jaholmes

Has anyone here that club races had the luxury of flogging a 911 or Cayman with the PDK transmission. Just wondering how it held up and what your impressions are. Where there any outliers where the PDK didn't want to cooperate.

RDL

I have not raced a PDK, but I did have the opportunity to drive a PDK equipped 911, Boxster and Cayman on track. In my opinion this is a fantastic transmission. This thing will make heros out of mediocre drivers. The shifting is smooth, quick and very cooperative. It will hold a gear however long you like, and will not allow dangerous (to the engine) downshifts.
I would love to have my track car equipped with the PDK.

APKhaos

The local Porsche dealers bought several PDK cars out to our October 08 club race at Summit Point. We scheduled track time, and anyone who wanted to drive one got the opportunity. A few of us drove sone spirited laps, but they were not at full race pace, of course. That said, the PDK was a revelation. I think we all were surprised at how much it behaved like the perfect manual shift, and how quick it was both up and down. The Sport Chrono package definitely offers the best and most flexible performance for DE or race applications.

Can't speak to reliabilty or ruggedness, but I want a PDK box for MY car!

931guru

Just keep in mind that those two clutches last the life of the transmission.

DanR

thats either a good or bad thing depending on the life of the box. As its Porsche build we should expect it to be rouged though?

kurt M

True but the 2 clutches are not at the mercy of a fault filled foot. They are controlled by the red mist free and un-forgetfull computer.

I was one of the dealer guys with a PDK at Summit Point I had 3 days worth of left and right seat track time with it. (took it off the lot with 27 miles came back with almost 600) Rave reviews across the board. Even the guys that had a strong preconceived notion of a slush-box with buttons were impressed. Takes a lap or 3 to get used to it but once you get the idea it just rocks. No hunting no sluggish reactions. Put in full auto and go tap a button and go up or down. Put in nanny and you can shift as you like but ti will up/down if you are about to go redmist and hurt the motor. IMO the PDK will make 99.9% of drovers faster on track.

Crono is worth the $ too. More range of track oriented modes.

jaholmes

It does have launch control as well that actually works.

As others have said the shifts are much quicker then a standard trans.

Excellence or total911 had an article on trying to buy a base Cayman S for the track without going nuts with the options. I think they ended up with sport chrono and a few other things. Maybe LSD.

I'm waiting for Napelton to build one of their HSR interseries with a PDK. I'm sure they would build one for me if I went down and put money down.

John H

I rode in a Cayman with PDK at the club race/de at Putnam Park with an experienced club racer. We were on street tires but his lap times were not far off my 993's lap times. On parts of the course he was clearly going faster than I could in the 993. There was only one "unnecessary" downshift in 15 laps and he said it was his fault for over-braking going into turn two. Otherwise, it was fantastic. If I could afford to convert a PDK car to a track car, I would in a heart beat. It is almost like cheating.

race911

No doubt it's great, but where does it end? When you strap in to the passenger seat and have the robot driver take you on the 100% ride along? I get that we don't (or mostly all of us) don't want non-decambered 356 pre-A's with 1100cc engines to get our track fix, but it sure seems like it was more fun when state-of-the-art was bascially '73 RSish/914-6 cars on 1st generation R compounds.

ZAPmobile

Don't forget at the time those cars were state of the art. Technology marches on,either work with it,or be rolled over by it.

BTY my favorite 911's are 3.2s

jaholmes

Cheating on your 993.

Chris M.

in the words of VR, +1

chrisp

DSG is problematic in VW's. Wonder how reliability is with PDK.

pdxjim

I believe 956's and 962's had PDK and it seemed to work OK in their level of racing. My Cayman Cab has PDK and I love it.

Bob Rouleau

DSG is a Borg Warner product. PDK is built by ZF