This weekend we had the pleasure of attending the annual Cars for the Cure show in Lake Mary Florida. We’ve had the pleasure of helping with the organization and planning of this American Lung Association event for the past 5 years. Aside from some heavy breezes, the event was a huge success as countless enthusiasts, vendors and spectators spent the day enjoying the sea of great cars all while benefiting a good cause. Standouts from the show include a Bugatti Veyron Sang Bleu (1 of 1), Bugatti Veyron Sang Noir (1 of 5), Vintage Porsche 356 Outlaw, and countless other modern exotics and supercars. The event was a huge fundraising success for the ALA, and we look forward to attending the 7th annual show in 2011.

After our last trip to the drag strip it was requested we add a rollbar due to our low 11 second time slip. Fortunately we already had a GMG rollbar waiting or the car, just needed to find time to install it. Our Status racing seats are due to arrive Monday as well so we felt what better time than now than to prep the interior for the rollbar an seat install early next week.   First off we weighed the factory seats, I was amazed to find they way almost 63lbs EACH. Our carbon fiber Status racing seats are likely to shave a considerable amount of weight off (probably 55-65lbs for the pair). That’s all find and dandy but we figured it would be best to get as much weight as possible out of the interior while we had the seats out. We stripped all the carpet out so that we could skim the sound deadening foam off before reinstalling the carpet.

This should give you an idea of the process and end result. It’s tedious but well worth it in an effort to make the car quicker.

Heres a better idea of the end result, a hefty bag full of heavy foam, about 35-40lbs worth and we still have a bit more foam to skim off (my hands need some time to rest and heal).

We’ll continue the process early next week, and install our matte Black GMG Rollbar, Status Seats, and Status racing harnesses. While were installing the interior we’ll have the transmission out of the car getting a Guard 40/60 LSD which should help our short times at the track. These improvements should put us well into the 10s in a streetable 996tt, I’m anxious to get her back out to the track!

Our Project 996tt is still under the knife getting it’s power plant upgrades and new clutch installed. We thought we had everything we needed, but a $10.00 fuel fitting has put us a few days behind, the new fitting should be here tomorrow so that we can finish the installation and fire the car up in the next 1-2 days. A big thanks to Tony @ EPL for helping us with the fuel system and working on a prototype tune for the big injectors we’ll be running.

In the meantime we received a truck shipment from MA Shaw today that included our new wing and carbon fiber hood. The factory 996TT rear wing has a hydraulic system that raises and lowers the wing to provide down force at higher speeds. While the system works great, it does so at a cost of weight. We’ve been looking for ways to save weight in every portion of our building, so we opted for a new wing. We called MA Shaw in California to build us one of their track wings and lightweight hoods. Their wing is very similar to what you would see on a factory cup car, however it’s slightly smaller in size, and incorporates ducting for the air intake. We opted for GT3RS carbon fiber end plates to give the wing a bit more of a street look as well. We estimate a weight savings of 25-30lbs with the hood, and another 25-30 in the rear as well while improving down force. We also go the last of the parts needed for our GT2 front upgrade, I hope to tackle that tomorrow. Once the latest round of upgrades are complete we will re-weight the car and see where we’re at, more horsepower and less weight is never a bad thing.

Tim Switzer of Switzer Performance Innovations has been building some of the worlds quickest and fastest Porsches for the past few years. His Project Sledgehammer 997TT has been an inspiration and performance target for our own project car. In his quest to build some of the baddest Porsche’s in the land out of his Ohio workshop, SPI also builds some incredible products that they offer to the public. I’ve had the SPI Exhaust on my yellow car for over a year and absolutely loved it, the section welded tips are a work of art. The car sounds unbelievable and drone is non-existent at cruising RPMs unlike many other exhausts for the Porsche.

This week we received a set of SPI headers to go on our Camouflage project car, these headers are designed to fit cars still utilizing stock Borg Warner turbos (both K16 and K24). They offer a more free flowing design than the factory manifolds and feature beautiful laser cut flanges and welds. Like the SPI exhaust, these headers are a work of art and I can’t wait to see the anticipated increase in spool and flow our K24/18Gs will experience.

BUY ONLINE : Switzer Performance Headers