FCP Euro is a company that sells car parts (and supports repairs) for European cars like Porsche. Joe works there, so he can talk about both the technical side and what it’s like for owners shopping for parts.
Oil is what keeps the engine’s moving parts from grinding against each other. Changing it regularly is one of the basic things you do to help an engine last.
The exhaust manifold is the engine’s “collection point” for exhaust gases before they go down the exhaust system. If the bolts/nuts there rust badly, it can be a pain to remove or install an exhaust.
“Fused shut” means the rust got so bad that the nuts/bolts are basically stuck and won’t come apart. Exhaust parts often see a lot of heat, which makes this kind of rust-seizing more common.
Fister exhaust is an aftermarket exhaust setup made by a Porsche-focused specialist. People upgrade exhausts like this mainly for the sound and how the car feels when driving.
“Stage two” here means a more aggressive version of the exhaust modification than the milder option. The host picked it because it gave the sound they liked most.
A cold air intake is a modification that helps your engine breathe cooler air. Here it’s mentioned as part of a two-step plan along with the exhaust to change how the car feels and sounds.
A core charge is extra money you pay up front when you buy a modified part. You get it back (or it’s handled as part of the deal) when you return your old part so it can be reused.
Mid throttle just means you’re not flooring it, but you’re pressing the gas enough to get the engine working. The host is saying the exhaust sounds best or most noticeable in that driving zone.
Term
PCA has something called Renbo
PCA (the Porsche club) has a color-rating idea called “Renbo.” It’s basically a way to track which Porsche paint colors are rare, using a simple scale where the rarest colors score highest.
The host is describing how Porsche paint color can influence a car’s market value. In enthusiast circles, rare or desirable factory colors can command premiums because they’re harder to find and can change how “special” a car looks.
Metallic paint has tiny reflective particles in it. That means the color can look different depending on the light and angle, which is why it can make a car’s curves look more dramatic.
Lower control arms are part of the suspension that holds the wheel in the right position. If Porsche updates them, it usually means the newer version is meant to work better or last longer.
A "supercession" is when a car part gets updated and the old version is replaced with a newer one. The new part might be redesigned, made by a different supplier, or use different materials.
The Carrera GT is a very rare, very high-performance supercar made by Porsche. It’s the kind of car people mention because it’s special and not common on the road. In the podcast context, it’s used to help identify which Porsche model is being talked about.
“Coffin arm” is a nickname people use because the older lower control arm looks like a coffin from a top-down view. It helps enthusiasts tell which version they’re looking at.
A bushing is a soft insert in a suspension connection. It helps the parts move smoothly and quietly, and changing it can change how the suspension feels.
A recall is when the manufacturer tells owners to fix a problem, usually for free. The host is saying this situation isn’t that—owners would have to buy the updated part themselves.
OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, meaning parts made to the carmaker’s original specifications. When the host says it would be “like a Porsche OEM type of situation,” they’re implying the replacement would be the factory-style updated component rather than an aftermarket alternative.
The 718 is Porsche’s modern mid-engine Boxster/Cayman platform. The host is saying the suspension approach from that newer platform can be used to make an older car feel more like the newer one.
A 986 Boxster is an older Porsche Boxster generation from the late 1990s/early 2000s. They’re doing DIY work to update its suspension so it drives sharper, more like newer Porsches.
They’re listing big jobs inside the engine/transmission area: the clutch and flywheel, a rear main seal (a seal at the back of the engine), and the IMS bearing (a bearing in the Porsche’s intermediate-shaft area). Doing these together is a common way to fix known trouble spots and get the car back to feeling right.
“Rust-O-Mod” is a joking term for taking an old, neglected car and rebuilding it with modern upgrades. They’re saying you usually only get this kind of big suspension modernization when you’re doing a full project like that.
They’re talking about detailed instructions for fixing or maintaining a car. The host compares it to having Porsche’s official repair manual handy. The point is that it helps you do the job correctly.
“Lemon Manual” is a website the host says has repair instructions for lots of cars. They’re saying it’s like having the Porsche repair manual available when you need it. It’s meant to make DIY repairs easier.
They’re talking about a way to take online repair instructions and print them out. The idea is to have the steps right there while you work on the car. That way you don’t have to keep looking things up on your device.
Term
CV
“CV” is short for a joint in the axle that helps the car’s power keep going even when the wheels move up and down. If you hear clicking as the wheel turns, it can mean that joint is wearing out.
The half shaft is the part that transfers power from the drivetrain to one wheel. If it or its joints are worn, you can hear clicking when the wheel turns.
“Air cooled” means the engine is cooled mainly by air flowing over it, not by liquid coolant. The host is saying the website has manuals specifically for these older air-cooled Porsches.
Dual sporting is riding a motorcycle on both regular roads and dirt trails. It’s the kind of riding where you might hit rocky paths, dirt roads, and even stream crossings.
Company
Backcountry Discovery Roots
Backcountry Discovery Routes is a nonprofit that helps people find adventure routes to ride. They work with local experts to map out roads that are rough or unmaintained but still doable.
Term
class four, class five roads, class six roads
“Road class” is a way to rate how hard a route is to ride. Higher numbers usually mean the road is rougher and more difficult, with more obstacles.
Porsche Parade is an annual Porsche owners’ event organized through the Porsche Club of America. The episode frames it as a week-long gathering where a couple thousand Porsche enthusiasts arrive from across the country and participate in driving tours, social events, and technical sessions. It’s positioned as both a celebration and a learning opportunity for common ownership topics.
Lake Placid is a town in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. It’s famous for winter sports and hosted the Olympics in the 1980s. In this episode, it’s the location where Porsche Parade happened.
The Porsche Club of America is a big Porsche owners’ group in the U.S. In this episode, they’re the ones organizing Porsche Parade. The club usually plans events like drives, dinners, and technical talks.
IMS bearings are a specific small bearing inside some Porsche engines. Over time, they can wear out, and if they fail it can cause major (and expensive) engine problems. That’s why Porsche owners talk about checking them and fixing the risk early.
A time-distance rally is like a timed driving game. You follow a route and try to arrive at checkpoints at the right times. The passenger often helps by reading instructions and keeping the team on schedule.
The Porsche 959 is a super rare Porsche from the 1980s that was way ahead of its time. It’s known for having all-wheel drive and twin turbo power. Because so few were made, it’s considered a collector “dream car.”
All-wheel drive means the car can send power to all four wheels. That usually helps it grip the road better, especially when it’s wet or slippery. It can make the car feel more stable when you accelerate or turn.
Twin turbo means the engine uses two turbochargers to make more power. Turbos compress air so the engine can burn more fuel and produce more horsepower. The 959 is remembered for showing how serious twin-turbo performance could be.
A concours is a very serious car show where judges look for how “factory-new” a car is. People don’t just clean the outside—they also check details inside and under the hood to make sure everything is right.
The glove box is a storage compartment inside the car. In a concours, judges check it because it’s part of the interior details that should look correct and well-preserved.
Suspension is the system that connects the wheels to the car and helps it ride and handle. In a concours, judges look at it because it needs to be clean and correct, not just the body panels.
Shock towers are strong metal points in the car where the suspension struts/shocks attach. Concours owners often clean around them because judges notice even small details.
An aftermarket gas cap is a replacement part that isn’t the original. In a concours, judges can notice if it’s the wrong look (like the wrong color), because they’re checking for factory-correct details.
Here, “trailered” means the car is carried on a trailer instead of being driven. People do it to keep the car looking perfect and avoid adding miles or risking damage.
“Low miles” just means the car hasn’t been driven much. For collector cars, that can be a big deal because it helps keep the car in better shape and can protect resale value.
A “rock chip” is when a small stone hits the car and leaves a little mark in the paint. On a very expensive paint job, even small damage can be a big problem.
The Porsche 911 is Porsche’s iconic sports car, known for its distinctive shape. The host is saying that even though newer 911s look a bit bigger over time, they still keep the same recognizable outline.
Autocross is like a timed driving course made with cones. You drive through a set path as fast as you can, focusing on turning and control more than straight-line speed.
The Porsche Taycan is Porsche’s electric car. It’s fast and handles well, and here it’s used as an example of newer Porsches that can still be driven hard at events like autocross.
The Porsche 356 is one of Porsche’s oldest classic models and a big deal to enthusiasts. Here it’s brought up to show that people were actually using these rare cars in an event, not just displaying them.
“Paint to sample” means the car is painted a custom color you pick from a sample, not a normal off-the-shelf color. The host is saying he prefers driving his cars rather than keeping them perfect like that.
“Sap” refers to sticky tree resin that can land on a car’s paint and be difficult to remove without damaging the clear coat. The host uses it as an example of how driving cars hard (and outside) can quickly mar a pristine finish.
Nathan Mers is the person giving a talk about what to do with a car when the owner passes away. He deals with situations where families need help selling the car.
Turbo S is Porsche’s label for a stronger, higher-performance version of a model. The host is trying to figure out whether the electric Cayenne they saw was the top Turbo S trim.
Term
computer screens everywhere
This refers to Porsche’s modern digital cockpit approach, where the dashboard and controls rely heavily on large displays instead of traditional analog gauges and physical buttons. The host highlights this as a defining feel of the Porsche electric SUV interior.
The Cayenne is Porsche’s bigger SUV. This “new electric Cayenne” is the all-electric version, and the discussion is about whether it still drives like a Porsche in real life.
The Macan is Porsche’s smaller SUV. This “electric Macan” is the all-electric version, and the point here is that it’s still supposed to drive like a Porsche, not like a typical EV.
Horsepower is a number that describes how strong the engine is. The host’s point is that having a huge horsepower number doesn’t automatically mean you can use it all the time—tires, traction, and driving conditions decide what you can actually get.
The 911 GT3 RS is Porsche’s hardcore track 911. The “991.2” part is the specific generation, and the host is saying that even with big power, you still have to manage it carefully on track.
VIR is a famous race track in Virginia. The host is using it as an example of where you learn how much engine power you can actually apply in corners and on straights.
The Porsche Cayman is a sports car with the engine in the middle, which helps the car feel balanced. The host’s idea is that with less power, you can drive more confidently and learn faster instead of getting overwhelmed.
The Miata is a small two-seat roadster made by Mazda. It’s built to be light and easy to drive, so it feels fun even without being a huge, powerful car. That’s why it often gets mentioned when people talk about great beginner-friendly sports cars.
The 2018 Porsche Cayman S is a mid-engine sports car, which generally makes it feel well-balanced. The host says it’s a great learning car because it’s powerful enough to be fun, but not so overwhelming that you can’t practice good driving habits.
“Turboed” means the car has a turbocharger. It can make power come on differently than a non-turbo engine, so you need to learn how the car responds before pushing it hard.
Naturally aspirated means the engine makes power without a turbo. The host is saying turbo engines and non-turbo engines feel different, so you have to adjust how you drive them.
“50-50 balance” means the car’s weight is split about evenly between the front and rear. The host says that helps the car feel predictable, so it’s easier to practice driving without the car suddenly getting unstable.
Term
low-moar aerodynamics
This is the host’s joking way of saying the RS has better aerodynamics. Better aerodynamics usually means the car sticks to the road more at speed, so it can handle corners with more confidence.
Downforce is the “suction” effect from a car’s shape and wings that presses the tires onto the road. That helps the car stick better in fast corners. It’s why track-focused cars often have big wings and aero parts.
A rear wing is the spoiler on the back of the car. Its job is to push the back tires down onto the road so the car grips better, especially at speed. It’s a common track-car feature.
Dive planes are little fins near the front of the car. They help shape airflow so the front end can grip better. They’re one of the aero details you often see on track-focused cars.
Louvers are vent-like slats on the body of a car. They help air move the way the designers want—often for cooling or airflow control. On track cars, they’re both functional and part of the aggressive look.
A scan tool is a device that plugs into your car to read error codes and live data. A “full-spectrum” one can check more systems than basic tools. It helps you figure out what’s wrong (or what’s working) without guessing.
Coding is when a technician updates the car’s computer settings. It can be used to turn features on or off or make the car’s modules match what’s installed.
Piwis is a Porsche computer tool that plugs into the car. It lets a shop diagnose problems and also update or change settings inside the car’s electronics.
PTV is a Porsche feature that helps the car send power to the wheels in a smarter way to improve cornering. In the discussion, it’s something you can enable through the diagnostic tool.
Launch X431 is a handheld/PC diagnostic tool you can use to talk to a car’s computers. It can do a lot of the same checking and setup work as dealer tools, but not everything.
“Engineering mode” is a deeper, more powerful settings access inside the car. It lets you change things most owners can’t, so it’s easy to mess up if you don’t know what each setting does.
PDK is Porsche’s automatic gearbox with two clutches that helps it shift fast. After some repairs or resets, the car may need a relearn procedure so the transmission works smoothly again.
A “fill procedure” is a service step that makes sure the transmission’s fluid and pressure are set correctly. It helps the gearbox operate properly after certain repairs or electronic resets.
The “check engine light” is a warning that the car’s computer found a problem. A scan tool can read the stored code so you can figure out what it is and whether it’s safe to keep driving.
Modern cars have a computer that notices when something isn’t right. It saves a specific “code number” so you can look up what problem it’s pointing to.
A “misfire on cylinder” means one cylinder isn’t igniting properly, so combustion becomes uneven. That can be caused by ignition issues (like a spark plug/coil) or fuel delivery problems (like an injector).
P0456 is a fault code that usually means there’s a small leak in the car’s emissions system that handles fuel vapors. It’s often something like a gas cap or a small hose leak.
DME is Porsche’s engine computer. It watches engine sensors and stores fault codes when something goes wrong.
LIVE
Hey everyone, I'm Derek. This is 11 After 9 the podcast and I am here once again with
my good buddy Joe Finkel of FCP Euro. He and I are just going to shoot the shit a little
bit when it comes to some of the questions that I have for a Porsche Goldmeister mechanic.
And I'm just excited to have you back on the show, Joe. Not only do you have your Porsche
knowledge coming from both BMW and Porsche as a mechanic, but also you work for FCP Euro.
So you know the other side of both the pleasure and the pain of people like me having to buy
products to try to keep our cars running and you have that huge knowledge. So once again,
buddy, welcome back to the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me back on. It's great to see you.
It's been a while. Yeah, it has. It has. It's funny because like when these podcasts come out,
they come out sometimes not in the same order. And so it might look like on the listings that it
hasn't been as long as it has, but you and I really haven't spoken in maybe a couple months.
And so lots, lot has gone on since then. How's the world that FCP Euro thing still going good?
A summer swing is in full effect. You know, people are driving their cars and with that come
service. So obviously we're pretty busy over there trying to keep everybody on the road.
Oh, dude, actually, I gotta tell you, I literally just changed my oil with driven DT40 oil from FCP
Euro. And it was fantastic. So thank you for that. As I was having my fister exhausts installed.
And so yeah, spoiler. Nice. So you got a little sound, a little performance.
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to be doing a video on that. It literally I just got the car
back last night and normally I would have done it myself. But part of the spoiler is when I got
under there, dude, I'll have to put up some pictures. All of the brackets that were holding my
exhaust manifold to the car, the nuts that are there, dude, they were fused shut. I mean,
they were so bad that I couldn't even recognize them as fasteners. And so I actually got Darren
on the phone, Darren Fister, and he FaceTime with me. And I show him, I'm like, so what is this?
Because I feel dumb. I've installed your exhaust before. And he's like, Derek, honestly, that was
what was once a nut, but now looks like it's a cone of rust. And you're going to have to
heat those and cut them all off. And I was like, All right. So it was, it was a long thing. And
I was going out of town on on some Porsche business. And so because I was out of town, it was one of
those things. And I'm sorry, audience, I brought it to my trusty shop in town. And I said, Hey,
any chance you can cut all this stuff off. And when I come back, maybe the car will be ready.
And it was. And I feel like a complete Porsche poser, Joe.
It's all right. We'll give you a pass on this one.
Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. You know, like, just sometimes life is so crazy. And you
have the best of intentions. And you just don't, you just don't have the time. And I don't want to
miss a podcast for you guys out there in the audience. And I don't want to miss making more
cool content. So one of those things where it's like, All right, I'm just going to be a Porsche
poser and have someone else do it. But it's a good story. And I'll be glad to go in through
it when I post the video. The question is there, did you do your own oil change?
Or did you outsource that as well? I mean, it was in the shop, Joe.
And so it's playing while it's in the air. Can you just drain the oil thing?
There's no hate. It was, it was, it was the classic example. Because here's
the thing, right? Like I talk about baselining the car. And I had gotten the car I had probably
put in about, I probably put about 500 miles on it. And even though I was told the oil was just
changed, I was like, I need to change it again, just so I know it's done. And I took your excellent
advice to go with the, the driven oil because it's already mixed with all of the, the goodness of
the different additives that I needed for those type of motors. And so it was a classic example of
like, so I had it done by vintage sports restoration here in the Bedford, New Hampshire area. And they
do a fantastic job. And Chris over there is top notch. So I was like, Hey, Chris, any chance you
could perhaps just change the oil while you're doing that and an alignment. And so he did all
those three things. So all right, my conscience is clear, Joe. Okay. That's, that's all I had
done. I swear to God. And no secrets. It's good. We're good. Yeah. Yeah. This is I kind of feel
lighter now. Thank you. Did you do an oil sample at least? Dude, no, I, I didn't. I forgot to ask.
I, I have a Blackstone kit here in my office and I forgot to give it to him. We won't tell Joe. It's
okay. No, that's right. I, I have to, this is like a prime example of do as I say, not as I do,
because I just admitted to all the things that I say not to do. So any other penetrating questions
you want to get at me? No, we got all the fraudulent questions out of the way that I'm a complete
frigging fraud and opposer. No, so there's, you know, there's the like the time
balance right in life where it's like, Hey, you know, I have this thing I need to do.
What's the best and most effective use of my time? And you just have to make a call, right? Like,
is it better for me to do this by myself? Or is it better to send it to a trustworthy shop
and say, Hey guys, you know, this time I can't crawl into the car or do it, right?
Dude, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, we're just finishing up. I have, I have two boys. We
just finished up our championship soccer season. So I want to have family time and, and you know,
we get a day job because this, this isn't paying the bills just yet. And so, and I want to continue
to punch out awesome content on 11 after nine. And one of the things we can chat about is what
I was off doing in the meantime. But yeah, just a, just a judgment call. And so that's why
I don't care if you wrench on your own cars, which I love to do. Or if you have other people
wrench on them, because you're not a technical person. So long as you go to a trusted person,
it's just good to get the maintenance done. And that's when even doing those 500 miles in the
car, I had this guilt that I was like, All right, I know they said the oil was changed,
but I got to do it. I need to make sure that it's, it's done because then I'll feel and sleep
better at night. So, so that is what I did. And the 997, I got it back last night and drove it home.
And it was pretty awesome. Darren Fister does such a great job. And what's really cool, I don't know,
do you have any experience with the Fister exhaust? I haven't. It's kind of the first time I'm
hearing about it. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm, I'm not in a no on that one. Oh, buddy. Okay, so he's out
of California. Darren is just, he's just a wonderful human being in the Fister exhaust. He's been doing
this modification to stock Porsche exhaust, where he changes the internals around and opens up. And
so they breathe better and they sound better. He changes the actual kind of the way the everything's
routed inside. And he does it a little differently for different models, of course. I was first
turned on to him when I had my 993. And he, that's where he cut his teeth, making these exhausts.
And he kind of makes them like in the Goldilocks, like a soft, medium and super loud, depending on
which stage you do. And I had a stage two, and it was the best sound. And so that's kind of one of
the reasons, one of the things I'm chasing, when it comes to making my 997 sound a little bit more
like an air cooled car. I did the cold air intake. And then this was step two. And
Darren is just an awesome guy. You send your exhaust to him. And then he'll mod it and he'll
send it back. And then you put it on your car. Or you go ahead and you buy a set from him.
He sends them to you with a, what is it? Not a deposit, a core charge? With a core charge, exactly.
And then you shoot your set back to him so he has them for the next guy. And what's cool about
this 997 exhaust that I got is that it's not quite as raucous as the 993 exhausts were. It's
like a little bit more subtle, which I like because on startup, there's like a little bit of a growl.
And at low RPMs, it's kind of sedate. But then when you get into the mid throttle,
it really starts to, it gives the car texture. Like the 997 motor is not, it's not sewing machine
by any means, but it's definitely more sedate than the air cooled motors, right? And so the
fister exhaust gives it like this granularity, this texture. You can feel the car just feels a
little more raw. And then of course, when you open it up, it sounds really great. So that video will
be forthcoming, not to scoop myself. But it was a great addition. And Darren Fister is an excellent
guy and what he does is fantastic. I turned so many people onto him and he's cheap. And I mean
that in the best of ways. He's the most effective way to get into modding your exhaust out there.
I mean, I think you can do a 997 exhaust mod for like, maybe it's like $1,200. So you're not dropping
thousands of dollars on a whole exhaust system. So Joe, in your face, I finally was able to
teach you something when it comes to car parts. So there you go. I like it. Yeah, man. Fister's
good stuff. So anyways, but that's not why I had you on. on to talk about Porsche stuff.
Yeah. And a lot of Porsche stuff has gone down, I feel like in the last, well, since I saw you
last, I went to Rare Shades in Astoria, Manhattan, New York, triple zero magazine puts it on and they
somehow curate this collection of paint to sample portions from men. I saw all cars from the 60s
all the way up to present. And it was all these rare one off colors that, you know, probably
just hang out in someone's collection and somehow these guys were able to put them all one place
and it was amazing. So it was a color show. Yeah. Yep. It would make, I think PCA has something
called Renbo where you can go on and see what color and they kind of rate it by how many,
they give it paint buckets and that's their rating scale. And I think five is like rare.
They're most rare and I feel like a lot of these were probably six out of five because it's just
a lot of one on one cars. Yeah. So, yeah, that's super cool. I saw a couple of pictures coming
out of it and it kind of had like that Lufka Colt vibe type of thing, like a car collection,
but only for colors. And it really is fascinating. I know a lot of people out there are kind of
coming into the Porsche brand and might not yet understand how important colors are for people
when it comes to the Porsche brand and what it can do to affect values in the car.
But also it's always amazing to me how on the different body shapes that Porsche designs,
how some colors are just out of this world in terms of how they, how they accentuate the curves
and then others not so much. And, you know, normally you'd say like a white or a black kind
of hide some of the beautiful curves of say a Boxster or a 911. But that's not always true,
not at all, especially because Porsche does like a lot of metallic colors. And so because of that
deep rich hue that they even put into a black, it really makes things pop. So,
and Porsche is very good about finding like a color you would never think looks good on a Porsche,
ever, like a purple. And they can make a purple the most desirable
flip in color you've ever seen on a car and you're just like, I want that so bad.
So that must have been a cool show to be at. I'm sure it was well attended.
It was, it was well attended. I feel like it was a light crowd, but that's because it was
multiple levels. So everyone was kind of spread out across three different levels.
They did a really good job of, you know, managing that foot traffic
so that you could actually get up to a car and kind of explore the different angles or,
you know, you can get up close, which was also nice because a lot of times you see these PTS
cars and you kind of see them at an arms length or, you know, maybe it's your 20 feet away or
you've got, I don't know, we kind of joke, but you know, you've got a bunch of 12 year old kids
with their iPhones standing next to the car. You never get that clean picture because there's
always someone standing in the way, but here the foot traffic was managed nicely so that you could
get those great angles and get a clear shot with nobody in the photo or you're not having to go
into Photoshop to kind of, you know, take someone out of a picture.
And that was put out by Triple Zero, the magazine?
Triple Zero magazine was the, was the head, I don't know, what do you want to call him?
The sponsor of the show?
Yeah. Yeah. Great, great job by those guys. Fantastic event. Recommend it if you can ever
get up here to do that.
I've had a number of people send me emails. It's funny in the last three weeks. It must be because
in the shot behind me on my bookshelves, I have a lot of books and people have been asking me
lately, like what kind of books do I recommend for Porsche folks to have in their bookcase?
And I should mention that the Triple Zero magazine, they do a fantastic job. It's not
inexpensive to have a subscription to it, but I think that that just speaks to the level of
quality that they put into every, you know, magazine episode they put out. And I've been
super impressed with them. And so I would say that that would probably be a subscription that I
would get if I was a big fan of Porsche and wanted to go deep into some of the nerdery we talk about
on this podcast for sure. They do a really fantastic job. So that's good, dude. So,
FCP, you're getting, you're over, everyone ordering for the spring to get their cars up
and running. And now you're getting the orders for the cars that are breaking because they're
being driven. Sadly, yeah, I guess that's what you call it, right? We drove it, took it out for
the spring and now it, you know, needs a little more love because you finally got out and drove it.
So, yeah, surprising. I shouldn't say surprising, but, you know, looking at the numbers, suspension
is pretty big right now. A lot of people doing full suspension refreshes.
Really?
Yeah. So about, could be five years ago, Porsche came out with a supercession for their lower
control arms. What does that mean, a supercession? So in this supercession,
supercessions are, could be a few things. It could mean that the part was completely redesigned.
It could mean that Porsche changed manufacturers. Maybe the control arm was made by TRW and now
it's made by Limb Porter. And those are the companies that make it for Porsche and,
or could mean there was a material change. There's always a change involved with a supercession.
This one in particular was an actual physical redesign of the lower control arm.
Is that for one model? Is that just like for one model of Porsche?
So this affects everything from 986 to end of run 99s. Sorry, I take that back.
986 all the way up to 991 and 981.
Oh, wow. So boxers and 911s for almost a decade.
Yeah. Two decades.
Two decades. Yeah, you're right. 99 to probably 17 or 16.
Yeah, almost two decades. That's a pretty big coverage.
Yeah. Because does that do to like a recall, Joe? Like they found out that there wasn't,
they're mechanically or from an engineering standpoint, something was wrong and they wanted
to fix it. They won't always go into that specific of detail. But if you look at other context clues
like Carrera GT, which I think they're on their sixth rendition of the lower control arms on those,
I think they're finding that maybe the long term use of these control arms wasn't really,
maybe they didn't, maybe they expected them to last very long and they're not.
And so the redesign is actually, if you're familiar with like a 718 lower control arm,
I'm trying to think of other models that might have been 991.2 control arms. It actually looks
just like that. Interesting. So for those folks out there that aren't familiar with a lower control
arm is, it's part of your front suspension. It helps with your steering. And so it appears that maybe
Porsche updated that design. And do you think that that necessitated a change in suspension?
Is that why you might be seeing more people ordering suspension parts?
I think a lot of people have caught on to the design change and they're going,
it's time to upgrade. And so you're effectively changing from what you had to what looks like
the 718 lower control arm. A lot of people actually refer to the original part as the coffin arm
because it looks like Dracula's coffin. If you were to look at it from the top view looking down.
No kidding. Yeah. So a lot of people, I think England kind of came up with that. So if you're
on a lot of English forums, you'll see them say, oh, the coffin arm. And it took me a little while
to catch on. I was like, oh, wait, yeah, it looks like a coffin if you're staring at it from this
angle. Okay. So it goes from this, what looks like a coffin to 718, which is looks like this kind of
3D printed AI design lower control arm.
And they offer, I think the bushing is different as well now. So it's, it is kind of an upgrade.
But it's not a recall, right? So that's like one of those things where if you go,
you would have to buy your own piece. You'd have to buy a new lower control arm through FCP.
It would probably be like a Porsche OEM type of situation. And you would then install it proactively
because you would want the most updated style. Yeah, correct. So yeah. So those are beefier,
and that's going to change a whole lot of, you know, driving dynamics once you get those
sturdier parts on. So that's really interesting to me. So, you know, presumably Porsche did this
because maybe these were breaking, maybe they're having issues, who really knows. But
what's kind of cool is here you have say a 2002 base boxer, or you have a 2013 991911.
And you're like, oh man, like I really love this car. Like how can I make it drive a little bit
sharper? You can now literally go out and get a new lower control arm setup, especially if you're
going to change the suspension. But even if you don't, and you could potentially affect the handling
characteristics and update it as it were by 15 years, because it's now the same style as the,
I mean, universally loved handling of the 718 platform. So dude, that's fantastic. That's
like kind of like a little cheat code. A little bit. We're actually, we're doing a DIY series right
now on a 986 Boxster, and we're like, hey, we have to showcase this. So coming up soon, we'll
actually have those DIY videos and we do use those components. I'm excited. I know we're finishing up
clutch, flywheel, rear main seal and IMS bearing in the next coming weeks. I'm excited for this car
to be done because I want to drive it. I know what these things drive like, you know, with the older
style suspension. I want to feel what this 718 suspension feels like on a 986. It's just like,
it's a crazy concept. It's so cool. It's so cool because that's something that you never get to do.
People, you know, companies will, they'll just stop making updated suspension work when the
model comes out, or maybe they'll do some fixes. But very rarely do you ever get to retrofit and
modern suspension unless you're doing some sort of Rust-O-Mod situation, like I talked about
last week with Zach Klattman. And so I think that's such a cool cheat code. That actually reminds me,
Joe, and I really do want to mention this for the 11 after 9 listeners. For those of you that do
DIY work on your cars, FCP is probably one of the leading sources of content when it comes to doing
some really cool stuff to your car and stuff that, at least for myself, and I'll speak to myself,
that I would be like, well, that's way too complicated. I don't know if I want to get into that.
And so FCP does these how-to videos and they're on a range of different cars, not just Porsche,
BMW, and other models as well. But we'll just talk about Porsche. They do these awesome things where
they go through step-by-step how to replace some of these parts for your car. So definitely go check
those out. I think that those are seminal to learning how to work on your car because like,
how do you do it? Well, you go on YouTube. Well, where do you go on YouTube? We'll go to FCP Euro
and check it out. So I think those are really cool, Joe. Yeah, it really helps a lot of people and
I'm glad that, and this is way before me, I'm glad FCP Euro figured that out. And we can
offer that level of support to anyone who's interested. I want to add to that there is a
website, I believe it's now Lemon Manual, and they have somehow got their hands on
repair information for every car from like 1980 something up to 2025. And if you plug your car
in the selector and you start diving into the repair instructions, at least for Porsche,
everything I've seen so far, it has been everything I used when I was at the dealership.
It's like having Porsche's repair manual right on my desktop again.
Lemon manuals? Lemon manuals, I believe is what it's called.
I'll put that down in the description for sure. That's amazing.
Yeah, I don't know how they do it. I don't care. It's a fantastic tool for anyone who does
any of their own work. Can you download them? Are they like PDFs or something you can actually
download or is it just online only? You might be able to do like a print this page
and then save it as a PDF. I don't know if smart. Yeah, I don't know if they'll let you like download
the whole file for your car. But you can at least if you want to have a print out of that
pair procedure next to you while you're doing the repair, you can easily do that.
That's so cool. That's awesome. Thank you for that and sharing it with the audience.
You know, someone else, I was just trying to think who it was and it's my buddy Andy from the
while you're in their YouTube channel. Andy is a huge fan of FCP and I remember him telling me
that he learned to work on his cars and he does all his own work for the most part through the FCP
videos on your DIY pages. So they really are fantastic. And then you partner that with
free workshop manuals, which normally costs thousands of dollars.
That can't be beat. So that's pretty cool. I love that, dude. Yeah, great tool. Great tool to have.
So I just took a multi-day trip with Birdie, my 1972 car. And it's funny. I'm going to have to
get under there. I might be accessing this. This is really actually fantastic that you just told
me about that because I started getting some clicking with each wheel revolution from my rear,
from my driver side rear. And I think it might be maybe the CV or the half shaft. And so I was
thinking to myself, I was under the car on a ferry in upstate New York trying to see if any
bolts had backed out. And so now when we're off this podcast, I'm actually going to go on Lemon
Manuals and see if I can figure out exactly where I need to look to kind of get that diagnosed.
So that makes sense. Thanks, dude. Yeah. And then for that, actually, that's a good reminder too.
There's actually another website that I use for air cools. That one is 914-6InfoNet. I always have
to plug it into the search bar because I can't, because I think there's like a forward slash in
there and then a hyphen and I forget it. But if you search 914-6InfoNet, it should come up. And
somebody spent the time and copied all of the paper manuals from early air cooled all the way up to
986-996. And so if you have an air cooled, that's a great website to jump in and say,
it's paper. So you have to like kind of poke around a little bit more, but all the info is there.
Unbelievable. I remember when I had a 944, I'll never forget going on eBay. It was like early eBay.
And I bought the workshop manuals and I don't, I think it was like maybe five or six or seven.
They come in these maroon binders that like looked like they're from third grade. And with like
these little paper strips on the bindings that just, you know, say, you know, 944 and you literally
have to leaf through them because they're three hole punched and you like leaf through them to try
to figure out what you don't know. And almost always the printing was like a little blurry and,
you know, and of course, when you buy them used, they're usually smudged with oil. So you're trying
to like look at a diagram and you're like, what the hell is this? And this guy had really dirty
hands, whoever had this before me. I guess that means they were well used. But yeah, man, that
makes complete sense. That's awesome. You know what? Let's do this because we were just talking
about the color show down in New York City. Let's talk Porsche Parade real quick. I just
want to make mention of it because that was one of my trips that I just came back from. And
I know not too many people maybe coming into owning Porsche might know what it is. So we can
talk about that real quick. And then I do want to ask you one or two quick questions when it
comes to Porsche stuff. Actually, you know what? Hang on, take a step back. Shout out to BDR.
And this is a little bit of a left turn, but I do want to mention it. Do you ever ride motorcycles?
I rode one once and that was enough for me to know that I would probably do some reckless
stuff on this and I shouldn't get one. Says the guy who races Porsches on tracks. Okay,
got it. Got it. Well, I'm a huge motorcyclist. I love dual sporting, which is taking bikes
on-road and off-road. So you will do tracks through old roads that are unmaintained and
full of rocks or dirt and crossing streams and camping out and one of my favorite things to do.
And so there's a nonprofit organization called the Backcountry Discovery Roots. And this is an
organization that literally will work with experts to find all of the class four, class five roads,
class six roads that are in disrepair or that you can traverse that are just like dirt tracks
through states. And so you go from one top of the state to the bottom of the state,
presumably on a fantastic adventure. And last, it was two weekends ago, was the BMW Owners Association.
They had their national meeting up in Burlington, Vermont. And I went up there and BDR hosted me.
The president of BDR is an awesome guy named Tim James. And he and his crew tirelessly work on
these routes from the north to the south of the US. And I got to see some absolutely amazing bikes
up there and meet some really fantastic people. So I just wanted to give a shout out if we have
any crossover between Porsche owners and motorcyclists, especially dual sporters. Number one,
you guys are close to my heart. And number two, if you haven't heard of BDR, please go check them
out. So they do these things, Joe, they do these movies. Like they'll say, they just put one out
for the Adirondacks, which coincidentally is where Porsche Parade was. And so it'll be like this
awesome 35, 40 minute movie of them driving, camping, joking around, stopping at all the
cool little spots that you don't know about, because these routes were designed by people
that live there and drive them all the time. And so they're like little adventure movies.
And you watch them, you get all psyched, and then you go buy a tent to put on the back of your
motorcycle, and you go do these routes. And then if you're like me, you fall down a lot,
and you get really dirty, and you break your bike, and you learn to pick it up,
and then you do some more. And so go check out back country discovery routes. If nothing else,
their YouTube will provide hours of like amazing entertainment watching these guys and what they
do. All right, that being said, Porsche Parade was in the Adirondacks, which is where this
latest BDR episode was, in a place called Lake Placid. So that's where the US had a host of
the Olympic Games in the 1980s. And Lake Placid is this absolutely beautiful pastoral area in
the Adirondacks. It's like nestled in the valley between these mountain peaks. White face is a
very popular ski mountain up there, and just a gorgeous place to go. And so what Porsche Parade is,
Joe, have you ever been to one? I haven't. I haven't all my time in Porsche. I've heard about it,
you know, get the magazines and read about it, but never actually been. And I don't fully know
what happens at these events. So I'm actually excited to hear what goes on there.
You put on your special Porsche robe and your Porsche mask and you're inviting it. No, I'm just
kidding. What Porsche Parade is, is it's part of the Porsche Club of America. So the PCA hosts this,
it's kind of, I don't know if it's their like national get together meeting. I think they
might have a couple of them, but essentially it happens once a year and it's in a different part
of the country every year. And it was in the Adirondacks this past year. And it's a gathering
where a couple thousand Porsche folks will drive or trailer or drive from all over the country
and descend upon this place. And it's a week long kind of celebration of Porsche. And there's,
every day there's probably, gosh, like 10 or 15 things you can do. Anything from driving tours
to concor events to dinners to technical, like sit down classroom type of stuff to learn about
your Porsche or events of, you know, issues like IMS bearings and what you can do to fix it,
stuff like that. And it's run by Vue, who's the president and his staff and all volunteers.
And they did such an unbelievable job this past week. It was like such a professional,
they took over this town and it was run just the best I've ever seen. When I went there,
I was only able to go for a couple of days and I'm a little spoiled because I live in this area.
So when it came to the driving tours, some of the driving tours were like go see Fort
Ticonderoga, go to these falls, go to the top of this mountain and take pictures and stuff.
And so for those people out there that like those kind of things, I met tons of couples
that drove in and had never been to New England. And so this was like an amazing event because
they get to go and check out all these cool touristy spots and at a discount through the PCA.
And so for me, I've been to a lot of those spots, but if I were to say go to Missouri
or Idaho or whatever, I would 100% be down to go on these like driving tours. They do like
time distance rally stuff, you know, where you have your wife or your partner is your navigator
and you go to all these different spots and then they have awards and all that stuff.
And so I went there for a few days and there were, I can't remember the number, what Vu said.
I think it was like 20, maybe 2600 attendees this week.
So you think, dude, I'll put up a couple of pictures on the YouTube version of this podcast. Joe,
like you're walking down Main Street of Lake Placid and every car on the sides of the road
is a Porsche, SUVs, old trans axles, 911s, old 911s, new 911s. There was a 959 driving around
with a car seat in the back. That's awesome. Dude, I mean, no doubt there are entry level
Porsche owners and then they were very affluent Porsche owners and this dude. So for the audience,
959s were Porsche's supercar in the 80s and they came out and it was revolutionary for its time
from a technological standpoint. It all wheel drive, they developed an all wheel drive system
for it and it was twin turbo when Porsche was revolutionizing what a twin turbo really was.
And it has no, it's like the ultimate unicorn and this dude had guards read 959 with a child
seat in the back and he was ripping around street parking it. It's a $2 million car, maybe more.
Maybe, yeah. Street parking it, it was pouring, it rained a bunch driving it in the rain. This guy
was such a baller. I was like, this is, if I was ever going to be putting that kind of money into
that kind of car, I wish I could be as cool as him and not just garaging it away. Are you a
no? It's all right. Well, I'll say I haven't been. Oh, really? Yeah, I haven't been. I think that's
the fair answer. You know, I go to car shows, but I know a concourse is a little different.
I seem to miss Amelia Island every single year. I know Rhode Island is coming up,
if I remember correctly. There's one in Greenwich here, which I can't remember as well. That's
this thing I also don't know when they happen. So I think that's why I miss them. I always forget
the dates and it's like, oh man, that thing passed next year. Down in Rhode Island, the
Audrain Concourse is kind of like the pebble beach of the East Coast. It's quickly becoming,
it's a couple years old now, and it's really quite the thing. This is just going to be me being,
I'm going to say this, I'm open to discussing the matter and changing my mind. On one hand,
love concourse. On the other hand, they make me sad and I'll tell you why. So on one hand,
I love concourse because the people in them, they take their cars and these are cars that
literally are nicer than they came off of the assembly line. And it's a show where judges walk
around and they look at your car and they don't just look at your car and say, hey, that's a
nice driver. You keep that in pretty good shape. They get down and they are looking inside the
glove box and under, they're looking at the suspension. They're looking at the stitching
on the carpet to see if everything is right and correct as it was as new. And some of these cars,
Joe, are 50, 60 years old and they present better than a brand new car you could buy today and the
owners are fastidious. And so usually a concourse, I think it was at the beginning of this past
Porsche Parade Week and the owners were with Q-tips in the engine bays, cleaning around,
getting just a little bit of dust off the shock towers inside the engine bays.
Nothing, the judges are so good, they're so knowledgeable where they know when there's an
aftermarket wrong color gas cap, as if for an example. And so the owners are fanatical and
they do a great job and they really present their cars. And for that, I really love concours
because they love their cars so much and they want to show them as new and it's a competition
and people win trophies and whatnot. And to win a trophy at the Porsche Club of America is like
one of the highest honors you can have when it comes to concours because the competition is super
stiff. Like the best of the best come to these shows. So there's that. Admittedly though, they
kind of make me sad, Joe, a little bit. They make me sad because all these cars are trailered,
they're not driven up. They all have relatively low miles, you know, 5,000 miles, 500 miles.
I'll ask some of the, because here we are in the Adirondacks, like this is the most beautiful part
of New England. I guess you, I'm going to call them the Adirondacks New England. I know a lot
of people say it's not, but just the most gorgeous driving roads. And I made the mistake of asking
a few concours attendees like, so are you going to go and drive the roads? And they're like,
oh, no, that car is in the trailer. I would never. And it just makes me sad because
like these are some of the most beautiful examples of the brand. They have one job and it's to be
a piece of art. And that's okay. I mean, that's so okay. But for a driver, it just makes me sad,
you know, like there are some cars with paint jobs that are so beautiful that you would never
imagine driving them on the roads. Because if you got one rock chip, the 80 to $100,000 paint job
is out the window. And so you just can't do it. And I don't know, man, am I wrong in thinking that?
No, no, is it? Yeah, it's sad. When I think of, I think of cars that are art pieces that have
low mileage. That's like a great Ferrari owner. Ferraris are great to look at. And they have
great body line. Italian cars in general, right? That's kind of the stipulation that we put on
Italian cars. They look fantastic. But driving them, I've never gotten into a Ferrari driven
and been like, man, this is life changing. Porsche on the other hand, it's like, okay,
timeless design. You know, they've, you kind of look at the overall shape of a 911. And
it's just gotten, the silhouette's just gotten a little bit bigger every single, you know,
every single model year that they come out with. Right. But you get into one of those cars,
it doesn't matter what it is. And you just start flogging the car and you're like, yes,
yes, I could do this every single day. And there's people that choose to do that every single day.
Where Ferrari, you're not taking that out every day, you're not taking it out when it rains,
you're not taking it out every weekend. It's kind of like, that's in my garage, I have it.
And I have the peace of mind knowing that I have it in my garage. And that's good enough.
In two years to a point, they had an autocross at this event. They always do, you know,
Porsche, when it comes to racing, they really want to offer that to the people coming to these
events. And autocross is more or less, it was at the airport, but it's a large parking lot with cones
with a prescribed route. And it's like a time trial. And how fast can you get through the
autocross? And that's kind of how you mark yourself. And that was one of the most well-attended
events. And so to give complete props to the folks in the attendees at Porsche Parade, they were
out there in the pouring rain. And I mean like rivers in a deluge of rain. And they were doing
autocross in anything from a Taycan to an old air-cooled 911 to a 356, they were out there
killing it. And so Porsche owners are drivers. I really do believe that. And the other thing,
and again, I don't want to insult the Concord crowd because I get it. I understand what they're
doing. And I also understand I met this great father-son duo and I think he had like a really
911, I think it was like a 964 RS America. So like a car where there, I don't know what are
there like six of them, maybe in the world. Yeah. So maybe it wasn't, maybe it was more
rare than RS America. I can't remember exactly what it was. But he trailered it up and I get that.
I mean, that thing is like an art piece and it's super rare and I 100% get that. But like,
I mean, people showing like a 997 in a paint to sample color. I don't know. I struggle with it.
Yeah. I never want to yuck anyone's yum, for sure. It's just, I'll say it's not my thing.
I can appreciate what it is. I like to walk around and look at the cool cars, but my cars are very
dirty. And so maybe it just bothers me because I'm not cool enough to know to clean my cars to that
level, Joe. Yeah. Well, maybe we look at this way, right? There has to be perfect examples of what
these were somewhere, right? Because if we all drove them and all beat them up and they're all,
you know, sap on the paint and on the, you know, and the body works all, you know, messed up.
Oh, so you have seen my cars? No, I haven't. But, you know, it's part of driving the cars every day.
And, you know, you get a little trash in the paint and it's not a perfect example.
You know, it's nice. It's nice to have those handful of examples where it's like,
that's the way the car looked when it left the factory. And, you know, that's why
people fell in love with it back in the day when it came out. And I think we can appreciate that.
Absolutely. And it, and just like someone who likes video games might not understand sports,
you know, it's, I do understand Concord. It's just not my thing. And I'm not shitting on anybody.
It's just, it just makes me sad when I see a car that could be driven and it never is. And that's,
that's just me. Yep. But outside of that, dude, you really should check out Porsche Parade. They
do an amazing job. And here's the big thing. I didn't do a ton of the events. I signed up for
a couple, but I ended up getting caught. Why I loved it so much there is that, you know, when
you go to a cars and coffee, especially a Porsche cars and coffee, and sometimes you never make it
more than 20 feet from where you parked because you just run into people and you have these
conversations and they're sharing their history with the brand and, and their car and you, and
you start talking about their car and then all of a sudden 45 minutes goes by and you haven't even
made it past two cars. That's what Porsche Parade is to me. Like the most lovely people
went to this event and you're walking down the street and everyone's wearing badges, you know,
because you sign in and every person has a fantastic story. And I want to thank everyone out there who
watch and listen to the podcast or the main 11 after nine YouTube channel who were so kind to
come up to me and, and kind of share their experience with everything they hear on 11 after
nine. I just met some of the best people and it was so humbling and so awesome. And we have a great
community that own these cars and a lot of them were in Lake Placid, New York this past week.
And that's, I would say, Joe, if you wanted to check out Porsche Parade, be prepared to lose your
voice halfway through the week because you're just, you're just talking and telling stories,
whether it's over a cup of coffee or after a technical presentation. And that's the other
thing I actually did do. I spent Wednesday, luckily it was raining, I spent Wednesday inside hearing
talks from different folks from the PCA. Nathan Mers was there. He gave an amazing talk about how to
plan for your car after you pass away, which sounds like a very morbid topic, but you have to
understand that Nathan Mers, he owns a company, Columbia Valley Motor Cars, where he represents
cars that are being resold and he gets a lot of those calls from widows saying, my husband
or wife has passed away. Can you help me sell their car? And so his, his talk revolved around
preparing your estate as it were for your kids or to be sold because these cars are going to
outlive you no matter how healthy you are. And so in other words, don't, don't have your car
disassembled and in three different garages because your poor wife will never know if you,
where a title is, if it has a title and where half the car is. So that, those kind of things. And
he gave a great talk. He's, he's amazing as always. It was really nice to catch up with him.
I also got my eyes on the brand new Cayenne Electric. It was a, was it a turbo s? Maybe it was a,
it was definitely a turbo. I don't know if it was a, I don't know if they may make a turbo s.
They're just debuting it. Have you, have you seen this in person yet?
I haven't. No. Just in the, all the photos on the internet, it looks bigger than maybe a regular
Cayenne. Certainly it looks a little bit, I think it's just, it is a little bit bigger than my 958,
my O13 Cayenne s. I think it's more the proportions the way it is. Cause in person,
it doesn't look that much. It doesn't seem to be that much bigger, but it, the way the proportions
are, because it's kind of like more of a muscular kind of slab sided front end. The whole design
language of the Porsche electric SUVs is, is, I don't know how to describe it outside of it's not,
it's not feminine. It's really just more masculine the way they kind of approaching those. And the
inside is like classic, you know, kind of computer screens everywhere and, and, and all that.
But I, I listened to a talk hearing all about it. And I gotta say, man, it's, it seems kind of cool.
Like it definitely, it definitely has a place out there, especially as a competitor to some of
the other electric cars. I mean, how fast this thing is, is absolutely ridiculous. But more
importantly, the way they make it handle, you would forget that it's an electric car. So I'm
going to be doing some videos upcoming on both the electric Macan and the new electric Cayenne.
But I got to see it in person and kind of hear the whole tech spec thing. So hopefully I made
myself a little bit smarter and I hopefully can spill some of that on the podcast. We'll see.
Yeah. It's a big horsepower number on that. Dude, over 1000. Maybe over 1200. Something stupid.
Dude, right? What do you think? think the, what's the perfect horsepower for a daily
driver or a sports car for the weekends? My cap, my cap is, is 500. Anything above five and
I don't think you get to use the entirety of the car. And that's, you know, that's kind of
based off of what I've done at the track, right? So I jump into GT3RS 991.2 GT3RS. I think that was
520 horsepower. And I find myself a lot of times getting out on the back straight at VIR
and forgetting to push the pedal all the way down because there's so much thrust. I'm already thinking,
oh man, I'm going really, really quick. And then I realize, wait, I'm only at like 80% throttle.
What am I doing? I'm throwing my lap away. And so for me, anything more than 500 and you just kind
of, I don't know, you forget that it's there. I, or you're not using it. I feel like you're not
using it. And that's kind of something I've said about Porsche for a while, is that Porsche's
horsepower numbers have always been conservative, but they give you usable horsepower. You can throw
6, 7, 8, 1,000 horsepower at a car, but how much of that is actually usable? Can you get back to
the throttle really quick on the exit of a corner? Can you just, can you effectively use that horsepower?
Or are you just 5% throttle the whole time because you can't actually put the power down? Or,
you know, if you're in a tight section, you're just kind of coasting because, you know, if you go
back to the gas pedal, the car is going to twitch, it's going to move, you know, it's not going to
go in the direction that you want it to go. I feel like 500 is a great, for me, that 500 max.
Such an interesting point you just made, especially, you know, from the racetrack,
but you can definitely, I think, take that to the street and just normal driving, spirited driving,
maybe on back roads, is if you do have 1,000 horsepower living under your hood, whether it's
electric or a combustion engine, pushing down on that pedal, you have to consider so many things.
Number one is a car pointed straight, and if it's not, what is that going to do to the rear end?
How slick is the surface? How cold are your tires? All these things start to play into it when you get
into these higher horsepower numbers because all of them will absolutely make your wheels spin,
and if you are at all going sideways, you will be going backwards real quick into a tree.
I think that's probably, I mean, the biggest plus for the Miata crew, right? Or the Boxster crew,
or the Cayman crew, base lower horsepower, and we talk about it all the time at Nausium, but like,
you know, if you have a good, well-balanced car and it's a lower horsepower car, you can use all
of the car most of the time, whereas I'd be crapping my pants if I had a 600 horsepower GT3 going
around a corner on a cold October day here in New England, that would make me really nervous.
Yeah, it gets a little dicey out there, but yeah, lower, you know, lower horsepower pushes you to
become a better driver, and that's kind of how I worked up to that car. My car that I got back
into HBDE was a 2018 Cayman S. You know, 300 horsepower had to get used to driving a turboed
engine reacts very differently than naturally aspirated, and you just, you have to get used
to the lower horsepower, and it teaches you how to drive, and the mid-engine is also, you know,
that's a great learning car. You're having that 50-50 balance, you kind of get to play with
different things, you could make some mistakes and get away with it. Just overall, great. That car
taught me how to become a better driver, and then when I got into the GT3 RS, it was like,
it was a very short learning curve from 300 horsepower to 500 horsepower, and I got to use
all the 500 horsepower, which I think made the experience that much better, versus just jumping
into a 500 horsepower car and going, oh, look at me, I'm fast, but really, I'm slow in the corners,
and I'm just making it all up on the streets. Do you think the RS really is a huge jump from
the regular GT3? Having driven both, it just, yeah, it's that there's like this little edge
it has over the base, and I would probably attribute it to low-moar aerodynamics.
You could do things a little differently through each one of the corner.
So downforce and otherwise? Yeah, downforce is really helping you out there. I can't really
say the little tweak in horsepower that you get going from, you know, a 3 to an RS,
yeah, 3 to an RS is really making the difference there. For me, it's just a little more aerodynamic,
and I think that's it, because if you look at them side by side, you know, suspension,
I believe, is pretty much identical. The drivetrains essentially identical. The only big upgrades
there are aero. And one looks like it's penned by a sixth grader who says,
draw me the coolest, raddest track sports car you could ever see with all the fins in the world,
and that's like an RS. It just looks so badass. It doesn't look real. It looks like a matchbox.
Yeah, I mean, it's exactly the stuff I was drawing as a kid in high school.
Mm-hmm. When I fantasized about cars and how I think they should look. It had the big wing on
the rear, and it had the dive planes in the front, and you know, all these louvers, and you name it,
and that's what I thought was cool. Yeah, like that rear wing you drew, that's cute,
but I'm going to make mine three times as big in a swan neck.
Yeah, exactly. I want a dinner table hanging off the back of my car, like let's do this.
All right, I'm going to ask you one more question. I think we're probably almost over
an hour now, if we are, but I do want to ask you a question. I got this question asked to me,
and I'm the wrong person, because as we've established, I was out if I have a busy life,
and I actually had someone else do the work in my garage, and I'm going to feel very shameful
about this, because I feel like I'm in church, and I am in front of the priest, and I am making
my obsolutions by Joe, I'm sorry, I didn't work on my car. But if you had to pick one specialized
Porsche tool, and it's probably going to go between generations, because everyone who's
listening to this has a different Porsche, but if you could pick one Porsche tool that you think is
super important to have, does anything come to mind that if you could say to someone,
put this in your garage, if you want to be more effective in owning your car?
Owning a full-spectrum scan tool is probably going to save you a lot of hardy, right? Because
there's a lot of jobs that we do now where you could do the job all day, but now you've got to
tow it to the dealership because it needs to get coded, programmed, something needs to
get taught in, you have to have a test plan, and you need something to talk to the car to do that
test plan. And so there's actually a couple ways you could go about it. There's the Chiwis,
which we joke, it's the Chinese Piwis, so there's... Can you explain what Piwis is for the audience?
It's not a dirty word, I promise. Piwis is the Porsche diagnostic system, comes on a laptop,
every dealership has it, it talks to any car, it can do all the things, program keys, program
modules, coding, turn things on and off. However, at the dealership, we'll actually store information,
send it to Germany, they actually collect a lot of this data because they'll actually use it to
monitor trends for check engine lights and say, okay, we're seeing a lot of this fault code and a
lot of these cars, maybe we need to have a recall or something come out for this component.
Cool. The Chinese Piwis is the same system that you get at the Porsche dealership,
it just doesn't have any communication with Germany. And same thing, it'll talk to any car,
I've done programming and coding with it, I've turned features on and off,
so it's actually, it's a fantastic tool to have. I actually admittedly have a Chiwis myself.
Okay, there you go. Change the steering in my Boxster to different profiles and
turned on PTV. Yes, Porsche at Park Vectoring. Yeah. So even if you don't have the differential,
you can still activate the program and it'll do some of it. So it's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah,
exactly. So there's a lot of programming stuff you can do with that, except that you can't
you can't link to the internet or you'll invalidate it. And you also have to have a YouTube video
that teaches you how to go through it because a lot of it's still in German. Yeah, yes,
yeah, some of it. All right, so let's say you don't want to do that, you don't have a laptop and
you don't have Chiwis. What comes next? So I've actually used a tool, it's a Launch X431, I believe
it's called. They might be like $500 on eBay. I've actually used that quite a bit on Porsches and
it is almost literally the same thing, minus programming. So you can't program a new DME
or engine computer, but you can do coding. And you also have the option to do, I believe it's
called long coding, which means if you know like the back end of these control modules,
you can really get in there and start to do some stuff. You could turn on features that
we didn't even get here in the States. So it has, I think what we call is like engineering mode.
So if you have a P this, they have option where you could do engineering mode, which basically
gives you like full access to everything. You could get yourself in trouble if you don't know
what you're doing. Yeah, that might be overkill, but that tool for resetting lights for if you have
like a PDK transmission and you need to relearn or do the fill procedure, it'll do that. If you've
got a read out, you know, cam deviation, it can do that. It literally does everything the P this
does. And this one you can hook up to the internet to do updates and stuff. And just very user friendly,
you know, they give you big fat buttons that you can press on to get through all of that use.
The user interface is very, very intuitive. So really enjoy that tool. And I would definitely
say that's that's one to put in the toolbox. I couldn't agree with you more. I actually also
have a launch myself. And it's I have the it looks like a tablet version, because there's all
kinds of different versions by launch that you can get on Amazon. But unfortunately, over the years,
have collected quite a quite a few of these different types of things, everything from
like little hand scanners to these tablets to the chiwis on my laptop.
I agree with you and I would encourage everyone out there to even if you just pick up
like they make versions that are maybe 80 bucks or 120 bucks that can talk to your car and do a
lot of these things like the the functionality is really good for nothing else than when your car
gets a check engine light or you have something. Sometimes you're not by a dealer and you want
to know what it is. Can I keep driving at home? Can I? Is it something where it goes into limp
mode? What what is it? Is it just like a weird random programming thing? And if I shut the car
off and turn it back on, does it store the code? You plug these things into your OBD port,
and some of them are Bluetooth, so you just have a little dongle you plug in and it reads to it.
And it will tell you what's wrong with your car. And so for me, that's huge, because if I get any
kind of light or if my car isn't running right and I don't have a light, you can go in and it will
give you a code number. And then you go on Google and you type the code number in, and it will say
misfire on cylinder, you know, two. And you're like, is that a maybe that's an injector or maybe
that's a spark plug or whatever. And so those kind of things give you information. So at least you
can prepare to prepare for the pain of taking it to the mechanic and knowing what the bill is going
to be. Or maybe it's something if you're even slightly DIY, then you go on FCP Euro, and you
learn how to change out your spark plugs, or change your injectors, which is super easy. And then
you have a Saturday afternoon where you're that much more accomplished and you've become closer
to your car for the sake of what's essentially $100 scan tool. And so I love them for that,
dude. I really do. If you get into start doing your brakes and you can do brake flushes, you know,
and have the computer do an ABS test, you can you can do pretty much everything with these things,
which is really cool. And then if of course, if you get into the higher end versions, you, yeah,
you can turn on cool things. Like I turned on the automatic wiper function on my Boxster, which
I, which is disabled, because I didn't have that as an option when whoever bought it knew. But
the sensors there and all you have to do is just check a little box and all of a sudden I have
automatic wipers. Thanks Porsche. So a lot of cool things you can do. I love that as a tool, dude.
I think you hit the ball out of the park on that one.
So maybe a little bit of full circle on that. The lemon manuals website. I know on some models,
because I've gone in and look, they will give you diagnostic information. So if you scan the car,
then you have a fault in the DME and let's say it's P0456 evap week.
You can go into lemon manuals. I think there's an engine computer section. It'll say like
diagnostic information. You can click on that and it'll give you all of Porsche's fault codes.
And so now you just scroll down to P0456. It'll give you the definition of the code,
why it's set, and then troubleshooting steps. Really? And yep. And so if you have a Saturday
and you want to go down the rabbit hole and try to figure it out yourself and confirm that
this is what the actual problem is, it's all right there. You can actually be the diagnostic
technician for yourself. And you don't have to, well, I don't say you don't have to go to the
dealership. There might be some things you might have to still visit for, but you can at least
confirm the fault, confirm why it failed. You can say at least try these things that way when
you get to the dealership. They might confirm and say, hey, yep, it's this, this, and this.
It's kind of a peace of mind thing, right? I agree. think you kind of prep yourself
so you know what you're in for. You also know if your dealer or your independent mechanic is
being honest with you because you know what the computer says. And so it's not like you want to
check their work, but it's nice to know. And it allows you to have a more cogent conversation with
them. When they're spouting all this technical jargon at you, you might know what they're talking
about because you've done the research ahead of time and you know what to expect, which is huge
because it's like going to a doctor and you already know what the diagnosis is when he's
telling you what the x-rays say. And so those things I think are really important unless
you're an absolute wuss like me and you just have your local shop do the work, right Joe?
Because you're busy and you don't have that Saturday. So all right, I fell on my sword. Dude,
I could talk to you all afternoon. I really enjoy our conversations because they can go
down some serious rabbit holes. Thank you for being a great friend and for being an excellent
resource for all these awesome topics that I can ping off of. And I'm really looking forward to
having you on again soon. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. It's definitely fun sitting and chatting and
learning about Porsche Parade, which sounds like summer camp for Porsche owners. But
there you go. That's the tagline right there. I think they might steal that from you.
And for those of you out there, please like and subscribe to the podcast and go check out
FCP Euro. Go check out those how-to videos. They're really cool and FCP Euro is an awesome
company and Joe, you're awesome for being on here. So until then, we will see you next Tuesday,
everyone. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.
About this episode
From “cheat code” suspension upgrades to dealer-level diagnostics, the hosts connect Porsche ownership to practical DIY wins. They start with why updated lower control arms (a physical redesign) can sharpen older cars—plus how to source the parts and even feel 718-style suspension on a 986 Boxster. The conversation then widens into oil analysis, exhaust modifications, and Porsche-specific tools like Piwis, including coding and PDK relearn workflows. Along the way, they share event stories from Porsche Parade, concours culture, and spotting a 959.
We are back with Joe Finkel from FCP Euro! In this episode, we tackle a brilliant factory suspension "cheat code" for water-cooled Porsches, bring you boots-on-the-ground stories from Porsche Parade, and discuss the absolute baller move of street-parking a $2M Porsche 959 in a rainstorm.
But first... Derek has to confess his sins. After preaching the gospel of DIY wrenching, a nightmare of rusted exhaust manifold hardware and a crazy schedule forced him to do the unthinkable: he outsourced his Fister exhaust install and DT40 oil change.
Once the guilt is cleared, Joe breaks down how Porsche silently updated older lower control arm blueprints to mirror modern 718 geometry—and how you can score this massive handling upgrade on a budget. We also debate the "500-HP cap" for usable street performance and name the #1 diagnostic tool every owner needs in their garage.
