4 Point 0

Its the pad wear sensor. People tie them back so they don’t melt them.

if you track, you don’t need pad sensors. You should eyeball the pad before and after each session.

xgrimeyx

will they for sure melt on the first track day? it’s my daily street car so i’d definitely need the sensors

thesaintusa

I didn't melt my sensors, but I completely destroyed the OEM rear pads keeping the traction control on in 1 day with 4 lapping sessions.

YMMV, but I would not keep the traction control on depending on how hard you plan on driving, or drive.

xgrimeyx

i’m glad you brought that up actually! i was reading some posts about turning that off on track days since it would cook them a lot faster than normal street driving. But what are the negatives of turning TC off on the track day? i’m purely guessing but i imagine TC would save you sometimes of coming out of a corner with too much throttle or possibly coming down from higher triple digit speeds into an hairpin???

or am i wrong in thinking of it in that sense of a safety feature wise?

thesaintusa

Depending on your skill / aggressiveness having the TC can make the car drive in an unexpected manner.

A few recollections:
It seemed to keep you from putting down the power early, in both tight radius and sweeping corners.
The car would not let you power slide out of corner if you enter a tight corner too fast, not the fastest way around a track. It would apply the brakes hard and you would end up doing an ungraceful low speed spin that turned into massive understeer. And then if you tried to hammer the throttle to get going again, it would rein in the rear and the brakes would be applied.
I had the sensation that you always seemed to be on the edge of being neutral, versus being on the edge of oversteer.

It is definitely going to save your *** at times, but it won't defy physics. It was much easier to drive my Subaru STi (was set up very neutral) and my RX-7 (with the rear sway bar on medium/stiff it was definitely tail happy) at the limits on the track versus the 911 with TC/stability control intervening.

I think with TC off and a cautious approach to the track (with instruction/instructors) you will have a ton of fun and be safe. But that is just my opinion. If you are concerned try it with PSM in sport mode.

drdantheman1

I melted my sensors... but still no pad warning! Planning on tying them up at next pad swap. TC off and cautious approach works well. For me personally, the sport plus leaves the perfect amount of TCM on (I have sport chrono pack) so that it doesn't interfere unless you are really in trouble. The PSM has different settings between 991.1 and 991.2 generations, and if you have sport chrono pack or not. I have about 50% rear pad left, and about 10% front pad left after 7 track days.

xgrimeyx

i have sport chrono, and planned to run in sport+. i actually just had to change my rear brakes so they’re new BUT i don’t want to kill 25% or more life on them in one track day. So do you feel in sport+ the rears aren’t always being used as much as in other modes that you can keep TC on or do you just turn it off in sport+ when you track the car?

don’t know if it matters but my car is tuned so it’s pushing a lot more power than stock so i’m not sure how that will interact with TC and rear brakes of how much more they’d be used…

thesaintusa

991.2 GTS
Michelin Cup 2 tires
In Sport +
Traction control on.
OEM pads

Destroyed a set of virtually new rear pads in 4 sessions.

No more traction control for the track, or if I kept it on (for whatever reason) I would definitely not be driving as hard.

drdantheman1

What do you have? If you have a 991.2 with a tune, than yah, I could see you burning through the rear pads quickly even with PSM set to S+. A 991.2 GTS realistically is 150+ Hp more than what I have. Keep it off, and adjust your driving to compensate.

CT_Peter

As it sounds like you're fairly new to driving on the track, make sure to pick a club with a good instructor cadre and just talk to your instructor about whether to leave PSM on or off. Whether or not you kill your rear brake pads has a lot to do with the nature of the track and how you personally are driving. Yes, it's possible to burn through rear pads very quickly with PSM enabled. PSM Sport mitigates that a little bit. But if you're constantly over driving the car, there won't be a huge difference between PSM and PSM Sport insofar as pad wear. The flip side (no pun intended) is if you're so frequently over driving the car that brake wear due to PSM is an issue, be aware that you're dancing on the ragged edge and have taken away the safety net. How much do rear pads cost compared to an incident?

xgrimeyx

good point, but yea i’m definitely not worried about over driving the car. i imagine i’ll be taking it easy but at a decent pace once i learn the track coming from a track day background on bikes more so than cars. But i’ve never tracked this car before.

xgrimeyx

i just found out my car has PSM sport, anyone have direct experience with rear pad wear in that mode while on track?

NHmacan

It depends how you drive. If your traction and stability control are always kicking in then they will wear faster than the front. I got 10 track days out of my front pads and my rear were only worn 25%

4 Point 0

Yes. Porsche recommend that setting. But they are covering their butt for people who can’t drive.

PSM is a 50% improvement over full on.
Full off is 100% improvement.

I’ve never seen my traction control light blink. But I can feel the car braking on the rear. I have M800 turned up at 27psi on E40. Occasionally on the street, I forget to turn t/c off. Then i get a surge of blood and floor it, it feels like my car is broken. It feels like i have a busted diff. You can feel left right, left right as the rear brake goes chomp chomp chomp.

Half off is usually enough on the street as you aren’t going that hard.

It wasn’t until I turned it full off at the track, you realised how much it was grabbing the rear brake. The car feels calm. The feedback pure. With it on, the car feels nervous.
you are getting clouded feedback.

Know your ability. If you can control a slide, and you know the difference between understeer and oversteer, then turn it fully off. You will experience a purity that is addictive.