MagnusB

How much better is the 997 than the 996 on a track?
- suspension
- speed
- rigidity
etc

Nordschleife

about 2 seconds on a F1 circuit, in the hands of professionals on series tyres, but otherwise, for amateurs, look ast the times in the US GT3 series, where you can see that the driver is important.

If you don't have to have the 997 Cup, you may find you get more bangs per buck from the 996

R+C

DrJupeman

I suspect he was asking about the street cars.

Jean

Driver skills are what would make the difference between both cars I would say. With the same driver on board, both cars (in street trim) are about the same on the track, give and take 1/2 second per lap.

As far as the race cars, the 2004 Supercup cars (996 generation) with 1160 kgs and 390hp and the 997 Supercup cars (997 generation) with sequential gearbox, 1120 Kgs and 400BHP have about the same lap times as well, at least in two of the tracks I checked, Hockenheim F1 and Bahrain F1 tracks for the same driver.

Based on Motec datalogs I was shown, an engineer for a couple of top Supercup teams explained to me that he partially attributed these similar lap times, strangely enough, to the lower top speed reached in straight lines as a result of the guerney lip that was added on the 997 Cup cars.

Darren

Nope, 997 is definitely more balanced!! Much less understeer, better initial turn-in. I drove a students car for a few laps on Pilot Sport street tires this weekend and it was very nice!! The 02+ is much better than the <02, and the 997 is almost that much better than the 996, IMHO!

MagnusB

Just a clarification, I was thinking of the street car variants.
The horsepower has gone up over the years and that would make the later models faster but I'm also after what suspension and body changes etc has affected the performance.

Ray S

I have not driven the 997 extensively, but I believe the track performance would come down to HP more than anything else (especially if you start tweaking the suspension set-up). The suspension used on the 997 is a modified version of the 996 and other than slight variations in width, wheelbase etc. the two are very similar.

Power to weight ratio won't explain all of the difference (Porsche obviously made improvements on the newer car) but it will explain much of it.

3.4 996, 300 hp, 1,320 kg
3.6 996, 320 hp, 1,345 kg
3.6 997, 325 hp, 1,395 kg
3.8 997, 355 hp, 1,420 kg

RonCT

The buzz around the tracks are that the 997 is much more capable out of the box (stock vs. stock). I've found my 997S very easy to drive very quickly at Lime Rock & Watkins Glen -- more so than I expected with a rear-engined car. I suppose one thing you could look at is Ring lap times and the 997 is substantially faster there than the 996 (granted, different days, different tires, maybe the same driver, etc.). The car magazines all say basically the same. I think the 997S is 7:59 where the 996 is in the 8:17-8:20 range.

TD in DC

I haven't taken the club coupe to the track yet, but, I can tell you that straight out of the box, the suspension is far superior than the stock 996 suspension. If you are comparing stock to stock, I am guessing that the 997S will be faster due more to suspension/handling than to HP. The suspension really does make the platform much more "composed"

analogmike

The Grand-Am Koni challenge uses the 996 and 997 street cars. The 997 is significantly faster, they gave the 996 some breaks but the 997 is still winning. I drove one and the power was quite good, the hard spec tires were the limiting factor so it was not much faster than my '73 "RS" in lap times at Lime Rock.

KJinDC

From riding in some students cars, it appeared to me that the 997 was certainly much easier to drive and faster than the 996s I've been in. This is a stock for stock observation.

-KJ

JimB

You must have a fast RS Mike. Andy Lally was driving a 997 Koni challenge car at the WG club race and he was very fast. I'm not sure what tires he was using.

Clearly the 997 is a faster track car then the 996.

Darren

Anyone know what the factory delivered alignment specs and spring rates are on the 997? From my experience the 997 seemed to have a lot of body roll but was very well balanced. It was very easy to hit apexes in places that a stock 996 would have tons of initial understeer.

My guess is that they are putting a little negative camber in (996 had 0) and raised the front spring rate -- total guess -- the stock 996 front spring rate is so low that the front end tends to wash out.

Larry Herman

MagnusB

As you can see I have a 996 cab. When braking hard it becomes very unsettled and bows quite a lot.
Of course I can swap suspension but is there anything else I can do to make the car more stable while braking?
I might soon need to swap front rotors but am afraid I'll get more brake bias towards the front then.

I had a 997S after me yesterday and it was scary how stable it seemed while braking compared to mine.