The street car that wants to be a track car.

[The Radium King]

you can dump weight without losing creature comforts. going from 25 lb to 20 lb wheels is a 20 lb weight savings in the best place - rotating. a lighter exhaust also brings performance benefits (apparently). etc.

[Geof3]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

i bought a second rack on ebay that i had drop-shipped to a specialist machine shop that did the conversion. i can't recall the name offhand, but if you search manual steering on this forum it should come up.

Ha, found your original post. Cool thing is, the shop you used for the conversion is a shop I have used before right in my home town. Funny how that works. It’s the Machine Shop. They have done work for me for my Jeep and a couple of other projects. Cool! Have to give that some serious thought.

[truegearhead]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

you can dump weight without losing creature comforts. going from 25 lb to 20 lb wheels is a 20 lb weight savings in the best place - rotating. a lighter exhaust also brings performance benefits (apparently). etc.

I forgot about the exhaust when I posted originally, this is absolutely the first thing you should do. It saves a ton of weight, has no adverse effects and makes working on the car much easier (more room).

[Geof3]

Originally Posted by truegearhead

I forgot about the exhaust when I posted originally, this is absolutely the first thing you should do. It saves a ton of weight, has no adverse effects and makes working on the car much easier (more room).

The car already had headers and cat delete, but for some reason the stock S muffler was retained. I'm looking into various mufflers, and the Brombacher looks like it may be the ticket. Looking at other systems, drone sounds like a real issue. Drone and my head are NOT happy together. If there are other suggestions, I am all ears!

[truegearhead]

Originally Posted by Geof3

The car already had headers and cat delete, but for some reason the stock S muffler was retained. I'm looking into various mufflers, and the Brombacher looks like it may be the ticket. Looking at other systems, drone sounds like a real issue. Drone and my head are NOT happy together. If there are other suggestions, I am all ears!

Headers, cat delete and an exhaust will make the car extremely loud. This is the setup I’m running, it’s to loud to take above 5k on public roads.

[itsnotanova]

My boxster is a street car that was race car inspired. Losing weight was the easiest way to make it go faster and I believe I took 250lbs out of it. No carpet in the trunks, insulation, stereo, Miata battery, lightweight seats, Chinese headers, custom made exhaust using a 987 muffler, no rear bumper support, manual top, deleted airbags, GT3 center console, and the rubber trunk gasket. I had to put the front one back on as it helps the frunk pop open. You can see it all on my thread but you have to use google chrome because all the pictures were used with Photobucket. There's an app on chrome that gets around photobucket's block.
http://986forum.com/forums/show-tell-gallery/59449-woodys-build-thread.html

[Topless]

My 986 was set up exactly as a track capable street car to BSX class rules. I didn't have any issues with the PS pump in over 100 track days so I don't think it *MUST be a weak link. Unless you are running 40 TW R-comps and sawing the wheel way too much you probably won't have much trouble with it either. The UD pulley does help take the strain off by effectively lowering the PS RPM with no downsides. Remember that the steering wheel is effectively a brake so drive the car with your right foot and apply minimum steering input. This is faster and improves reliability.

I also kept the A/C because I live in the desert and on rain days the AC works great as a windshield de-fog. Ask the SpecBox guys about this. A lotta work to pull it out for little gain and you do lose a lot of creature comfort in the process.

Getting competitive:
UD pulley
Race seats bolted to the floor
Lightweight battery
Roll bar ext for safety
PSS9
Comp sways
4 sets of 17" wheels
Racing brake pads
Motul 600 brake fluid
GT3 front brake ducts
NT-01 tires both square and staggered for different track configurations.
Pro corner balance, alignment and suspension setup.
Class weight was 2950 lbs all up with driver and I was right on it with 1/4 tank of gas. In CA we have to meet sound rules to run Laguna Seca so I left the exhaust bone stock. I never got blackballed for sound as many of my competitors did.

This car was very competitive with several BSX TT championships and 4 BSX track records across all of PCA, POC, and NASA. It was also still comfortable and fun to drive in the canyons.

What would I do differently? If not constrained by BSX class rules I would have added GT3 arms for better adjustability, to get more camber up front and improve tire wear. PSS9s are a compromise strut and work *just ok*. If I wanted better control of the contact patch I would go with JRZ for full adjustability at the cost of around $8k installed and tuned. I rarely ran R7 tires and felt that the comp sways often tied the car down too much for NT-01s so I ran them at or near full soft. I might have gone with the simpler M030 sways and tuned with the struts instead for better control.

[Geof3]

You guys are great! SO much info.

Regarding harnesses, is it reasonable to mount shoulder belts to the stock roll bar crossmember? Seems like a good spot?

Now... where is the check book...

[Quadcammer]

Originally Posted by Geof3

You guys are great! SO much info.

Regarding harnesses, is it reasonable to mount shoulder belts to the stock roll bar crossmember? Seems like a good spot?

Now... where is the check book...

yup that works

[The Radium King]

yessir, you can only go as fast as you can trust your brakes - high temp brake fluid is a must - i swear by rbf600.

[rastta]

Originally Posted by Topless

My 986 was set up exactly as a track capable street car to BSX class rules. I didn't have any issues with the PS pump in over 100 track days so I don't think it *MUST be a weak link. Unless you are running 40 TW R-comps and sawing the wheel way too much you probably won't have much trouble with it either. The UD pulley does help take the strain off by effectively lowering the PS RPM with no downsides. Remember that the steering wheel is effectively a brake so drive the car with your right foot and apply minimum steering input. This is faster and improves reliability.

I also kept the A/C because I live in the desert and on rain days the AC works great as a windshield de-fog. Ask the SpecBox guys about this. A lotta work to pull it out for little gain and you do lose a lot of creature comfort in the process.

Getting competitive:
UD pulley
Race seats bolted to the floor
Lightweight battery
Roll bar ext for safety
PSS9
Comp sways
4 sets of 17" wheels
Racing brake pads
Motul 600 brake fluid
GT3 front brake ducts
NT-01 tires both square and staggered for different track configurations.
Pro corner balance, alignment and suspension setup.
Class weight was 2950 lbs all up with driver and I was right on it with 1/4 tank of gas. In CA we have to meet sound rules to run Laguna Seca so I left the exhaust bone stock. I never got blackballed for sound as many of my competitors did.

This car was very competitive with several BSX TT championships and 4 BSX track records across all of PCA, POC, and NASA. It was also still comfortable and fun to drive in the canyons.

What would I do differently? If not constrained by BSX class rules I would have added GT3 arms for better adjustability, to get more camber up front and improve tire wear. PSS9s are a compromise strut and work *just ok*. If I wanted better control of the contact patch I would go with JRZ for full adjustability at the cost of around $8k installed and tuned. I rarely ran R7 tires and felt that the comp sways often tied the car down too much for NT-01s so I ran them at or near full soft. I might have gone with the simpler M030 sways and tuned with the struts instead for better control.

While I run Moton Motorsports on my Boxster - I just had Ohlins R+T coilovers installed on my 987 Cayman S. I've had numerous coilovers, shocks/spring combos before on a street car or street/track car and I have to say I'm incredibly impressed with the Ohlins. With 400lb/460lb spring rates f/r - I was worried they'd be pretty harsh on the street and it's not the case. The special valving is excellent and works as advertised. I only paid $2300 for the set new from Performance Shock at Sears Point Raceway.