boqueron

Some of you have surely read about my concerns with turbo lag. I have received some very good advise from many Rennlisters on turbo lag .

Here comes .... the second part of the picture !: The tiptronic lag !!

I know: I should have bought a manual( I leave in Spain were 90% of cars are manuals ) , not a tiptronic ! That said, for once I followed my head and not my heart and bought this 996TT: it was a real opportunity but ...with tiptronic! ( BTW, I allready had a tiptronic in a Boxster and later I only drove Porsches with manual shifting ).

I have to admit that in the road the tiptronic works beautifully with such a powerfull car. No complain. The shifting lag , specially when reducing gears, is not much disturbing as you normally don´t need to push gears ( having more than enough power under your throttle ).

In a track, things are different. You suffer TWO LAGS: the turbo lag + the tiptronic lag. It's quite delicate to coordinate when you down shift in a slow corner.
1st: you brake, 2nd: you down shift, 3rd you get out as late as you can from the apex ;4th you start with the gas.

Problem comes in slow corners ( specially in wet conditions ) with the shift appearing 1/4 of a second later than you ordered and the HP's ( turbo) having the same delay . It´s dificult to blend both things !

I am trying to get used to it, fighting in the most obvious way : advancing the shifting 1/4 of a second (!?), pushing the throttle in advance, etc..

I know some of the other possibilities:

1) Selling the car, buying a manual
2) Selling the car buying a GT3
3) Forget about tracking,
4) Etc...

Any advise ?

Last930

After 400 miles at Road America, I found the Tip to be fantastic on the track - I left it in Auto mode and let the computers do the thinking. I found that after a few hard laps the trans would upshift and downshift perfectly for the corners, and I never found myself in the wrong gear. The only time I felt it didn't select the correct gear was when I was held up by a slower car and wasn't pushing hard - then it seemed to be in too high a gear for the situation. The lateral G sensors did a fine job of holding gears in the corners and not upshifting when I didn't want it to, again unless I was not pushing hard. This could be overcome by using the manual mode. I spoke with a fellow Tip owner who used the manual mode all the time, his technique was to let the trans upshift by itself at redline on acceleration, but use the downshift buttons while on the brakes, then the car would always hold the proper gear through the corner.

While the magazines can make the arguement that a highly experienced driver might be slightly faster on the track with a 6-speed, you need to remember that the testers are not paying the repair bills to replace clutches, synchros, etc. In the long run, it may actually be less costly to have a Tip!( There's the real reason - I'm cheap!!)

I live in the Chicago area, traffic can be real bear. While I love track events, the reality of it is that I spend alot more time in traffic than on the track. Unless $$ is no object, cars all involve tradeoffs - the ability to use my car in a real world environment (read bumper to bumper traffic) , outweighs the possible slight advantage a stick has on the 3-4 days / year I spend on the track.

boqueron

You are describing the real world ! What you just wrote is exactly what I keep telling my self ( with little success! ). I use my TT only for travelling and it is very unusual for me to drive it in the city . I will try to re-adapt my self to the Tiptronic. Nevertheless, I think that next time I will follow my heart: my next Porsche will by a manual or a sequential (SMG,etc..) if avalaible.

FixedWing

I don't think that going quick with a manual entails abusing it. I really don't see any reason to expect higher maintenance costs if properly driven.

I'm also not sure that I would follow your recipe. I think I would rather have a cheaper and more comfortable commuter car and then a Turbo for use outside of the city. The Turbo isn't that easy to live with and if all I'm doing is the bumper-to-bumper grind then what is the point? I just don't see the advantage of driving a Turbo under those conditions.

But to each his own.

Stephen

1AS

I've driven both, have one of each (tip in a Boxster, X50 manual) and drive in heavy traffic ( I94 in Indiana to Chicago), and have had 2 different tip P-cars on the track. Without question, last 930 is correct. On the track, just leave it in full auto. The upshifts occur at redline (exactly) and the car will downshift under heavy braking much much much better than with the buttons. For the street, you just need to make sure your throttle inputs are sudden in order to get max acceleration. That means- stomp the throttle all the way to the floor as fast as you can. With that approach, you generally get 2-gear downshifts, and redline upshifts. If you floor the throttle too slowly, the car doesn't understand you want to go fast.
As far as traffic goes, the X50 is easily as docile as any other fast car, and it sure makes it easy to get into the gaps. As far as citizenship goes, a traffic study in New York City confirmed that cars zipping in and out of traffic actually speed traffic up, as opposed to just sitting in long lines that clot the highway. Finally, something that feels good that is good. AS

ypshan

Would having 6 gears to select from be an advantage on the tracks than just 5?

boqueron

ALexander,

I had a tip boxster. The problem is not comparable to the Tip TT! My only possible complain with the boxster Tip was that many times , when I downshifted ( and I knew I would have been able to do so without overpassing the Rpm's ) the system did not accept the shift ! It's unconfortable to enter a bend waiting for a shift that does not appear ! In any other case, the Tip, driven manually when needed, was not a concern.

The difference appears in the TT depending on the shift and type of corner. From 5th to 4th it's ok as the RPM differences are relatively low. The problem appears in slow bends with slow RPM's ( due to the speed). This is my experience : If you come from a previous fast bend or a straight line , you brake , shift down, the car goes under 3.500 RPM's the turbo lag will be there when you push the throttle down . Then the shift ( that you commanded a fraction of a second before ) appears with a delay and, if it's a sharp and short corner, it happens when you are not yet in the exit line of the bend and the car is not balanced. Sometimes you succeed to make the two things happens together at once ( turbo lag and shift delay) and you get a coordination of the two which makes a smooth operation. In any other cases you get a sudden reaction which is far than ideal ( specially with a wet track or road ) .

I have tried to down shift prior to braking. The thing becomes even more difficult. Braking and downshifting at the same time is more similar to the hell and toe in manual .

If I would have a clutch then I would consider left foot braking in order to keep revs high.

I am basically oriented in two ways to solve (??) the problem: 1) reducing as much as I can the turbo lag ( I have been told that an Europipe or similar could lessen the lag problem as it helps the turbo flow ) , and 2) ECU programming.
The truth is that I am not at all convinced that those solutions will work. The first is too obvious not to be haven taken into consideration by Porsche and the second seems to "disguise" the problem, giving me more HP's and I do not really understand the theorie that exlains how it could lessen the turbo lag.

I am not convinced either to track in automatic mode. The feeling of lack of control disturbs me even more than the sometimes sudden reactions of the two lags !

I still would appreciate any kind of help !





In the TT, if you floor as fast as you can , getting out of a corner, the less you will feel is a sudden reaction of the car

FixedWing

Not likely. Very few road Porsche will ever get into top gear on a track. The straights are just not long enough. The gearing is for top speed on the highway.

The only way this would benefit is if you changed the final drive gearing. And now we're talking about a car which has been modified to suit the track and won't be as nice for the road. Presumably if one made this change they would make a lot of other track oriented changes too.

Stephen

Trojan Man

I agree with Alexander and 930: The Turbo Tip is FANTASTIC. When you are driving around the city calmly, the tip adjusts to conserve fuel and drive like a car with less power (starting in 2nd, etc...). However, after a mile or 2 of hard driving, either on the track or in the canyons, the TIP responds right away and switches to a very aggressive shifting pattern with no perceivable "lag".

I love my tip, especially in LA!!!

Paul S.

I agree with Last930 also--on the track providing you're driving hard, I've found that the Tiptronic in auto mode on my 01 996 TT is always in the proper gear.

If you're running in manual mode, this is how I would drive it. Let the Tiptronic do the upshifting, which will occur at redline. On downshifts, heading into a corner it should let you "pre-select" your downshift. To illustrate what I mean, I run a lot at Motorsport Ranch, and at the end of the front straight, there is a series of turns just over the wall from the hot pit. It starts out with an uphill medium speed right followed quickly by a hard left, a short right, and a hard left. After the second turn (the hard left) your situated on top of a hill and you need to brake hard to make the short right. The trouble becomes you will be going a lot slower once you do, and to be in the right gear what I've done in manual mode is to click for a double downshift just as I am completing my braking for the first turn (which initially takes the Turbo from 5th to 4th), I continue through the second turn (the hard left) and brake, and at the point I brake is when I get the downshift into 3rd which I had actually ordered up at the start of this series. And third is the proper gear for my speed and gives me plenty of torque to power through the rest of the series.

So you do have to plan your way around the track, if you want to use the manual mode.

Also, the Tiptronic rev matches the downshifts so well anyway, it is not the end of the world if you have to downshift simultaneously while on the gas and turning through "slow corners". It doesn't upset the car much, if any, provided you're on dry track with good traction.

But in general it does work best in the automatic mode provided you're driving hard and are on the gas from apex through track out. It took me alot of seat time to figure that out, but it does work very well.

1AS

Boqueron- I think I understand your point. While I don't know your exact circumstance, my point is to let the transmission do ALL the work- forget the buttons. After you drive a few corners with the suspension heavily loaded, and brake hard into the corners, the transmission finds its optimal gear and selects it automatically far more predictably than it will let you select the gears. It will get you optimal downshifts under braking. Just make sure your throttle inputs are hard and fast. It's not as effective on the street, since its difficult to find places that have enough corners in a row to let the car know you just got serious. Still, in my opinion, the most vital elements are sudden and total throttle application, heavy braking into a corner, and cornering hard enough to load the suspension- if you don't push the car hard enough, it doesn't get the message.

boqueron

Thank's to all of you for the good advise. Next time I am on the track I will let the automatic do the shifting, strongly braking and accelerating in order to send the message to the car (hope we speak the same language!!).

I will let you know my impressions.