I have a 993tt Which I will be tracking. I am new to 993's having had 996 and 986's.

I will be at an intermediate level...

What are the upgrades, improvment and modifications which are recomended.

Safty first.. Harness bar? seats.....

It is Christmas, and 993 upgrades make good suggestions to the wife for presents! :-)

John,

The biggest thing is driver - Do the DE's and improve your skills. You have a very capable car in stock trim (it already has the M030 suspension).

The two things I would consider first:

Suspension - If you are going to stay with the M030, I would change to ROW springs. Not a big change in handling, but really improves the looks of the car. If you want more agressive, then hold out for a full coil over.

Brakes - You have great brakes, but...
Depending on the tracks you run, you can see some pretty serious speed. That can be tough on the stock pads - they will stop fine, but the life may be short. I like the Pagid Sport pads - much quiter than the Orange.

You won't really need better seat belts unless you go to coil-overs and R tires. At that point it gets hard to keep yourself centered in the seat. Having done a harness bar, I would skip that and go to a bolt in rollbar.

Are you really sure that you want to do that? I mean, wouldn't you be better off just keeping the tt pristine and for the street and getting a fully dedicated track car? I have a street 996 and a 993 Supercup and I got the 993 because it was breaking my heart to see what the 996 was going through: pitted winscreen, paint chipped everywhere, etc etc etc.

Anyway, with regards to your questions here's what I think:
0) Pagid brake pads ($500 x 4) and cryo treated rotors ($600 x 4)
1) Kinesis or BBS wheels ($3000) + R rubber ($1,000)
2) Roll Cage ($1000 for tequipment + $500 or less mounting) and harness ($250 each)
3) Electronic fire extingisher ($600 + mounting)
4) Suspension, triple adjustable ($4000 + $1000 mounting)
5) Gears ($1200 each so count $6000 + $2000 labor)
6) Remove all interior to save a few hundred pounds
7) Engine (sky's the limit)
8) Big GT2 wings and carbon fiber flares

There is a club racer, Dr Chapman, that went full out on his 993TT turning it into a 4wd GT2. I think that he spent north of $200K on a $100K + car and he's still finding stiff to do to it every time I see him....

Hope this helps
JM

Hi John:

For track use, I would do things that enhance safety, car control and handling above anything else.

Install:

1) Good supportive seats like Recaro's with a harness bar and some good 5 or 6 pt harnesses like Schroth.

2) Bilstein PSS-9 Adjustable Coilover kit and a pair of Euro RS adjustable swaybars. Put in a front strut brace, too.

3) Have this stuff professionally installed, setup and aligned by competant, experienced people and then go out that and get that seat time. Now, you'll have an amazing range of chassis tunability/adjustability for your skills and preferences.

These upgrades will make a HUGE difference!

Enjoy,

John:

You have probably just opened the floodgate from a suggestion point of view. I think wheels and R compound tires make the most difference of any single modification. After wheels and tires, I would focus my efforts on suspension. You have to decide how you are going to use your car (percentage of street vs. track time) and select the best suspension to suit both. There are many experts on this board that can help. After sorting the suspension, I would look into more proper race seating, and the other related safety equipment like roll cage or, at least, roll bar, fire extinguisher and 5 or 6-point harnesses. This stage seems to be another decision nexus. Once the cage goes in, its not a street car anymore, or so it seems. At the next stage, you are looking for more performance through weight reduction, increased engine cooling and, perhaps, performance, limited slip differential (maybe all turbos already have this), transmission cooling and brake cooling. I would be careful not to compromise the crash worthiness of the car by installing fiberglass parts unless I had a very good cage. After this stage, you are on your own. The cost per performance increase is exponential at this point.

Hope this is somewhat helpful,

Hank Cohn

John......do alot of what the guys stated above to your car as budget and streetability permit. The best way to go fast and go fast safely with the shortest learning curve is with a 3-4day Professional driving school with followup lapping days.
Try Bondurant, skip barber and other well known schools.

John, you didn't mention what percent this would be track vs. street.
I will give you my experience what worked and what didn't, still keeping it streetable.

1. Saftey- DAS roll bar. Its a bolt in and you don't have to drill holes devaluing the car if you later change your mind. I changed to Schroth harnesses from Simpson, and found them more comfortable.

2. If you are an intermediate driver, I'm assuming you have had professional intruction
If not, get to one of the better schools even POC and PCA have excellant program.

3. I'd drive it stock for at least several events before spending a dime on suspension modifications. Than I'd upgrade to R tires and ROW M030 springs. These cars react to ride height and on high speed tracks that should be one of the first prioritis when you upgrade. If you have sports seats they work well up to a point, As Steve Weiner points out, get a race seat.

4. Brakes- pads;Pagid sports are oK, Oranges are great if you can stand them on the street. I like SRF brake fluid, Its expensive but it works.

5. Part of the fun in my opinion is developing the car. I've seen too many guys bolt race suspension on thier 993tt and go slower because they didn't learn to dirve the car first. These cars are a blast to drive, and only passed by race cars on slicks.
Regars

Thanks all for the replies. The car had 46K miles on it and I am not a fan of "garage queens" thus i plan to drive the car hard and enjoy it as it was made to do. It does have the 1 year Porsche "certified" Warranty.

It has been lowered and I will have the Porsche mechanic try to figure out all that has been done. Likely it has the ROW springs.

My "Stage one" will the GT3 Seats, DAS Rollbar, 3-spoke 996 Steering wheel, Front fog light/Brake cooling, 6-point harnesses, Pagid pads fo rthe track. WIll do at least 2 evernt before I get track tires.

Also plan to do a few professional diver courses in 2002 plus 3-4 PCA/BMW DE's. Once I feel I need more suspension I will up grade that next.. then the 993 Turbo upgrades for more power....

This is going to be fun and $$$$ :-)

I'm in the process of doing the same to my 993TT. I'm doing most of my riding on the street and goes to the track maybe 4 times a year so I want to keep my car as practical as possible. Here is what I'm going to do.

1. Put 245 tires in the front instead of the 225. Keep the 285 in the rear.
2. Mount a front strut brace.
3. Corner balance and check all mesurements in the suspension.
4. Induce more negative camber in the front. Somewhere between -1 to -2 degrees.

All above is to remove some (or all) of the understeer and get a more responsive car without compising the usefulness of the car.

My car is a European one so I already have the ROW suspension. My tip for you is to install it also.

The next step for me would be to install adjustable shocks and swaybars. check Carnewals site: http://www.carnewal.com

Of course all safety 'uppgrades' you can (are willing) do is good.

A note on lowering a 4WD car (I have a 95 C4)

When it was lowered, the bump steer became awful, i mean really awful. I took it to three shops trying to get it fixed. Seems in the AWD cars you just can't get rid of it without some major modifications. Rich Walton at Jerry Woods Enterprises in Campbell, CA finally came up with a solution that worked wonders.....now there is zero bump steer, the car is sprung tight (650 front springs, 800 rear) we took out the JRZ adjustable shocks (they needed to be rebuilt at least annually) put in Bilstein non adjustable valved to the spring rate and voila.....the car works beautifully.

Thanks Rich

(disclaimer....I am in no way affiliated with JWE...just a satisfied customer)

Rich,

What was the solution - EVO uprights, or more? Thanks!

uh-huh.

Mine was the same way until we installed the GT2/Evo uprights, and the adjustable tie-rod ends.

Maybe I am just not sensitive to it, but I don't feel any significant bump steer problems with my car. It is lowered but otherwise bone stock .

I used to have JRZ's on my street car and I never had any problem with excessive bump steer. With the race car I went with the EVO uprights since we were replacing a lot of the suspension links, tie rods etc anyway.
I wonder if the problem lies with the C4's due to the extra equipment and weight in the front suspension?

The JRZ's don't have to be rebuilt annually, just every 10 hrs or so if you want them to hold nitrogen.
I am having mine rebuilt now and need to find a second set (ouch),to swap with so my car isn't on blocks for several months during the rebuild process, any leads would be appreciated.

Greg