ChrisF

Hi all. I purchased a 991.2 GTS back in July as a consolidated replacement for my 991.1 GT3 RS and my daily driver. I realized that I was rarely tracking anymore and that I still wanted to daily drive a 911. The GTS ticked all the boxes that I wanted (highest performance RWD chassis, sunroof, more comfort options). Some thought I was crazy but to be honest, I think it was the right change for me and am very happy with the car so far.

This past weekend, I decided to take my bone stock GTS out to Sonoma Raceway for my first track day in quite a while to get a sense of what it could do and what it’s weak spots are. I have quite a bit of time at Sonoma as it is my closest local track.

I’ve taken pretty much every car I’ve ever owned to the track bone stock to see what if anything is needed to make it reliable and capable of taking on the rigors of track driving. For what it’s worth, I had no expectations that the GTS would be in any way as capable as the RS but I expected it to do just fine based on it’s Ring times. My car is on the stock MPS4S’s that it was delivered with; stock pads but I did add DOT 4 fluid to help the brakes.

Brakes: I expected them to be the weak point on the car and for the most part, I was right. To give the stock setup credit, they were capable of achieving decent lap times on the stock street tires but I could feel them start to fade as I would push deeper and deeper into the braking zones to improve my times. I really missed the RE10 pads I was used to running on my RS and the increased bite of a track pad and better stopping distances.

Tires: The Pilot Sport 4S tires, for higher wear street tires are damn impressive. They wore well, had predictable grip and were similar to the Pilot Sport Cup 2’s in that they had 2-3 hero laps before they would start falling off. This car will benefit greatly on track with a set of Cup’s or true R compounds. The tires always felt like a weak link.

Steering: I think the steering feel in the GTS is reallygood and mostly on par with the RS. You can feel everything the car is doing and it communicates really well how much grip the car has. Nice weighting and feel. The .2 iteration definitely feels better than the .1.

Engine and transmission: This is really a case of apples and oranges where you really like fruit. The GTS turbo motor is strong. On a hot day at the track, it felt powerful and didn’t feel like it was pulling timing or heat soaking in any session. Oil temps never went over 250F either. The PDK in sport + mode did a good, but not great job of anticipating shift points and keeping the car in the power band. I really noticed and had to get used to the level of torque when coming off slower/mid speed corners as you could rotate the car on full throttle on exit easily. Having driven mostly NA cars on track for the past 10 years, this was something to adapt to although I really liked it. By comparison, the drivetrain of the RS is a masterpiece. It provides smooth and progressive throttle response all the way to a shrieking redline and consistent power all day. The PDK-S is telepathic and always hits the right gear in auto mode when you charge into any corner. Both drivetrains are truly excellent.

Suspension and handling: The GTS is definitely a street focused car in this regard. The RWS gives the car excellent turn in and mid corner steering and makes the car feel somewhat less 911 like. The PDCC keeps the car flat and the platform very stable. High speed transitions are good but require a little more time to weight transfer. The damping of the car is pretty amazing in that I could hit curbing hard and it would not upset the car at all. The RS could do this too but you could feel it much more pronounced. While the communication from the GTS is a little muted, I feel this car with better tires and brakes would be able to go a lot faster based on the chassis’s competence.

Aero: The GTS is the first car I’ve tracked in almost 10 years with no aero whatsoever. In the higher speed sections of the track, this was really apparent. The car did not feel as settled or confidence inspiring as the RS/GT3. Again, that’s not to say that it did not handle those sections without issue…it just took a bit more commitment to achieve the same pace I was used to on the same track.

Overall reaction: For a car that will be mostly street driven with an occasional track day, it’s a true Porsche and is a blast to drive. It ran a total of 6 sessions over the course of the day without so much as a hiccup and just required tire pressure adjustments as the ambient temps came up. No crazy high oil/water temps; it did not burn one drop of oil. In essence, there was no drama. It just came back for more even when I pushed it relatively hard. I’m now trying to figure out an appropriate solution for braking for future track days and will likely switch to Pilot Sport Cup 2’s when the 4S’s wear out. There are definitely more grippy track tires out there but few that can handle dual street/track duty as well. Again, after putting the car to the test on track and as a daily driver, it really shines.

MiamiBlues

Solid and thorough post, thanks.

tstafford

OP: Agreed.
Similar experience when I tracked my 991.2 C2S. The strong point (esp. on technical track) is the motor, weakest point is street tires. But IMHO Cup2 is only a marginal improvement over 4S - still get greasy quick and require a lot of air pressure tinkering but do generate more grip obviously.

Bob Z.

Why do I get the feeling that you will be tracking it more than you initially thought!

jnkirk1974

Nice writeup. I tracked my 2018 C4 GTS at Circuit of the Americas in June. The only changes I made were Cup 2 tires, Pagid brake pads and a higher grade brake fluid (Castrol I think).
Those changes GREATLY helped the car around the track. I was able to hang with cars that I souldn't have been able to.

marinb

Great write up Chris, thanks!

For a slight brake improvement for the track, I just switched to a GiroDisc 350/350 setup. Running the A1-032 on the front with a GT3 size pad, and A2-032 on the rear for more surface area with a GTS size pad.

fsmich

Thanks, Chris!

How do your RS/GTS lap times compare at Sonoma? It would nice to see the comparison taking the driver out of the equation! Down the road, please post times with your Cup2's ( I prefer Dunlops after going through a couple sets of Cups)

ChrisF

Looking at the Racing Brake upsized rotors and pads as a possible option but no objective info on them I can find. Don't want to buy snake oil for that kind of $$.

I honestly don't expect to be tracking anywhere near as much as I used to but when I do, I'd prefer driver skill be the limiting factor rather than car

I expect I could pickup several seconds at Sonoma with tires and brakes alone. My level of confidence in pushing the car hard is nowhere near the RS right now. I expect that to change. That said and qualifying each car, lap times as follows:

1:47 RS with pads and track alignment, cup2's
1:53 GTS bone stock, 4S's

Big gap and I expect all things being equal, the gap closer to 1-2 seconds.

JRitt@essex

Congrats on the new ride! We (Essex Parts Services) offer an array of AP Racing brake products that will fit your car:
https://www.essexparts.com/my-vehicl...TS/Iron%20disc

We recently had a GTS customer review our two-piece discs:
https://www.essexparts.com/news-blog...e-2piece-disks

Our AP J Hook discs have proven to be the most durable option available, and Ferodo Racing offers several pad compounds that are the perfect complement to our discs. They are wildly popular among the GT3/RS crowd right now.

If you want to take things to the next level, we have complete AP Racing Radi-CAL competition brake kits that replace the OEM calipers as well, allowing you to preserve the OEM components.

Let us know what questions you have. Thanks!

MielsOnWheels

I'm curious if you think running PCCBs would have made a big difference in your review? I'm looking to get into a .2 GTS and plan on doing some track days. I'm struggling on whether to go steel or PCCBs. Seems like there are alot of ways to upgrade the standard brakes for more track duty and not have to worry about harming and uber-costly PCCB rotor with a kicked up piece of gravel or something.

marinb

You can also retrofit iron rotors to a PCCB setup. This is gives you much larger rotors and pads than if you were to have started with the standard brakes and tried to upgrade them.

ChrisF

I think if I had a car with PCCB's I would have been slower, worrying about the cost!

What size pccbs come on the GTS? That would be my first concern. Second, I think there are a lot better ways to spend your money on brakes for the track than PCCB's. I'm thinking a larger brake kit with no stupid fixed bridge on the caliper which would make pad changes easier.

Bob Z.

"Proven in motorsport, the Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake (PCCB) is available as an option. On the new 911, the cross-drilled ceramic brake discs of PCCB now have a diameter of 410 mm at the front and 390 mm at the rear – for even more formidable braking performance."

I upgraded mine but I do not track it:

dsddcd

Great write up! In the last several years I have sold my Turbo S for a GT3-T then swapped again for a GTS as I wanted a better "Jack of All Trades" car, something for long roads and fast tracks! The dealer added a Champion tune at the beginning and last weekend I took it to the track for the first shake down and was quite surprised what it could do! For the event I through on my Cups and with the tune I am convinced it will run around the GTS and RS. In fact I was only off 1 second from my Z06/Z07 times and I have not even aligned the car yet! Biggest down fall is the pads life, I personally was able to achieve lockup at all speeds and felt the modulation was good but in roughly 5 sessions the pads were nearly done in the rear and the fronts more than 60% gone. There was no issues overheating with temps in the mid 90's and the car was very consistent all day.

911.

Very Detailed. It's crazy to think that with a proper/track focused brake and tire these can keep up if not outperform a GT3 variant. I wonder if you tune/add some downpipes, in addition to brakes and tires, to bump that TQ up so its happy all the way to redline, how much time youd shave off. Great stuff!