First HPDE in my 986 - next mod?

[thstone]

The best advice I can offer is to invest in track time and coaching until you can out drive your stock car. Then start making upgrades to the car. A stock Boxster has an incredible amount of capability that you need to learn to untap. With a more capable car, the hill is just that much higher and can impede progress.

And everything that you learn to drive a stock Boxster well will pay off in whatever car you might drive in the future. I see SO many drivers in much higher HP cars on the race track that really should go back and learn the basics of performance driving. They use the high HP as a crutch to make up for poor fundamental track skills. Don't be that guy. Instead, be the guy who can post a faster lap time than a guy in a Cayman with 50 more HP. That will make you feel REALLY good!

The only exception that I would mention is if you wanted to get a racing seat and harnesses. This will improve your learning curve since you can concentrate on driving and not expend so much energy just trying to stay in the seat. Realize that you'll also need a HANS device if you go this route (with your body fully strapped in, your head/neck is now the weakest link).

How do you know when you're better than the car? Your lap times will be near or at the top of your class. Maybe you have a track record in your stock class. It will start to be obvious if you're really at that point.

This is why after two seasons of racing, I am still in a Spec Boxster as I am still not better than the car. My lap times are still 1.0-1.5 sec's behind the fastest drivers and I don't have any BSR wins and no track records (I have two in Stock and BSX). At some point, I hope to reach those goals and then I'll consider moving to a faster race car.

[Barchetta]

Thanks again everybody for all the advice. I will stick to tire pressure, racing seat, harness and hans device for now with EBC Yellow pads.

What's everyone's opinion on something like the techno-brace??

[steved0x]

Originally Posted by Barchetta

What's everyone's opinion on something like the techno-brace??

I have one, and while I am not a good enough driver to be able to tell if it is helping or not, last week when I was putting it all back together and was putting on the sheet metal brace, I was really happy for the technobrace because it held the two sides of the chassis/suspension at the right place for me to just easily slip on the brace. The first time I took the brace off, I had a hard time getting it on and had to use a rubber mallet. Some folks have had to put a strap and winch the two sides together to get it to fit.

There is a thread on here somewhere with some DIY instructions for making one yourself and some favorable reports on how it affected the handling. I am not good with drilling and cutting and grinding so I just got the technobrace. It was fairly easy to install, I had to undo the rear sway bar mounts and one of the lower drop links to get it installed.

Steve