993 Mirror Install

[gardoni]

Apologies in advance if this is redundant to other posts- I looked and couldn't find a comprehensive post on this.

I recently purchased a set of used power aero mirrors to upgrade the flags on my '90 C4. I searched through this and other forums for a good description of the wiring needed to make them operate correctly, but found mostly references to the “911 and Porsche World” article on John's 964 Web site (http://www.porsche964.co.uk/) in which the wiring conversion description on the PDF is illegible, or wiring conversions for older cars with different colored wires, which in some cases require an electrical converter module of some kind. I've also spoken with the folks at BW Motorsports who were EXTREMELY helpful, despite not having anything to sell me (!). I've finished the install and thought I'd share what I learned.

This first thing that wasn't perfectly clear was the process for removing the mirror glass from the flags or the aero mirrors (call me an idiot). You'll likely see descriptions of this process where you insert a small flat blade screwdriver into the access hole and rotate the ring inside counter clockwise. What I didn’t get at first is that the ring and its rotation are coplanar to the mirror glass. In other words, you aren’t rotating the screwdriver, but using it as a lever to rotate the ring parallel to the mirror face. There’s a good image here of the ring on the backside of the mirror glass: http://www.951motorsports.com/ Once rotated, it may take a little gentile force to get the mirror to separate. I found slow steady GENTILE prying on the mirror glass with fingers only got it to release.

You need to remove the glass on the flags in order to remove the whole mirror assembly from the car if you want to leave a healthy length of wires to work with. Behind the glass you’ll find a round electrical connector that joins the wires from the car to the wires to the mirror motor and glass heater. I’d recommend writing down which wire from the car connects to which wire on the mirror motor just to be safe. I’d also recommend taping any wires together which are joined so that you don’t lose track of them after you cut the connector off. You’ll also want to make sure you’ve disconnected the battery before cutting to avoid any possible shorts. Now cut the wires leading from the car to the plug. Loosen the 4mm hex head bolt until you can remove the mirror from the car and slide the wiring out.

My 993 mirrors came with a round plug attached (P/N 964 612 516 00). If you’d like to use this plug, you’ll need the opposite end of the plug, which I believe is 964 612 616 00, a mini DIN pin insertion tool, and some female mini DIN pins. I believe you can get the plug from our host (~$10 each) and the DIN tool and pins from Radio Shack for ~$5. I didn’t go this route, but in retrospect kind of wish I had. The paint on the doors was marred enough from the old mirror mounts that I’d like an easy way to pull the mirrors in the future to finish the doors up better. Since I didn’t go this route, I won’t explain it, but it should be fairly obvious if you get all the parts together. Basically you’ll crimp or solder the mini DIN female pins to the wires from the car, then insert the pins into the appropriate holes in 964 612 616 00, plug in to the mirror wires, mount mirror to door and go.

I’ve read that there were lots of different wiring colors used over the years, and what I’m describing below worked for my car, so take that for what it’s worth. It may not be the same for your car, and I make no assurances that this will work for you.

My wiring looked like this:

Driver’s Side
CAR_____________________Mirror
Brown___________________Brown
Grey/Green_______________Brown
Red/Black ________________Black
Red/Blue_________________Blue
Red wire AND White wire____White* note that the red wire and white wire are twisted together on the car side.
Red_____________________Red

Passenger Side
CAR_____________________Mirror
Brown___________________Brown
Grey/Green_______________Brown
Blue/Grey________________Blue
Black/Blue________________Black
Red/White________________White AND Red wires twisted together

I used crimp connectors for all the connections.

A slightly longer explanation is that you can probably figure the wiring out if your wire colors differ. If you fully disassemble your flags you will see that there are 4 wires that insert into the motor assembly and 2 that attach to the mirror glass. The wires to the motor are actually numbered on the motor assembly if you look closely. I based my wiring on the idea that the wires from the car probably needed to route to the same numbers on the 993 mirror motor as they did on the flag mirror motor. If you don’t want to completely disassemble your mirrors, the color/number associations for what I encountered are below:

964 Mirror Motors:
1. Black
2. Black/Brown
3. White/Brown
4. White

993 Mirror Motors:
1. Black
2. Red
3. Blue
4. White

So, the wiring conversion with both colors and numbers would look like:

Drivers Side
CAR_____________________993 Mirror
Brown___________________Brown
Grey/Green_______________Brown
Red/Black________________Black (1)
Red/Blue_________________Blue (3)
Red wire AND White wire____White (4)
Red_____________________Red (2)

Passenger Side
CAR_____________________993 Mirror
Brown___________________Brown
Grey/Green_______________Brown
Blue/Grey ________________Blue (3)
Black/Blue________________Black (1)
Red/White_______________White (4) AND Red (2)


I am super happy with how the new mirrors look, though they do not provide quite as much visibility as the stock flags. Again, the paint on the doors will need some touching up and it would be handy if I could easily remove the mirrors and disconnect the wiring to do this. I’ve ordered some generic mini DIN connectors from Digikey. When/if I get around to installing those I’ll post an update.

-gardoni

[Don Plumley]

Super - thanks for the contribution. I've recommended for the Wiki.

[livesportm]

How about some pics!
Great write up and similar issue with the mirror bases.

[gardoni]

OK- it finally stopped raining here for a couple of days. Here's a before and after.

[livesportm]

Looks Good!
One of the best parts is when you are driving and look out at the new side mirrors.
They even look cool from inside the car!

[gardoni]

Thanks, and I agree about the look from inside. I got to take the car out for a bit on Saturday for the first time since the swap, and I'm pretty happy. The slightly reduced viz is easy to get used to, even for my little boy

[willie torres]

Great! thanks for the tip. My 964 is exactly the same color as yours. I just changed the rims to the 993 rims. Best regards.