I'm building my own aero package that will be slightly less costly than just buying the Porsche 718 aero package, however, it will be a little more aggressive and include a ducktail! Plus, I can put it all on the car and keep all the original parts if somewhere in the future I or a new owner wants to return it all to original "as new" condition. I've also kept and boxed my original shifter which I've replaced with the Porsche short shifter.
There are a lot of less costly options, available on eBay, to do all of what I'm doing but I'm justifying the extra expense by knowing that all my parts will be the same quality of carbon fiber, the same color, designed to work together and achieve my aesthetic and performance goals. Plus, carbon fiber is going to complement, in a fairly subtle way, my agate gray exterior color. Below are the parts hyperlinked to TWL, from which I've ordered:
Ducktail
The beginning of my doom. The 718 is the first car I've owned with a wing or spoiler and yet I only get to enjoy its deployed aesthetic at stand-still or in pictures of the car in motion. Sure, I see a slight dark line in the rearview mirror when its deployed, but it's just too subtle. The ducktail just adds a touch of panache at 0 mph and over 78 mph.
Splitter/front lip
So, the ducktail adds a bit of downforce to the rear of the car so it needs a counter part at the front to balance the suspension. I think the stock front lip of the S and GTS versions of our cars would work fine with it, particularly with the rest of the Porsche aero package. But I'm adding a more aggressive front lip to my car because I want to add more downforce than required to keep my car solid on the road/track. If I'm going to offset the ducktail so ...
Rear diffuser
Enter the need for a rear diffuser, and again, a bit more aggressive that the Porsche kit. Now, this is where the real personal drama begins. Good sense and logic dictates that the options available on eBay, which as a rule are about 4 times less expensive than the TWL version (~$500 vs $1,800), would be were the smart (and sane?) money would go. But as an older retired guy whom has lived a lifetime of moderate sanity and intelligence, a bit of 1960s/70s hedonism/rebellion creeps in and I hear myself saying to myself, "Screw the Man!" Even my frugal great uncle, who chastised me for wanting to plug a quarter in a pinball machine for nothing but a moment's pleasure, broke from his decades-long Cadillac followed by Cadillac late in life to buy a 1967 Cougar with 390 engine followed by a 1969 Thunderbird with a 429 Thunderjet engine. And this was in eastern Kentucky where the local drag strip had a frigging 90 degree curve in it!!!
Rust-Oleum 248903 Automotive 12-Ounce High Heat 2000 Degree Spray Paint, Flat Black
One thing most of these rear diffusers have is a screen vent as part of their design. As I can't see much possibility that much air gets sucked into the space between the rear heat shield and the diffuser, I call it a vent to help disburse that heat. I may be wrong on that, but the irrefutable result is that the silver color of the metal heat shield shows through the grills of these diffusers and I don't like it. So, my plan is to mask off and then paint the outside of the rear heat shield during the removal of the old and install of the new diffuser. This will take some patience because the paint requires two periods of running the engine for different lengths of time to cure the paint.
This is my plan and noone else's plan, because ... it is mine!
There are a lot of less costly options, available on eBay, to do all of what I'm doing but I'm justifying the extra expense by knowing that all my parts will be the same quality of carbon fiber, the same color, designed to work together and achieve my aesthetic and performance goals. Plus, carbon fiber is going to complement, in a fairly subtle way, my agate gray exterior color. Below are the parts hyperlinked to TWL, from which I've ordered:
Ducktail
The beginning of my doom. The 718 is the first car I've owned with a wing or spoiler and yet I only get to enjoy its deployed aesthetic at stand-still or in pictures of the car in motion. Sure, I see a slight dark line in the rearview mirror when its deployed, but it's just too subtle. The ducktail just adds a touch of panache at 0 mph and over 78 mph.
Splitter/front lip
So, the ducktail adds a bit of downforce to the rear of the car so it needs a counter part at the front to balance the suspension. I think the stock front lip of the S and GTS versions of our cars would work fine with it, particularly with the rest of the Porsche aero package. But I'm adding a more aggressive front lip to my car because I want to add more downforce than required to keep my car solid on the road/track. If I'm going to offset the ducktail so ...
Rear diffuser
Enter the need for a rear diffuser, and again, a bit more aggressive that the Porsche kit. Now, this is where the real personal drama begins. Good sense and logic dictates that the options available on eBay, which as a rule are about 4 times less expensive than the TWL version (~$500 vs $1,800), would be were the smart (and sane?) money would go. But as an older retired guy whom has lived a lifetime of moderate sanity and intelligence, a bit of 1960s/70s hedonism/rebellion creeps in and I hear myself saying to myself, "Screw the Man!" Even my frugal great uncle, who chastised me for wanting to plug a quarter in a pinball machine for nothing but a moment's pleasure, broke from his decades-long Cadillac followed by Cadillac late in life to buy a 1967 Cougar with 390 engine followed by a 1969 Thunderbird with a 429 Thunderjet engine. And this was in eastern Kentucky where the local drag strip had a frigging 90 degree curve in it!!!
Rust-Oleum 248903 Automotive 12-Ounce High Heat 2000 Degree Spray Paint, Flat Black
One thing most of these rear diffusers have is a screen vent as part of their design. As I can't see much possibility that much air gets sucked into the space between the rear heat shield and the diffuser, I call it a vent to help disburse that heat. I may be wrong on that, but the irrefutable result is that the silver color of the metal heat shield shows through the grills of these diffusers and I don't like it. So, my plan is to mask off and then paint the outside of the rear heat shield during the removal of the old and install of the new diffuser. This will take some patience because the paint requires two periods of running the engine for different lengths of time to cure the paint.
This is my plan and noone else's plan, because ... it is mine!
