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Didn't realize it'll be almost a year since I started this thread.
A year has flown and I have had some good fun. Here are some of the things I experienced during the first year of ownership. Hopefully, it'll help other folks.
1) While I loved driving the car, one thing that started to bother me immediately was a louder exhaust than the stock. The fact that my wife wouldn't ride in it made it even harder to live with one. So my very first project was to take care of that.
The exhaust on this car was an aftermarket design to go with the 3.8 engine. Specifically, the whole system was GHL headers with a cross over muffler (flowmaster 80). The car was dynoed at 285 HP so the exhaust was definitely doing the job for a track car. Upon quick consultation with the engine builder, it was decided to replace the Flowmaster with Magnaflow (Seemingly quieter). Well I did the change, it did get a little quieter but still was louder than what I wanted. But I quickly got tired of researching / experimenting and decided to live with it.
2) Next, I simply decided to swap the open air filter with the original closed one (OEM), in hopes to further quieten it. It didn’t make any perceptible difference. However, this was my first thing I did under the hood, so I enjoyed the experience nonetheless.
3) I had my share of broken switches. Quick read on the forums was immensely helpful and I was able to replace pretty much all of them. Interestingly, the seat adjustments switches just needed a good wash with WD-40 and they were working again! While fixing the switches I blew a fuse and was quickly able to figure out why and promptly replaced them. IT was quite frustrating to find switches that didn’t work but I got immense joy out of fixing them.
4) I drove the car quite a bit (4K miles in 10 months), so it was a bit of surprise when I found the battery dead one winter morning. Quick jump start worked, but same thing happened a few days later. It was a yellow top Optima (just a year ole), and it was super simple to pull it out and swap it for a new one. Stress test on the battery confirmed that the battery was not charging properly.
I was tempted to swap the battery for a lightweight Odyssey PC680, but decided not to as it required mods to hold the battery.
5) Last month I started investigating the exhaust issue again. Researched various forums, explored if I could put a couple of resonators or baffles and what not. But nothing seemed promising. So I decided to call the previous owner and check if he had the stock exhaust. Indeed he did but had the secondary muffler that was missing. I bought that system from him and started to hunt for the secondary muffler. Thanks to the local 964 circle, I came across another gentleman who wanted to simply swap the entire exhaust systems (he was getting an engine rebuilt and wanted my setup).
We did the exhaust swap and I can truly say, that I have the perfect car in the world now! I decided to pamper the car with a full interior and exterior detail. I think I have achieved a crescendo, I don’t expect anything to better what I am experiencing now!
Thanks for reading and much appreciate all the info spread across the forums (truly invaluable)!
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