Aerokit I versus Weight

[lawren]

I bought a ‘98 Boxster that I am converting to a dedicated track car. I am in the process of trying to remove unnecessary weight. Should I remove the Aerokit I side skirts and rear wing that are on the car? Reading other posts lead me to believe that they provide no performance benefit. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that the rear wing isn’t creating some lift - the rear trunk open warning light keeps coming on when I get up to speed!

[itsnotanova]

There's better wings out there than the aero kit wing. You could probably buy a new wing with the profits from selling the aero kit wing and side skirts. I say remove the side skirts because there's a good chance you'll rip them off when you go off track.

[RedTele58]

If you're running the car on the track, the aerokit adds unnecessary weight. The sideskirts will end up being scraped and will probably get torn off or destroyed if you end up off track, especially if you've lowered the car any. The aero spoiler doesn't add any track peformance over the pop up spoiler either and is more weight.

Now - saying all that, I have to admit my DE car has a factory aerokit. I love it for the looks, but if the car was a dedicated track car, the aerokit would be gone.

If you look at Spec Boxster class rules, they allow sideskirts, but I've never seen anyone with them on their car. (The Spec guys I've talked w/ say the same as above.) The class rules don't allow the Aero nose or fixed aero spoiler either. (The guys running at the top of the Spec class are running a Gen II Boxster S front bumper cover on their car - both for the added center opening for a center radiator and their belief that the 2002-2004 nose is a bit more aerodynamic than the earlier S nose.

If your running the car strictly as a track car, you should take a llook at the Spec Boxster rules and build your car to those specifications. Once you get serious on the track it's a short jump to wanting more and thats where you'll be glad your car is built to Spec car rules as you ponder moving to the dark side of Spec car racing. .

Do you get to Hallett for any of your track days?

Also - check your PM's for some more from me.

[78F350]

As Rick and Woody (RedTele58 and Itsnotanova) said, there's no benefit to having it on a track car.

That said, I will gladly pull it all out of whatever dumpster you put it in if you are in the western half of Arkansas. If you would like to swap on a stock rear trunk lid or '97 - '02 style base bumper I have a couple available here in northeastern OK. I'll be traveling across Arkansas to Shreveport in late January and could divert to drop off or pick up.

I think that Rick has about eight aerokits now and I don't even have one yet.

Also, there are some good lightweight parts available from various vendors such as:
https://www.ccpfabrication.com/category/category-1

[RedTele58]

Originally Posted by 78F350

That said, I will gladly pull it all out of whatever dumpster you put it in if you are in the western half of Arkansas. If you would like to swap on a stock rear trunk lid or '97 - '02 style base bumper I have a couple available here in northeastern OK. I'll be traveling across Arkansas to Shreveport in late January and could divert to drop off or pick up.

I think that Rick has about eight aerokits now and I don't even have one yet.

Ha! For once I was ahead of you in raising my hand first. PM for them was already sent.

You're sleeping in too late on a Sunday morning!

[lawren]

As I suspected, the Aerokit parts provide no performance benefit. I will be removing the side skirts and the wing from the trunk lid to reduce weight. I plan to keep the fiberglass trunk lid in place.

Since the spec boxster guys run with the spoiler (Gurney Flap style?) in the up position does that mean there is some aero benefit there? Should i try to replicate that smaller projection from the trunk lid? Occasionally, I will touch 100-105 mph at the tracks i visit most often (Hallett and Barber) but not much over that. I'm guessing it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Assuming the track car survives intact, i plan to restore to original on day so i will be keeping all of the parts i am removing, including the Aerokit parts. Thanks for the interest and the advice.

[BrokenLinkage]

Yes. The oem spoiler is not for aesthetics. The benefit is not an abrupt transition so hard to say at what speed the performance benefit outweighs the weight of the mechanicals.
But as a safety issue I would leave one or the other in place. Particularly if there is any chance that anyone else might ever drive your car at an indiscreet speed and suffer the consequences of lift.

I'd just bolt on a stock lid, leave the spoiler affixed to glass lid so you dont have to remount it later, and add what you need from a scrapyard to have an effective "stock" system. The one 986 I've seen that was thought to have the factory aero kit looked like it had some, if not all, of the mechanicals still in place. But maybe it wasn't truly "factory."

[RedTele58]

BrokenLinkage - the factory made two different versions of the aerokit; one for the generation 1 986, the second for the Gen II 986.

The Gen I is the one I normally see. It has a different front bumper cover, softer curved side skirts, and a fixed rear spoiler mounted on a fiberglass rear decklid. For the Gen I cars the pop up spoiler was removed, and plastic trim pieces were added inside the trunk to cover where the pop up spoiler sat. The fiberglass decklid was longer than the steel lid to make up the difference in spacing where the pop up spoiler sat. Additionally, the deck lid had no cutout for the third brakelight. Thr brakelight was mounted in the spoiler.

The Gen II kit was not (to me) near as good looking. The front bumper cover as near as I can tell is a stock bumper cover, the side skirts are sharper and more angular and the fixed rear spoiler was mounted on a regular length steel deck lid. The pop up spoiler was intact, but disabled. That's probably why the car you saw looked to have the pop up spoiler in place.

The blue car below with the top down is a Gen II car. You can see the later style pop up spoiler is still in place, along with the steel deck lid having the cutout for the third brakelight (and no brake light mounted in the spoiler).

In the bottom pic of my Gen I blue car with the hard top, you can see the deck lid extends clear to the rear bumper cover, there is no cutout in the fiberglass decklid for the third brakelight, and the brakelight is mounted in the spoiler.

[BrokenLinkage]

RedTele thanks for the clarification.
They seem pretty rare around here. (To me it is not a bad look st all, but it is a visual / functional step away from the boxster concept and toward a different type of sports car).
But loss of the center high brake light seems yet another safety concern for just pulling the spoiler off of a street-driven Aerokit 1 car.

[itsnotanova]

Fyi, the early aero front bumper cover is very very very rare. There's a high chance you'll ruin it on the track. Might want to find another cover and put the aero bumper in storage.

[RedTele58]

Originally Posted by itsnotanova

Fyi, the early aero front bumper cover is very very very rare. There's a high chance you'll ruin it on the track. Might want to find another cover and put the aero bumper in storage.

My good friend Woody found me one once.

He's a pretty handy guy to have around.

[JayG]

You also should factor in what track class you want to run in. If your going Spec, then its pretty cut and dried to what you can and can't do. If you are running in a prepared class you need to look at the rules for that class and what impact aero has on the classes.

For example, Aero will add "performance" points and that could move you into a higher class where you may not be as competitive

[Javi Cooper]

Originally Posted by RedTele58

BrokenLinkage - the factory made two different versions of the aerokit; one for the generation 1 986, the second for the Gen II 986.

The Gen I is the one I normally see. It has a different front bumper cover, softer curved side skirts, and a fixed rear spoiler mounted on a fiberglass rear decklid. For the Gen I cars the pop up spoiler was removed, and plastic trim pieces were added inside the trunk to cover where the pop up spoiler sat. The fiberglass decklid was longer than the steel lid to make up the difference in spacing where the pop up spoiler sat. Additionally, the deck lid had no cutout for the third brakelight. Thr brakelight was mounted in the spoiler.

The Gen II kit was not (to me) near as good looking. The front bumper cover as near as I can tell is a stock bumper cover, the side skirts are sharper and more angular and the fixed rear spoiler was mounted on a regular length steel deck lid. The pop up spoiler was intact, but disabled. That's probably why the car you saw looked to have the pop up spoiler in place.

The blue car below with the top down is a Gen II car. You can see the later style pop up spoiler is still in place, along with the steel deck lid having the cutout for the third brakelight (and no brake light mounted in the spoiler).

In the bottom pic of my Gen I blue car with the hard top, you can see the deck lid extends clear to the rear bumper cover, there is no cutout in the fiberglass decklid for the third brakelight, and the brakelight is mounted in the spoiler.

I don't think that first photo (top down car) is a Gen 2 wing. The car is a Gen 2 but the wing looks like a Ebay copy of a Gen 1. The OEM Gen 2 wing is taller and has a 3rd brake light.

These are the OEM Aerokits:


986.1 Aerokit. Front bumper, side skirts, rear wing. Fiberglass trunk lid without 3rd brake light replaces original metal lid and eliminates pop-up spoiler. Rear wing w/ brake light is bolted to new fiberglass lid:







986.2 Aerokit. GT3 style (996.1) front bumper and side skirts, rear wing. Rear wing w/ 3rd brake light is bolted on original trunk lid, original 3rd brake light stays in place:







986.2 Sport Desing. Side skirts only. Adding to the confusion, you could order a 986.2 without an Aerokit but with the Sport Design package (option code 012), which included the GT3 side skirts but no front bumper or rear wing. This Boxster on Bring a Trailer is one of the few ones I've seen with this option:

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2003-porsche-boxster-s-15/

[tommy583]

Hey that's my silver car Before I changed the wheels, headlights and Interior color.

[Javi Cooper]

Originally Posted by tommy583

Hey that's my silver car Before I changed the wheels, headlights and Interior color.

Looks fantastic Interior used to be Boxster Red? What color did you change it to?

[tommy583]

I changed it to black. The seats were trashed and the carpet faded to a salmon color. I bought some black seats locally. Got a black carpet from Woody. Some of the small pieces I got black ones. The big job was dying the dash and door panels black. I did the dash with a sponge and the door panels with an air brush. It all looked pretty good when i did it a few years back. It is starting to show its age now. But it all looks good enough for a car with 150,000 miles on it.