Excellent thread that I've somehow missed thus far. Great job documenting the individual weights.

A little data that I was able to find on the wheels:

Champion RG5 19x8.5 = 19.2 lbs
Champion RG5 19x11.5 = 20.8 lbs

If you dropped down to 18" OZ Alleggerita (light, cheap):

OZ Alleggerita 18x8 = 17.8 lbs
OZ Alleggerita 18x10 = 19 lbs

You could probably sell your Champion wheels for $3k or so, based on what I've seen them listed for. New Alleggeritas are about $400/ea at Tire Rack. You could pocket some cash and save 6.4 lbs, plus get better ride quality.

As for the brakes, maybe you could find someone semi-local willing to give you $2k and swap directly for their OEM brakes? Stock 996 brakes are more than adequate for street and autocross use.

 

Great thread indeed. Thanks for taking the time to document so thoroughly.

 

Although techinically 18's have been proven to go around the track faster on the 996 platform, I personally like the look of RG-5's and would gladly take the very minimal weight penalty for the looks. 4lb difference is where I draw the line though between form and function.

I will be switching over to my 19" RG-5's this summer from my 18" BBS RS-GT's.

 

Wheel size is obviously one of those "different strokes for different folks" things. Personally I think 18" is perfect. I just removed my 17" winter twists and installed my 18" Alleggeritas, much better.

 

From the back it lools like he car got rearended and you don't have the money to fix it.

 

I do love the RG5s... front brakes have been for sale for a very long time with no one serious interested.

By the way I recently mounted some Pilot Super Sport on the back in 275x30 and those tires are amazing.
More grip on the dry than with my previous 295x30 Pirelli

As I was doing so I double checked my wheel sizes: front are 19x8.5 J49 and rears are 19x10 J58.

Other interesting fact is that the PSS tires are ~2.5lbs heavier than the P-Zeros. (wheel+tire ow at 45.3lb vs 42.7lb before)

I shaped the aluminum to have the 3D shape of the holes so it looks a little bit more finished now but still not my favorite part of the car. It does help getting a lot of heat out of the bumper which I need since I have no heatshields left.

 

You should get some of that gold heat reflecting foil for the inside of your bumpers to replace the heat shields. I think you can get it from JEG's or Summit.

 

AN updated picture as I am putting the car up for sale

 

All that work and you are selling it?

 

lol, it's probably the car I have kept the longest in my life, I have had it for 2 years

Usually I average more like 6 to 12 months of ownership before I move to the next thing.

 

ok, so before I sell the car I wanted to see if all of these mods gave me some advantage.

Let me start by saying that I usually never launch the car hard - but this was for science!

I took a few measures with a GPS:
0-60 = 4.37s vs. stock 40th anniversary 4.8s (and 996.2 at 4.9s / 996.1 at 5.1s)
0-100 11.32 vs stock 40th 10.5s / 996.2 10.8s (???)
1/4 mile at 11.98s vs 40th 13.1s/ 996.2 13.5s / 996.1 13.1s

So a) weight loss does a $hlt load to help performance and b) I guess my tire package makes my final ratio a tidy bit shorter and I must have shift right before 100 which would explain the times.

These performance numbers put my 10yr old 996 in the ballpark of brand new high performance cars :-)

 

6ta1 any more upgrades since last post?

 

no, my wife and I just adopted 2 kids so the Porsche has been for sale for a while.

first I tried to sell it as is but the Porsche buyers aren't much into modifications as I quickly realized (I knew that, but thought that there would be an audience for my car)

Car has been parted out and is almost back to stock, I have many parts for sell (OEM center console delete, afterhours exhaust, carbon fiber seats, and so on)

I am seriously pondering buying a four door beater (e36 m3, e39 M5 maybe) and keeping the Porsche - I would then pour more money into it to bring it to the "next level"... dreams...

 

Do you have a FS link?

 

I just have to ask. Why would you F#$% up a 40th AE? Possibly the only collectable 996 (other than GT2, GT3). Are you just crazy or what? No offense but you could have bought a POS 996 to strip and saved the 40th.