PistolPete

First AutoX of the season for the Northern NJ region PCA in the parking lot of Giants stadium.

There was a brand new GT3 RS on the grid! First one I've seen in the flesh and it's beautiful!

Enjoy.






The rest of the days gallery is over here:

http://www.pbase.com/pistolpete13/autocross1

nkhalidi

Such a nice car, and the owner decides to drive around cones with it!

iLLM3

Amazing car

AndrewSS

not sure I understand the problem with him being at an autox...

Max Power

why not AutoX it? if there's no DEs that weekend, what could be better?

much more fun than waxing it in the driveway

BobbyC

Yup, that's my car. Don't quite understand or care what u think.

BobbyC

Peter Moy - thanks for those beautiful pics...

With TC off this AutoX was a suitable venue to discover the car's grip, alignment, turn-ins, and overall handling The course was fairly long and challenging with sweepers, a hairpin, and tight slaloms...perfect to feel out the car.

With the factory setup car has tons of grip and understeers a bit.

PistolPete

Hey BobbyC!

Congrats on the new car! Seeing it in action made my day. PM me if you want any hi-res shots of your car.

-Pete

nkhalidi

I'm just not an autocross guy, never really understood the attraction of it. hey, to each his own. Nice car.

NJ-GT

My co-driver and great friend (83911SCDrew on this board) drove BobbyC's RS yesterday. The car was running on Michelin Sport Cups.

Drew has driven my 996 GT3 in multiple configurations. His feedback was interesting, he said that the RS is much faster than the stock 996 GT3, but it pushes a lot. I could see the excessive understeer through the course, but Bobby's car is setup as it came from the factory.

At the track it should be more neutral, but still with a slight tendency to understeer. More negative camber at the front, a bit wider front tires, and a bit of toe-out should make it neutral. It's kind of weird that the rear bar on the RS is at full stiff, and the front bar 1 from soft, so there is only one adjustment to make it turn more. It would be interesting to try a bigger adjustable bar at the back, so there is a wider range of adjustment.

Yesterday's NNJR-PCA course was a fast one, two turns were high speed as you could run at the track, and also high speed transitions. I drove a Cayman and my 924S, in both cars I was in third gear in a section of that course.

First time I see the RS. The car is just gorgeous inside and out. Best looking 911 by far. The exhaust note has a deeper note at a higher pitch, great sound, much better than the stock 996 GT3, but not as good as the Cargraphic full system in the 996 GT3 or the Europipe for the 996 GT3.

Drew told me the car has a strong pull, feels very similar to my modified GT3 in his opinion.

AutoX is a great tool to explore the car limits, and get familiar with the car. It makes faster and safer track drivers. Both AutoX and DE are necessary, they complement each other.

2002M3Drew

One other thing I noticed when driving the RS, compared with the stock 996 GT3s, is that it it is much more stable under moderate to hard acceleration through sweepers and transitions. The old 996 GT3 with stock suspension had a very un-911 like quality of becoming unsettled under acceleration over rough pavement, off-camber sections, or fast transitions. There is one spot in that lot we ran in that is notorius for spins (indeed, it has eaten several cars) because of a dip and off-camber slightly uphill section. In a stock 996 GT3, the rear of the car is very twitchy there, even under power (power, of course, usually settles a 911, not the opposite). I had snap spun NJ-GT's car there two seasons ago, and it was like a giant hand beatch slapped the rear out from behind me. Driving this $200,000 car belonging to someone else, I was keenly aware of this trouble area, and prepared to be careful. Into the section, though, the car was firmly planted, even on the cold Sport Cups. I could squeeze in a good amount of throttle without losing any feeling of control. That is a huge improvement IMO. NJ-GT did a lot of R&D to his car to get the tail to feel that stable under acceleration. (NJ-GTs car is a monster, by the way. Power, grip everywhere...the whole enchilada...but I digress)

The steering is quick, a touch quicker than the 996, leading me to believe that the 997 RS comes with a slightly more aggressive stock front toe setting that the 996. The slaloms and tight sections were a pleasure in this car. I can only imagine how great it would be on Hoosier A6s.

The owner of the car was doing the smart thing to feel out the car at autox speeds before trucking on up to the Glen where it will no doubt see some breathtaking velocities. If more owners of supercars like this parked their egos for a second to actually learn basic car control, there would be many more of them keeping the rubber side down. Kudos to BobbyC on a good first autox with this unbelievable car.

2002M3Drew

I'm actually 2002M3Drew on this one...

Unitah

I just autocrossed my 997 GT3 yesterday with MetroNY PCA at the Nassau Coliseum. Fun day, placed 2nd for the event. However, the parking lot was VERY bumpy, and the car was setup for Pocono the weekend before. It was NOT a good autocross car (at least in the bumpy parking lot). It is too stiff, too low (bottomed out many times, ground front lip down too, hahaha), too bouncy, with too much understeer, even with -2.5 in the front of camber. It was a tough day, but what a blast!

GrantG

I bet a sway-bar setting adjustment (soften front and/or firm up rear to induce oversteer) would be helpful at auto-x. Just be sure to reset it before heading back to road course (or aggressive street driving)...

NJ-GT

997 GT3 RS:

Stock rear sway setting: Full Stiff.
Stock front sway setting: 1 from soft.

Not much to go from here to fix push.