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WOW...good research. I'm guilty of dropping the ball on the website and have a new version sitting in limbo to launch when I complete it. This would be a very fun car to drive.
Originally Posted by RapidGT
Are there any US Cups that don’t exist anymore? I talked to a guy on Facebook who has a couple one being #516 (noticed the registry listed this one as missing) that has been modified to the point of being completely unrecognizable. Always has been a race car and was modIfied to run in IMSA (daytona/sebring/etc all in 96/97). Has a factory RSR motor in it.
WOW...good research. I'm guilty of dropping the ball on the website and have a new version sitting in limbo to launch when I complete it. This would be a very fun car to drive.
This car has participated in some prestigious races over the years (24 hours of Daytona and 12 hours of Sebring). Here is some of its competition history.
I happened to stumble across #516 for sale online. Not sure if it still is available as it’s been for sale since March, but isn’t marked as sold. The ask is $250k.
As I recall the rules required the body to be of current production to run IMSA by 96. I had a friend who had the last 3.8RSR white tub he raced in stock form in 95 but by 96 he had to convert the body to look like a 993. He offered me the car in pieces years ago and I passed.
I truly believe that these cars will someday find their place in Porsche history. For now they are just white cars that nobody understands. If they were all rubysone I bet it would be different. Steve's red one has been for sale for a while but the car has a long history that I think most everyone knows by now which holds it back. I knew the prior owner to the one for sale on BaT now and a few others that sold for around $275k a few years ago that were in no where near the condition of this car, nor as nice as #590. It is a shame because one day we will be saying how you could buy these for $350k all day long and now they are priceless. Sadly the hips do sell and it is the need to be seen before you arrive that drives the market. Plain vanilla doesn't do that for most who don't know what lurks underneath. They only see colors or outlandish mods.
As I recall the rules required the body to be of current production to run IMSA by 96. I had a friend who had the last 3.8RSR white tub he raced in stock form in 95 but by 96 he had to convert the body to look like a 993. He offered me the car in pieces years ago and I passed.
I truly believe that these cars will someday find their place in Porsche history. For now they are just white cars that nobody understands. If they were all rubysone I bet it would be different. Steve's red one has been for sale for a while but the car has a long history that I think most everyone knows by now which holds it back. I knew the prior owner to the one for sale on BaT now and a few others that sold for around $275k a few years ago that were in no where near the condition of this car, nor as nice as #590. It is a shame because one day we will be saying how you could buy these for $350k all day long and now they are priceless. Sadly the hips do sell and it is the need to be seen before you arrive that drives the market. Plain vanilla doesn't do that for most who don't know what lurks underneath. They only see colors or outlandish mods.
People often nowadays get lost in specs (colors, options, etc.) getting to a ridiculous degree now that completely overshadows the car itself. This 991 GT2 RS is a case in point of a spec that completely overshadows the fact it’s a GT2 RS. Basically a rolling spec, but the car doesn’t do a lot of rolling either besides off the trailer to a lot of car events as last I saw it had only ~100 miles on it after 4 years of ownership. A lot seem to want to stand out by having an extravagant car/spec and the highest MSRP. Seems like a good amount of people at events gravitate to unusual colors especially when they aren’t sure what the car is. A plain looking white/black Cup USA with no badging and slim hips ain’t gonna do a lot for a lot of people at car events (or on social media) which is a crying shame as most don’t know what lurks underneath.
Well said. I agree I had little interest in the cup until I climbed underneath. I always knew what they were capable of. I had seen and been in several top side but it is what is inside/underside that truly counts with these.
@cobalt , I'm not going to post in the BaT ad at risk of taking people away from the focus, but you mention there the question about Andial modifying engines. Brainstorm here - is there any chance that the engines are the same, but the ECU's are different? I ask, because my cup does not like California 91 octane. under load in the typical rev and load ranges, it will detonate on CA premium. Because of this, I run a mix of 91 and 100, and it pulls really hard. On the other hand, my RS does fine on 91 octane. My butt dyno does say it gets more power with more octane - and I assume that the ecu does some timing advance when it doesn't hear detonation? Maybe thats all in my head.
Clearly my car, being a port car, would not have gone to Andial. So I thought maybe its the ECUs?
@Matt Andrews Good question and just another on the long list we need to discuss and document. It is the proverbial ask 100 people and get 100 answers. As you know I knew a lot of owners of these over the years. It was my understanding that the max the HP difference could be without requiring additional testing to enter the US was 25. So the 272 HP reading could have come that way from the factory. I have heard different theories from people who have serviced, owned and tracked these. I have a split of about 50/50 on what the truth might be. In either case we know these were documented by ANDIAL with 270-272 or so. This would put either just the ANDIAL cars or all the US cup cars (assuming we can ever come to a conclusion) at a few extra HP than the RS. What I find interesting is these appear to have more tq. As far as the octane. IIRC these should be fed at least 92. We still have 93 on the east but with 10% ethanol. Back when these were new most station served up Ethanol free 94. The good ol days. AFAIK the ECU would adjust for knock vs the earlier cars. I have the same ECU as the cup car in my **** box and it doesn't like to run on anything less than 93 but it achieved similar power differently. I will be opening that engine up soon and will see what I discover.
Why your RS runs differently I couldn't say. Too bad you weren't local we could throw these on a dyno and have objective evidence but maybe we can find someone else to do that.
BTW I like the new Avatar.
Edit: there is a rubystone RS on BaT now. They are claiming 256 hp and 240 tq. I think that is where these engines differ and 590 to me feels nearly identical to my **** box which had an additional 40 ft pounds of tq above the RS on the dyno.
Matt, I do the same 91/100 (about 75%/25%) and it stopped the detonating. I think if you look underneath the filler cap cover it says 94 required??? They do run a LOT better on higher octane.
Originally Posted by Matt Andrews
@cobalt , I'm not going to post in the BaT ad at risk of taking people away from the focus, but you mention there the question about Andial modifying engines. Brainstorm here - is there any chance that the engines are the same, but the ECU's are different? I ask, because my cup does not like California 91 octane. under load in the typical rev and load ranges, it will detonate on CA premium. Because of this, I run a mix of 91 and 100, and it pulls really hard. On the other hand, my RS does fine on 91 octane. My butt dyno does say it gets more power with more octane - and I assume that the ecu does some timing advance when it doesn't hear detonation? Maybe thats all in my head.
Clearly my car, being a port car, would not have gone to Andial. So I thought maybe its the ECUs?
#585 (port car) is now up on BAT. 58k miles (so one of the higher mileage examples) and definitely looks like it was used as intended with the full roll cage, totally stripped out, and the overall condition of everything. Car has probably lived a pretty hard life. It sold on BAT in January 2021 for $222k. Would make a great vintage race car, but this one would very likely define the bottom part of the market for these.
I was the second owner of this car. I bought it after the original owner died. Although I can't comment on the current condition, when I purchased the car, it was not in great shape. After the owner died, I was told the wife kept the car parked at their marina in Charleston and it showed. I cleaned it up, but the undercarriage and paint needed some TLC.
Out of curiosity did Porsche ever apply cosmoline to the underside of these US Cup’s? In this era Porsche applied it to all their road going models, but the US Cup’s were never intended for road use. I’ve never seen one with it, even have seen a ROW 964 RS Clubsport with it.
The first owner of my car had a petroleum based undercoat sprayed/applied to the undercarriage to prevent any possible rust issues. He lived in Washington state and used this car as his daily driver for the first 20,000 miles. He thought it would be best to protect the underside by applying this coating. I was stunned when I first noticed it and to be honest, disappointed. As soon as I got it home, I grabbed a rag dipped in gasoline and worked a small area of the pan. WHAM, to my delight it started to dissolve the coating. I then had the majority of this coating removed by ice blasting it off, and then back cleaned the remaining spots with more rags and gas. Since my car had this aftermarket coating applied by the original owner, I have no evidence to prove cosmoline was ever applied at the factory. Your car is a very low mileage car that I assume has never had any aftermarket coating. You should be able to notice if the factory applied any protective coating.
In addition, my warranty book cleaning states that any under body issues are not covered under the factory warranty regarding CARRERA CUP cars. See attached photos....
Hope this helps answer your question....
Originally Posted by RapidGT
Out of curiosity did Porsche ever apply cosmoline to the underside of these US Cup’s? In this era Porsche applied it to all their road going models, but the US Cup’s were never intended for road use. I’ve never seen one with it, even have seen a ROW 964 RS Clubsport with it.