Maiden Voyage
 

I'll finally have a chance to take her out on the track for two days this weekend at Thunderhill Raceway. My wife and I will be sharing the car. She's an advanced intermediate level driver and I'm an instructor with the Audi Club and Hooked on Driving.

Seems like forever since I got the car. Damn thing is so low I had to order custom ramps to get it on my trailer which took near a month to get here.

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Should be interesting coming from my previous track car - a 2000 B5 S4 with 430whp on 91. It was heavily modified - and weighed about 3100 lbs and was running 275's all around on a widebody conversion. I just got tired of all the boost issues I had with it.

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Sounds like you are going to have a blast. The difference between the two car has got to be pretty dramatic. Let us know your impressions.

Yup - but I do have a Cayman S daily driver so that will help and i've driven and instructed a few Porsche's on track over the years. My student this weekend has a Cayman R.

Congratulations! Let us know how it goes and what you think of the car. If it drives half as good as it looks, you'll have quite a winner!

Just got home from the weekend. The car was fantastic. My wife and I had a great time. More to follow.

So to elaborate a bit on the weekend. Weather was great both days - about mid 70's but very windy on Saturday and a bit warmer on Sunday with a bit less wind. I took it easy out there for the first session early in the am since it was a bit cool and I had no idea what to expect from the Advan slicks on the car. They had 2 heat cycles in them when I started.

The car is amazingly easy to get used too - although it is very stiff and pretty unforgiving. The biggest thing for me was clearing all past muscle memory from driving the track. I've done many sessions on this track in the S4 and while I constantly look to refine corner entry points, braking thresholds etc. - I had to be mindful of the differences in turn-in and braking in the Boxster.

I was a bit concerned about the car's setup going into the weekend - with the 700/800 f/r spring combo and larger swaybars. I had reviewed the rebound and compression settings on the Moton's and figured they'd be a good place to start. Same with the bar settings. My concerns were unwarranted once I was out on track though. The car was pretty much dialed in and I made no suspension adjustments over the weekend. My wife felt very comfortable in it as well. The original owner was meticulous in setting up the car and taking notes and it paid off.

I had one incident on track - with the rear wheel contacting the inside curbing exiting T15 and it kicked the rear of the car out pretty suddenly, resulting in a nice half spin and resulting all 4 off on the outside. I've hit that thing many times in the S4 and never had a problem - note to self - avoid the tall curbs.

Last but not least - I blew sound on Sunday am at 107 decibels. The car is LOUD and I thought we were under the 103 limit since we didn't get meatballed on Saturday but apparently their sound equipment wasn't functioning correctly. I did have a couple Supertrapps the previous owner provided and put them on - it did allow us to pass sound at 96.5 dB but cut the power quite a bit in the higher rpms so I'll be getting mufflers put on - as it currently has two small resonators and 3" straight pipes. This should allow me to pass sound and then use the supertrapps to get to the 90dB limit at Laguna in the future.

Overall I was throughly impressed with the car. It was everything I hoped it would be. It was fast and sharp and I only got to know about 50% of it's capabilities over the two days. We put 12 sessions on her between myself and my wife and all she did was impress use more each session. I've got a couple vids that i'm editing and will post em when I finish. Nothing spectacular as I was driving at about 6/10's or so. As a comparison - I'd run 2:05-06's over the top at Thill in the S4 and I was turning 2:15's in the Boxster. Based upon my initial assessments - I think it will be good for very low 2 minute laps.

Fantastic. I watched the video on your other post and noticed the over engine cooling fans where turned off (at least I think they were). I'd run them to help keep everything extra cool, including the starter.

Good luck getting used to the car. Remember to help with the curbing you can always soften the front and rear bar and soften the compression but not the rebound. Just an idea.

Hope you get the lap timer and predictor squared away on the MoTeC as well, noticed it wasn't working either.

Good luck.

Ok - wasn't sure if I needed to because engine temps hit 190 and stayed there no matter what - we threw the engine fan on when coming off track and in the paddock.

Car was excellent and I hit the curb pretty hard - settings seemed pretty spot on. I just turned in early - still used to the sloppy steering in my old S4.

I wasn't sure on the lap timer. I had the coordinates - but didn't want to wipe out the rest of the setup info that was saved so I opted not to mess with it prior to the weekend.

Tires went through 12 sessions between the two of us and didn't flinch - although as you can see - I wasn't pushing the car that hard.

I watched your video but in the interest of consolidation I will post here. First off: NICE CAR! What a smoking deal! :cheers:

I race a 944 here in the PacNW, have raced the 25 Hours of THill 5 times in an E30, and I instruct locally with ICSCC. I also have a 2001 986S for which I am working on a plan for a full race build. I hope to target ICSCC ST (10:1 wt:rwhp) and NASA GTS3 (11:1) for future 25hr outings. I have a particular interest in your progress as your car is damn close to what I am planning to put together. :cool:

To date I have not found any good numbers on similar cars, particularly for tracks in NorCal and the PNW. The few are based on spec Boxster times, which have several comparative deficiencies. Sub 2 minutes in a full race 986S should be quite doable - though I am thinking full race pace.

Do you have any plans to take it racing? Or were you just looking for a new track car for you and your wife? Regardless, a prepared car with all the safety goodies is a big thing mentally, at least it was for me. And all the DE folks in the paddock have got to be super envious of the air jacks! :D

Congrats... looks like a ton of fun. I will definitely be keeping an eye on your threads and might pop a few questions at you - like what is the rwhp with your setup? Can't wait to see more videos!

Thanks - it was definitely the right choice.

As for lap times - the PCA lists GT3S times for Thunderhill - with 1:58 during practice being the fastest they have on record and 2:02 as the fastest during a sprint race. The 2:02 would be 4 seconds under the fastest lap I've done at Thill so it's certainly doable - but that would be pretty damn quick for me.

I do intend to race at some point - when time and funds allow. Right now I simply want to get more seat time in the car. It was great over the weekend - but I also had two students to instruct - one intermediate and one advanced (advanced was in a modified Cayman R), my wife to deal with and assisting with running the 2 day event.

I need to get it out and spend the whole day just driving - no other distractions.

The dyno sheet included with the car showed 310whp - but not sure on what octane - since he always ran 100 or higher - I'm going to assume 100. Scale/corner balancing readings showed 2536lbs IIRC.

Thanks for the reply... gives me a nice target. Just to clarify, your quoted THill are all with the Eagle's Nest in use? For the 25hr we use the bypass which saves a bit of time.

I can't run as much power as you have... exceeds my targets just a bit. I can probably get close to 11:1 with a 3.2L and would likely have to detune a 3.4L for enduros to hit that mark.

Good luck with the car and please keep posting as you get to take it out more!

Yup those times are over the top - it's actual name is the Cyclone. Most lap times are about 2-3 seconds better over the bypass - although my times aren't any faster as I rarely run the bypass.

I definitely agree about having students and trying to drive. I generally refrain from doing it any more, particularly with my race car. There's too much going on during the day to get everything right, so I think it is better to simplify. When you can get back and focus on driving that thing I bet your times will fall off a ton.

Thanks for the feedback. I can't wait to get down there and drive the new track. The full setup will be almost 6 miles long... that's just awesome!

:cheers:

Once you get used to your car, with the setup that you have, you should be able to run low 2:00's all day long.

My stock base boxster with h & r springs, race pads, 888 would do 2:15's at TH over the top. I am bad with names, but I haven't coached with HOD this season yet, I run the black C6Z06. Kevin