IL_Pete

With my incoming Cayman GTS 4.0 imminently arriving to the West Coast, I am starting my "Chapter 5" thread here.

Consider this an extension to this "GT4 Touring" thread:

Building a "GT Touring" Thread

...and moving on from the concept to the actual car and build chronicle.

The car is on a ship nearing arrival on the West Coast very soon!

Factory pics:









Configurator Pics:



















I am looking forward to Chapter 5! This one is really a culmination of my learnings from my journey so far with the first four of my beloved 718 4.0's!

IL_Pete

Exterior Pics for inspiration for the build:









(From my 2022 GT Silver PDK GT4 pics, edited with an iPad and an Apple Pencil.)

Exterior Mods:

• NR Auto GT4 Front Bumper Kit (from Flat6)
• OEM GT4 Side Vents (I will have the Body Shop fill in the GT4 Logos, there will be no GT4 Badging on this car, or GTS 4.0, just "718")
• Frog Venom "Spyder-like" Rear Spoiler, CF in construction but painted in GT Silver
• OEM GT4/Spyder Rear Diffuser

The Spoiler and Side Vents will go on upon initial PPF and Ceramic. The Front Bumper will have to wait, as you need to let new paint cure for 60 days+ before applying PPF, and no way will I drive for 60 days without PPF on the Front Bumper. All in due time, no rush.

Note the top 2 pictures have the actual wheels that will be on the car, my HRE's that I have had on every car since the first one.

More to follow on the rest of the Mods, will be a lot of the same from the past cars plus a few new ones.

OldJedi

Looking forward to following along on your Chapter 5 build. I know that you have ordered and received the GT4 front bumper and rear spoiler. Just a thought about the side scoops. I have ordered the OEM GT4 side scoops from a Porsche dealer and they should be here soon. I’m going to fill in the GT4 on the scoops and then paint to match. But I noticed after I ordered the GT4 scoops that on the configurator the GT4RS and Spyder RS scoops do NOT seem to have any lettering stamped into them. I have not seen an RS car to verify in person, but if the RS scoops are not stamped, then that might save a little time and money by not having to fill in the lettering.

IL_Pete

Thanks for the tip! I have my OEM Side Scoops in already, just got them this week from Suncoast (along with the GT4 Short Shifter, which I love). So I will just roll with those GT4 Side Scoops at this point, and have the logos filled in. I thought of doing aftermarket ones without the Logos (like from Frog Venom), but the OEM ones were about the same price, and I felt better about the precision of the fit with the OEM ones.

With regards to the short shifter, I have tried both the Numeric Shifter (with the lighter spring, in 718 4.0 #1, the 2021 Albert Blue Cayman GTS 4.0) and the GT4 Short Shifter (both back-to-back, and also the Boxster 25 comes standard with the GT4 Short Shifter) - I liked both, but I prefer the GT4 one.

nintendo_usa

I'm excited to see how this build goes! I've been following all of your 718 builds since the Albert Blue Cayman GTS 4.0 (and your exhaust mod threads).

I've got a GT Silver Cayman GTS 4.0 as well and almost configured it with the Bordeaux Red interior like you have but ultimately settled on the GTS interior package.

I'm also in the Chicagoland area and visit the western suburbs quite often. Would love to meet up some day and see the interior I missed out on! If you ever need a mostly stock GTS 4.0 as a comparison or reference for any reason, let me know. Good luck!

Joe250

Any plans to switch to GT4 hubs, brakes, dampers, sway bars, etc?

Also, any reason you did not go with the OEM GT4 front bumper + radiator, etc? Purely for cost reasons? Just curious.

IL_Pete

That would be great to get together! I think it would be very interesting to get a mostly Stock GTS 4.0 and mine together for a direct back-to-back comparison.

IL_Pete

Brakes - Not in the near term. Again, my use case is spirited country road driving, no track duty. I have 26,000 miles on two GTS 4.0's, and the stock 4.0 Brakes are quite adequate for that use case, in my opinion.

For track duty, Brake upgrades are massively important, of course. I tracked the Boxster 25 / GTS 4.0 extensively last year (49 track sessions), stock Brakes were really not adequate for that. I went from that on the track to the PDK GT4. The Stock Pads were gone in a few days, once I had a proper track alignment and was doing faster lap times as a result of the better alignment and stickier tires (versus the Boxster 25). I went to Pagid Yellow Pads on the Stock Rotors, that was much better. I did 39 track sessions in the GT4 last year, and 2 this year, and the Rotors were completely spent and had to be replaced before I sold the car in April. If I would have kept the GT4 for the track, I would have upgraded the Brakes to a Big Brake Kit of some sort.

On my Deman-Built Cayman R Race Car, I have 997 GT3 Front Brakes on that car, and even that wasn't quite enough, to get the best performance out of them you need to also upgrade the Master Brake Cylinder to the GT3 one, which I did in the Spring, and now the performance and feel is outstanding. I have 53 sessions on the Race Car this year so far. The performance is outstanding, leaps and bounds above the GT4. (But with that frequency of track sessions, the wear and tear on consumables is fairly soul crushing - tires, brake pads, brake rotors, LOL.) But again for the street, I don't think the stock Steels on the GTS 4.0 are lacking. If I change my mind on that later, that is an easy upgrade for down the road.

I do not think the GTS 4.0 needs any sort of radiator upgrades for spirited street driving, based on the 26K miles of already driving 2 of them in that spirited street drive use case, and the tracking of the B25. To answer the question of why not the OEM Bumper - Porsche and the Porsche parts dealers don't make it incredibly easy to order the parts for that, it is not a kit, it is a long list of parts. NR Auto (and others) makes the kit with all the parts. It just seemed easier that way. I was comfortable with going down that path because the guys at Flat6 said they have had good success with that kit, they have sold a lot of those kits, and customers have been quite happy with them.

In my opinion what the GTS 4.0 really needs from day-one to handle on par with a GT4/Spyder is suspension upgrades. I am discussing that now with my shop. I will likely start with coilovers of some sort, plus likely the TPC Rear Toe Links and the DSC controller. And then from there you end up adding all sorts of peripheral parts when you go to dial it in, front Camber Plates, etc. I will likely set it up somewhere in the range of TPC's recommendations for 50/50 Track/Street and 75% Track / 25% Street. It is not about track versus street, again my car will be 100 percent street, it is how you want the car to feel and handle. My GT4 was on the 75/25 TPC recommendation. It could have used more camber for the track, but it was really great on the street. I loved the sharp turn-in, and it was very darty and lively. That might be too much for some on the street, but I love it like that.

I am not sure if I will do anything re the Sway Bars. I will start with the Suspension and Alignment first and go from there. I do like my Caymans to be biased slightly towards oversteer versus understeer, for track and street. (There is nothing like a Cayman dancing on the edge of oversteer - it is complete Nirvana. Like Snowboarding on Fresh Powder!) I will see where the suspension upgrades take the car, if I later decide to mess with the sway bars, that is an option.

Also to mention - as well documented in many other threads here, the GT4 suspension stock surprisingly needs a decent amount of work (and parts) to get it up to where it needs to be on the track, and based on that also IMO to get it where you want it for spirited street driving, in feel and handling. That is part of the equation here for me, I now know that from my direct experience that properly Modding the suspension on a GTS will make it feel and handle better than a stock GT4. Of course you also have to go to much wider tires than the stock 235/265 tires on the GTS's, which I had done on my previous 2. That in and of itself makes a big difference.

I am very spoiled in that my shop at my track is amazing, they really know their stuff on the Porsches. They support the Racers there at the track and guys who travel around the country racing 911 Cup Cars, GT4 Clubsports, etc. Without the capabilities to leverage them to do this build, I wouldn't be going down this path, I would have just started with a GT4.

j-dub

Super excited for your build progress and updates. I am not going to your extreme but heading down a similar path.

EYEHAVEYOU

Seems like it would be substantially easier to start with a GT4 and remove wing/address aero and update the interior to make a "GT4 Touring", but I like the concept and am Interested to see how it turns out!

IL_Pete

Thank you for the comment! I can't say that I disagree with regards to it being potentially better/easier to start with a GT4. I initially thought so as well, and that was my original plan. But in doing a lot of research and thinking about it, I got really caught up on the notion of a rear spoiler that raises at speed, like on the GTS 4.0's and the Spyder's. I didn't explore the possibility of retrofitting all the hardware from a Cayman to install that in a GT4, but I am skeptical that is doable, and it certainly would require coding, if it is even at all possible. That part of it seemed pretty daunting.

As I mentioned, the decision was also somewhat influenced by the fact that my GT4 build was Carrara White Metallic, and that the Cayman GTS 4.0 build was GT Silver with the Full Bordeaux Red interior. I decided I really wanted GT Silver, at this point. Had the GT4 been ordered in GT Silver, I am not sure which path I would have taken.

I did also like the notion of some of the creature comforts of the Cayman GTS 4.0 - Heated Steering Wheel, Ventilated Seats, Keyless Entry, proper door pulls, etc. - Particularly the Heated Steering Wheel. I wouldn't drive it in snow, but I do drive quite a bit in the colder months in Chicago, on Sunny days with dry roads. Sometimes both windows up, but also sometimes one or two windows cracked, and sometimes even both windows fully down.

This is indeed a decent amount of work (and expense) - but that is okay, as I seem to really enjoy the adventure of the work!

tigerhonaker

A very interesting Thread

Terry

IL_Pete

Cross-posting from the GT4 Touring thread:

The car will arriving to the Dealer very soon, and an update here that I will be doing the @DeMan Motorsport 2-5 Gear Ratio Mod on the car straight from the Dealer, which I am very excited about!

WillyDaP

Hope to see the car sometime next year as I plan to make a trip to Autobahn with my Cayman GTS to run with the Great Lakes NASA Region. I normally run with the Midwest Region , but I like the facilities there, plus they are a top notch run Region , also. It will be intesting to see where my GTS dynos since that will also determine the Class I run. Fun thread and the concept pics look great.

IL_Pete

Great! Please reach out here via a PM before the event next year. It would be great to meet another 718 4.0 Rennlister!