Question about Porsche "mods" ?

Lamont Sanford wrote: : Hi there,

: I'm wondering why the Porsche community doesn't seem to enjoy "mod'ing" : their cars as much as say, Honda Civic owners. Here's a mod that I made to : one of my cars:

:

: Some people think it's somewhat ostentatious, but I think it's actually : quite elegant. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

: David

I think your performance might improve if you installed another pointing the other direction...

Most Porsche owners don't want to adulterate their cars with inferior parts, etc. My own experience shows that aftermarket engine parts, for instance, have been of lower quality than original Porsche parts.

Because we don't have to.

Because we don't have to.

David,

I don't know if that's really a true statement.... I own a '98 C2S (Carrera S) It has a PSS9 suspension (Adjustable Bilstine shocks) RS adjustable swaybars, RS motormounts, RS Short shift kit, Nakamichi CD 400, Eclipse

3424, MBQarts and all kinds of other neat stuff.......That being said, go to the discussion groups on you'll see in the Porsche world there's plenty of mod'en goin on.

Funny.

The trick for most Porsche owners is to mod the car for handling and power but not to do obvious things to make it "look cool."

I've got thousands > Hi there,

It seems with Porsche owners we have a mix of owners. The owner who buys only the numbers matching cars, to be placed in a hermetically sealed chamber.

Or the true Porsche owner in the James Dean tradition, who will do and spend anything to make their daily low level flights as filled with as much of the Porsche experience possible.

I like the poster of the Porsche going away very quickly, caption reads "Kills Bugs Fast", says what owning a Porsche should mean. It's just like the shifter, anyone who has the earlier year Porsches has likely installed a short shift kit, or should. But most of all don't do anything stupid to detract from the beauty of the car, why would you?

When you see the Honda mods, sure they look better after the mods, but that is because without the mods they are,, well I will be nice,, plain. No one can ever loose a Porsche in a parking lot.

Or there are owners like me, that enjoy the cars as is. The times are actually pretty few when anyone will truly need 100% of most any Porsche's performance. I swap when it makes sense (like going to SSIs when my heat exchangers rusted out) but that's about it. Sometimes the modding in the Porsche world gets as silly as that in the ricer camp. There are some truly horrendous body kits out there, and I fight the urge to barf every time I see a 70s 911 converted to some turbo replica without a single engine upgrade. Especially annoying when it's a SWB car. But what makes the ricer upgrades silly is how much money kids are sinking into the cars to get something that still won't touch a 928S4,

944 Turbo, or 911 in the same price ranges. Emanuel

What i'd like to know is why Civic owners in particular seem to love putting those oversized noise-maker muffers on their cars. Do they have "high rev Porsche engine sound" envy?

I can't agree with you more. I think many of our Porsche owners that get carried away are just like those doing the Honda upgrades. They have forget that the excellent engineering and simple lines are what made the Porsche a timeless and highly sought after car of all ages of drivers.

I think they went to "Fast and Furious" and were sucked in.

I was sucked into Porsche enthusiasim by getting passed by them while in the service in Germany (72 -74) and driving semi for the Army on the autobahn. Nothing and I mean nothing is so enticing to a car enthusiast as seeing a Porsche flat out, subtly looming larger in your mirror with high beams flashing and then wailing past you, and disappearing into the disatnce with a sound thats says goodbye like nothing else on the planet.

PS Great selection!!

Vern

1972 911 Targa wide body look, Work In progress. 1974 911 Targa Guards Red/Black

Nothing like a Neon with a big fu*king spoiler.....very impressive.

Steve

Hard to generalize over a population of owners. Some do get into extreme mods. Some do a "presto" and create the car they wish they had, or could have, bought.

I mod my cars because I track them (928 and 944) in Driver's Education through PCA chapters. If you ever thought of driving your car at "9/10ths" or full out, you should do it. (Most drivers who think they do that on the street don't know they're not. Or they're F'n crazy!)

As to Vern's comment: Oh yeah! I'm just smil> I was sucked into Porsche enthusiasim by getting passed by them while in the

well, Vern, I don't know when the last time you visited Germany was, but hold those memories. The Autobahns are pretty much clogged now days making speeds much above 80mph difficult. Sometimes you get lucky and find yourself on a bit where there isn't much traffic, but it's increasingly rare. An article in the German Autoclub's latest magazine says that the Autobahns are already at capacity and that this wasn't expected to happen until 2015...

I read some politicians are pushing for a speed limit on them as well. I know sections are speed restricted, but now they're going whole hog. emanuel

I go to Germany annually and although it pains me to say it, "some sort of speed limit might just be necessary." On my last trip, some German yuppy in a BMW Convertible passed us going well over 100mph (he was doing over 100 and I was at about 70mph). About 10 miles from Wurzburg, we saw the car----in a tree. It had been airborne after hitting the rear end of a ubiquitous tour bus and landed in the tree. He was hurt but not dead. Seems he was on his cell phone (illegal but done as often as in the States).

The autobahn is now a series of detours, road construction and it often narrows from 4 lanes to one in construction zones with little if any warning. That spells disaster for someone driving over the capabilities of the road, the other drivers and him/herself. There are a few places on the less traveled autobahns---say from Bremen to Jever but the rest of Germany, including what used to be East Germany just is not safe for everyone if someone decides to go flat out when it is full of cars. Couple that with trucks which pull out to pass slower trucks and cars going 40mph alongside those wanting to do 140 miles per hour and the recipe for disaster is there. I recall on many occasions waiting for what seemed hours for an accident scene to be cleared since it seemed to this American eye that the Polizei often closed the road to do a thorough investigation. I am of the opinion that congestion and the right to drive as fast as you want are conflicting factors and I would rather get where I am going alive than in a box.

I would hate to have the unfortunate luck by passing you in any manner. You seem to see way too many accidents!

I'll be the first to say I'm no math whiz, but I'd venture a guess that the global equation would go something like this. Feel free to correct.

((faster cars)+(Idiots+1))n = n(deaths)

DS

Why f*ck with artistic engineering, Porsche owners are after a whole different experience than an understeering, over horsepowered, mass produced.............

Oh my, what 30 years will do. It was crowded near the major cities while I was in the service, but I drove every day and it was not uncommon to find long stretches of hardly any cars.

In fact I drove the autobahn to Berlin once and didn't see a single vehicle for 1/2 an hour. But that was restricted road at the time too.

But you have to remember that was also during the fuel crisis. In fact I was in Germany for the three weekend driving bans. Now if you want think of an experience, One weekend we played football on the autobahn just inside Manheim's city limits near our barracks for two hours one afternoon. Talk about WEIRD.

So with fuel prices being what they were, travel unless you could afford it just wasn't done. Leaving the autobahn mostly to semis, and the Porsches, Mercedes, and Ferraris.

As for accidents, I will post a story about that, one of my next posts. It still makes me cringe after 30 years.