Some Pics From Porsche Club LA Drive October 2008
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Pics from Porsche Club LA drive 3 weeks ago, October 22. I enclosed the map specifically for certain Ferrari owner who keeps complaining that he can't "drive" his sports car in Southern Cal. 
That's nonsense.
Santa Clarita is about 30 minutes from downtown LA, so it's certainly a very easy-to-do drive. I would get out early, 8 am or so, and be back for lunch by noon. Two things: Be careful on weekends -- weekdays are vastly superior because there is *no one* out there except you, and although there are hardly any police cars especially once you are way out there, radar detector is a good idea. I always paid attention to my Valentine.
From the map you could see the 3 squiggles of roads going North East from Santa Clarita. This time we took the road labeled Lake Hughes Road. It is a FANTASTIC Porsche road, lots of curves with occasional straights that allow me to open up and get the stress (Dow Jones average) out of my system. Normally this kind of convoy club drive is boring but thankfully I was "accidentally" 
separated from the convoy and most of the times there was only me and a Boxster behind me.
I had a blast and absolutely love the behavior of this car now that it has much stiffer spings from the Bilstein Damptronic coil-over. I used to cringe with the stock Turbo suspension whenever I see curvy road with many combination (eg left-right-left) curves because the car would stagger too much on Soft PASM, and becomes unusually firm, with jittery ride and poor road contact (airborne with high speed mid corner bump ) on the Firm PASM setting. This is the first time I use the Bilstein Firm setting extensively and test it in a proper environement -- empty curvy roads. It's really a night and day improvement over the stock PASM Firm. Bilstein is firm but not jittery, perfect for curves, perfect. I was grinning from ear to ear and my love for the Turbo is getting pretty serious 
.
(If you are not familiar: There are two ways to increase stiffness in your car: by increasing the dampening rate (not necessarily a good idea), or by increasing the spring rate. Stock PASM FIRM does it by increasing the dampening rate -- IMO excessively and the reason why it's so jittery and practically unuseable. I hope Facelift 997 PASM has been improved.)
Of note, I also have Cargraphic Loud exhaust in my car. As mentioned in my informal "review," as driver of a Turbo you (unfortunately) will hear much less of this fantastic exhaust than the people around or BEHIND you. In this case, it was my friend's Boxster. If you have read my Cargraphic postings, you'll know that this thing is quiet at cruising but RACE CAR LOUD at 7000 rpm (You haven't lived until you hear a Turbo's Cargraphic Exhaust system at full scream in a tunnel with windows down. 
). My friend was with with his wife and he told me the first time I opened up, his wife thought a jet was taking off nearby.
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Cargraphic Exhaust/PSS10 http://www.rennteam.com/forum/thread/449462/Bilste...
