paradocs98

Today was my first track day with the 991 Carrera S. Overall, a great experience. A bit of background: I have 3 years and about 35 track days under my belt so far. I typically run at Lime Rock, Watkins Glen and NJMP. Prior to the 991 I had a 2011 M3 sedan, which was a fantastic car--very well balanced, powerful, fast, and a great daily-driver. Just a bit heavy, though, so I was going through tires and brake pads like nobody's business.

Today I ran with Chin Motorsports at Watkins Glen. The weather was perfect, which is a bonus for the Glen. This track seems to have its own weather patterns, which are often less than ideal. Today the skies smiled on us. In no particular order, here is my collection of thoughts on the 991 at the track today:

• This car lives to rocket out of turns from apex to track-out. Really an amazing experience. I always marvelled at how GT3s that I was keeping pace with in the M3 would squirt so easily away from me coming out of turns. Now I get to experience it myself.
• With my GiroDisc rotors, Pagid RS29 pads and Motul fluid, the brakes held up very well on a track notorious for cooking brakes. Very pleased with the braking performance.
• I hate to say it, but the PDK was a bit of a let-down, and at least for now seems inferior to the DCT in the E90 M3. The DCT paddles have more of a positive, direct engagement, while the PDK paddles feel a bit more "electronic," like there is a layer of software interaction between your fingers and the shift action (which, of course, there is, but it's much less obvious in the M3). More important, and more disappointing, the PDK intervenes when it's not wanted. On a couple of occasions I came out of a slower turn (toe of the boot) in a gear higher than ideal because I had caught another, slower car, and didn't want to downshift in the middle of the turn. When I would put the accelerator to the floor to make the pass coming out of the turn, the PDK automatically downshifted on these two occasions from 3rd to 2nd, as a "kickdown" mode. This was while I was running in manual mode. It was not only a surprise, but felt like it could throw the balance of the car off as it suddenly downshifted and jerked the driveline. I was not pleased. Similarly, on one occasion I was approaching a braking zone while close to the rev limiter in a particular gear. I held it for an additional half a second rather than doing a quick upshift-downshift just prior to braking. Rather than bounce off a soft rev limiter or hold the revs, the car automatically upshifted without my intervention. Again, a surprise and a feeling of upsetting the car's balance. I also noticed that under ful-throttle upshifts on a straight, the car tends to lurch forward a bit. While there are no cornering forces on the car at this point, it still feels a bit unsettled for the chassis. I ran my M3's DCT in full manual mode at all times, both track and street, and never had these experiences with it. Is there any option or method for defeating some of these automatic take-over modes with the PDK? I have to believe that the GT3's PDK does not behave this way; otherwise people will be demanding a reprogramming update from Porsche.
• As others have mentioned, the water temp gauge never climbed above 194deg F. So either the thermostat does an amazing job of maintaining an exact, ideal temperature, or the water temp gauge is essentially a "cold" and "warm" gauge with "warm" preset at 194, regardless of the actual temp.
• Oil temps ran as high as 265deg F during 30-min sessions. Ambient temp was 69-72deg F.
• According to the onboard oil level measurement, the car didn't burn any oil during the day.
• Oil pressue, which normally runs around 20-35psi on the street, ran as high as 65psi on the track during high-rpm periods.
• The Yokohama AD08R tires did very well--gripped well, and didn't get greasy or chunk apart. I bled out pressure to keep them around 36psi front and 39-40psi rear.
• Overall, the balance of the car felt very solid and confidence-inspiring. By the end of the day, I had done a lap in this car on street tires two seconds faster than my best time in the M3 on R-comps. And I feel that there is quite a bit left in the car once I get more and more comfortable with it.

Again, it was an overall excellent first track experience with the car. With more time and familiarity with ideal revs/gear selection at various points on different tracks, I can hopefully avoid the PDK going rogue and acting on its own.

As a fun aside, the Tudor Sports Car series was arriving in town today to set up for practice sessions over the next couple of days. (The next race at the Glen is in June.) The transporters were filling up the paddock, and James Clay from Bimmerworld was actually running a beautiful E46 M3 club racer in the advanced group with Chin today. This evening I actually ran into Ryan Dalziel on the hotel elevator after dinner. Pretty cool.

Here's a clip of a lap or two from today. I apololgize for the pathetic video quality from my RaceKeeper system. The bullet cameras are not high-def, and the rollbar location makes the front camera do light metering off the dark interior of the car, with a resultant washout/overexposure of the image outside.

John's 991

Looks like fun! I leave the PDK in automatic mode (Sport Plus), and manually shift 2-3 times a lap. Usually downshift, to minimize the kick down shift. I am thinking about asking the dealer to disable the switch, as I have not seen any DIY's for that. In automatic, I don't find the shifts, even mid corner, really upsetting to the balance of the car.

Might be worth giving that a try.

chuck911

After a while I noticed the overexposed view ahead made it easier and more fun to concentrate on your steering inputs. Nice, smooth driving. Too bad the view out the front wasn't as good as the rear view. The way you kept nailing the apexes it would have been nice to see them better. So nice to see good driving on here. Maybe helmet cam next time?

luketheshep

you are running 305/30/19 and 235/35/19 ? No issues with the smaller diameter. I plan to transfer my 997 888's over this wkend for the first event at the glen next week and wanted to double check. thanks

bccars

Regarding the kickdown downshifting, there is a noticeable clickthrough pressure point that lets you feel when you go from full throttle to kickdown. If you get a feel for that pressure point, you can give it full beans without triggering the kickdown !

Regarding full throttle upshifts. Same here in my car in SportPlus. Car lurches forward (actually after doing a slight squat in the rear first), unsettling the car, and on less than perfect pavement or a less than perfectly straight road it feels like it will step out in the rear. I had a topic before about that, but people basically told me I had no business driving a sportscar, so I let it go and thought I was being overly sensitive and incapable. Now I'm glad one of the experienced members here has had same experience and I'm not alone ... :-)

MayorAdamWest

Are you sure you were in manual mode? I've driven on the track quite a lot with the PDK and I've never had it up or down shift automatically. It will definitely just bounce off the rev limiter, and it will never just randomly downshift. It may do that in auto mode when you pulled the paddles a few times, but that's not fully manual mode. You can only enable that with the gear lever.

paradocs98

Thanks--I've got to figure out the camera situation. Plus, the OBD connection to my RaceKeeper system didn't pull that much data from the car. It didn't read RPM, brake application, or other important data. Might have to look into a CAN bus connection to the ECU, but I also don't want to get into issues with ECU monkeying around, even if it is just running a wire for monitoring.
255/35-19 front and 305/30-19 rear. Does just fine. Overall smaller diameter than the stock 20" setup, but it maintains the same sidewall height as the stock setup. If you try to maintain the same overall wheel/tire combo diameter when going to a 19" wheel, you end up with significantly taller sidewalls, which probably would be to the detriment of handling.
I did feel the kickdown detent/pressure point. The question is whether having the throttle down all the way to the detent, but not getting into the kickdown, is truly 100% throttle. That would be a bit of a bummer if you only got 90-95% throttle if you kept it just above the detent.
The lurching issue is real--you're right. The DCT in my E90 M3 would also give a bit of a kick during full-throttle upshifts on track, but it would never create this forward lurch feeling like the 991's PDK does.
Definitely in manual mode. Console lever over to the left, in full manual mode. Is your car a 2014?--Could it be a software change/update on later cars? I was very aware of being in the 7250rpm range, approaching the rev limit, and trying to just keep it there a fraction of a second later before braking, and the car definitely upshifted automatically.

Team Plutonium

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

You go to the settings of your car and select 19 inch.

paradocs98

On my way home yesterday morning I stopped back at the track to watch some of the Tudor series practice sessions. Had a good vantage point in the Argetsinger grandstand next to Turn 2. I've been to a couple of races before, but I always forget just how loud and fast these cars are when you see them live--TV does them no justice. The entire metal grandstand was rattling when the cars blasted by. Very cool to see them go flat through the uphill esses.

Here's a clip of the SRT Viper, followed by the Falken 991.


And here are a couple of LMP2 cars. The lead car must have been running a V8--sounded incredible.

ny991

It's amazing how stuck to the ground those cars are.

It was really cool watching the 10 truck convoy pull into the parking lot at lunch time Tuesday.

Thanks for posting.

Team Plutonium

So awesome!!!

bccars

I wondered about that too before. But someone here or on 6speed looked it up in the manual (I forgot the page) and it said you have Full Throttle (so not 95%) and then when you push through the resistance you get FT+Kickdown mode.



I wonder how banging in the gears with a sequential racing dogbox would feel on a cup car ...

paradocs98

I'm sure effective aero gives you lots of confidence running flat out up through the esses.

Good to know.
I'm sure the sequential box feels great, and somehow feels violent yet not upsetting to the car's balance.

PasPar2

they are seriously booking... wish I lived closer to a decent track.

findtom

Great clip, enjoyed the driving!

I have a MY2014 PDK and in manual and Sports Plus it will rev deep into the red. If I only select Sport and manual then the box changes up on its own as you hit the red. Hope that helps.

Tom