Nice shot of the roadrunner!

 

The Tarett lower control arms showed up yesterday. I spent this morning getting them installed. It went pretty smooth and took about three hours.

I added 16mm to the arms and according to my digital angle finder I wound up with -2.4/-2.6 degrees of camber. I was shooting for -2.5. There's plenty of adjustment available in both directions so it should be easy to dial in.

I took a WAG and turned the tie rods out 8 full turns (1 turn per 2mm of shim). That seems to be about right. I wound up with 1/4" of total toe in. The steering feels a lot lighter. I think it had a lot of toe in before.

I'm going to get it an alignment done this week. I'm shooting for -2.5F/-2.0R camber and 0.0F/-0.3R total toe in.

For future reference the arms were installed at 60,500 miles.

 

Great stuff, love the open road photographs...
Meep meep!

 

You are going in the right direction with your mods. I have a 2.9l 987.2 PDK Cayman that I track I did the full suspension with solid LCAs, KW club sports, large Tarrett anti-roll bars and same wheels that you have. I run Yokohamas same size as you and the car really handles well. I would not want this setup for a daily driver though. A bit too stiff but not bad for a 200 mile drive to the track. I wish my car had sport+. Probably my next mod. I installed some good paddle shifters and only drive in manual shift mode. Also I turn off PSM On the track. Try that. I think you will like it and be quicker.

 

I'm trying to toe the line between daily driver and track tire life. I'm not as concerned with pure track performance. On my last car I installed heavy sway bars and monoball camber plates and it ruined the ride. I like the way this car handles out of the box. The only other mod I'm considering at this time is a center radiator.

A052s? How many track days are you getting out of a set?

I've been looking at the Goodyear SuperCar3 and the new Bridgestone RE-71RS as my next set of track tires. The Bridgestones aren't available in any 18" sizes that work for our cars so I'd have to move my 19s to track duty and the 18s to street. That actually appeals to me because I'd like the taller side walls of the 235/40/18s for daily driver duty. My only concern is that the Apex 18x9s stick out about 16mm more than my OZ 19x8.5s.

 

Yes A052s - I'll let you know - so far only one track day. I run -3.5 camber front and -2.5 rear. I had to reduce the rear camber as my tires hit the fenders with Apex 18 x 10 wheels. Next set of tires will be 35 profile instead of 40s.

 

I'm 95% sure the PDK cars all come with a center radiator from the factory, or maybe you are talking about upgrading to the CSF units.

 

The Cayman S with PDK came with a center radiator. The 2.9L did not.

 

Shoot, didn't realize that!

Those CSF radiators are nice if you are going to the trouble. I ran a CSF on my boosted mk4 r32, great fitment!

Also, would be nice to do the "smiley grill mod" while you are in there

 

I took the car in for an alignment last Wednesday. When they finished they told me that the most camber they could get on the right side was -2.1 in the front and -1.6 in the rear. Interestingly this same shop told me the same thing about my GTI when I bought it there. I looked at their initial numbers and it was like -2.7/-1.9 in the front and -1.9/-1.3 in the rear. They maxed out the right side and made the left side match.



My gears were grinding the whole way home. It seemed strange to me that two different cars would have almost the same exact camber offset side to side. When I got home I could see a visible difference side to side. The top of the front tires were off by about 1/4". I decided to check the camber at home on Saturday using my digital angle finder again. I measured with the car pointed in and then pointed out in the garage. The absolute numbers changed by about .2 degrees depending on orientation but the offset was always -.5 on the right side. That pretty much eliminates the garage floor being the problem. I'm pretty sure that their rack needs a calibration. Crap!



There isn't anyone with a decent alignment rack open on the weekend around here and I had a track day at Laguna Seca on Monday. I was SOL as far as getting another shop to take a look at it so I decided to take a look at it myself. On the rear end the left side was pretty much maxed out on negative camber adjustment while the right side was almost at the minimum. I measured the toe with a pair of straight edges and tape measures. Then I adjusted the right side so the camber and toe adjusters matched the left side. I wound up with +.4 more camber and the toe stayed the same. I did the same procedure to the front. The top of the right strut was clearly 5/16" out farther than the left. I made them match and then readjusted the toe. I took the car out for a test drive and it was dead nuts straight. I remeasured the camber in both directions again and it's much closer. Maybe .2 degrees variation L/R now. That should be good enough until I can get it to reputable alignment shop.



I think its around -2.4/-1.8 F/R now. It looks like I'd need to add adjustable toe links on the rear to get any more camber.

 

I joined the California Central Coast Region PCA at Laguna Seca yesterday. The run groups only had about 18-21 drivers in each class so traffic wasn't an issue.

I bled the tires down to 24psi before the first session and they warmed up to 31psi. The car was really well balanced all day. With the new alignment I dropped 2 seconds of my previous best time in the first session. After lunch I bled another pound out of the tires to get them to 30psi hot by the end of the sessions. It took about 2 full laps to get them warmed up but they they felt really good. I managed to shave another 1.2 seconds off my best time in the third session. I had tconsecutive laps at 1:49.91 and 1:49.90.

Unfortunately RaceChrono hasn't been very reliable lately and it never started timing for the last session. I really need to look at another solution. The Garmin Catalyst might be on my Christmas list this year.

My tire temps for the third session looked pretty reasonable. The outer inch of the front tires are heavily worn so I don't think they were heating evenly:

L/R

142,155,162 | 161,154,138 Front

145,151,156 | 165,150,148 Rear


I'll get the car re-aligned before I track it again. Unfortunately it might be a few months. Laguna Seca is going to be repaved starting in early November and won't reopen until early March.

 

I'm really happy with the way the car is driving right now. Going to zero toe in front and very little in the rear made the steering feel a lot better.

The weather was in the low 70's over the weekend so I took the opportunity to take couple 90 minute drives with the windows down and the stereo off. It's a joy to drive.

I forgot to mention that I had the PDK and differential gear oil changed at 60,600 miles.

 

I usually don't buy pictures from my track days. They're either overpriced or I think I could do better myself. Gorilla Tornado Photography did a great job on these though.



Gray and reds!



Use all of the curbs!



Bottom of the Corkscrew. 50mph and 1.1g.

 

One thing that has driven me crazy with this car is the shift paddle buttons on the steering wheel. On every other car I've driven the left paddle shifts down and the right paddle shifts up. On this steering wheel the buttons on the back of the wheel shift down and the buttons on the front (at your thumbs) shift up. Shifting up also feels awkward because you have to move your hands from their natural position. It's a common complaint and a lot of guys upgrade to the "Sport" steering wheel. That's an expensive option though since they run $800-$1500 on the used market.

I don't mind the look of my stock wheel so I decided that I'd try rewiring the shift paddles. I found a thread on Planet 9 that detailed how to disassemble the wheel and rewire the paddles here:

https://www.planet-9.com/threads/rew...-cayman.93521/

I had a free afternoon yesterday so I did the mod. I completely disabled the front buttons and rewire the back pair. It works as advertised. I should have done this right after I bought the car.

 

Nice upgrade!