viperbob

Boy what a great event. 10 highly modified 996TTs were there representing various tuners. I towed a local competitor down (Alex, aka Sharkster) to Irvine for the Dyno part. Then it was on to Buttonwillow for the track, braking, and 1/4 mile testing. They had pro race car driver Cort Wagner (Racer's Group, ALMS, and a bunch of other stuff) to do the testing. Man it was awesome. These cars were putting out over 700HP at the engine. I was sworn to secracy, but the results will be published in a couple of months In European Car magazine. All I will say is that the local Sharkster surprised a lot of folks with a Tiptronic......

I was trying to get my car into the event as a comparison to the previous generation. My clutch gave out week before last, so that was all for me. Too bad as most of the Tuners seem to be more interested in HP and hanging on expensive hardware (many $20K brake kits were installed), than making the things work on the track. There will be a rematch here I predict, and the 993TT presence will be felt....


Here is a photo from the event.

KRA993tt

Hi Bob,

I saw some of the posts on (6speed?) and there were some unreal numbers being posted. Without getting into winners and losers did you see anything or anyone push beyond the limit? How about some modification ideas .

EricGT3

I was wondering how it turned out. Sounds like fun... Too bad your car couldn't make it.

nels415

Bob,

Nice photo! Man, I need to get a new digital camera! I'll chat with you about the event this Sat. We are still on right?

-nelson

nota_troll

Was it in Excellence that Danny Sullivan prefered the 996TT tip over all the other turbos he sampled?

BTW - Fantastic photo.

Shant Ohannessian

WOW looks sweet! Im glad you had fun! Wish i made it. Which one of the tuners did you think was the best?

viperbob

Keith - the one thing I noticed was a lack of balance on the cars. You do not run 700 HP on the track on 19" street tires. You also do not run 700 HP on with sticky tires and stock brakes. Then you do not run big brakes, sticky tires, 700 HP with PSS9s. Oh well, let's hope they do not figure this out for the next shootout....

Nelson - can you be at the house around 8:00 Saturday? I have a bunch
of other stuff to do now on Sharky's car..

Shant - No clear winner in every category. They all seemed to have pluses and minuses. Two of the tuners that did not show were RUF and Gemballa. They were supposed to show, but did not. I guess all they could do was hurt their reputations. If they won, no one would be surprised. If they lost, they people would start questioning them. At least that is why I guess they chose not to attend...

fluid15

Bob, Great Picture! Thanks for sharing, I think you've just made a few people envious - I sure would've had fun watching!

Laura

That really is a nice shot, looks like it should be on the calendar. No offense to CW, but did you take any without him?

Please keep us informed when and where the write up about this day will appear. I'm sure many of us would be interested in comments both published and not.

ZCAT3

Bob - who were the tuners that did show? Was Imagine Auto there?

SundayDriver

I happened to be at Buttonwillow and saw the activity. I wandered over and saw Cort debriefing on a couple of the cars handling. I don't know which cars, as I didn't know the other players.

But, in the nicest, most diplomatic terms, Cort was pretty much telling these guys that the handling sucked on the cars in question. From what little I saw, as least some of the cars match viperbob's description of "lack of balance" and I think he is being kind in a couple of cases.

The best of the cars looked really nice and seemed well done. The worst were treated exactly how the kids with no experience hack up their Civics - wild body parts, big fancy wheels, lousy tires, marginal brakes, poor suspension mods and gobs of power.

My limited impression was that there were some great cars and some very screwed up cars in that mix.

viperbob

Laura - I'll post a couple of other photos tonight without Cort.

Bill - Yes ImagineAuto was there. Stephen did the work on Alex's car. Also Cargraphic, By Design, Evo Motorsports, Protomotive, Hartmann, Axis, S-Car-Go, and I think I am fogetting 1 or 2.

Jeff 993TT

Bill, it would have been interesting to have your car there too, as a benchmark. Then all the later turbo generations would be represented ( 930, 993, 996 )

ZCAT3

Jeff - Stephen and I have talked about putting my 930 in a comparo like this before - I am just not ready to have the car abused like that. Stephen believes my car would do low to mid 11s in the 1/4 mile and maybe low to mid 3s to 60 (the best I have ever done is low 4s as I just cannot bring myself to drop the clutch). I always wonder why no one has ever matched a CIS-based 930 like mine against the newer cars. I figure with 475HP and over 400 ft lbs of torque from 3,000 RPMs on up in a car that weighs under 3,000 lbs it should have a shot a hanging with some of the more mildly modded 996TTs. I think the main issue is the handful these older cars are to drive at or near the limit. I don't know if there are many drivers out there that could drive a 930 anywhere near what a mildly competent track driver could do with the new cars.

Laura

Mark,
Your post adressed what I am curious about, horsepower combined with drivability. CW is great at setting up suspension on a car, he is very particuliar about it. And he will be one of the first to tell you that you can have horsepower up the wazoo, but the extra HP is worthless if the car doesn't handle so that you can drive it on the ragged edge. There's only so many long straights. Comparing each car with the complete "package" is what some of us would like to see.

Bob, hope to see the additional pictures. Good Job.

Laura