Been lurking here since my dad picked up a CTT a couple months ago (btw - Holy Shiat! Oh, the car is fast, sure. I just mean the whole package - amazing machine!).

I'm a new car-guy - only picked up the bug when I bought my AMG about 2 years ago. One day I really put my foot into it for the first time and realized "Uh oh...I probably shouldn't be driving this without knowing a lot more about how it works and how to drive it." Never did anything bigger than an oil-change before that and now I have 4 cars and some kind of project going on each one. Familiar story around these parts, eh?

When we first moved into this place, I wasn't into cars like this and since then I've been just dying in my current garage. When my wife and I decided to build, I was pretty much wringing my hands to do something cool with the garage and definitely get a lift. Nothing like some of the garages I've seen here but it's what I can do right now. Hopefully some day will have something like some of the car-museums you guys have

I'm building from the garage floor-plan shown below. It's two, 2-car garages at 90 degrees to each other.

The area under the garage is excavated, and finished basement. We're doing spancrete planks over those areas which will form the garage floor. I'm doing the Atlas NINE 9000lb lift on the NE parking slot.

Things I still need to work out:

• How critical is it, that the 2" rigid insulation on top of the spancrete be cut-out under the lift pads?
• What flooring to go with (epoxy seems like the common fav?)
• Cabinets and other toys like that - FWIW we have a Complete Garage nearby and if I can give them my business, that's preferable unless there is significant difference in cost
• Wash-bay configuration - I would love to do some kind of wash-bay/detailing area - one suggestion from a local car-club member was a giant hospital curtain around one bay
• Garage-door opener that won't conflict with lift (15' cieling)

Looking for other suggested goodies/ideas. If it helps to make suggestions; I have a 90 gal compressor in the basement with lines running to my current garage which will be moved to the new place, along with common air-tools. I have most common tools and detailing supplies all on one crappy craftsman 5 ft work-bench. I have a few full sets of wheels and tires in the garage that I would like to do something with, other than stack in the corner. So far I've done a lot of suspension work on my B5 S4 and C32. I'm doing a motor and tranny pull then a Stage III, stasis tranny and differential on the S4 and generally do all the regular maintenance on all of our cars. I just tried welding for the first time and would like to have some kind of welding setup.



Here is the first day of excavation:


Here are some forms in the hole:


And the finished poured walls:

 

great Great pics and design!
I also used spancrete for the floor/cieling of the garage to house my passion for basketball.
I am surprised more people do not take advantage of the extra space this provides.

 

Watchdog, insulation, and then some backfill in.



Some framing beginning and the back of the house - spancrete will be installed today!

 

I cant tell by the pics but is there going to be any natural light under the garage area?
I highly suggest some.
Its a reaaly different mood when you do

 

That basketball area is awesome!

Underneath the two areas will actually be separated. Under the North garage is exercise and play area with a big walk-out door which you can see as a gap in the yellow insulation on the picture from the rear. Under the SW garage will be a 25x30 or so home-theater so I don't want any light getting in there

 

So far so good,looking forward to see the finish project.

 

gotcha , how about heating the theater and dehumidifing that area?
The other thing is the echo that all that concrete creates.

 

Both areas will entirely finished. There will be vapor-barrier and insulation around those walls with full HVAC to both areas. Then will be drywall. In the theater the wall will be a specially made fabric for theaters to deaden the sound.

 

sweet!
With all that investment and the size of that area will you have at least 2 sump pumps for that area ?

 

We actually just went with a bigger pump and deeper basket - interior and exterior drain-tile. There are two levels to the basement (3 steps down to sunken areas under the garages and also the basement guest-room) so we had to have a deeper basket anyways.

 

Spancrete going in right this moment. I have videos as well that I'll post after I transcode them.



















Jack's pretty pleased with the crane.

 

Wow! Looks like a great project! I can't wait to see the finished project!

By the way, welcome to the 6! We've got a great group of guys from MN now!

 

Planks are down - PHEW!

 

Where-abouts are you? Only reason I ask is because I see an xr4ti by my house in the Lake Minnetonka area, west of Wayzata. I thought it was an Explorer that I always saw it with, but might've been a ranger I guess. Haven't seen it in a while though...

Anyways, I always loved those cars - when I was younger (1988 or so) we went to London and rented an XR4X4 - I would love to bring one from over there and do it up. The only thing I remember about it was how fast it felt to me at the time. Even with my dad having trouble shifting on the left, it seemed like it screamed.

 

Nice project! Can't wait to see more