Wrench day today was an unmitigated success.
The drilled rotors look sweet. I was afraid that drilled fronts and plain rears would look odd (Ric at Suncoast let me know that there are no factory drilled rear rotors for non-S boxsters, and I wanted to stick with OEM), but in fact it looks VERY nice.
The Boxster is BY FAR the easiest car I've ever worked on as far as changing brake pads. I spent more time loosening and tightening lug bolts than it would have taken to do the pads. It sounds odd, but I'm looking forward to wearing these pads out so I can see how long it takes to just swap out new pads. I figure 15 minutes tops.
The Fabspeed secondary cat bypass pipes went in fine as well. I'd read that someone had to hack off an inch or two, but I had no such issue. The passenger side was pretty tight; the driver side was perfect.
Getting the damn skidplate off the bottom (and getting it back on later) was ridiculously difficult. I resisted the urge to drill out the holes and instead judiciously applied a rubber mallet, and it finally went back on.
The Fabspeed bypass pipes, coupled with the Crios muffler mod, makes for a really, really nice exhaust note. At low RPM, there is very nearly no perceptible difference. At higher RPMs, it sounds fantastic. I've very picky about exhaust note... this combination is sweet. I'll try to get a clip soon and post it up so you can hear for yourselves.
Still have an oil change to do - but I think I'll save that for Sunday AM.
Here's the clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuxzKHw0TM