kiwi 911

Well done Macca, I believe this gives you the fastest recorded road going Porsche time ever (excluding mystical 1.10 GT3 lap time Kev talks about). You are the current driving god :-)

Macca

Cheeky bugger!!

Unfortunately two Consecutive half laps don't count. It needs to be start line to start line. I'll keep working on it...

Walt. Yes that's what I have done for accuracy. All laps were with in 1% tolerance total time and 5% sectors. I'd love to find the sectors on the track but haven't found that screen yet.

I agree the theoretical lap is optimistic. My thoughts are sub 13 is possible but I will struggle to do better than just under that bar and even so will require a dry cool day, some reasonably fresh tires and all the planets colliding! The car is more capable than the driver even without geo or moving to the sticker pierreli tyre option. I think given the limited time I have at HD I will simply focus on consistency. The goal being to replicate that rolling lap start line to start line in 2016 with a number of times within .1-.5s of that within the same session/day. I think this is a more realistic challenge. Looking forward to Jan HD to practice T9/10 & T1 some more. T9/10 is the challenge as its my least consistent corner by a long margin. Probably like others I recognise it's this single corner that holds the key and it's a slightly different line for each car and driver.

Anyway with time on my hands has been good to start understanding more of what the Aim can teach me.

Let's hope for fine weather on 11th. With only one fully dry HD day from the last 4 I've attended I hope I don't bring the rain gods with me. I have every intention of using the current tyres to the cords before replacing them prior SITT!

Macca

Walt what you said about the rotors may be spot on. I put endless pads on before NITT and got bad judder front and rear at Taupo on day two. Ran them at HD on 29th September as they were still doing their job. They had done 8 track days and some hard road drives. 13500 km total. CCS said the 7-12mm cracks were beyond spec (but the PAG guidelines are way conservative). front Discs had 35% meat on them within thickness spec. Tests 65%. They tried cleaning the disc face up but it made little difference. Replaced front rotors just before I left because in reality they wouldn't have made it through SITT even with deposits removed. Left the tears on so still have some judder from back there but changed pads all round with new factory pads and noticed rear judder fading before I put it away. Lesson learned. Endless MX72 though they work well with lighter and slower 993 (which has good front rotor ventilation system aftermarket) are way too soft for GT3 pushed hard. I now believe this was pad transfer all round and the factory pads are removing the deposits from the rear. Need to bed the front rotors and pads in on 11 Jan and see if HD can scrub up the tears before SITT or else look to skim them or most likely replace. At $3300 an axle for new factory rotors/pads was a very expensive lesson learnt. I'm now factory original all round and figure I'll keep it that way. Can't even see much point in changing the geo save for softening the front bar to remove what little under steer there is because the truth of the matter is the geo isn't currently the barrier to my getting faster and although the tyres wear faster on outside shoulder with the conservative factory settings the tyres themselves have only 25 heat cycles in them before they start to fall off so 4 track days they work well and the 5th they slow down. They will go 4 and some road use with factory geo and you could get another 1-2 days out of them with another 1-1.5 negative camber but seems little point when they drop off as much as they do. I'm on my 3rd set shortly and each set has still had 3-4mm left. Seems false economy to have a capable new GT3 loosing 1-2s a lap tho for the sake of taking them off early for perhaps $700 of tyre remaining. Tyres aside (disc and pad wear seem consistent with Neil, Nigel and others) the car is hasn't needed anything and is 2 years old from production date tomorrow. Remains to be seen how durable it is in 2016 as I have 9-10 track days planned with it. Like the 993 it's clear when you start circulating regularly towards the edge of the cars performance envelope you start getting exponential wear and costs. Circulating all day at 13 flat the GT3 would be eating tyres/pads and rotors at twice the rate of circulating in the high 14s. Nigel has found this - he gets 6-7 track days from his front factory rotors and only used the car on the track! First world issues...

floatingkiwi

I'll tell ya, just abut to go out there....

Macca

Good to hear you got off the Rig. Enjoy the day and hi to Sol

Macca

John. Great work and thanks for the update and pictures. Looks like JMc is trying to make his Hankook Z221 supper sticky in the bake oven. Look out Lola :-)

996tnz

Wow. Hadn't realised just how much it helps having an older model with a good supply of (both low and high) quality aftermarket consumables. Under $600 an axle for my rotors (quality slotted Sebros), and another $350 odd for Pagid pads. I don't track mine as much as you do yours but over almost 2 and a half years they've lasted an NITT, the one day Ecolight Rally Tour, several other track days/sprints and probably around 15,000 road kms before a new set of Pagids seemed wise for the Targa Bambina Tour. Those rotors are only lifing out now with similar stress cracks after doing the Targa and another few thousand kms, and look to have lasted much better than the original Porsche cross-drilleds.

John McM

My secret is out. Heat prepared tyres. More seriously it was a conscious decision to put as little of value at risk in the paint shop. Track wheels and tyres, one OE seat and John has covered the steering wheel.

What those pics remind me of is the attention to detail here in the base and the things to come. The engine will be framed by pristine GPW paint with new decals. Above the engine is a new sound blanket pad and possibly a pad keeper. The engine has a brand new fan surrounded by a Satin Black shroud with a new cover and decal. Burggraaf-design CNC Billet valve covers. Polished intake runners. Powder coated Rennline reinforced engine carrier. Powder coated engine tin.

Below that is a brand new set of indicators and reflector underlined by a bumper that's been done the right way (dismantled into 3 pieces). New license plate light fittings and full colour bumper.

I could go on, but you get the idea. This isn't a mask up, light, once over tickle up effort.

kiwi 911

Walter - that's still expensive mate - on my C3 the bills were roughly half yours again. A set of tyres was under $1K!

kiwi 911

It was meant to be this.........??

A sub $10K paint job - now you have done a 'Miller' and got a circa $20K one with all the bits and while your are theres (this is what $$ kills you).......

What remains to be seen is if you are as bold as Dave and will go hard at the track with your new paint job........??

What killed me was 20-30 stone chips, a 100mm long cracked windscreen, front light and $12K insurance bill to make good after 1 trip to Taupo.

I think I only got 1 or 2 chips from the weekend at Doug's??

Macca

Which makes your GT3 roughly 4x more expense per track mile to run than your old C3!

I worked out the 993 is almost 50% the cost to run than my GT3 (Includes insurances, service and all variable costs).

So we have hit the big time. Question is are we getting 2-3x more fun on the track given our spend? Im not so sure.

While it is without doubt that knocking out a fast lap in a GT3 is one of the most satisfying things Ive done with my pants on, and speed is a drug for which there is nothing comparable, I have to say that I think a well prepared 993 road/track rod is sitting in the sweet spot for lap times vs running costs vs general duties with bullet proof residuals. Naturally it all depends on your budget.

If I could afford it Id run a 675LT & 991 GT3RS around the track with abandon, taking out my Singer lightweight track spec with Cosworth 4.0L for the last few sessions of the day!

But down on earth compromises exist!

John McM

I haven't got a bill for the paint, but apart from a couple of variations (full sill colour) I'm not expecting much change from expectations in that area. The trim will be higher than expected, that's a given,

The gearbox was a surprise, about which I had little control. Most of the rest is conscious spending.

I doubt I will follow as close to your clacker as I did in the R (sorry Pete), but chips are inevitable when driving a car anywhere and wont cost much to fix now there is a new uniform colour across the car so it's not going to be a Miller garage Queen (Go cars not Show cars)

Anyway we will hopefully find out in January. Once I have my Kohi beach photoshoot sorted it's all on.

Macca

I have to say John Buba makes a fair point. The remit has clearly changed with this car. Unlike Dave & myself who built our cars firmly with the view to spanking them as the modus operandi the moment they were finished, the Jury is still out on how big your ***** are here.

How about we give you a few weeks to polish her with your old throw away $250 french cuff bankers shirts, at home in the privacy of your garage, once she is completed then we take her away for a North-land weekend and you can ride her bare back chasing Doug "opposite lock" H and Macca down some B roads? As Paul says its not a big issue with chips, only thing is you may need spare pair of undies sometimes aye Buba!

Macca

Damn. X post. Too slow to type...

Macca

P.S. Good to hear it will still be a Go Car John (ribbing was in jest).

Nice to see you going the extra mile with getting her right, man after my own heart. Its worth spending the extra now as it will pay itself back many times in satisfaction later.

Its great to have someone like John on the job overseeing panel/paint.

Its going to have been 6 long months with many parts arrivals, alot of your own labour and a few left of field surprises. It took me 2 years to achieve similar (swap your paint job for my Link/Cam and tuning install dramas/costs). Your car probably needed the tart up more than mine which was largely individualized cosmetic and gratuitous stuff and some go faster parts. Being offshore during the work was the challenge. Thank god for Dean and his 50 photos a week updates is all I can say. Bugger he has gone!