Protocav

This is great info, thanks.

Dervish

Those are some beautiful brakes!

Tom@TPC Racing

Three years ago I was pretty proud of the door panel mod I did. But I never got around to refining the inside door latch and my expectations has evolved in three years. So, here's the new door panel with RS latch. While I am satisfy with the work, I am embarrass to say that it took a number of evening, total of 18 hours to do. It involves cutting up the inner panel, which is the support for the power window regular/motor. At one point I even considered converting to old-fashion crank windows. LOL
I'll let the pics do the talking. The Red RS door latch is a perfect addition to my 997 4.0 Clubsport build.

CT944

Looks great, love the panel. Are you still running just side deletes into the factory rear box?

Tom@TPC Racing

Thanks! Yep, factory RS Ti rear box.


Next year, if I run out of things to do, I might cut the rear bumper to show more of the Ti muffler like a 2RS Clubsport.

CT944

Awesome set-up. I am doing the Akrapovic headers with the single Akrapovic TI side deletes into factory TI box on the 991.2 RS now. Was looking at the RSR exhaust set-up as inspiration last night. Great looking setup and I think the come up for sale once in a while.

https://rennlist.com/forums/porsche-...st-system.html

Protocav

Hi Tom,
Have you had any issues with the Ti muffler, or have you reinforced it?

Tom@TPC Racing

I have not had issues. Muffler is all stock. I am willing to take my chances against the odds of internet crowd-sourced data. I do have a stock steel muffler as back up should I need it.

Protocav

Fair enough, please let us know how it holds up. I like the weight saving idea and wonder if the failures are anecdotal or specifically for heavily tracked cars.

Tom@TPC Racing

Have a track event coming up this weekend a my home track, Summit Point. This track event is likely the only one I can do this year so I've been prepping every night past 1am to make the most of the opportunity. Man, its like having a second full-time job! LOL

Here are the things I did last night-

Item 1: Mike Levitas talked me into swapping out the jewelry-like vent-cooling titanium piston caps on the PFC calipers to the mundane-looking factory 991 Cup stainless steel piston caps. I am giddy just to know that the PFC brake kit shares and can interchange factory Cup parts. The purpose of the thinner Cup piston caps allows for thicker brake pads. For reference, the OEM 997 GT3/RS/Cup calipers takes 17.5 to 19mm thick pads(depending year), the PFC kit comes with 22mm thick pads, with 991 Cup "thin" piston caps it takes the same 991 Cup 26mm thick pads. So, I took the newly installed PFC calipers off one at a time to swap out the caps. Its a chore to "pop" out each Ti cap since they are very securely locked onto piston nose via expansion springs, as they should be. I used a clamp and a metal block to squarely press on Cup caps. When the compression spring seats it makes violent pop sound, which lets me know its seated correctly. PFC said they do this with the pistons removed from the calipers and on a special fixture. I was fortunate to swap the caps without having to take the pistons out. Why did I do all this? Just because I want to run 26mm Cup pads! For future, I might even be able to run the take-off Cup pads from our race team.



Here are the two caps side by side. You can all see the expansion spring on the back side of the cap.



This is the clamp I used. The clamp frame was flexing in order to "pop" the expansion springs to seat. Those springs are no joke. My hand is sore from working the clamp.



Fitting the 26mm front pads on the front calipers with the thinner caps. Using the same PFC 11 compound as before, they're thicker but there's no performance difference with the same compound. PFC 08 compound will be available soon, so I would like to try PFC 08 at some point.



On to the rear calipers. One cap at a time eventually I'll get to 20.



Last one. Done!



The 26mm pads can be run all the way down to the U-shaped groove. I thick these are thick enough to pass any tech insp.



Since all four calipers were off I replaced the old and faithful SRF fluid with PFC fluid. PFC fluid is the factory fluid for 991 Cup, GT4 Clubsport, and the MR versions. Super excited to try the new brakes on track!



Item 2: When I installed the roll bar I left two holes out(one on each side at the rear shock tower). These bolt holes have structural value for the overlapping plane of the rear shock towers. Drill, nut & bolt, repeat on other side, torque nuts & bolts, re-torque. Since I was doing this by myself I used 3 long socket extensions put together on a ratchet and long handle box wrench to get the bolt tightening going between the cabin and the wheel well. Surprising this procedure went pretty quickly and smoothly.



Item 3: Putting on the happy shoes! My car has been on OZ cast-aluminum wheels with Cup 2 tires for street use. Its time to get the Forgeline GS1-R wheels out of my basement. Since I drove the GT3 to the shop I had to take a late night uber ride to my house to get my truck and load the Forgeline wheels and Pirelli DH tires. The tires are from last year and should be good for 6-8 more sessions this coming weekend. I love these wheels, but they are time consuming to clean with all those spokes.



The wheels were tested for clearance to the PFC calipers ahead of time using the PFC supplied template so there's no last minute surprise on fitment. I added an extra 4.5mm to the template using cardboard. Plenty of clearance.



Replace the lug nuts with fresh ones. This is the first time the Forgeline wheels are on the car this year.



Item 4: On the scales after all the work this year. I had my eyes closed for a moment holding my breath not wanting to see the number anxiously thinking is it going meet the magical 2999 lbs???
YES!!! I was so relieved. That's with approximate 7 gallons of gas, no driver. The AC system is still on the car and fully functional.



Item 5: My body and mind are feeling like they are crashing. I kept losing my train of though and just can't consecrate so I need to wrap it up, clean up my mess and go home to shower. No corner balancing this time, its good enough, I just checked the toe and let it go.



This evening I'll do a quick wash and wax, then go home to practice half hour on my race sim via iRacing @ Summit Point, then get some heavy ZZZ's.

lax01

Jesus - those calipers are art work - love PFC

Pads are THICC

Tom@TPC Racing

They sure are.
I love that he pads look almost as thick as the rotor. LOL

powdrhound

The brakes look great Tom. I suspect you are going to need significantly more camber both front and rear. I'm using the same Pirelli DH 275/645 and 315/680 tires with camber at -4.5º front and -3.5º rear and I'm still abusing the outside shoulders of the front tires. I simply don't see how -3.0 and -2.4 is going to work if driven with any type of aggression.

flsupraguy

This would be badass. Have you seen another 997 owner do this yet?

rbahr

Hey Tom, you know this already, but the real reason for Ti is heat rejection... - and oh ya, those save 4 oz :-)