Mark Dreyer

I was intrigued to read that a manual tranny Boxster Spyder outran a PDK equipped Cayman S at Laguna Seca. It was almost a second faster around the course. You would think that with the faster shifting PDK and the stiffer body of the Cayman, the results would have been reversed.

As the owner of a Boxster S track car, who loves the mid engine layout and often wonders if the Cayman S wouldn't be the better option for my DE hobby, I found this article intriguing.

Is the body stiffness issue over-rated in terms of track performance, or does the differential have more to do with the slight weight difference and slightly different contact patch (wheels are slightly wider in Spyder) between these two cars?

BTW, is there a better car mag than Excellence? I don't think so.

mooty

mark,
spyder is 100-150 lbs if not more, lighter than cayman s.

Veloce Raptor

Plus the driver may have been better..









Professional Racing and Driving Coach

race911

I haven't received mine yet. What times? Always funny to compare magazine stuff to what we're actually doing there. (I get that they're factory as-delivered, but it's easy enough to extrapolate.)

Jay Gratton

Just don't go over 120 mph or the top will blow off!

Kein_Ersatz

Saw this one 2 weeks ago on the showroom floor in Stuttgart.

Really like those seats.

Mark Dreyer

176 lbs lighter. That amount of weight can make an entire second/lap difference eh?

Mark Dreyer

Same guy drove both cars back to back.

mooty

no, that wt delta at most 1 sec at LS.
i was just saying that's one of the factors.

FGL28

Mark,

FWIW when I was at the rollout in LA for the Spyder I was told that this car consistantly topped the Cayman S times in testing. And with the PDK and weight loss I can believe the second difference.

And Octane is at least as good as Excellance.

500

The weight reduction, ten extra hp AND a signficantly more aggessive suspension (different springs, dampers and roll bars etc) do add up to quite a list of paper advantages to throw against the stiffer bodyshell of the Cayman & PDK. I would have been surprised (and disappointed) if it had turned out the other way.

CWay27

Was he talking about Rennlist when he said GT2/GT3 web forums were raving about it in 10 pages thread?

Jim W

The author seemed to indicate that the suspension and weight loss made most of the difference. Sounds like the suspension received benefits from experience with new approach on GT2 and GT3 which they also loved.

Now lets see those changes on the Caymen with PDK and ... what, another 1-1.5 sec gain?

stout

Hey Ken,

Cars were both as delivered by Porsche, and an alignment similar to the Spyder's probably would have been a big help in the Cayman, as it had noticeably more understeer, and especially into T9. Both cars had LSD and LW seats, but there the similarities end (18s vs. 19s, PDK vs. stick) — so a perfect comparison it wasn't. We weren't going to pass up the chance to do *A* comparison, however, because independent information didn't exist. With JvO unavailable, we asked local SCCA champ David Ray to set our times, and he was running consistent 1:44-1:45s. I was roughly two seconds off his times (I'm a road tester, not a racer), and don't yet respect my times or consistency enough to let them stand as representative. I suspect a top-flight pro (read Pobst, Henzler, etc.) would be a quicker still, but David had enough speed and consistency to net valid, relevant times.

I was surprised to see the heavily optioned (A/C, radio, leather, etc.) open Spyder beat the closed Cayman S PDK. Then again, the Cayman's narrower wheels were a handicap — and PDK's advantages must be weighed against its 66-pound penalty, which comes entirely at the rear of the 987. While I suspect most if not all drivers will be faster around a race track with PDK, few discuss its weight penalty.

I wish the two cars' specs had been closer, but all of this is discussed/weighed in the issue — and I hope the info within is useful. My takeaway was that the Spyder's suspension setup was superior on track (though not a track setup), yielding a sharper car. Even so, the Cayman felt more "track appropriate" as a closed car somehow — this side of real race cars and prototypes anyway. And I'm one of those guys who don't get bashing open cars.

Thus, on the street and for the money, I'd take a Spyder every time. For the track, a combination of a Spyder-like chassis and the Cayman body -- with a 3.6 or 3.8 -- would be, well...

pete

race911

Thanks.

So all-in-all, we're talking 2 sec/lap quicker than my 140K RS America with some handmedown Bilsteins, springs of unknown manufacture, decent brake pads, and Toyo RA1's.

1 sec/min of lap time is meaningless outside of competitive, timed events. But as you've noted, there's sure a world of difference in how each feels when accomplishing the same thing.