Building a 986 S for SCCA CS Autocross for National competition

[Javelin]

Alright, first event in the books. Check out the video here:

https://youtu.be/18TGQrDe5nM

The car performed flawlessly and it really took me by surprise how good it is out of the box. I am by no means a "Nationals-level" driver and yet I was able to win CS the first time out and place 2nd in the S2 Index out of 10, and****25th of 76 on overall raw times. I couldn't be more pleased with the results, I think it really shows that I am barking up the right tree with this car. I was also the fastest Porsche, besting another CS 986 S and a BS 987 S Cayman (and my codriver).

Event 1 results:

https://scorekeeper.wwscc.org/results/or2019/event/34c12bd8-325c-11e9-af60-0242ac170002/tt?counted=1

[phook]

That's awesome Javelin! Keep it up. I forget, did you end up with a front or rear sway bar?

I took my 2.7 on it's first autocross yesterday as well in Fontana, CA. It really is a great car for autocross - although I'm still a novice, I placed 3rd in CS out of 5 competitors (the other 4 were ND Miatas) and 75th out of 91 PAX.

I was really just glad to be able to beat the time my instructor put on my car, as well as going from 72 seconds down to 64 seconds in the fun runs lol

[Javelin]

Originally Posted by phook

That's awesome Javelin! Keep it up. I forget, did you end up with a front or rear sway bar?

I took my 2.7 on it's first autocross yesterday as well in Fontana, CA. It really is a great car for autocross - although I'm still a novice, I placed 3rd in CS out of 5 competitors (the other 4 were ND Miatas) and 75th out of 91 PAX.

I was really just glad to be able to beat the time my instructor put on my car, as well as going from 72 seconds down to 64 seconds in the fun runs lol

I have not done either sway bar yet.

Good job with your 2.7! How many events have you been to so far?

[phook]

Originally Posted by Javelin

I have not done either sway bar yet.

Good job with your 2.7! How many events have you been to so far?

With my 986, Sunday's event was the first one. Other then that, I went to an SCCA Starting Line School last August in my MK6 GTI.

[Javelin]

Second event also in the books, check out the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8pqlppg93g

Once again the car was flawless. We absolutely flew on day 2 and I actually set the 4th fastest raw time overall in my run group: https://scorekeeper.wwscc.org/results/or2019/event/54eb21ec-325d-11e9-a859-0242ac170002/bygroup?list=1 which was good enough for 2nd in class and index and 23/71 overall. For the first weekend with the car and how little development we've done so far I am pleased as punch. I am second in the Street 2 superclass index for the season by 1 point.

[phook]

I saw the video. Great run! I'm honestly hooked on autocrossing with the 986. I can't stop thinking about it tbh lol

I'm trying to plan out my next event, but won't be able to make it out again until April. I'm trying to figure out how to make it to an event on March 17th. It will be the Porsche Owners Club's first autocrossing event, but I have tickets to a St. Patrick's Day bar crawl the night before lol. I'm not sure I'll be able to go to that and still get up at 5AM to drive out to that event.

[Javelin]

Originally Posted by phook

I saw the video. Great run! I'm honestly hooked on autocrossing with the 986. I can't stop thinking about it tbh lol

I'm trying to plan out my next event, but won't be able to make it out again until April. I'm trying to figure out how to make it to an event on March 17th. It will be the Porsche Owners Club's first autocrossing event, but I have tickets to a St. Patrick's Day bar crawl the night before lol. I'm not sure I'll be able to go to that and still get up at 5AM to drive out to that event.

Lol, yeah I wouldn't autocross very well after a St. Paddy's Day bar crawl, either!
The 986 is a great autocross platform, you should do great with yours. What are you running for tires?

[Javelin]

I analyzed all of the finishing data, video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-mdpCH3yY4

To sum it up, I got the 3rd quickest overall raw time in my run group on Event 1, and 4th quickest in Event 2. It's a good baseline to measure performance over the rest of the season, I found a few good benchmarks to keep an eye on.

[phook]

Originally Posted by Javelin

Lol, yeah I wouldn't autocross very well after a St. Paddy's Day bar crawl, either!
The 986 is a great autocross platform, you should do great with yours. What are you running for tires?

I decided to go with Bridgestone Potenza PP S-04. 225 in the front and 255 for the rear on 17's. They were on sale at Costco w/ penny installation per tire. The RE-71R were also on a promotion but priced slightly higher. I decided that if I was going to destroy a pair of tires to learn, I'd rather do it on the cheaper tire lol

[Javelin]

Originally Posted by phook

I decided to go with Bridgestone Potenza PP S-04. 225 in the front and 255 for the rear on 17's. They were on sale at Costco w/ penny installation per tire. The RE-71R were also on a promotion but priced slightly higher. I decided that if I was going to destroy a pair of tires to learn, I'd rather do it on the cheaper tire lol

Good plan! Learning on a less-sticky tire also teaches you more about proper line because the outright grip won't mask your mistakes.

[Racer Boy]

Javelin - This weekend I'm going to a PCA autocross (my first in around 15 years!), and I wondered what tire pressures you ran. I'll be on regular summer high performance BFG tires, but just wondered what a good ballpark starting point would be.

[Javelin]

Originally Posted by Racer Boy

Javelin - This weekend I'm going to a PCA autocross (my first in around 15 years!), and I wondered what tire pressures you ran. I'll be on regular summer high performance BFG tires, but just wondered what a good ballpark starting point would be.

That's actually a tough question! Different tires like different pressures and at different temperatures. The Falken RT615K+ for example produced the most grip at 36 psi on my SVT Cobra, but the Nitto NT05 (also a 200TW Max Performance summer tire) produced the most grip at 34 psi. If it was colder out, the Falken liked less pressure but the Nitto didn't matter.

In this case, my RE71R's were at 35/34 psi (F/R) for the events, but at 37* weather. A good starting point would be around 38 psi and look at the tires each run (and check pressure) as you are looking for even wear and no "rollover" (using the sidewall of the tire) but you also want to utilize the entire tread width. It's easy to let air out/go down in pressure in grid, it's usually hard to add it back in unless you brought an air tank.

So start high and let a pound out each run until you are using the whole tread width, then maintain that pressure.

Hope that helps!

[Javelin]

I finally finished editing all of my on-car videos into one YouTube. First it's my co-driver, then it's me, all at the first event we did with the 986, Oregon Region SCCA's AX #1 at Portland International Raceway.

https://youtu.be/O1kAPT7l-fU

[SCCA_AX]

When is your first national event?

[Javelin]

Originally Posted by SCCA_AX

When is your first national event?

The Packwood ProSolo and National Tour in July.

[Javelin]

Now things get interesting...

I managed to find a set of 17" Boxster wheels in the same 7.5"/9" staggered widths. What's going to help more, lighter weight or less sidewall? I need to see what Bridgestone is offering in RE71R in the 17" sizes...

[SCCA_AX]

225/45, 245/40,255/40.

In reality, the 245 & 255 are virtually indistinguishable. If you've got a good tire guy you can try and pinch the 245 up front.

Might want to wait and see how the Yoko A052 drama shakes out first. According to a Tire Rack ad, it's coming in a 200TW/7/32" version to be legal for SCCA. They better hurry, only have about 4 weeks left before the cutoff for the year. Also, since the current version is listed on Tire Rack as a "streetable track" tire, and it doesn't appear to have sufficient water evacuation channels, there's chatter it may end up on the exclusion list. Like I said, drama.
:dance:

[Javelin]

I'm getting ready for event 3 tomorrow and planning for the next changes. Other than the 17's, I also have some brake pads coming. https://youtu.be/Th7Pc81cHvk

[Javelin]

While I'm driving at event 3, you can watch how I did at event 2: https://youtu.be/FIWVL0cCh8o

[Javelin]

Disaster strikes! The Boxster has a cracked rear wheel: https://youtu.be/WDqPNaJ4-0s