BGB Motorsports

Unfortunately it will be another 48 to 72 hours before we expect to have it fired up before the entire conversion is complete. Not only we were fortunate to have been approached by one customer wanting a 3.8DFI conversion, we have been approached by 2. More to come later. Photos, information and all dyno runs will come later as we are trying to get these cars built before the Grand-Am race at Mid Ohio.

And no, we aren't taking a 450hp naturally aspirated Cayman to a Grand-Am race...although it would be nice!!!

analogmike

Those cars will be a blast!

Eifeler

Awesome.

BGB Motorsports

We got impatient and decided to finish it today.

Gary R.

What have you done to lower the cockpit temperature? I can only imagine the 3.8 turns it into and Easy-Bake oven considering the stock motor (with insulation removed) is almost unbearable..

coryf

Is there a chance the 3.8 will be allowed in grand-am?

Land Jet

That's how it should have come from the factory. Nice work.

What kind of fitment problems did you encounter? I'd also like to know about how you solved the heat problems for the driver.

BGB Motorsports

Cory, I really wish that it would be, but it will never be. The response I received was shot down like a bad pickup line. Porsche will never deliver the car with that motor and therefore we will never be able to race it like that in Grand-Am. It's a shame because the car could be very competitive if it were permitted to have the same engine its big brother does. When you consider that all-in we had 2 to 3 techs working for 2.5 days on it to install a bulletproof stock engine in a car. Seems like a pretty attractive package for racing. But no no no!


Thanks for the kind words. The hard work for the fitment was already done because in 2010 we were permitted by Grand-Am to run the 997.2 Carrera S throttle body and intake manifold. We had made an adapter pipe to connect the 997.2 throttle body to the 997.2 manifold in order to maintain all of the 987.2 intake dimensions and relationships such as the intake pipe/filter diameter relationship, distance from the filter to the MAF sensor, distance from the MAF to the throttle body, etc. etc. So the fitment stuff was done ahead of all of this which made for the conversion to go smoothly.


In response to questions about cooling, I'm not enough of an engine guy nor am I enough of a thermal dynamics guy to be qualified to answer some of these questions, but my thoughts are as follows. The Cayman's propensity toward running much hotter than the 911 is bad enough as it is and I would have to think that whether it's a stock 3.4 or a stock 3.8, the incremental heat from the related displacement is probably negligible. The 3.4/3.8 cases are near identical and the plan with this motor is that it's potent enough that we can reduce the RPMs by 400, back to maybe 7500RPM, which is stock for the DFI motor. Therefore, by spinning less RPMs and not having to work as hard, it should at least generate the same amount of heat if not less.

Having said that, both you and Gary have inquired so it sounds like you've been cooked once or twice in a Cayman around a race track. When we began the Cayman program in 2010, we made the decision to go overboard with the cooling after our Daytona race produced 250 degree water temps and 275 degree oil temps at Daytona!!! Anyone running a Cayman in an endurance racing format where ambient temps are 70 degrees and higher should consider the following:

- wrapping the exhaust headers from the manifold through the over-the-axle pipes
- wrapping the entire front side of the engine bay in gold foil wrap
- wrapping the coolant reservoir, airbox, intake tubes and manifold runners
- insulating all of the fuel lines, water lines and oil lines with anything
- gold foil wrapping the engine cover
- removing plastic trim from the rear bumper covers that would prohibit good air flow (do the same to the front provided that it is legal in your series)
-wrapping driver aids such as drink bottles and cool suit lines
-for the New Jersey race we installed a solid-state thermo-electric technology system that was given to us to experiment with. http://www.kool3.com/howitworks.html

I realize that a lot of the stuff is expensive and being a race team we have had the benefit of having engines out of the car and cheap labor so when motors were out of the car to install clutches, we wrapped a lot of engine parts. I'm sure I've been heard saying this a lot but the Cayman doesn't have the air flow pushing the stagnant engine bay air out the back like the 997 does and therefore you have to go overboard with the cooling for both the driver and the engine. We run a 3rd center radiator, power steering cooler, transmission cooler, water wetter with distilled water ONLY, upgraded PWR racing radiators and on and on and on so our cars are already preemptively prepared for this.

The answer to the question that you're about to probably ask is...I don't know, I don't how much heat generation or cooling problems will occur when we try and install this engine package in a stock street car such as a 2009 Cayman S with PDK and nothing but a center 3rd radiator, but by Thanksgiving I hope to be able to tell you!

ralt12

Is the PDK in the Cayman the same spec as the 997.2's (e.g., does it have the same torque handling capabilities) ?

BGB Motorsports

I don't have my DFI bible with me so I can't say for certain. If memory serves me correctly though, there are 4 types of PDK 997.2 transmissions and 2 types of 987.2 PDK transmissions. Internally they're near exactly the same with the spur gear ratio being the single biggest difference and it's not even a very big difference at that. I remember that detail because I remember being amazed that all of the numbers on the page were nearly exact across all 6 PDK transmissions. Again, I am tryin to do this by memory having only read through the bible once so far. An actual Porsche tech is a better person to ask.

Given that we just completed our first DFI swap, I am trying not to get too far ahead of myself but I also realize that if this works with the 6-speed, it's inevitable that people will want it for PDK. Up until 2 days ago, after driving a PDK Cayman R, I had spoken negatively over and over again about sequentials, SMG, PDK, etc., always complaining that you're afraid to shift the cars for fear that you'll drop the diff at the prior intersection. None of them ever felt fluid to me. Now that I've driven the PDK with Sport Chrono in a Cayman R (which should be no different than a Cayman S with PDK), I'm warming up to them. Even then still, I like leaving it in "D" because with Sport Plus, it's always in the right gear at the right RPM. I think it would probably be too aggresive for the street but perfect for the track. I always get in cars with sequentials and immediately switch to manual. In talking though to my sources who have been running these cars for a few years now on the track, I'm thinking "D" is the way to go if you have Sport Chrono.

BEWARE! I must preface all of this by saying that the car you see in the video has had every engine cooling, air flow enhancement done to it. If we find that you can bolt a 3.8 DFI 911 engine to a PDK Cayman S, if you don't have coolers and if you don't spend some time doing some extra cooling work, it might make one heck of a Time Attack car but not a great track car. I don't think a PDK 3.8 Cayman with stock cooling would last very long. She needs cool air in the heat of battle or she gets hot and whigs out.

Ritter v4.0

Nice. Could you have increased the stroke and used longer rods like the new GT3 RS for 4.0?

ajcjr

nice work John!

FredC

Cool!!! This thing should be a blast to drive against the m3s and camaros!! Would love to see those guys' faces!!!! U sure it won't run in the mid o conti race? ;-)

mdrums

Awesome work John, I always love reading your posts. I'll be over in Daytona later this week and will try to stop by if your not to busy for a few minutes.

BGB Motorsports

That's Phase II which is already under way. The upgrade parts for the 4.0L car at the dealer but I believe they're of the Metzger variant. The crank alone is $5200 but I'm hesitant to make the expensive leap of faith.

So the $6mm question we are in the process of answering next will be to see if we can achieve this with the existing 3.8 parts, 3.6 liter crank and a custom made 3.8 piston for custom pin height. Among the 3.4L, 3.6L and 3.8L motors the rods are the same and the 3.4/3.8 motors share the same crank so we are trying to keep as many stock parts as possible and not modify anything but the pistons and their pin placement, like Porsche does.

Mr. Potatoe Head DFI Motorkit