Owners guide to the Porsche 996 Carrera 4

Carrera GT fatal crash on track

Two guys killed tracking a Carrera GT. No real detail about it in the article.

Update: According to Loren on www.renntech.org, the accident seems to have been caused when another car, a Ferrari, exited the pit lane in to the path of the GT which is supposed to have been moving at between 150-165mph. The driver of the GT swerved to avoid the car but lost control, went on the grass and then had an angular impact with a barrier which seems to have shredded the right side of the car. The windscreen looks like it's been pushed through so maybe the passenger hit it on impact. Regardless, the right side is a mess so it looked grim regardless of the windscreen.

You gotta wonder if at least the driver would have survived with a safety harness like D-Cel or Hans or R3. I don't know if he was wearing one but who knows, 160 is a 160.

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/4562562/detail.html

New Cayman is killing me

So Autoweek talks about the Porsche Cayman S this week. 295 bhp and lighter than a Carrera. Laps the ring 4 seconds faster than a C2. It's cheaper, what the hell are they thinking! Why would you buy a C2 now when you can get a Cayman S.

It's side profile doesn't work for me but it looks good from the back. I don't understand what Porsche are doing but the extra two seats in a 911 are not worth 15k dollars. My kids (8 and 6) used them at the beginning but the novelty is gone now and no more. It's a 2 seater with storage behind the seats.

They also mentioned the new GT3 which looks disappointing also. 400bhp, 20 more than the current one and they threw out PASM to save weight. I think they should have given the 997S 400bhp and then made a club sport/gt3 version which is gutted to save weight. Course, they are still 100bhp down on the stock Ferrari 430. The endless models they offer now just piss me off. Ferrari have 3 models, couple, cab, stradale. Having 5k price differences between models makes no sense and has to lower their profits from the sheer number of models and additional complexity on the production line.

If anyone from Porsche is reading, how about this for a line up? They should just have a (400bhp) coupe, (410bhp) 4wd coupe, (450bhp) GT3, (400bhp) 2wd cab and (550bhp+) turbo. This also differentiates the 911 from the Boxster/Cayman. I hate the idea of the carrera which has gotta be just penny pitching at Porsche. The Cayman S is probably a better car than the C2 and cheaper.

I'm afraid Porsche will turn in to Aston Martin with the 911 becoming, God forbid, a DB9. Their sports cars will not be 911s, the boxster and cayman are the sports cars, drivers cars, the 911 is a grand tourer from the looks of things.

Nuts.

Drivers Ed and safety equipment

I'm going to the June 13th drivers education track day in Brainerd International Speedway. So, time to buy a helmet. I'd looked at Bell helmets online and the M2 or M2 Pro (lighter) were my choices. I also wanted a Hans Device figuring it's the safest setup without ripping the car apart. But, noone will sell a Hans online so I went to the Hans Device site to find a dealer. This was very fortunate as we'll soon see.

The dealer was in Oakdale MN, Apex Spg. I phoned to see if they were open this morning (Sat) and the guy said he'd meet me at the store at 12pm. So, hopped in the car and the place was pretty easy to find.

The owners name was Jim Bryant and this guy was just awesome. He's an instructor for the Porsche club and BMW club and has a race prepped Porsche 944 which looked very nice. He asked first about my experience and then sized me for a helmet. He measured my head using a tape first and then produced a Bell M2 which fit pretty snug. I had even pressure across my brow and it was against my cheeks. He then tried twisting the helmet left and right (looking to see that my skin moved) and then asked me to look up and to my left and did some more tests. Then lean forward and he tried to pull the helmet off and then I'm fitted.

Then he measured my neck for the Hans device but the one in stock was too big for me. A smaller one was coming next week. The hans is very light. This model was 860 bucks and the 'pro' was 1300 but the normal one is so light, it's a marginal improvement. I asked if with the Hans, the M2 Pro helmet was worth it and he said no. Without the Hans, get the M2 Pro (it's lighter) with the Hans, the Hans negates the benefit of the lighter Pro although in a side impact, the pro would still have an edge. Then I just put it on and asked how it works in my car and then he realised I didn't have a 6 pt belt. OOPS. It doesn't work without a racing seatbelt setup. I then said, ok, what else can I do.

So, he showed me new front seats and a seat belt harness that goes behind the front seat between the pillars. I'd then use a 5/6 pt seat belt and the Hans works. I can still use my normal 3pt for day to day. All these mods can be done with no drilling and are reversible. Total cost would be between 300-800 for one seat and 300 for the rest. I'm thinking about that right now but didn't pull the trigger.

What else? I said. He showed me a D-Cell device. This was about 20% less effective than a Hans but it's all relative. According to some stats I've seen, no device gives a neck strain of around 11000 (3000 is fatal) in a 60mph collision. The Hans was 2100, the D-cell 2500. So big improvement over nothing but not as good as Hans BUT doesn't require car mods. He also showed me an R3 which looks like a Hans but doesn't require mods. The R3 looks better. I've decided to get the D-Cell for now (480 bucks) but just noticed the R3 is available and is approved for NASCAR and I may switch to that but need to make my mind up quickly.

I bought some sparco gloves (X-Pro) and a sparco balaclava to try absorb sweat.

So, all in all, bought my helmet, gloves and a balaclava today and have a D-Cell on order. Jim was great, very knowledgable, no bullshit kind of guy. I spent 2 hours with him talking about various aspects of safety and if you're in the area, you gotta visit him.

RUF superchargers, not so sure

So, RUF has a 996 supercharger for 20k. Tempting but when you reason it out, it makes no sense, at least not for me.

My car has tiptronic, the turbo has a reinforced tiptronic, will mine be up to it? Not clear. Brakes and suspension etc.

I figure the 20k is the tip of the iceberg cost wise, plus, my warranty would be shot. It looks a lot cheaper to just buy a used Turbo for maybe 30k on top of my car, so thats the plan when I switch.

There are others with cheaper superchargers but I'm worried about reliability. RUF have modified the engine internals for theirs to 'improve reliability' so with RUFs reputation I think they are needed.

Got the new tires

Picked up my car this morning and drove the 70 miles back to work on highway. First impressions of the Michelin Pilot Sport 2s are that they look great on the rim. Nice decals, looks very tidy and there is a decent sized rim protector also so a car wash may be possible with these tires on the rims. Next, they are quiet. It's really noticeable coming from the Pirelli asymmetricos I had before.

My dealer charged 1650 us for the tires, mounting/balancing, alignment and replacing a damaged air dam on the right rear wheel. The alignment cost 200 and one wheel needed its toe in modified. So, the cost of the tire change is actually around 1300 which is about right plus the alignment (which I'd only trust to the dealer) and the air dam (<100 bucks).

Besides that, can't say anymore at the moment.

Back to 18" wheels again

So, it's been a couple of days now on my 18" rather than the 17" I use in winter. The 18s handle better clearly but for day to day driving I'm missing the 17s. The 18s are noticeably louder. When the roads are not perfect then the 18s tend to wander, hunting along the road rather than travel in a straight line when compared with the 17s.

The new PS2 tires may help with these gripes but after having slept in this morning, they won't be going on now till Tuesday.

Steering Feel in icy conditions

Very slippy out this morning. It's 7am and I'm about to head to work. It's been snowing lightly all night. I take out the 911 and back out of the drive way. Immediately, I know it's slippy, the car doesn't feel right. I start moving on the road by my house and I'm nervous already. I can feel the car is moving ever so slightly even at 15 mph. I turn the corner and start towards the highway and still, the car tells me it's nervous, hard to explain but it communicates every sensation from the wheels through the steering wheel to me. I know it's slippy before I apply gas or brake.

I see a car in front overshoot and nearly exit the road. I'm closer to the highway now and then I decide, take it home. Someone is going to hit me with it like this. So, I do a U turn and head back.

I take my 98 Explorer and no sensations. Feels fine. No idea at all it's slippy until I hit the brake. The thing slides along, ABS chirping until it stops. The point is, you can't feel anything in that thing. I knew it was slippy but you don't feel it until you do something silly. You know it's slippy in the 911 because it tells you that something is wrong, i.e. it's not stuck to the road like velco and you notice this immediately once the car starts moving. I guess wheel feel is a big factor in driver safety thats lost on 99% of all car drivers because they don't have it.

Spring is time for tires

Looking at getting Michelin Pilot Sport 2s for it in April. My local porsche dealer will order them from tire rack and install them. It's a safe bet letting them do it, a friend of mine used a local discount tire place for his Ferrari and then damaged the Magnesium rims, lots of money and hassle to fix. Easier to just pay a little more and let the dealer sort it out.

Winter in MN

This morning driving to work, temperatures were 12F with wind chills down to well below. I guess this is why they make Winter tires.

Tiptronic better for Track?

Just read the Dec 04 Panorama magazine from the Porsche Club of America. A Canadian instructor/ex driver says he reckons that tip cars are quicker round a track. As a tip owner, I found this intriguing.

His idea is basically to use the tip for very fast optimal downshifts before corners. You need to left foot brake the car, as the RPM falls to 4k RPM then floor the throttle extremely quickly and release it. You need blip the throttle faster than the injectors will work as you're trying to slow the car down here...

Tip will downshift to the right gear and then as more speed falls off then blip it again to repeat. Mad stuff, tried it today, almost killed myself. You need to blip the throttle extremely quickly, like a tap dancer. I was still thinking about it too much today and ended up holding the throttle down slightly too long which results in the car accelerating rather than slowing down before the corner which is a bad thing...

But, will keep trying to see how it goes. Left foot braking is completely unnatural for me so I can't modulate it as well as my right foot but that'll probably get better with practise. The big test will be at Brainerd next year.