acey81

No it won't, it is the driver that is making it drift. In fact, to reduce the understeer, just setting the anti-roll-bars to soft / hard won't be enough and you will have to play with the camber and toe settings to get it right.

The anti-roll-bar adjustments are not as dramatic as most people seem to think.

Ochocoronas

Very good point! Everyone keeps complaining about things but tends to forget ( in Porsche $$$ ) just how good of a deal the GT4 is. You start building bespoke transmissions for a limited run car and final cost will go up. With that being said it is a bit ridiculous that a GT car cannot get more negative camber without having to replace so many parts.

4carl

I agree it could be better but look at the times out of the box and there pretty good. What is the definition of a "track car"? buy some its a full GT3 race spec. To others its just a fun DE car that wont overheat or cook the brakes in a 20 minute session.

The GT4 is a street car that Porsche took parts from other cars to make it preform better than any previous Cayman. From that prospective they have achieved their goal. They do make pure track cars . Drive a 2600lb factory $350k cup car some time. Pure track cars are another world.

At some point a track car becomes useless for anything else. I'm not one to drink the Koolaid but for what it is and the cost they did a good job. Yes could have been better in some ways but for the proverbial "bang for the buck' pretty good. carl

bhk1004

Hmm. Not sure why everyone worried about a useless first gear with a higher final drive. I'd be perfectly fine with 1st ending at like 20 mph if 2nd could be dropped in the neighborhood of 60-65. How short will first be that they are worried? As long as it's not like 5 mph or something everyone can just short into second and all other gears would be tons more fun. Honestly don't care about mpg so that doesn't even matter to me.

Jenner

I agree completely. The only concerns I have would be what happens to ABS, speedo and other electronics with a final drive R&P swap?

Bill Verburg

Here's an acceleration model of a GT4, based on published aero, weight and gearing


here the car is aero limited to ~180mph, theoretical top is in the 190s.
It could definitely profit from shorter 2-5, leave 6 alone for freeway use.

bhk1004

If you do final drive 6th would be shortened as well. I be ok to live with it. Wonder how it would be if everything was like 20% shorter. Basically at this point looks like specific gear shortening not happening. Definitely think final drive should be explored. I really don't understand why this is being pointed to as a bad option.

Everything mentioned above I believe run off rpm not speed so it shouldn't really affect any of those systems.

jphughan

Why do you say it looks like specific gear shortening isn't happening? This transmission uses the same gear ratios as the regular 981 (albeit potentially with some beefed up internals) and GTGears already makes several shorter gear set options for that transmission depending on what you want to do with the car. The only issue is 1st and 2nd gear, which are on the mainshaft itself and are therefore unlikely to be supported by the aftermarket. As for why final drive isn't being explored as much, GTGears already explained that elsewhere and I even summarized it in my first post in this thread, but basically individual gears have proven more reliable than aftermarket R&P setups, and the latter are more expensive to produce because of the cost of the machinery involved.

But even if there WEREN'T already gear sets available for this transmission, I'd argue that considering the car has only even reached customers starting this past July, it's way too early to determine whether gear shortening will or will not happen. It's not unusual for aftermarket vendors to wait awhile to release their wares both because they may need development and testing time and also because they want a market to be there when they release their products, which means more cars in people's garages and potentially more cars having passed the factory warranty period, since some owners may not want to dabble in certain mods while their warranty is in effect.

bhk1004

To me second gear is the main issue. So if that gear can't be shortened to me it's not worth the effort/$. And if it's not reliable and doesn't work etc then I guess we just live with what we have. Which is fine. I just enjoy discussing to see if anything can be done. It's just such a common modification on so many cars that it's a little baffling why it's such a pain on this specific transmission.

And this car may just be hitting customers now buy this transmission has been out for awhile. If it hasn't happened yet, I doubt it'll happen in the future.

GTgears

We hear that a lot from former BMW owners who have come from having a gearbox and a separate rear end to having a transaxle as found on all Porsches.

The parts alone for a Porsche cost about twice that of your run of the mill Gleason rear end. And then the labor is double. I would have never gotten into the ring and pinion business at all if they weren't homologated for motorsports usage, which guarantees a certain volume. When the GT3 street guys and GT3 Cup guys can't manage to buy more than 20 units a year of the 4.00 Cup CWP set, I just don't see how Cayman owners will match or do better.

I also agree with the above remarks about how most guys are just going to talk about this for a few years until their clutch needs replacing or their warranty goes out. Guys don't crack open a brand new gearbox. I have sold exactly 1 set of gears to a 981 racer. All other sets of Cayman gears I have sold have gone into 987 cars. The market for GT4 transmission parts won't even form for 2-3 years.

Mike J

I seem to remember that Andreas, at the presentation at Rennsport V, indicated that owners of the GT4 who want shorter gearing should look at motorsport options - does Porsche provide gear sets for the Cayman and this specific transmission for the racing teams?

I shot most of the AP presentation in video, need to get it pushed to youtube.

Cheers,

Mike

GTgears

I'm going to field this one before John Tecce has a heart attack while replying. Porsche has distanced themselves from every single racing Cayman that has ever existed up until right now. For years they actively discouraged teams like BGB Motorsports from building cars and getting them approved for racing. The Cayman has existed for a decade and the GT4 is them finally subtly admitting that while they really want you to love the Carrera best, there's a die hard portion of Porsche owners who prefer the midengine configuration. It's the slightest of nods to the midengine guys even though historically some of their most successful racecars have been midengine.

So, no, Porsche has never sold alternative ratio gears for this gearbox. In fact, you cannot get your gearbox rebuilt. Why? They don't sell synchros. They don't sell most bearings. They don't sell any service parts for these gearboxes outside of a few seals and the differential bearings. If it weren't for the fact that the original 987.1 gearbox was lifted directly from an Audi we would be dead in the water in our ability to provide the above service parts. When we rebuild a race box, we buy the parts from the Audi dealer, not the Porsche dealer. Up until 2008, all the gearbox castings had the 4 rings instead of the P in a triangle. It was an actual Audi gearbox.

And before anyone wastes any energy looking, it was a TDI Audi. The gears in it were WAY taller and longer. There's no off the shelf option to get shorter gears through the Audi angle.

Mike J

Informative response, thanks! New to this side of the house - learning lots, and as usual lots of history involved ...

Cheers,

Mike

ShakeNBake

WOW - thank-you! That really sets the tone for what to expect.

mm1

Indeed, thank you GTgears, this really helps.