :)

Manuals

Porsche 996 The Essential Companion is decent. A lot of it is development history but there is some diy stuff. I have only done maintainance stuff so far on my 996 and it has been a breeze. Being a newer vehicle, I have not had to deal with those small items that need attention like I had with my 3.2 carrera. When Wayne's 101 projects for the 996 comes out, I will one of the first in line to get one.

There are some youtube videos if you do a search...waterpump, oil change etc.