htny

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.

gota911

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.

htny

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

Benjamin Choi

agreed tim

i love LA!

htny

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!

Benjamin Choi

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.

htny

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

htny

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, 1-310-839-5500. 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!

Chaos

I love your wheels

htny

Thanks! They really have grown on me.

ArneeA

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!

lamesacarrera

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.

htny

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.

htny

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?

gota911

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.