karlooz

....or is it a regular NA996? IIRC, BBailey was racing a NA996 3.6 x51 in the grand am cup last year. i can't find any info on the cars running in the series. confusing me even more, i just watched (i love tivo) the GrandAM sebring race and the Rolex mexico city race. at sebring, the porsches looked like NA996 with mk1 gt3 wings (taco style) and in mexico city they were using proper gt3 wings.

it would be great to know if they are using the m96 engine. just gives me some hope

Kurt R

They are standard 996 and 997s.

karlooz

kewl thx! i guess this series is proving that the m96/97 blocks are race-able.

mooty

karlooz, stop worrying. just drive the **** out of your car. when it blows up, stuff a 3.6L X51 in there.

karlooz

hehe, not really worrying mooty. i find it kewl that people are racing the standard 996s/997s. just throwing it in the face of the people who say that it doesn't have a race proven engine

ooohhh, 3.6 supercharged! since i don't have e-gas, it would be a bitch of a conversion (so i have been told)

coryf

The race you watched in Mexico was Grand-Am Rolex, not cup. The Rolex runs the prototypes and GT3 cup models. The Grand-am cup is a "showroom stock" series and runs the standard 996/7. The X51 power kit is NOT allowed in cup for some silly reason. The grand-am cup series doesn't have a race in Sebring, you sure it wasn't daytona? That was shown on Saturday.

earlyapex

They should allow the OEM 3.8L S motor in the 997.

Greg Fishman

www.grandamerican.com

BBailey

As has been mentioned, the standard 996 and 997 run in Grand-Am Cup. The GT3 Cup cars (both 996 and 997) run in the Rolex series. The X-51 engine upgrade is not allowed (though cars have used it in the past, one for sure has been caught, our friends at TRG no less, who actually had the audacity to say they didn't realize they had the wrong engine in the car, hahahaha, yeah ok guys). And the 997S is also not classified. The 996 and 997 are extremely competitive as currently classed.

My car was sold to a gentleman in Maryland in the middle of January. Know it raced at VIR in the NASA enduro last month and suspect it'll see at least a Grand-Am Cup race or two this season as thats what the new owner's goal is.

The engine in the 996/997 is more than race-able. Just do the necessary pre and post race maintenance and check everything after each session and the engine will hold together just fine. If the engine can survive 3 hours on the high banks at Daytona, you aren't likely to have any problems at most other tracks.

I'm in the middle of a divorce, so my racing is on hold for the moment. Though I do have a deposit down on a Cadillac CTS-V to run in Grand-Am Cup series as soon as my personal life is sorted back out.

mooty

brian, do you run a deeper oil pan, or baffled oil pan on the 996? just wondering about oiling issues especially when you were on the high banks of daytona?

karlooz

ah yes, my mistake. i watched the daytona race.

karlooz

thx brian. hope you get everything sorted out.

the 996s were very competiitve in the daytona race but is it handicapped? the commentators mentioned that the mustang 's V8 have a restricted intake and the bmw m3 had an extra 300 lbs.

to echo mooty's question, what do you about oiling? do you run the motorsport oiling kit, a deeper pan like the BK oil pan, accusump?

karlooz

now that car should kill the competition.

Greg Fishman

If the mustang's ran without restrictors (like they did at least the first part of last year) they would walk from the 996's. That engine has an easy 400hp in her.

My guess is they will back off those restriction because the 996's are going to walk all over them when they get to the "twisty" tracks.

BBailey

The cars are all pretty even at the moment (some are faster on the straights, some better under braking, some faster in the corners, but overall, they are pretty fairly matched at the moment IMHO). It really comes down to the drivers and the team behind them. The Mustang's might get a little bit, but they won't get much. If any car gets much this season it'll be the Pontiac GTO that the Spirit of Daytona team is racing. Pontiac has poured a ton of money into the series and they'll get their race wins one way or another. Yes its political, but this is professional racing after all and politics definitely play a part.

I know we had the Motorsports Oiling kit on the 3.4L that was originally in the car. Cory and the guys at Autometrics could tell you much, much more about it than I could. They built her from the ground up and did a fantastic car. I have no doubts it could content for a podium this season with Cory and any other frontrunning driver behind the wheel (with Cory and I driving, I'd say it could fight for a top 5 with excellent pit strategy). The competition in that series has just gone through the roof over the last couple of years.

I suspect the car to watch out for is the 997. Once a little more development has been done on those cars, they will be very fast I suspect. Had I had the financial resources this season to pick one up, I would have. That said, my partner and I more or less stole the Cadillac we are purchasing (was too good a price to turn down), so we went that direction. Doesn't hurt that he knows the engine in those cars backwards and forewards.