Doug H

Mid corner? I thought you were complaining about turn in push. Definitely tires, setup or other external issue. 997.2s are pretty solid at or near apex and on unless driving from behind and trying to make to make up for it mid corner, double apex or perhaps a decreasing radius. Limits are limits. It is possible you are beyond the limits and hard on throttle at or near limits will push any car.

Do you mean 3 year old front tires by 3 seasons old? How many track heat cycles on those. They may be beyond toast if you track it any. If, however, you only tracked it once or twice in 3 years on those tires, would not be so confident about it being an equipment issue.

sako

I run 245 fronts and 305 rears. Just have gt3 lca’s all around with 2.8 and 2.3 negative camber front and rear respectively on original suspension with 70k miles. Run re71’s . Car handles great, using throttle to balance, lifting throttle to bring back around..car does whatever I ask. Should try it.

Doug H

The point (and I was I was trying to politely say without being direct). . . is that being an instructor does not make one an expert in car control or exclude the possibility of the issue being you and not equipment, but you seem super resistant/defensive to that idea.

You would call me a Dick if I said it directly, but now I am just ego stroking when I try to point out indirectly or politely that the problem is likely more driver than car.

Someone super experienced and skilled on the track would not be on old tires and would know to and have already experimented with running a slightly larger front tire and removing rear toe and adjusting front tire track pressures based on temperature with a pyrometer.

Doug H

Decreasing rear grip by running less than optimal tire pressures, smaller rear tire or etc. is is crazy to me as is lifting mid corner (unless perhaps a double apex like Lugna Seca turn 2 or Barber turn 2). While that may increase oversteer to counter understeer, that does not mean it is smart to do for the track.

If on line and just at or over the car's limits while balanced and on maintenance throttle, you can use small throttle adjustments and small back and forth steering wheel inputs (small enough not to unsettle car) to get fronts to grip. Lifting to rotate mid corner means you are well below the limits, completely blew the corner and/or forcing/over driving the car into understeer trying to catch back up.

LexVan

I still think it would be beneficial to ask your question on our dedicated DE and Racing Forum. As there are 2-3 pro coaches over there that do NOT frequent the model specific Technical Forums. Happy Father's Day!

bgoetz

So you being some random guy on a forum makes you an expert? Because that is what you are implying everyone should think. I am resistant and defensive because I asked a specific question and purposefully tried to avoid discussions like this.

While I agree SOME instructors are not experts many are and most like myself have a significant background in autox and other forms of auto sports. Combined with our own seat time we see more seat time in a season than most will in lifetime. As an instructor I have dealt with all types of people, including people like yourself and typically these conversations are a waste of time until I either jump in their car and instantly make them faster or put them in mine. In all but two instances I was able to win a student over within a single session of either their car or mine and go on to make great progress. Quite a few times these have been advanced drivers who have gone on to new PRs by more than a second.

So there is a reason I didn’t ask for driving advice because I am perfectly capable of sorting that out myself and giving anyone driving advice without riding with them OR seeing a video with real data is a pointless waste of time. What I wanted was advice on making the car turn better because it doesn’t. If it does for you great, I am happy for you, it does not for me. This has been supported by several replies from experienced drivers in this thread. How can I tell they are experienced drivers? Their response to my questions.

Doug H

Sorry brother, you are asking super basic car setup advise, admittedly driving on "shot tires," admitted to having limited seat time in a 911 and didn't think about alignment or rear toe settings (which I mentioned first above) all of which did not scream to me that you were expert driver to me. Guess I was wrong.

As far as me, 26 years (83-09) wheel-to-wheel open and closed wheel racing (30+ if include karts when adolescent) taught advanced car control and was a racing coach for Skip Barber and PCA instructor since the 90s. I, however,s till remain teachable as does everyone I know no matter how long they racing and would gladly listen t your advise or critique of my driving.

bgoetz

Doug, I think you misinterpreted my whole
question. I know how to make a car handle differently, I also know there are many ways to achieve the same thing, some better than others. My question was what is the BEST way with a 997. I absolutely thought about alignment, I have the car aligned with less rear camber and I think even less rear toe (I need to check). Additionally, why would I ask about the GT3 LCAs if I wasn’t thinking alignment?

I am 100% open to driving advice, just not from random people on the internet. IME typically on car forums when someone asks about tuning handling and people jump on driving techniques, it is an attempt to establish some type of forum hierarchy in driving experience and they will argue points to simply come across as more experience, this typically results in mixed half baked advice and I am not at all interested.

Thanks to those who did provide solid advice on car setup.

Canyonrs4

As others have said LCA's and sway bars are the ticket. You just can't get enough camber in the corners with the stock LCA's. I run 18" 245/305's on the car with a pretty aggressive alignment, specs are below. The front toe OUT really made a huge difference on turn in. The changes shown below are from stock to what I run now, night and day difference in the handling. The TPC sway bars are a bit different than the GT3 bars from Porsche, I am really happy with the setup, Give them a call they will walk you through the advantages. This set up can be fine tuned to your driving style.

I noted you are in a C2S mine is a C4S so mine is a bit more on the push side of the handling scale in stock configuration, easy bar changes to adjust the push. I can now run with the best of them in the corners, very balanced and very controllable. Huge smile factor in the turns.

Canyonrs4

And a quick note on sway bars, change both front and rear to a SET that are designed to go together. You will fight to get your desired result if you mix and match at least that has been my experience.

qikqbn

Hey Bgoetz,

Lot's a great advice on here. For those of us who have been down this rabbit hole and have tracked our cars a lot it is not necessarily rocket science. All the advice holds true as far as a more aggressive alignment with a bit more negative camber in combo with springs/struts, race suspension, and sway bars..

this is what you want to shoot for :





Seriously though. One thing any suspension setup, alignment, sway bar adjustments can not overcome is the 911 rear engine weight distribution DNA. No matter how much I have tried, my 911 still acts like a 911, which is why I love it in a good and bad way, with a light front end in the tight corners. I have to be patient with the throttle, where as my Cayman/Boxster mid-engine layout will always corner better in the tight stuff and I can chuck it in at any speed and apply throttle throughout the corner with no surprises. If you think about it, Porsche has continued to try to dial out understeer with each new generation of 911 and they do that by moving the engine further forward to mimic a more mid-engine design in combination with widening the front track.

With that said, although I have lower springs, wider tires, and wider track with spacers, my best results for better turn in have been with sway bars as most have suggested. Specifically rear adjustable(3 hole adjustments) sway bar setup using a GT3/GT2 25mm bar thickness.. I may go out on a limb and say, that although I agree with sticking with front and rear sway bars made as a unit/team, that I question increasing the stiffness of both front and rear sway bars at the same time. The way to increase turn in or add more oversteer is to increase the stiffness of the rear, or your could soften the front bar, which is the same philosophy but in reverse. My thought with increasing stiffness of both front and rear at the same time is, although you are eliminating body roll, you have basically kept a similar relationship in stiffness between front and rear bars so that the understeer character is still there but with less body roll. Yes, stiffer bars with less body roll do help, but are you looking for a very stiff ride at all times or some sort of compromise for daily driving and track days??

I experimented with just the rear GT3/GT2 sway bar first and was amazed at the quicker turn in I was able to achieve with just the rear bar. Almost to the point where the 911 feels like it initially turns in faster than my Cayman, yet I still need to be patient with the throttle due to the light weight 911 front end characteristics on really sharp 180 degree turns.

There is no denying all the advice given will get that front end to turn in better. As some one mentioned... sway bars are a very easy install and relatively inexpensive way to experiment with dialing out understeer and dialing in better turn in. Now I have a C4S and all the Porsche literature from when it was first released in 2006 states that they wanted the C4S to have sharper turn in, so therefore they softened the front sway bar compared to the C2S. The 997.1 C4S uses the softer front sway bar from the base model 3.6 Carrera,which in essence creates a stiffer rear sway bar relationship/setup. The Base 3.6 and 3.8 C4S use 23.6 x 3.5mm front sway bar versus 3.8 C2S 24.0 x 3.8 mm front sway bar.

The best result will be a combination of all the above advice in this thread. I can only comment about my experience. I am very happy with how much understeer I have been able to dial out with the GT3 25mm adjustable rear sway bar in combination with my Eibach spring 30mm drop pro-kit. To the point my car feels like it wants to dart and dive into turns, but there still is no escaping that 911 characteristic which still remains in the background and has more to do with rear biased weight transfer and learning to control that with a combination of driver techniques like trail braking and throttle input as well.

My understeer is waaaayyyyy better compared to stock, but still not quite as good as my mid-engined Cayman which is only to say that the 911 is unique in this situation. In some ways we need to embrace this character flaw, dial it in the best we can and learn to use it to our advantage on corner exit. It is a characteristic that even the 911 RSR teams have had to deal with going up against Ferrari's and Lambo's. Now the last couple years the 911RSR is a true mid-engined car... go figure, but they need to compete!

Anyway a quick comparison story. One of my closest friends, who owned a stock 997.2 PDK C2S, was absolutely blown away by how much less understeer and better handling my C4S setup had in comparison to his 997.2 C2S while driving it through the canyons. He was really surprised and he said he never felt so much stability and confidence while driving his 911 C2S before. He was a little bit beside himself after to be honest. This was after driving both our cars back to back through the canyons and where we swapped cars at the 1/2 way point. Spending about a good hour driving each one like a bat out of hell.

Well, keep us posted on your setup and what works best for you

Hindsight2010

I take it that 0.18" rear toe-in is TOTAL, not per side right? Because 0.36" of total rear toe-in sounds like a lot.

bgoetz

thanks for such a detailed response! I have always loved sway bars because of how easy of a mod they are and how big of a change they can make. In addition to tires the GT3 rear sway seems like a good easy option to just see how it feels. If I don’t like it I can always add a front or remove it all together. From there I think maybe the LCAs in the off season if I still feel the need is a good progression.

PJP13

For me, getting an adjustable rear sway and much higher spring rates on my coilovers feels like the perfect balance... still feels like a 911 but with minimal under steer and I can create oversteer with throttle or just simple lift off timing...

rear sway and stiffer springs are a great place to start...

just my opinion...

Miamirice

For trying to improve a daily driven car, I like this too. I am thinking to disconnect the after market bigger rear sway when not on track, or softest setting if I have to. I don’t like the front softer bar approach because my fronts already are taking a major beating on the tire shoulder. I have a more aggressive camber than factory (don’t know if it’s maxed) and don’t really want to throw camber plates on it. So this with a 245/285 tire stagger may do the trick.

qikqbn- one of the joys of rear engine driving I had was a friends 964 RS clone. The car was very softly sprung and it would porpoise with every gear change, but it took real focus to NOT have the car oversteer. Even in mid speed corners the suspension was all twisty and prodding the back tires loose.