P_collector

Good post..but your last sentence is for now an "unknown" element...remains to be verified.

We all discuss here mostly about PdK-Manual..for me the real heart of a GT3 is its engine..this is where for me the car "fails" or "passes".

In the end for me the new 991 GT3 will pass or fail because of two things:

1. Is it/will it be a reliable trackcar? We know that 996 Gt3 are a bit more reliable than 997 Gt3..a further "degradation" - will not be accepted by me - or my wallet. If RWS, CL or whatever fail..the this car is "game over" for me.

2. Engine: I posted here on RL the idea before we got the news on the 991 GT3that the engine will be based on the 9A1 carrera engine, Porsche says that the engine is 80% new. So it seems I was wrong...but so far my source was always correct except for this one. However, reading Harmut´s Christen words in Sport Auto recently: "a DFI engine for the 991 RSR wont be ready before mid 2014 - we have to develop it first"...makes me think about again what my friend told me. Why, if the 991 Gt3 has already this new engine, would he say "develop it first"..what is there to develop? When Porsche built the new engine for the 991 GT3 - it should have been built with the idea of "killing two flies at the same time - 1) 991 GT3 engine 2) this engine being the base for future RSR..

Anyway, if the 991 RSR - or 991 CUP will never get this new engine, then for me this GT3 is not a GT3 anymore..and then indeed its a "sportier Carrera S". The answer can only be given in 1-1,5 years. In the mean time my doubts remain..and Porsche´s communication policy just feeds these doubts even more. Why didnt Porsche say "Yes, we can, this new 991 GT3 engine will be the engine for the CUP and RSR, GT3 buyers, have no doubt about it, hhis is our racing future"...such a statement I havent seen so far..instead we got words from AP "maybe, highly probable"..or from his colleague.."we have to develop first a DFI engine to be ready earliest mid 2014.."

911rox

Answering your title... YES!!!

The 996 GT cars represented what a true GT3 should be albeit a little tooo harsh for the street... with the 997, they stayed with the formula but made it easier to live with, thus a compromise on the original to broaden appeal and they found a good balance... the 991 has become a soft **** of a car, no longer interested in appealing to enthusiasts.

As has been mentioned many a times, the GT cars have always been cup cars, de-tuned and with an interior and enough modification to be street legal... Same engine, same trans (although modded to sequential in 997 cup), many many shared suspension parts. Not so any longer

jumper5836

I agree, but also remember people are voting with their wallet by not buying into it as well.

utkinpol

it is just a logical reaction from a factory to a simple fact that CEO wives do not need a de-tuned cup car, they need a 'porch' on 20" blings.

be realistic - it is a car for a wealthy now, percentage of drivers who buy those cars with a sole intend to beat them to near death on a track is minimal and not really a decision making factor from a production standpoint. ad I do not see it as a big deal neither. it is just a logical conclusion of an attempt to have a fun vehicle that was street legal and drivable to the track and back. so what? so time will come to buy a proper race car, 997 or 996 used cup, get a trailer and tow it around. life changes, as anything else and it is one of those changes. no big deal.

it also looks like this new gt3 will be quite good car for street driving, especially in heavy traffic, at 20-30 miles per hour in average and all new enhancements will come very handy to make this experience a total blast.

utkinpol

9a1 engine is not repairable in the field or at least not comparable to how existing cup car motors and 997.x gt3 generation motors would be rebuilt. so that response was exactly accurate - a DFI racing motor does not exist yet. to what degree it will mimic current 9a1 - who knows. I doubt it will have much in common.

for any racing application it does not matter how easy is it to produce a motor on a robotic assembly line originally, what matters is how easy is it to achieve exactly reproduced results after every subsequent engine rebuild as it has to happen every 50 track hours.

not a single street motor gets designed with an expectation to get repeatable multiple engine rebuilds. they always assume it to be a 'single life' item. so from that perspective alone anybody should have very clear idea of what exactly this car is - it is a street car. It does not make it bad, it is just a proper classification. old gt3 was a indeed a detuned race car on which you could install most parts from original race car to uptune it if needed, this one is a street car with no possibility known yet to accept any actual motorsports parts.
and only actual requirement for a new 'gt3' motor always was to produce it on a same assembly line where regular street cars motors get assembled to reduce costs.

neanicu

You always bring up good points,but in this case you simply don't/can't know that this engine won't be used in Cup cars or they won't be able to successfully and easily rebuild them after 50 track hours.

utkinpol

not in the current form, it will not.
and I know it quite well as shop I use now works on any kinds of p-car motors. yet they do not open up 9a1 motors. I know jake raby`s shop started rebuilding those motors into more race compatible ones and they do a lot of replacements there.

still, why not, lets wait until 2014 and then we will see what motor new cup car will get. I still give less than 5% probability there will be any actual compatibility possible parts wise between those engines and between those cars as they were engineered from different original standpoints.

neanicu

Race shops might not have started to work on 9A1 engines just yet because they're so new to the market with limited knowledge and parts supply. And what differentiate a good race shop from any other shop is that they'll look into actually improving the current application rather than,in some cases,making it worse.

utkinpol

my mechanic told me that this engine requires certain methods to get it assembled back that are too difficult for him to recreate in his shop, some glueing, some other things he simply did not want to deal with.

anyway, life will tell soon enough what is it going to be. I know 9a1 concept is pretty good and I know of RUF and other tuners efforts to get 600+ hp from this motor, so, who knows. I just have a gut feeling that level of possible similarities between new 9a1 derived cup motor and stock 9a1 gt3 will highly unlikely be at same level of what 997 cup motor was compared to 997.x gt3. if life will prove me wrong - well, I hope it will be so, I will not object.

neanicu

Well,according to Porsche,991 GT3's engine is completely new and only shares a few bolts,the generator and raw crankcase(before machining...which in the case of the GT3 engine requires different oil passages,cooling etc) with the 9A1.

MaxLTV

Not really - I drove GTR and did not like it. GTR is AWD, which is not what I was looking for, and does things in a way that's not transparent to the driver. There is a world of difference in how electronics work in GTR and the new GT3, as I understand:

GT3 - you enter a turn, and based on your steering angle and speed, the rear wheels are turned to a certain angle. The same way a mechanical linkage would turn real wheels in passive suspension in response to cornering forces. The car does not "wiggle" rear wheels to save your buttocks. It's up to you to balance the car differently to make the turn better.

GTR - you enter a turn and, let's say, you put more weight on the front then you should. The car responds by transferring more torque to the front, so you can still put down full power, without realising the mistake. Next time you may put even more weight on the front, and the car will correct lap after lap for it till the point where there is no more torque to transfer, and then you fail in a spectacular way, probably still oblivious to what happened. I've seen that happen to people. GTR can be a fun car to drive, if you can drive it well and at 10/10, but it's definitely not a good car to learn on.

That's one reason why I liked M3s so much - it tells you very clearly when you did something suboptimal, but it does not punish you hard. It's always easy to correct even a big f-up, so you can be dancing with the limits of the car and your skill more often.

A skip barber formula car would be like anti-GTR because it exaggerates every mistake. It's great to make sure you notice every little one, but on the flip side getting to within a hair-width from its limits would take most a while because the penalty for mistakes is more severe.

All is just my humble opinion. I am passionate about driving and getting better at it, but definitely not as experienced as some other people here.

kosmo

of course it is, to the OP's question.
in AP's words "The Gt3 is not a race car."

CarManDSL

The bar has been raised so much with the 991 that perhaps everyone is looking at this issue from the wrong end.

How about the Carrera S is a dumbed down GT3!!

MaxLTV

I think this is the car that the OP implied the new GT3 was - a sportier carrera: http://www.autoblog.com/2013/06/04/p...del/#continued

An interesting option for those who wants manual and/or no center locks and/or rear seats... I still think GT3 is a better value for my needs.

mdrums

The 9A1 block which is what the GT3 will use but all different internals has no RMS. My GTS 9A1 engine has no RMS...no leaks for the almost 2 years I've owned it.