Ok I'm back from my first day at the track for our June
PCA DE event here at Heartland Park and trying to cool off at the hotel room. The temps today were low 90's in the paddock and hotter still on the track, that takes a toll on you after a whole day.
I met fellow Cayman Club members Brendan Donelan (black cayman s in next photo) and Tom Simmons in the paddock area, here is a picture of our 3 Crocs!
Today I was trying out my new Bilstein PSS Damptronic suspension as well as continuing to put the Quaife
TBD/
LSD through its paces. I also brought along the
Escort GTimer to see what sort of G's I was pulling at the track. My highest peak G was 1.28 and in the carousel, long left hand sweeper, I could consistently hold 1.20-1.22 at around 80mph. Previously my fastest speed through there was 70, 72 on a great run. The new suspension really made a difference not only in this carousel but other places as well. I ran in sport mode all day, that's my preference and the car certainly feels faster to me in sport mode plus I want
PSM set further back to allow me to get on the power early with the Quaife.
I was both excited and disappointed at the same time, well ok only slightly so. I expected good things but I also expected that I'd have to tweak the car some throughout the day to really maximize performance. I guess all my prior tweaking and a great setup of the PSS Damptronic made all the difference because the car was rock solid all day. Darn no fiddling, just drive drive drive, wo is me. Ok there WAS a downside, with the new suspension and pulling more G's and running faster speeds I was hitting the oil through the intake cloud of smoke issue at least a couple of times out in the early part of the day. I think I need some more oil because it slacked up towards the end of the day. My Milltek / AWE exhaust combo is also making a fair amount of noise but to be honest geez I've put some hard miles on it and blown oil through it a few times. Another area where I was VERY pleased was the braking performance. In April I was running Hawk HPS on the front and stock on rear and really didn't like it, too much fade. I ran Pagid Yellow on front and Pagid Black on rear and man what a difference. I hammered on the brakes all day long, sometimes only needing a tap just to set the car and go and they performed flawlessly! Many thanks to Craig at Rennstore.com our newest sponsor for setting me up. If you need brake pads, he's your man!
Stickers? Ok had to be good for at least another 5hp! I did get a lot of looks, people seemed to like it but honestly I only plan to keep the side pieces long term as the center stripe has some bubbles in the front piece that don't look so good up close but heck the only time people saw my car was in their review mirror wanting to pass after that it as my tailpipes baby!
I did let Brendan (with the black car) drive my car to compare to his. Speaking of his, here is his on the track. I shot the pic.
He didn't push my car as hard as I do, but I didn't really expect him to. He will have to chime in to talk about the differences but we went a few laps with him driving then switched and I took him around and he saw what it could do. We passed Tom again, his Hoosiers have lots of grip so he's throwing oil clouds too, but his car lacks the HP and
LSD and suspension and all the other goodies I have so we expected to pass.
In April a friend of mine who has a 996 Twin Turbo got a set of Motons and when we compared cars in April his was faster, although I was suffering some brake fade with the Hawks. Today we went out with the Red Viper GTS leading, him 2nd, me third with my HD camcorder onboard. I've got about 12 minutes of footage (I was low on gas to start) that I'll have to put up here but basically what it shows is me passing the 996 TT on the second lap, then slowly closing on the Viper until I had a little off-track excursion courtesy of my low gas warning that came on just as I was needing to brake, I glanced at it and that was enough to cost me the line and force me wide so I road it out and back on ala Forza style baby and kept giving chase but couldn't catch him by the time I had to pull in for gas. Had the run gone on longer I think I could have reeled him in at the very worst I was even with him and his car has a couple hundred more HP and several other mods and a nice transponder so he could keep track of our lap times which he said the slowest was a 1:59, fastest 1:56 for a 2.5mi course. That's pretty good and it was very consistent.
Standby phone ringing will post more in a few minutes...
Ok I am back, let's see oh I know what I was going to mention next. Last year national
PCA Driving Co-Chair Joe Ennett was the one who certified me as an instructor. He also drove my car last year and liked it a lot then. I offered Joe a chance to drive it again to see if he noticed the changes. Well evidently he did making coming like "wow this is so precise" and "it just grips and grips" and "wondeful", he said he had a blast and that he wasn't even at 10/10ths since it wasn't his car. He thought I was more neutral (less push) than what he remembered from last year and certainly faster. Cool more improvement I thought! I told him what I had done since last year, which was really focused around suspension and handling, no HP changes since he last drove the car, yet it is faster.
The last item of the day involves a quiz: Which car is faster?
If you said the one with the stripe you would be correct, despite the "other yellow car" having carbon fiber brakes and sweet roll cage with yellow stitched black leather covering the roll cage. He had the same GT3 seats in yellow but the cloth version whereas I have the leather version. He came down from Omaha with a couple of cars and a trailer. Raw speed on the straights was really even, whomever had the best jump out of the corner usually pulled on the other, but despite his carbon fiber brakes I was outbreaking him and faster in the corners. Roll Cayman Roll!
He evidently just bought a 997 GT3 RS so I suspect I will have to face off against that next time. Dang the bar just got raised! Here's another shot.
Ok his wing is bigger I'll give him that. Sweet car and very few miles on it to so in very good shape.
So to sum up:
Suspension - Thumbs up - flatter, pulls more G's, looks great too and surpassed 996 TT with Motons. (And I know how much Mooty loves Motons)
Brakes - Thumbs up - Great stopping power, fade free all day despite repeated use in 90+ degree heat. Never a problem. (ok a little noisy on the street at times but I can swap back)
Racing Stripe - Intangible 5hp gain I'm sure, hey it was all for fun and fun it has been!
Tomorrow I get to teach some students and guess what they all drive Boxsters!!! No Caymans at this school this weekend, I'm a little bummed, doesn't anyone want me to help them out? Actually I did show Brendan a few things while we were out on the track and helped him with some Cayman Club website stuff too.
Enjoy and Stay Tuned and Have Fun!!!
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LSD - Limited Slip Differential
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A limited slip differential (LSD) is a modified or derived type of differential gear arrangement that allows for some difference in rotational velocity of the output shafts, but does not allow the difference in speed to increase beyond a preset amount. In an automobile, such limited slip differentials are sometimes used in place of a standard differential, where they convey certain dynamic advantages, at the expense of greater complexity.
The main advantage of a limited slip differential is found by considering the case of a standard (or "open") differential where one wheel has no contact with the ground at all. In such a case, the contacting wheel will remain stationary, and the non-contacting wheel will rotate freely– the torque transmitted will be equal at both wheels, but will not exceed the threshold of torque needed to move the vehicle, thus the vehicle will remain stationary. In everyday use on typical roads, such a situation is very unlikely, and so a normal differential suffices. For more demanding use however, such as driving off-road, or for high performance vehicles, such a state of affairs is undesirable, and the LSD can be employed to deal with it. By limiting the velocity difference between a pair of driven wheels, useful torque can be transmitted as long as there is some friction available on at least one of the wheels.
To see the installation of a LSD style unit Click Here -> Article Forthcoming Stay Tuned |
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PSM - Porsche Stability Management
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While it can’t overcome the laws of physics, the revolutionary Porsche Stability Management (PSM) system does lend an added degree of balance and control to the Cayman’s mid-engine driving dynamics, inspiring surefooted confidence in corners and extreme situations.
A standard feature on the Cayman and Cayman S, PSM continuously monitors steering input, road speed, yaw velocity and lateral acceleration to calculate the actual direction of travel. If the car begins to steer off line, PSM instantly intervenes with precision brake inputs on individual wheels to help bring the car back onto the driver’s intended path.
If braking alone isn’t enough to correct the vehicle’s cornering line, PSM then calls on the Cayman’s engine management system, adjusting engine output as needed to help stabilize handling. PSM can also compensate in an instant for mid-corner changes in load resulting from deceleration or braking. When Sport mode is selected with the optional Sport Chrono Package, PSM’s threshold for intervention is raised, allowing for greater driver involvement. If you prefer driving without automatic PSM assistance, the system can be set to standby at any time. In this case, it will only intervene under heavy braking, where both front wheels exceed the ABS threshold.
For all of its technical ability, PSM goes virtually unnoticed in everyday driving situations, preserving the Cayman’s natural agility. |
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Track Report Day 1 - Playing with the Big Boys (Photos Updated)
