Maverick1

From your quote it sounds to me like, quick competitive lap times really matter a lot to you, that you like to get the last 10th out of the car when on track, and that's great, but that is really not what the GT4 is all about.
It's about driver involvement and not the fastest most competitive lap times, or it would have come with a PDK transmission.
Just saying, I feel the competitor in you but for the quickest lap times you might have been better off going with a GT3 with PDK.

stout

Actually, it wasn't. Part of it was, and I agree that it was asked and answered well. The additional and critical point of my question is now in bold.

Given the price of 981 gears at $1k per and the mainshaft issue with 1st and 2nd, the idea of swapping just one gear—6th—plus the final drive might be an appealing solution for the GT4 if it is technically feasible. Curious if it is technically feasible, and if John or Matt can comment on whether it would be a logical or desirable move. Personally, for the U.S., I'd look at using something pretty close to 7th in the manual 991—a real cruising gear—for the new 6th, or something between the GT4's 6th and the 991's 7th. The latter may be more realistic given a shorter final drive, but if one is going custom and the case will accommodate it, a brilliant setup for U.S. drivers could be in the offing. And those who will only use the car on track or autocross and don't want the tall sixth could always leave the stock sixth...

pete

jphughan

Quite the contrary, actually. When I'm at an HPDE, I'm there to enjoy myself and bring my car home intact -- and more recently for the very rewarding experience of instructing. Notice that I didn't include setting the best possible lap time, because bringing my car home intact is more important to me than that last tenth, a preference I suspect will intensify with a brand new GT4 over my current four-year-old M3 -- so while I do focus on improving technique and experimenting with different lines, I have no interest in timing my laps or working to extract every last bit out of my car on every corner of every lap. I would be a horrible racer.

In the example I provided, I actually think that downshifting to 2nd where I'm currently rolling through in 3rd would be faster if I could nail it consistently, but I choose not to do it because even if I'm right, it's not faster by much, so I don't think that the extra complication, risk of upsetting the car, wear on the gearbox, etc is worth the benefit. The only time I will consistently downshift to 2nd is if I've just caught a car so that I can pass them more quickly after corner exit.

Anyhow, even if I could afford the GT3, I've decided I want a GT4 because I want to enjoy manual transmission cars while they're still being made, I like the idea of having a mid-engine car without having to pay supercar prices or put up with the foibles of a Lotus, and I like that the GT4 can be (relatively) more fully utilized even on the road compared to a GT3 that has to be driven at breakneck speeds to be fully appreciated. I'm also drawn to the GT4's design philosophy of being a car that teaches you how to go faster and works with you to achieve that. That point was eloquently made in the last paragraph of Motor Trend's GT4 article, which is what convinced me that this car is exactly the right one for me. In fact before the GT4 existed, I was convinced that I'd be keeping my M3 long-term since there was nothing on the market now or expected in the future that I'd rather have this side of a 458. But if I cared about every last tenth, for GT4 money I'd buy a Z06 that just dares you to drive it fast.

jphughan

Aha! Apologies for missing that point earlier. That is an interesting question indeed. Looking forward to an answer to that myself now!

GTgears

Hello Pete,

I will answer this two ways. Way one is in direct response to what you asked. There wouldnt be much $$$ savings with doing a ring and pinion. As the GT3 guys have experienced, setting up a ring and pinion costs about an additional $500 in set up labor on a gearbox rebuild. It takes that much time.

Furthermore, a ring and pinion is right around $3000. So doing just a ring and pinion would be about $500 less than doing 4 gears. Doing a ring and pinion and just 6th would be about $500 more expensive, to the end user.

Way number two is from a practical standpoint, as a manufacturer and how we have to look at it. I can put the same gears into a 987.1 gearbox, a 987.2 gearbox and a 981 gearbox. Those gearboxes do NOT all have the same ring and pinion. There's no efficiency in manufacturing r/ps. I have made gearsets that will fit in any 6spd Cayman or Boxster gearbox ever made. I would need to make multiple ring and pinions to service the whole market.

Furthermore, completely dismissing the R&D cost question, there is the question of inventory turns. I sell about 20 4.00 Cup Car ring and pinions per year. About 2/3 of them go in actual Cup Cars. The other 1/3 goes to Rennlist members with DE hot rods. I am obligated to make a minimum of 25 ring and pinions at a time because Ricardo sets the minimums. I don't own the machine. They decide those rules. I have to prepay for them and I have to wiat half a year for them to make them. And I expect that I would sell fewer Cayman R/P sets than Cup Car ones. Let's just say that I would have over $60k of inventory, at my cost, taking 2 years to sell. Not very good turns at all.

Lastly, I have actually gotten out of the ring and pinion business. As mentioned, Ricardo used to make them for me. I'm not buying that $1.5 million machine anytime soon. I sold my very last 4.00 Cup ring and pinion last week. I have 1 930 8:41 left and about 10 915 8:35s. After those are gone, I'm back to 100% gears and LSDs. It was an interesting 5 year experiment but it did not increase my bottom line noticeable and took away valuable capital to invest in other interesting projects. It's where the turns are. It's where the ROI is. And it's where I can net people the greatest performance gains.

As for interesting projects? I just finished a phone call with my design engineer. Our gearbox housing patterns are done. The Cayman sequential gearbox is moving forward. I'm putting my ring and pinion dollars into a Cayman sequential. You want custom ratios? I'll make whatever you want for a sequential gearbox.

Maybe someone else will make a ring and pinion. Jack Baldwin tried with Emco. They made him one for World Challenge. They have been lasting him about 1.5 races. That's why he's so far out of the points this year. He keeps losing gearboxes mid-race. He's ready to scrap the project, just like I did. BGB can tell you how frustrating it was to try to win a Rolex title when we couldn't trust my Ricardo supplied ring and pinion. We pulled it and made gears. Dead nuts reliable gears, and Pumpelly and Norman went on to win the GX title.

Maverick1

Nice, totally agree with your philosophy.
My draw to the GT4 is that it's an easier car to drive being mid engine vs rear engine, more forgiving, has the manual transmission vs PDK more involving, has a naturally aspirated engine as I'm not a fan of turbo lag and like an immediate throttle response that it gives, and will most likely be cheaper to service and maintain.
cheers

vantage

The basic premise is that with a longer geared car, you are covering the same speed range with fewer gears than a lowered geared car. To some extent it will depend on the particular track. At Streets of Willow for example, I run out of gear in 2nd quite a bit and wish it was a bit longer to obviate an upshift to 3rd, only to downshift to 2nd again shortly thereafter. At Buttonwillow, the GT4 will require 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. My Lotus requires 2nd-5th on the same track.

I get the point you are trying to make (particularly since you are not driving optimally), but to me, the scenario you identify is just a coincidence of the particular speed range of a corner falling between two gears. If in your scenario, 3rd is flexible enough to both take the corner and then achieve top speed on the next straight, then I'd argue it too is a long gear, but one in the right range for your particular corner. A lower geared car might require shifting to 4th at the end of the same straight.

With respect to the GT4, the reason that some are saying the gearing is less of an issue on the track is if you keep things above say 50 mph, then you tend to be in the meat of the power band most of the time.

But the GT4 has a really long 2nd gear that covers a fairly large range of speed, up to around 80mph (didn't have time to look up the exact number). The GT4 is covering a speed range that we very often utilize in the United States with fewer gears than a lower geared car. In the GT4, you essentially are stuck with one usable gear (2nd) up to 80mph (Maybe rev match feature will allow us to use 1st more often, remains to be seen). In my Lotus for example, I'm shifting up to 3rd at the same speed. If you are spending a lot of time under 80mph in the GT4 then you are stuck with 2nd. In other cars, you are picking between 2nd or 3rd depending on the corner. And that's really the key fact. This of course tends to have more ramifications on the street.

Bardman

Great responses all. Seems this is a less than trivial change. I guess we can debate the merits for the track, but my understanding is that this is the same gearing as per standard caymans. Seems strange to say the least that vanilla caymans get super tall gearing. It can't be all that bad otherwise (manual) cayman and boxter owners would be up in arms?

jphughan

This is precisely what I was thinking. I know that people complain about the regular 981s having long gearing too, but that doesn't seem to have stopped reviewers from piling heaps of praise onto those cars even in MT form -- so now paired with an engine with more torque, that same gearing certainly won't be worse than a regular 981. That leads me to think that maybe people are criticizing the GT4 more heavily because with this car they consider it according to GT car standards, whereas the regular 981s are considered according to the standards of other road cars. Anyhow, not having driven any other GT cars, if people manage to enjoy regular MT 981s despite the gearing, I doubt I'll have a problem with that same gearing paired with the 991S engine in the GT4. Maybe ignorance of other GT cars will be bliss.

stout

Thanks for the great, cogent response, Matt. Understood.

It doesn't look like there is a viable, profitable, and dead reliable solution for the problem Vantage so perfectly lays out: The GT4 has a manual—a great one that's really fun to use—but it may as well just have a single gear for most curvy roads in the U.S. I seem to remember seeing 81 mph on the speedo in second, and 122~ in third.

In other words, "You want a manual transmission? Fine. Here's one—that you'll never need to use."

mgerber

Pete - this gave me a great laugh. I guess we can't expect perfection from a parts bin special at this price, although absent the gearbox ratios it sounds like the car is pretty close. Thanks for the perspective and I am anxiously awaiting my first drive in this one.

vantage

Wow, could it be that at Buttonwillow I would only be using two gears (2nd and 3rd) the entire lap!? Probably a brief foray into 4th but I'm not positive. For the same speed range, my Lotus utilizes four gears with several double downshifts for a few braking zones.

Definitely hardly have to use the gearbox. In the street you will have to be hauling to use 3rd.

vantage

Evo pretty heavily criticized the CGTS for this fault in COTY. Never got to use the box on public roads. Yes the car is still good but it's not as good as it could have been.

GTgears

I think that is dead accurate on the street. It is kind of funny. I wonder how many 981 owners shift at 6500rpm just so they can get into 3rd and then downshift into 2nd for the next corner.

On the track it's a different story. What we are seeing with the 2.9l cars that run in ST on Conti and TC in WC is them using the S gearbox, in part to get the taller 2nd gear. I don't know that it is so much that they want the taller gear as much as the fact that it closes that gap a bit on the 2-3 shift and they are not legally allowed to change gearing.

In classes where ratio changes are allowed, a 40mph run, like mentioned in that quote, in any gear is MASSIVE. Down low, on something like 2nd gear, we try and limit the gear to around 30mph before the shift. When you get into the upper reaches it is far more common to have 20mph or less in 5th before you shift to 6th. Of course when we calculate it we are basing the choices on rpm drops and not the mph number. I'm just using it as a sort of benchmark that helps to conceptualize that the spacing on the stock gears on these cars is in fact less than optimum.

supercup

I agree with this 100% - while Walter says the gears are perfect - we simply don't need to go 183 mph her in th States, in fact if you did and ran into the law that would be an expensive adventure! As delivered it wll be a great street car with optimum flexibility in terms of performance, top speed and fuel economy and that makes for a good usable daily driver.

As a weekend fun machine to regear to 3-6 will wake up the car and make it that much more fun to drive!