Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT The Garage at The Place in The Valley (Garage Condo 45x23x20)

25th Drive - Day 6 - Back to STL

Day 6 - Back to STL

The trip back to STL from Alpharetta was almost the same duration (within 5 minutes) according to Google Maps. The difference was basically the the time change. I always like having the sun travel with you instead of against you. We did take smaller roads to cut across the country side north of Atlanta. Waze said would take 1 minute longer but it was much preferred to running the beat up roads into and around the Atlanta belt line.



We hit a little more traffic (Friday vs. Sunday), a bit more construction, and struck out twice on stops finding a bathroom. A McDonalds and a Starbucks on the way home that did not have open dining rooms but just drive through. Waze saved me from at least one ticket in Illinois where they had single police man up on a bridge and at least 5-6 Police SUVs lined up to chase down speeders. Waze worked really well on the the trip but I was shocked at the large swaths of Appalachia that did not have cell service. I'm used to the midwest that is flat and a signal carries a long way without obstruction.

The 997 rolled over 77,777 miles.



All road trips travelogues need a pic of the open highway:



And it is always nice to see the Arch when crossing back in Missouri. It just feels like - "Ok, I'm home now".



All in all, we drove 1710 miles on the trip. The car was dirty but did a phenomenal job.



Technically day 7 - but, the 997 did get cleaned up as soon as we could on Saturday morning.




So a final set of thoughts to end this journey:

Top 10 things I learned on Summer Vacation:

1. Porsche's PDK is magic and chooses the perfect gear for all occasions
2. A naturally aspirated flat 6 is a perfect musical instrument - wailing when on boil and gurgling and popping on release
3. Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires are the best performance rain tire ever
4. A rainy day can be a perfect day
5. Things are just greener in the Smokies
6. Georgia needs a Gap marketing department
7. Glamping is just weird
8. 750hp might be enough - maybe - I think...
9. Our electric future is bright
10. It is possible to be social while staying physically apart - Garage Journal for the win!

What an awesome post!

"a rainy day can be a perfect day"

From your post synopsis write up I've determined I need to run the dragon and my BMW

The 911 was filled enough during the trip; so, I waited until we returned home then bought some signs from the Tail of the Dragon store and drop shipped them to STL. I like to pick things to decorate the garage with that mean something to us and the trip was full of memories.

I picked out one of the Tail of the Dragon tin signs for the corner by the fireplace.





Then the back of the mezzanine railing wall seemed the perfect spot for these road signs of the Dragon/Cherohala/Moonshiner and 6 Gap.






Then, I'm a sucker for stickers that I convert to magnets. I picked up a whole slew of them to add to the collection....





I also had to add a track outline for the Porsche Experience Center and ToD to our current track outlines.



It's taken a while but things are starting to fill in on the walls finally.

My wife picked up a small gift for me. It is the Dempsey Proton Racing 911 RSR in 1/43 scale.


Why bother mentioning on this thread? Because it is the car that was used as the basis for the large picture above our fireplace in the garage....

Nice addition [emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Garage Journal

I'm not a car guy but that looks like a helluva a road trip for anyone. I think I've complimented you on the stickers-for-tracks before, but its still a great idea and bears repeating.

I missed the news on that warehouse fire, although I caught the one about the parking lot in Florida full of daily drivers, rentals etc. Probably a good idea to check on my extinguishers in the garage and under the kitchen sink. Lots of things eating up the news cycle this year, for sure.

We met up with the STL PCA group this morning at a park & ride just west of the Missouri river. Notice the cars are even socially distanced in the lot. It was a smaller group than we can usually get on any given weekend but given the current circumstances - it was nice to get 10 Porsches and 10+ masked up members together for a drive.



We stopped part way at a small gas station in rural America. There was one bath room total. Our end destination did not have public bathrooms so we wanted to get a stop in for everyone before we got there.



So where is there? The Zenith Aircraft factory. The Columbia branch of the club had already rounded up 13 of their own Porches and met us there.





The owners were nice enough to give a quick tour of the hanger where they put together kits that individual pilot/owners assemble to make a Zenith experimental aircraft. Their specialty are low and slow STOL 2-seaters. Fixed LE slats and rough field gear mean take off distances are a couple hundred feet not the typical 2-3 thousand.



The aircraft are all aluminum and you can see part of a wing on the ground in the foreground of the photo below.



We had to leave early but it was a nice to get out for a bit.

We were lucky enough to get invited to a Porsche promotional event called Porsche Drive 2020. With all the covid madness going on, Porsche is trying something new. We were invited to Chandler Hill Winery just west of the Missouri river for a more "intimate" event. Basically, we were given our choice of a couple sets of vehicles to drive. We selected the Cayenne e-Hybrid and the Taycan because Nancy had not driven the Taycan yet.

When we arrived at the winery the vehicles were lined up in the parking lot ready to go. There was a pretty good selection of 2020 models including 718, 911, Panamera, Taycan, Macan, Cayenne, Cayenne e-hybrid, and Cayenne Coupe. There are only 9 vehicles here with 2 of the vehicles being driven by the instructors so there were only 7 guest driven cars at the event.


We signed in at the tent where they checked licences, gave us Porsche branded hand sanitizer, and assigned us our vehicle. The vehicles had all been sanitized ahead of time and we were instructed that we could get in our vehicle for the first leg but to not touch any of the other vehicles. We were going to drive the Cayenne e-Hybrid on the first leg.


As the time to drive arrived and we did our driver's meeting, it became apparent that not all the guests had shown up. They were rounding up additional drivers from the Porsche team because the vehicles needed to get to the next stop so they could be used for the return trip. Originally, Nancy and I were going to drive together but I made a last minute decision to go ahead and drive by myself. I was going to drive the new Cayenne S Coupe and the Panamera on the way back.


The Cayenne Coupe is a little more stylish on the outside and has a little less cargo room on the inside. I sat in the back seat and the space in the back seat is plenty and does not feel short for head room. The mega sunroof that covers most of the roof area probably helps with the feeling of openness.

This view shows the difference in styling a little better. The first vehicle in line is the new Macan, then the Cayenne coupe with the aft sloped rear roof, and then the normal Cayenne. I have to admit I like the styling of the Coupe better. I do not think I carry enough cargo in my SUVs on a regular basis that the lack of some cargo space behind the rear sets would really bother me much.


We headed out for about a 20 minute drive down some back roads in Missouri wine country. It was a good selection of 2 lane roads with some 55 mph roads to some smaller much twistier sections. Our trip out was marred slightly by being stuck behind a Ford F-150 doing less than the speed limit but Porsche really can't be blamed for that. The instructors were from the Birmingham experience center and all of the cars had a walkie-talkie in the passenger door pocket to listen to commentary and instructions along the way. All of the cars had sports chrono and we were encouraged to try the different dial positions (regular, sport, sport+, individual) while driving. It is really easier to spin that dial on the steering wheel than hunt for buttons on the center console. At the legal speed limits were were driving, sport + was overkill but the sport mode was nicer on the twisties.

The e-hybrid had the dial as well but the modes were different. There was an all electric mode, hybrid mode, sport and sport plus. The all electric mode does not use the gas engine at all and is good for 20+ miles (can't remember exact mileage). They hybrid mode is the closest to a normal mode and the gas engine will start and stop as the vehicle determines optimal efficiency. With the sport and sport+ being more aggressive, the engine runs all the time with the electric motor being used to add horsepower rather than increase efficiency.

At the halfway point, we all got out of the cars and a pre-positioned detailing team cleaned the cars while we were offered some bottled water. On the way back, Nancy drove the Taycan Turbo S and I drove the Panamera Turbo.


I've waxed about the Taycan before so I won't waste a lot of space here doing it again. It really is a special car and if you have not driven one - you should at least test drive it. My wife enjoyed driving it but she did not get to do launch control which is one of the signature items about driving an electric vehicle today. The Panamera is a large car but it drives like a smaller car. The big old V-8 has a nice rumble and burble to it while driving in sport mode. Again, a 20 minute drive is not like doing a 90 minute session at the experience center but you do get some feel for the car and how you might drive it at legal speeds on a daily basis.

When we got back to the winery, we were treated to lunch on the back deck. They had tables reserved for us and we selected one at the edge of the seating area with a large floor fan directly behind us.


As we were leaving they gave us a small bag of Porsche swag. I was expecting a small item like they do at the car launches and was pleasantly surprised to find a a nice hat and coffee cup (Guards Red of course).


I'm not positive how we got on the list to attend. It might have been due to my wife's affiliations with the PCA or due to the fact that I have had a car on order for over a year. We talked to the hosts and instructors for a bit and they have been working their way around the country. They have had to change their schedule a couple times - trying to hit areas of the country that currently are not getting hit as hard with Covid-19. Given that there were open spots at our location on the day of the event, if you are interested - you might just call your dealer and see if there are events planned at your location.

General Update - RROC Meet

The Place has shifted over to be run by an elected board of owners instead of by the developers. We had our first meeting virtually on August 4th due to the pandemic and elected our board. The board has started to work on small things like the small issues we were having with the gate and WiFi.

There is only the one large corner unit that is not sold and it gets rented out as temporary storage. I do not believe phase 2 is going to happen. The land prices in the valley continue to go up and the developers just do not think with the current prices that they could make a go of the phase 2. There is a waiting list of people that want to get into The Place and I have heard that the first unit to resale might go on the market this winter.

We continue to have some small but interesting car meets in the facility. The Mid-America Region of the Rolls Royce Owners Club had a meet at the Place before they drove to Babler State park for a picnic. As owners at The Place, we were invited to attend and open up our units for people to see.

These are just some of the cars that attended. The first photo has a couple new cars that a dealer brought by for the event. One had a sticker price of $497,*** - wow.



And some of the units that were opened by owners - the first two photos belonging to one of the owners that is in the RROC...



I'm a little dispirited that we did not get to do Porsches at the Place III this year but I am sure we will try again next year. Let's hoping all is well then to allow us to get back to having more fun with our cars and garages.

Nice to see some activity - somewhere - anywhere. Thanks for the update

Last weekend - we were also able to get out and have fun at an AutoX. My daughter has attend multiple AutoX events with my wife and I; but - this was the first event that she got to drive her own car!

We requested to work the first heat so my daughter could see the course and where people were having problems. Boy did we get our request. The course was laid out in a big M shape and we were stationed right between the humps on the M. I think I picked up more cones that day then all other days working AutoX combined. There was a decreasing radius turn that people had to fight make the last tight gate. They would make that last tight gate but the shift in weight to the next cone would disrupt them enough many would hit that cone over and over and over.... Ok - many people did not hit it but others hit it 2-3 times out of six runs.

We ran the second heat and this is a picture of my daughters bone stock BRZ right before her very first run. My wife and daughter alternated runs in the BRZ and because she was doing so well - I gave her my sixth run in my TTS. She liked the increased grip in the TTS. She was not exceptionally fast but she did not get lost, did not hit any cones, and got faster each run. I think she is hooked now. We are currently looking for some new rims and tires. The penalty from DS to STX is only 0.806 to 0.816 so about 0.5-0.6 second on a 50-60 second course. She has all season tires (DWS) on her current 215/45R17 rims. In STX, she can go up much wider but I think a 17x9 rim with 245/40R17 RE-71s will be much nicer. Plus with a separate set of rims - she can still drive the BRZ all winter with the all seasons. Ahh... it starts....



I did ok. I finished 25 out of 58 entrants based on PAX time. I run BSP because I modded with a thought to driving it daily not to what my twice a year AutoX fix would suggest. BSP allows slicks (Hoosiers) and I'm still running my daily driver Michelin Pilot 4S tires. My raw time was 7th but my 0.852 PAX multiplier hurts. But I had fun as the 5mpg picture shows below. That is really funny because I started with a half tank and ended with a half tank - I think I probably used a gallon and drove a whole five miles in my six runs. I also let it idle during between runs as that seems to keep it cooler and happier than shutting off.



I'm hoping my new Porsche Cayman is faster and if I leave it stock will have a lower multiplier in SS (0.822). I'm sure I'll eventually do something to kick it out of stock because well I like having fun and AutoX is only a couple weekends a year tops. Still, I'm going to try to be more mindful of staying in the stock class for at least a year or two.

Talking about the Cayman GTS 4.0. It entered production on 9/11. It takes a while for it to get through production and ship from Germany to St. Louis via Emden and Houston. All the 2021 4.0 liter Caymans / Boxsters / GT4s / Spyders are being held up by the EPA for their CARB certification that will lift on 12/4. Some people even have cars at the ports in the US but cannot take delivery until 12/4. It looks like mine will get delivered to the US just in time to miss that hold. I guess I should consider myself lucky that it won't sit in the port for a couple months?? It should get to the dealer at the end of December - just in time for personal property tax declaration. I'm excited anyway. The picture below is the print-out of the Porsche schedule for my car.



I'm biding my time by looking at wheels for my daughter's car, looking at Snell 2020 helmets that just got released to replace our Snell 2010 helmets, and adding a few new things to the garage. Hey it's a flat six at least...



The TTS needs it's 85k oil change / service. We need to do our semi-annual summer tire for all-season / winter tires. They are small things - but the garage continues to be used..

2020 PCA Fall Color Tour

The strange year continues but we try to get out and drive some. We went our our STL PCA Fall color tour with about 35 cars from STL and another 8-9 from Columbia. We each drove from our respective home territory and met up in Hermann, MO. Some stayed for a lunch but my wife and I headed back soon after we arrived.

Early morning meeting west of STL in a commuter lot:



We got strung out at times but clumped up when stuck behind some slower traffic.





We stopped part way to give people time to stretch their legs and use the rest rooms at a local market. There were lots of locally grown apples to choose from.



The road got curvier and hillier from there.





We parked in a lot down by the Missouri river once we arrived in Hermann which gave me a chance to get some pictures of the whole crowd - including the arrivals from Columbia.







Some of my favorite individual cars:





The weather was not perfect but it stayed dry.

We’ve been doing drives in KC, but I’ve only put the pictures and articles in our newsletter. I need to start a thread here. Maybe feature some of our members garages. I’m really glad you folks are so active over there!!!

Ric S. joined our group and I believe he was part of the KC PCA group. He is wanting to start up the breakfast deal like you have in KC but the pandemic has slowed that down from getting started so far.

Looks like a cool drive/meet. Its really pretty along the Missouri River this time of year, fall colors were really vivid a week or so ago. I'm on the south end of Gasconade County, so Hermann is our county seat.

The first two owners wishing to re-sell their units have gone up at The Place. One is a big 2500 sq. ft. trapezoid shaped unit in one of the corners. The other is actually two of the smallest units that were bought together. It is actually a nice set up with two doors. Each unit was in the 700-800 sq. ft size but together their is actually around 1500 sq. ft. Details of the units including videos are on The Place Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/ThePlace500/

It will be interesting if these sell quickly. I know our plan is to stay and stay long term so I'm not too concerned either way.

Check out the videos - even if you just want to see more of what these units look like.

Greg, glad to see you're doing well, enjoying the cars and the garage.

@west_perf - Yep - having fun. My newest car - the Cayman is done production and on the way to Houston. It is currently on a Roll on Roll Off ship in the port of Jacksonville, FL on its way over to Houston. It is amazing to me that I've been able to track the ship on the internet from Emden to Baltimore to Jacksonville and now on to Houston. It is due into Houston on the 19th and then has to get shipped up to STL. The EPA released all the 2021 model year 992s and 718s so that hurdle is cleared. I just need to get it into town and sign a lot of paperwork. Fingers crossed by the end of the month!!

The day finally came. We picked up our first new Porsche today - a 2021 Porsche Cayman GTS 4.0.

This first pick is a augmented reality jpeg I took months ago when I placed my order.



Today, I took the real photo in our unit with the newly delivered vehicle.



The view the other way is more amazing to me. If someone had told me 6 years ago before my wife's cancer that we would own one Porsche I would have laughed. Today we own three and an amazing garage. We have gained friends and enjoyed many events with the STL PCA group.



This crazy year (2020) has sucked but given tomorrow is Thanksgiving it is appropriate that I realize how lucky and thankful I am to be where I am.



Happy Thanksgiving To All! I hope you too can find something worth celebrating this crazy year.

Very nice addition to the stable. Happy Thanksgiving indeed ��

Great looking Cayman, as the GTS 4.0 is the spec I would buy if I was in the market. I've owned two 911s over the years, but the latest generation seems too big to me. I'm sure it's great car, but the Cayman is more my speed at this point.

Congratulations Greg. We’ve enjoyed doing quite a few drives out here in West County, Ric and I organize most of them. I will pm you my number if you’d care to join us.

Congrats. Look forward to hearing your feelings about it after putting some miles on it.

Jon69RagTop said:

Congratulations Greg. We’ve enjoyed doing quite a few drives out here in West County, Ric and I organize most of them. I will pm you my number if you’d care to join us.

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Thanks for inviting us out. I know I did not bring the new vehicle but Nancy and I still had fun. The 997 C4S fit in better with the group. I thought it was a good looking group with a GT3, two GTSs and two 997 S models heading down the road.

As soon as the PPF goes on, I'll start driving the Cayman. I just figure waiting a couple more days to not have a paint chip under the PPF is worth it.




Thanks again for inviting us!

It was our pleasure having you come along today. We hope to see your GTS on the next adventure. Until then, be save and enjoy the new car.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to you Greg & Family!

I dropped my new car off at the detailing shop on Tuesday and it was not done on Friday yet... I should get it back on Monday and I can finally get out and drive it some. I've got an interesting idea for a drive destination but that will have to wait to another post.

It did give me some time this weekend to catch up on a project long over due at The Garage at The Place in The Valley. Those that have been following from the very beginning will remember this picture of my original plans for the staircase leading up to the mezzanine.



A key "feature" of that view was a set of pictures on the wall detailing all of the cars that we have owned over time starting with my 1963 Corvair Monza Convertible and finishing with the 2009 997.2 Carrera 4S. I have wanted to make this happen from the very beginning but we ran into a few issues.

First, I was worried a bit about going with a canvas product in the garage as it might not last well in an environment that gets opened to the elements. However, our print on aluminum over our fire place has worked well and shows no issues after a couple years.



The second issue was that some of the pictures that we have of the cars we have owned over time are not very high quality. I actually think we are lucky to have surviving pictures from the 1980s of some of these cars. If the pictures were blown up too large or just too close to your eyes (like right next to you on the stairway), they were not going to look very good.

The solution showed up in the form of a Black Friday CVS half off sale of photos printed on aluminum. We chose an 8x10 format size and placed the pictures on our upper wall above the TVs on the mezzanine. The smaller size and slightly longer viewing distance allowed the pictures to look reasonable. I used command strip velcro strips to attach the photos so that I can pull them down and rearrange if we get more vehicles or change what we want to display.



The velcro worked great for us as we bought the pictures in two batches. We only got 6-8 at first as a test run. The pictures came out well and we went back and found enough pictures to fill the front wall. We had to go back and move the original ones because they are in time order of ownership and we added a few "novelty" pictures at the beginning. Unlike our original plan on the stairs, we were able to extend out all the way to the latest - our 2021 Cayman GTS 4.0.







We actually did not cover all our vehicles. We only included the cars and not the SUVs except for the Pathfinder that was my wife's primary driver back when we started with kids. So, no Toyota RAV4 or Porsche Macan but the mix is still eclectic enough...

The picture quality is not wonderful and the photo ink is semi-transparent - so, you always see some of the grain and reflectivity of the aluminum behind the photos. All in all, I still like how it turned out.

That's a really nice, personal touch. Well done.

Very cool Greg. Do tell about your drive idea, I’m ready to go.

I picked up the Cayman on Nov 25th from the dealer and parked it to wait on PPF/Ceramic. The PPF/Ceramic was done from Dec 1st to Dec 7th. So, I've had the car for two weeks and only managed 24 miles driving (18 on delivery to 42 this morning). Today, I played hooky from work and went for a drive. We wanted to go somewhere unique for the first drive so decided to drive out to the new racetrack being put in by the Lake of the Ozarks. We planned a drive down mainly back roads - avoiding interstates. We wanted to attempt to do break-in correctly and keep the revs under 4000 rpm with lots of variation in revs and speeds.

The map here shows the route - I selected key towns along the route on Google Maps to force the route along these smaller roads and off the interstate. The Place-> Labidie -> Rosebud -> Iberia -> Ozark International Raceway -> Jefferson City -> Rhineland -> Augusta -> The Place



We started early but didn't start at the break of dawn. We wanted to let the air and the roads warm up some since it is December.



We grabbed a shot of the gauges going out the gate to show we were at only 42 miles. The temp shows 55 degrees but I think that is because the garage was 55 degrees.



I like using Waze on road trips because I like the real time warnings that it gives. Since you can only have a destination and one stop along the way - I usually program in a series of cities along the way and swap out destinations on the fly. The Cayman is nice that I can use Waze on CarPlay and it uses my iPhone as a secondary display to show the next few turns. This picture is funny because we are close to home and I'm ignoring their path and taking my own. I also blurred out the speed in the upper right hand corner for some reason. ;-)



We planned to take lots of pictures on the route. That didn't really happen. Most of the pictures are of flat roads which is not most of the route. I can only guess my wife was too busy holding on rather than taking pictures in the twisties. ;-) Here is a shot while we roll through the bustling metropolis of Rosebud.



We made it to the Lake of the Ozarks right around noon. We stopped at a barbecue place named Halfsauced and did take out. We looked up the nearest park and drove there to sit in a pavilion to eat. I had a very good pulled pork sandwich and my wife got an equally good smoked sausage sandwich.



The track is just a little bit on the other side of the lake. When we arrived at the destination it was a busy hub of activity working on paving the track. There were a bunch of "Private Property - Do Not Enter" signs so we took a couple pictures from the road and moved on. It would have been nice to see more but they really don't need people gumming up their efforts. I am just excited to get what looks like such a good track in Missouri.





I could just glimpse the hint of the track coming up the hill as we drove away between a gap in all the equipment. For those that do no know about the track - this is a much better view of what it will look like.





It looks flat but aerial views often foreshorten objects. This is a picture that they posted on Instagram/Facebook of the hill leading up to the Bus Stop. The Ozark region is quite hilly and it appears the track will have lots of elevation changes.



From there we headed back through Jefferson city and then drive down the Missouri River all the way back to The Place. We spent most of the morning working our way up and down the Ozark hills and it was weird to be out on the flats surrounding the Missouri River. We stopped to let my wife drive for a while. These next two photos are at that stop; if you look in one direction you can see the bluff, and if you look the other you see the flood plains. There is quite a difference depending on which way you are looking.





We pulled into our local gas station after driving over 340 miles. I was surprised that we averaged 28.5 mpg with a big 4.0 liter flat six engine but I guess keeping under 4k revs helped!



We made it back to The Place just in time to get the sunset. We made the most of the sunlight and the weather was just gorgeous with our high for the day in the upper 60s. That is just fantastic for December in Missouri.



Key take aways from my first big drive with the Cayman:

1. Grip and handling dynamics are just phenomenal. The car is everything I hoped for in a mid-engine platform. These are just roads and not a track workout but it responds very well to input and just goes where you tell it go.

2. I was worried about low down torque and not being able to enjoy driving much under 4000 rpm during break-in. I was worried about nothing. The engine has plenty of torque down low and I am amazed that it will just pull up and down hills in 7th gear and 2000 rpm with no issues.

3. The sport exhaust needs help. The valves kick closed at 1400 rpm when you pull away from a stop whether you have the sport exhaust button pushed or not. The only difference is the valves open at something like 4k rpm with the sport exhaust button pushed and 5k rpm with the button not pushed. I didn't see past 4k today so I really do not know what that sounds like. I'm sure the particulate filters don't help with the sound either. I'm sure I will eventually get an exhaust and potentially a valve controller. I need to get past 4000 rpm first to see if I feel different with the full pallete.

4. I was worried about the carbon fiber seats and how I would feel about them in a longer drive situation from a comfort perspective. I have heard both glowing reviews and hate letters (looking at you Car & Driver magazine). I spent over 6 hours in them today and I'm good - so I made the right decision there. I think they look amazing, I like the weight savings, I like the lateral support for AutoX and track, and for my body shape they are comfortable.

It was a good day and a good drive. I'm not sure I will be able to keep under 4k for 2000 miles and am thinking off walking up to max rpm. I'm thinking about 5000rpm after 500 miles, 6000 rpm after 1000 miles, 7000 rpm after 1500 miles and let it go to the full 7800 after 2000 miles. I want to try to get the full 2000 miles in before AutoX season this spring. I'm not sure the weather is going to be as cooperative as today but fingers crossed.

Nice trip! I'm behind the times, as I had not heard of the new track being built. Glad you got to stretch the legs on the new car.

Congrats on the new car, sounds like a blast. That track was not in my radar, but it looks like it will be great. I will occasionally do a track day in one of my nicer cars, but I must say I really enjoy budget endurance racing (24 hours of Lemons) - tons of seat time for the money. Happy Motoring!

PS - I like the pictures of your old cars, I have many of my old window stickers framed but a picture on metal would be nice, and probably less expensive than these frame shops charge.

I'm pretty sure you can just unplug the vacuum line to the valve and it will be open all the time, Matt from obsessed garage did that to his I believe, may want to check his videos. I know on my bmw that's all I had to do, sounds much better open always. [emoji16]

GRN96WS6 said:

I'm pretty sure you can just unplug the vacuum line to the valve and it will be open all the time, Matt from obsessed garage did that to his I believe, may want to check his videos. I know on my bmw that's all I had to do, sounds much better open always. [emoji16]

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Lots of options here... You can plug the lines, some are just wiring the valves open, and there are controllers from Soul and Cargraphic that override the stock programming or use stock programming with an extra remote. There is even a rumor that the popular aftermarket DSC pasm controller is going to add exhaust valve programming to their box.

I do not think I want to be open all the time. If I replace the OPF link pipes then the open all the time might be louder than I want to sneak out of the neighborhood in the early morning.

I’m going to give the aftermarket some time to innovate and figure out an OPF, valve controller, exhaust solution next year.

I would love to have a functional sport exhaust - to be able to sneak out of the house and neighborhood for those 6:45AM Saturday breakfast meet ups, yet have the ability to open it up. Not many such options available for the old 996, but your Cayman has the perfect answer to stealth + performance. With a little tweaking here and there.

Congrats on the GTS 4.0! Is that the Gentian Blue? I'm also a nut for all the leather options on Porsches - makes for such a special environment...

It is Night Blue Metallic. Depending on lighting it can look lighter or darker.

This one looks black as it was taken at sunset.



While this one has more blue as it was taken in direct sunlight.



Yeah, I went a little overboard on interior options between the GTS interior package (carbon accents, carmine red tach, carmine red seat belts, carmine red stitching), the carbon fiber seats, the steering column in leather with stitching, and the extended dash in leather/race tech with stitching.





I have a hard time taking pictures of the interior. I actually think it looks better than these photos.

Greg_STL said:

We actually did not cover all our vehicles. We only included the cars and not the SUVs except for the Pathfinder that was my wife's primary driver back when we started with kids. So, no Toyota RAV4 or Porsche Macan but the mix is still eclectic enough...

The picture quality is not wonderful and the photo ink is semi-transparent - so, you always see some of the grain and reflectivity of the aluminum behind the photos. All in all, I still like how it turned out.

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That's a cool idea. And 8x10 is plenty big to tell a story. I like the idea, and the execution (from inter webs 10,000ft looks great). We all [most of us, anyway] have old 3x5s or 4x6s that won't reproduce well if blown up and viewed from close. #goodfromfarfarfromgood describes most of my photographs already.

@kjdhawkhill - If you want to replicate, CVS is still running their 50% off sale until 12/12. I never know if 50% of is a standard sale that runs most of the time or if it really is something special. Go to cvs.com, then the photo department. Don't go to wall art because those are all larger than 8x10. Select "Photo Tabletop Panels" then "Metal Easel Panels". The easel part is a thin piece of metal on the back of the main image metal panel that can be folded out like an easel. I just left the easel piece flat and when I put on my velcro command strips they were thicker than the flat piece of metal so it did not matter that it was there. The 8x10 is regularly $19.99 so only $10 after the discount. Have fun if you decide to try it out!