A Trip to Areeve
Not every Race Paddock story needs a racetrack or a European road trip.
Sometimes it’s just about making the car better.
This trip was a visit to Areeve (formerly AR Performance) to get some work done on my Porsche 911.
If you’ve been around Race Paddock for a while, you’ll probably hear Aaron’s name come up quite a bit.
That’s because I’ve raced with him over the years and a lot of our group use him for performance work.
His business, Areeve, specialises in BMWs, Porsches, Audis and all sorts of performance cars.
And when you’ve seen the quality of work first-hand, both on track and off it, it makes trusting someone with your own car pretty easy.
So I headed up to King’s Lynn with a simple plan:
service the car
fit a new exhaust
put it on the dyno
and see what happened.
The biggest reason for the trip was the exhaust.
The car was already quick.
But like a lot of modern turbocharged cars, it sounded a little too quiet and a little too muted.
It didn’t quite have the noise you expect from a Porsche 911.
It needed a bit more character.
And after the new setup was fitted, it completely transformed the car.
It now sounds exactly how it should have sounded from factory.
Much louder.
Far more aggressive.
And it finally has that proper Porsche soundtrack that was missing before.
Then came the dyno run.
And that was probably the most satisfying part of the day.
The car went from roughly 450bhp to around 550bhp.
Which is a fairly serious jump.
And seeing it strapped down on the dyno while everyone waits to see the numbers never gets old.
There’s always that slight nervous feeling of:
“Please don’t explode.”
Thankfully, it didn’t.
It just made more power and sounded far better afterwards.
Exactly what you want.
And the drive home was brilliant.
You instantly notice the extra noise.
The car feels sharper.
More alive.
And naturally, you find yourself taking the long route home for absolutely no reason.
Trips like this are a reminder that car ownership isn’t just about driving.
Half the fun is modifying them, improving them and making them feel a bit more personal.
And in this case, 550bhp and a much louder exhaust feels like a very good decision.