I've pretty much been plagued with random exhaust leaks on the Cayman since we put on the Soul Performance street headers over a year ago. First I had one on the engine side of the headers and that was fixed by using genuine Porsche gaskets instead of whatever aftermarket gasket I was initially sent. Then during SCCA Nationals last year I developed a leak at the gaskets after the cats, again from being supplied random generic gaskets. Well I decided enough was enough so I picked up new Porsche OEM gaskets and finally found some time to work on it.
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| Fresh OEM Porsche exhaust gaskets - 2/1/2020 |
Thankfully, it's an easy enough job on the Quick Jack once you clear some stuff to get to the bolts but this definitely fixed the leak. I haven't been driving the Cayman mostly because it's Winter but also because the exhaust sounded like a truck. You could hear the air blowing out of each wheel well like a two-stroke engine. When I fired her up after the gasket replacement, all you could hear was the sweet sound of the flat 6. Hopefully this also fixes the CEL caused by the air leak and I can finally get the car to pass inspection. Lesson learned, only OEM gaskets on Porsches from now on!
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| Yay new gaskets and cat still looks clean! - 2/1/2020 |
Also last year after coming back from SCCA Nationals, I decided to replace the air filter. Well, in doing so, I managed to accidentally push too hard and break the tab that the airbox covers screws into. This is no good because with the enclosed mid-engine that meant hot air was going to work its way in there so I just had the top secured with gaffers tape.
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| Broken intake cover tab :( |
It was effective and out of sight so most people would leave it at that but I'm not most people. This was bother me so what you'd normally do is just replace an the airbox with one that was wasn't damaged right? Something like this (cleaned up maybe)?
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| Used Cayman Airbox |
Well, no, nothing is that easy on a mid-engine car. You can get an OEM airbox out of a Cayman by hacking it up but you're not putting in a new one without dropping the engine. No thanks! What I ended up doing was taking a dremel and cleaning up the damaged tab on the car then cutting out a good tab from my spare intake.
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| Tab extracted from spare intake |
I put it all together with some Plastic Bonder and now I can feel better knowing that my intake lid that absolutely no one sees but me is screwed on just like it should be (yep, I know, I'm crazy).
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| Plastic Bonder FTW |
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| Tab attached very firmly after an hour letting it cure |
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| Ah...back to normal. No more tape! - 2/1/2020 |
Side note: Having a rollbar makes it extra annoying to work on the engine. Thankfully, the Heigo rollbar has all the segments bolted on as separate pieces so I figured out a relatively easy way to get the engine cover off. I think most people working on my car might not have as much patience as me though so I think I'll just have to remove the cover before taking it in for any work because it's just too easy to scratch up the rollbar if you aren't patient with it.
