pics

Happy New Year everyone! OK, so i bought that 996 CPO on Dec 29th and haven't been online because I've been driving it like I stole it for the past two weeks, serious mileage. But Tim will kill me if I don't post pics, so here goes, before and after mods (did 19" turbo look wheels/toyo t1r tires with the 315/25 rear meat at Wheel Dynamics in LA, clear side markers & door plug from BumperPlugs, and PSE mod w/ 2.25" pipe at AAA Performance in LA, and I threw a Garmin Nuvi 660 i believe mounted under the CD holder, and BTW it's a very late '02 C2 basalt black). After putting it up on the lift for exhausts I decided I will not be lowering the car. And I've pretty much decided against painting the calipers red. might be neat to clean them and clear them sometime for a nice shiny black, but kinda liking the all black look there especially with the black grey paint in the grooves of the turbo wheels. NOTE: these are not "good" photos, but I forgot to bring a real camera with me to california so these are using my blackberry, and you've all seen enough of these to get the gist right?. we'll get some good ones this weekend if the weather holds, been worse in LA this week than NY. Before: http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG00034.jpg After: http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG00131.jpg I know that after pic really sucks quality wise, but hey it's a cell phone! I'm off again for a few days, but will try to post better pics later. Thanks to everyone on here!

fantastic...looks great....but I'm voting for a re-do on the pix

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Me too. I'll bring a real camera along for tomorrow's mountain / canyon / beach run!

Hans, Congrats on getting the car. I can imagine that the conversion will look good in some real pics (hee hee). What do you think of the PSE MK II mod? Was it worth the effort and cost?

it was so cheap in "just bought the car last week" terms or "thinking about buying a fabspeed" terms, and sounds much more aggressive at everything but very light throttle (which to me is rattly in both stock and modded forms on these cars). As far as effort, I never took them off the car myself, having no garage or tools while I'm away from home here I just drove it into the shop, didn't pay a porsche premium to my own estimation and based on what others paid. And I had it done while I was waiting for my wheels to come back with tires mounted and balanced, took about 3 hours and I made some new friends around Culver City. So I thought Cheap & Painless. Results? Well, I drove through a tunnel in J-town in downtown LA about 30 minutes after I had the mod done, blasted most of the way through 2nd gear and was very, very pleased! How much of this is psychological? Who knows, but I'm happy I did it when I did, would probably have hemmed and hawed about it i'd waited until later. The response from people on the street was telling as well, it's louder for sure, but I don' know if it's a goo or bad loud yet! Since I haven't let anyone else drive it yet, and you can't exactly go redlining the motor in neutral, I feel like I haven't really heard it properly yet, at least not at the upper end of the rev range, since these cars do sound very different inside vs out, but most of my buddies who've heard it pulling up or away claim to love it.

Congrats on the car! I was never a fan of putting 997 tt wheels on a 996 Carrera but you did convert me; they really look great on the car!

Congrat's but please do take the time to get some better pics up ASAP

htny, Beautiful picture of the sky, mountains and before pic of car. Looking forward to similar quality pic for the after. Nice wheels for sure.

HT, Are you selling the 10 spoke wheels you took off you car? If so, PM me. Chad

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OK, my brother flew out this past weekend with a decent digital camera and between working on tans and drinking mai tais I actually hosed the car down for you boys so we could get some halfway decent pics up: http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0267.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0272.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0324.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0325.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0336.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0338.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0347.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0351.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0366.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0368.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0375.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0426.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0437.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0439.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0462.jpg http://hansthomas.com/carrera/IMG_0477.jpg pretty much hits for the cycle as far as LA goes: Malibu, PCH, Santa Monica, Angeles Crest, etc. There are some night shots from the top of hollywood, bel air, bev hills, downtown etc, but I don't think any of them came out well enough to merit posting them. As it is all these photos are raw, no retouch, and off a miniature canon digital cam. of course, there a lot more pictures in this roll of significantly more attractive narrowbodied thoroughbreds in exceedingly alluring poses, but not fit for the 996 forums! what do you guys think, leave the black carrera logo or put the silver one I have sitting in the box here on it?

what do you guys think, leave the black carrera logo or put the silver one I have sitting in the box here on it?[/QUOTE] nice pic's...I say leave it black...

Is it a tip?

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oh yeah. this thing is coming back to manhattan with me in a few weeks, so tip, heated seats, rear wiper, and two sets of wheels for summer/winter.

Did you sell the 10 spokes?

htny- didn't mean to be rude...nice updated pics, your new 996 looks great!

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actually, unless someone wanted to buy them with the michelin pilots (<500 miles) on them, I wouldn't sell since I plan to use them for snows.

Thanks for posting the pics! I replaced my black Carrera logo with a brushed silver logo. Darker cars look much better with the silver logos, IMO.

yeah seeing the pics side by side make it easy to decide. Thanks as always Tim

agreed tim i love LA!

yeah LA is a great place to own a car, especially if you love to drive, but don't have to drive traffic at peak hours is just painful, even by manhattan standards, even by emerging markets standards but off peak, they have great roads, mountain passes, canyon roads, desert driving, oceanfront, all that of course getting up at 5AM to keep up with the market is a pain!

lol esp on days like today, no? i hope to move down to LA sometime, but just need to find the right oppty. i try to take weekends there once a month to get out of the seattle rain. i'm staying at the mondrian when i'm down there in february. looking forward to it, just sux that i'll be in a rental.

well let me know when you're down here, I'm waiting out the winter here before I head back to NY, I'm 5 minutes from the mondrian (or 30, depends on traffic on sunset) and can get you a little break from the rental

hey since I'm getting a lot of PMs on the topic: I purchased the wheels & tires mounted balanced and installed for something like 2700 or 2800 (maybe less, not more) all told from Wheel Dynamics in LA. They do ship nationally, and do install locally, and are absolutely experts in fitments for 996s. Since widths and offsets do vary by model year and body style, I highly recommend you speak with Carlos who owns the joint, [phone removed]. Tell him you saw the combo on Hans' car. Also: No rubbing even at full lock, good ride quality (I replaced stock 17s), much more settled especially at speed, excellent cornering grip, does fill out the wells nicely, but you could lower 20mm with no rub if you wanted, although I can't speak to lowered ride quality. And: Yes the rears are 19X11 315/25 T1Rs, no spacer, bead is fine back there, and theres a nice little rim guard lip on the tire too. Hope that helps!

I love your wheels

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Thanks! They really have grown on me.

I used to think the 997TT wheels were too busy...but I'm starting to like them! Not to mention that they're forged factory wheels too!

First time I've seen 997TT wheels on a 996--they look sweet! These have got to be a lot heavier than the 17's though and the tires are heavier too which increases unsprung weight. This should theoretically worsen acceleration, ride quality and braking. Great aesthetic improvement for sure, I'm skeptical that there would be a performance improvement though.

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Oh yeah. This was definitely a more cosmetic decision, if the car was being tracked I would have kept the 17s and put the money spent on wheels, tires, nav, sidemarkers, exhaust bypass etc. into some DOT slicks and a brake/bodywork budget. But it's going to get a lot of gridlock and a few miles of spirited driving a year if I bring it back to NYC, and if I leave it in LA maybe a few more of both. I figure that ratio is 80/20 in my life. while I can't provide quantitative figures on the effects to braking or acceleration, the wider stance and bigger contact patches definitely have made it feel significantly more settled and easier to drive fast, although I have never and probably will never have the car on a closed course so we're talking 7/10ths on winding mountain roads and my own finely calibrated rear end for measurement. If the specs are right, I appear to have sacrificed a little under 3lbs a corner in unsprung and picked up a lot more rear rubber (315s back there now), but not enough to really make much of a difference 0-60 either way. But the place where I was most concerned, and the place where I've been most surprised, is almost no detectable sacrifice to ride quality around town, and MUCH better footing on highways, sweepers and byways. And it looks a lot more like I pictured it would in my mind, which is important to me! I have to tell you, I've tooled around LA in some pretty outlandish cars over the past couple of years, but none of them seem to have engendered the kind of goodwill from people as this one since the update was completed People seem to really genuinely like it, no green with envy types yet, no look down your nose at it yet. A lot of nice conversations, thumbs ups, etc. Still getting passed by civics and hyundai excels at 110 on freeways, but that's practically a law of physics.

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Tim I was recently advised by a friend of a friend not to do this logo swap until I determined whether or not the factory had clearcoated over the original logo decal, because if so obviously I would run the risk of destroying the finish back there when removing it. he suggested having a pro do it and clear over it again, but that scares me enough that I would never do it. Seems hard to sell 911s with any kind of overspray, even if it's clear! Your thoughts?

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I seriously doubt they installed the Carrera badge prior to clear coating the car. All of the badges and trim pieces are installed after the car has been painted (color coat and clear coat). WHen I removed my original black badge, the paint under the badge looked just like the rest of the car. A few guys here have simply de-badged their 996 for a cleaner look and I don't recall any of them mentioning a problem with the paint.