spg993tt

MY WC Cayman outpaced all GTC3 and every GTC4 cup at NJMP last weekend and at PCA arca, etc.

I've had a few 997 cups and a 996 cup, a few track records. I love my cayman. its the most precise, well balanced car ive ever owned. you look left it goes left.

a 997 cup is a VERY highly strung machine. very. its high anxiety and full on every minute you're in there. the running costs are a true 2500 to 3000/hour depending on your luck in having to avoid a motor or trans rebuilt. Tires at 2200/shot go poof in 1 hour of hard running. and you cant run yourself, you need a crew for the most part.

the cup is 2 1/2 times the cost of the cayman to run. and with the cayman, i can and have done world challenge pro races (a pair of 6th at LRP), the ITC events (ie. the ALMS support race at VIR in a few weeks) and battle strong with Caymans.

it is a hard thing t buy a $100k cayman (and mine is a good bit more than that for sure)...versus $60k for a nice 996 cup. but if you love handling and power, the cayman is fasntastic. now if porsche would stick a cup motor in a cayman chassis, they'd go to the front in grand am. will never happen.

911racer

Wow 2500 to 3000 per hour running costs for a 7cup and you must have a crew. Must be very different than the 6cup that I have been campaigning myself for the last two years.

I run nasa and the cayman guys were there. The only one that could stay with me (and his lap time for the fastest lap was nearly a second slower) was Dan Clarke that was hired in to drive that weekend. That was also with me running a restrictor plate taking out about 30 up and carrying about 100 lbs extra to be compliant in gts4.

Why would a cup car use a set of tires in an hour and a cayman not? They are just as heavy? I do better than that. Maybe I am just not drivi g hard enough. But then again I beat the caymans.

Ed

spg993tt

most guys don't do the math because they sell the car before rebuilding a trans or motor.
a motor is, lets say 35k for a cup,996 or 997. 60 hours? call it 500/hour?
a trans is , lets say 25 " "" 40 hours. 600 / hour?

that's $1200 there.
then you have axles, suspension bits, electronics, fluids,
you have brakes, rotors and other consumables.
fuel alone is probably $150/hour? 100?

most pca guys run 18 to 20minutes sessions when you factor in out and inlap
so figure 3,4 sessions gets you an hour of run time.
most fast guys who want to run a compliant cup aren't putting 6 to 8 sessions on a set of tires on a nice race weekend. maybe a fool-about day.
tires are 2200. so lets say you get 2 hours out of them. 8sessions,...still 1100 hour.

the cayman burns up tires same rate as the 996 cups but not as quick as the 997s or the 4liters. but its still 4 session of good running and then sessions 5 and 6 to 8 are questionable good, chasing ghosts and chasing setup due to tire fall off.

most guys buy a cup with , ie, "5 hours" on it. they run it for 30,40 hours and usually sell it as a great cup with 45 hours. and they avoid incurring that $1200ish in engine/trans expense.
that's great until one day you hear crunch and smoosh and your trans doesn't work. now you're writing that check for $25000 just to get running again. pop the motor and stroke the check for $35000 plus costs to remove it, ship it, reinstall it.

Steward B.

OK, beyond the speculation about PDK rebuilds, what about Cayman engine rebuilds?
At some point in every race car's life the engine and transmission need to be rebuilt.
A cup car, whether it is a 6 or 7 cup, can have its engine and transmission rebuilt, although at a steep cost.
Can one rebuild a Cayman engine?
If so, at what cost?
Or is this like the Boxsters that people are running in Spec Boxster that were supposed to be so cheap to run because you could buy crate engines from Porsche and then when the crate engines were no more, the cost went up very steeply.
I think I'll stay with my air cooled 911, thank you very much.

spg993tt

yeah, 13grand crate from pna. and you're set.
you can get crazy# of hours out of it, and they are usually pretty dang reliable, though they pop every now and then.
racing either aint cheap, btu the cup is notably more money.

J richard

Ur bumming me out.

911racer

So you are saying I will spend $25k to rebuild the trans mission on a 6cup an $35 for the motor. I do not have intentions of Motorsports rebuilding them, but even if I did, the last figures I have heard are about half that (combined).

Don't even get me started on hours on 6cup motor and trans rebuilds.

Steward B.

OK, but when the factory stops building Cayman engines, what happens then? We all know that Porsche continually wants their customers to buy newer cars, and thus, as with the 2.5 Boxster engines, they'll build crate motors for a period of time but than stop. What is the cost to rebuild a Cayman engine?

Frank 993 C4S

Right now, the cost to rebuild a 3.4 and a buying a Porsche crate motor are pretty much the same, assuming you get full credit for the core when you buy your crate motor. It is tough to have an apples to apples comparison because rebuilds would include life extension improvements that can become significantly more costly than the crate motor.

Frank 993 C4S

Over what? Racing being expensive and some people throwing silly money at it?

spg993tt

fricking Porsche. love hate. look at the like the 2000GT3Rs or older RSRs. they are beasts of a machine, amazing, some of the best ever, and I was offered one for like 60,65k with a 10 hour motor. the more you look at it, its cheap to buy it, but the rebuild on those motors is insane.
there is always someone who will rebuild these motors and they do a great job..but all motors get cheaper once PMNA stops putting them on the shelf. I believe the 996 Cup ABS units, fi you fried yours, are like $13000 if you can find it. exhausts are insane.
just a pricey thing once not the current Porsche model.

Charles A. Toupin

We had a few emails regarding that Porsche and Racing thing...

But you race one in WC, right? And not the Camaro. In terms of operating cost, are they similar?

IIRC, the Camaro is Riley built chassis, so it must be handling great, no? And then whole chevy cheap crate engine thing, cheap body parts and so on... Is this the sign of a strong Porsche love or just a rational choice between those 2 cars?

Tx.

c.

spg993tt

the Camaro parts are 1/2 Porsche. crate motor 6k vs 13. race prepping about the same. transmission race prepped zero hour no core $4k;
suspension and body work dirt cheap. and yeah, my Camaros are just amazing machines. amazing.
they do everything super well. maybe at the ned of a long straight, they aren't so aero but amazing racing machines.
but I don't do but 2,3 WC races/year max. and do more PCA races. so im always torn which to race and prepare and develop.

J richard

...that if I drive the cup I might as well pour gas all over it and burn it to the ground when it hits 75hours, or go run the boxster until the m96 motor explodes...either way no happy ending

Frank 993 C4S

... but think about how awesome it will be along the way!

Somebody once told me that racing is like going to the bathroom and flushing $100 bills down the toilet one by one. Personally I think it's much worse that than