Pics of my Tail of the Dragon photoshoot

[NorthVan]

Great shots Jared, glad to see you are able to drive your car.

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[blakt out]

Thanks man. Yeah. Let's do that. We'll go during a smarter time than I chose last time and try not to get tickets.

[docdan]

Great pictures Jared. Now you'll have even more photos to add to your collage of magazine articles, pictures and photographs of your car!

Hands down this is the nicest looking and most well sorted 997S out there right now.


Dan

[utkinpol]

Originally Posted by blakt out

Thanks man!

Amazingly looking car, but it will probably take some time to find buyer with same exact taste to all those mods.

What happened to cats with supercharger? Have they melt? Was that story posted somewhere? I plan to put SC on my car some time next year, curious what implications can it bring.

[Jetpilot]

Sick - absolutely sick....

[joshv911]

Originally Posted by utkinpol

Amazingly looking car, but it will probably take some time to find buyer with same exact taste to all those mods.

I'm surprised this car hasn't been sold already! Not only is this car a very interesting conversation piece with all the magazine articles and photoshoots, but this car would whip a GT3 for a fraction of the price and is probably more fun to drive. I can't think of anything left to do to this car! Every mod you could possibly want has already been done, and done tastefully.

If my a$$hole wasn't still hurting from my divorce, I'd snatch it up quickly!

[Kerrigan Smith]

Jared,

I know the cross roads you are at is tearing up your heart strings. I feel for you. As always great pictures of a great car. Thanks for sharing.

[blakt out]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate all the kindness. Dan, might be coming through Columbia sometime in the next few weeks. I'll hit you up.

We don't really know exactly what happened, because instead of tearing apart the engine to figure it out, I just bought a new one and stopped thinking about it.

Here's the facts: I had a proto exhaust. I had a SC. I drove it hard on the track, which generates lots of heat that standard street driving with an SC doesn't. The exhaust started shooting flames out the back on UPSHIFTS (Dan was there... as I think he was the one that told me), even on the straights at VIR. I started losing power. Then, I pulled in. The exhaust was spitting bits of catalyst out the back. Sense it's a center exit, I couldn't tell which side was breaking down, if not both. The engine had no power, like limp mode. It was also smoking a good bit. Took off the exhaust right then, at the headers, with the help of my boys at Synergy (on-site at VIR) and saw that one of the exhaust ports was charred. I think that the cat melted down (obvious by the chunks of it coming out) and some got sucked up into the engine (very possible) and got chewed in the combustion chamber.

So, I just bought a new one, didn't put the blower on, built the car to be as powerful as possible naturally aspirated (so it would withstand a thrashing on the track, something I no longer trust the SC to do), but now have to sell just after engine break-in. Haven't been to the track in a year. Lots of changes in life.

I truly believe someone's going to get an insane car for a steal. Sure, it won't be perfect for every used 997S buyer. Of course not. The person who sits there and thinks "well, I could buy this one for $45K, put $15K into it, and essentially have the same thing" is NOT my buyer, because they don't understand. The man who buys this car will "get it".

I've learned that mods just don't make a car better. They make adjustments to a car, and make it adjustable. But many don't work well together. I've had 4 exhausts on this car, 5 suspensions (now Motons), and have gone through just about every option out there on every bit. Then, I had it built by the best in the business. It's actually great on the street too. Read the article in Excellence. It's just GOOOOD. It's extremely "Porsche" feeling too. Very very tight.

[blakt out]

Kerrigan, we're both on here wasting our Sundays at the same time. Isn't that something we should bitch at each other for? Hmmm... I'm going golfin...

[blakt out]

Kerrigan can comment a bunch on this whole fiasco with the exhaust and engine. He always told me (and I spent $100+K with him) that the next dollar I should spend on the car should be to take off the SC. He said that the entire time, and ended up being right. SCs are great, but just not when you really are driving at 9/10ths on the track for prolonged periods.

[utkinpol]

Originally Posted by blakt out

I've learned that mods just don't make a car better. They make adjustments to a car, and make it adjustable. But many don't work well together. I've had 4 exhausts on this car, 5 suspensions (now Motons), and have gone through just about every option out there on every bit. Then, I had it built by the best in the business.

Thanks for a very comprehensive write-up.

I do hope very much that you will find very soon a person who will be able to comprehend and appreciate level of refinement you achieved on this vehicle.

From marketing perspective alone it probably would make sense to invest 2K-3K into ad campaign and boost price accordingly. With enough publicity you should be able to get better rate of return on your mods than 30% or so.

PS. As for parts of cats to be sucked back in at full throttle - it is highly unlikely as headers constantly flow gases out. Most likely cats got fried and melted then pressure built up behind them and crashed `em out simultaneously harming engine internals. One more reason not to run with cats on track at all...

But to blame SC for that - well, it for sure increased flow through cats but stock turbo would do the same, really, and they do not fry cats together. So, it is an interesting story for sure. What was exact brand and model of those cats again, in that exhaust?

[blakt out]

Thanks for that thought. I do think that if more people understood the HUGE difference between this car and a 997S or 997 GT3 (gen1... I haven't experienced gen2), then it would help. I welcome all buyers to bring whatever they can for a back to back drive with mine... on the Dragon or any other road.

I may go with your idea. The truth of the matter is that I'm selling quickly because I'm getting thin on cash, but I overpaid in a huge way on my taxes, anticipating that we would penetrate the recession more than we did. If I get a large return very shortly, I'll keep the car. Now, I'm still fine, but I have come to grips with the need to sell in a worst-case scenario, so I went ahead and posted it... at what I think is a very, very fair price. I spent $72K on this car JUST IN 2008, where the only visual mod was the wheels. It's crazy.

[timbit x]

I'm not one for black rims, but your car is making me think about them.

Nicely done.