StormRune

I got lucky and was invited to attend a 2017 911 test drive event yesterday at the Circuit of the Americas. The new owners of Porsche Central Austin need a big tip-of-the-hat for putting on such a great event for us! Thank you so much!

So this wasn't just a drive along public roads at legal speeds, this was a high speed track event with three groups of five cars with each group being led by a Porsche instructor setting down the line to follow. Key points in the line also called out with small cones similar to how autocross courses are marked.

I see that at least one person from 6SpeedOnline was there from a post over on that forum, but I thought I should include the meat of my response to his post here too. If you've already seen that you don't need to read on.

Unfortunately I didn't know how to identify any of us Rennlister's, we should work out a way to visually identify ourselves at such things. I was there in the 6:45 group with my red Simpson helmet if that caught the eye of anyone here.

There were more people there than I expected (at least 200 maybe?) so we only got limited track time. But it was a nicely done event with generous bling, good food, and a great band. I don't know if the earlier cars ran in the rain but luckily the track was bone dry by the time I went out.

I was fortunate and got to run hot most of the time being in the car directly behind the instructor. He did slow down a couple of times on the first half of the track for the others in the five car group to catch up... what a shame... but we did get to run really hot through enough of the curves and really hot down the back straight through turns 12-18.

So my particular call-outs on the cars were:
- I was initially disappointed at ending up in the black non-S Carrera launch car without PSE, but the good news was I wouldn't have known it wasn't an S from its handling, power, and sound if it wasn't for the black calipers and badging. I was impressed with this car. I guess its likely the S would have been even more outstanding.
- When riding as a passenger but with the other driver doing a great job, we came into turn 12 very hot at what I guess was around 140 with the tires squealing and closing on the instructor faster than we should have been as we entered the curve. The non-S brakes and stability controls did a fantastic job controlling the situation though without over-intervention despite entering the turn while still so hot.
- I would have never known I was in a turbo. Others could hear the turbo song but I have trouble with high pitches and couldn't hear them with the helmet on. To be fair though, the only time I was under 4k or so RPM was at the start but others reported great satisfaction with low end pull. I never felt anything I'd consider turbo lag and I've had laggy turbo cars in my non-Porsche years before.
- When standing in the pits the cars sounded much better than I was expecting with the turbos, but mostly when the cars were fairly nearby. At a distance they are more reserved... pretty much like 991.1 models. Overall, they seem to have done a great job recovering the exhaust sound despite the turbo, especially with the PSEs.
- The PSE seems like a must-have on these cars. My non-PSE car sounded better than I expected, but the other folks I talked with that ran the PSE cars said the on-throttle sound, overrun crackle, and downshifting blip sounds were fantastic. From their reports, Porsche has finally made a step back up with the PSE sound, it's the best since it was toned down in the 997.2 model years.
- Despite their advice otherwise, I went full manual on the PDK since I've been on the track a few times and know the turns. The downshift blip you get is much more pronounced than the one in the 997.2 PDKs, and with the improved exhaust and intake sounds (at least as I heard them from inside the cabin) it sounded quite good despite not being a PSE! On the streets, I could easily see myself always staying in manual and keeping the RPMs up a bit just to get the downshift blips and exhaust/intake music.
- I experienced absolutely no understeer in both hard braking into the corners and no pushing when sweeping hard under throttle. In the esses through 12-18 I pushed really hard and stayed right on the line I was aiming for (kissing the bump strips at the edges). I'm sure the tires were nice and toasty by the time I drove and the track surface was great, so maybe that helped. I guess one of my biggest take-aways is I felt the car was more balanced than mine at the edge.
- I hear some folks talk about how big the 991s are. But to be honest, from the inside this car didn't feel any bigger than mine and it felt even tighter and more nimble to me. Even looking at it from the outside it didn't seem big... I'd guess all of the new edges and narrower lines on the lights help make it seem more trim. This car has made me really rethink the commonly stated thought in the 997 community that the 991 models have become too much of a GT.

Too bad it was just two hard laps in the cars (one as driver and one as passenger), but it is a long 3.4 mile track with lots of varied turn types so the experience was still reasonable.

All of the above said, the 2017 911 doesn't feel radically different than my 997.2 if you set aside the obviously more modern interior and electronics. However, it is a quite notable step up in the refinement of the pretty much all of the details. It is very important to keep in mind that I'm comparing a non-S non-PSE car to my fairly loaded S though. If I'm already thinking that the drivability of that non-S exceeds my S, then I'd love to discover what an S might feel like! Maybe I'll have to do something about that.

snake eyes

pictures???

Also I want to do a track day there badly with my C4S...

yvesvidal

The PCA magazine Panorama, gave recently an excellent review of the non-S Carrera model. When compared to all the Carrera offering, they concluded it was by far the best bang for the buck, in term of performances, ease of driving and fun.

Yves

StormRune

Sure! I didn't get as many photos as I would have liked since the food and music of the event and the people at the event kept me fairly busy.

The black car is the one I got to drive. I'll also throw in some photos of some of the owners' cars in attendance. Mine is next to the BMW i8. The red one is a Carrera GT of course. One of the cool features of COTA is the hairpin on the hill you see in the background of the photo of all of the cars getting ready to head out.

StormRune

Very nice to know! I had also read somewhere that Porsche is hoping to make the non-S model more attractive in terms of both performance and cost to help them more easily meet company-wide emissions and gas mileage standards. The car I drove seem to certainly be attractive in this sense, I hunted down its online window sticker via the VIN:

snake eyes

no PASM. How did it handle compared to your 997S with PASM? no body roll? I saw you were impressed but made me wonder if the non PASM base is better than 997.2 pasm

I'm also curious about rear steering which it will only let me put on an S model with Porsche configurator online.

BTW looked like a great experience...

I'm going to COTA for the Tudor races for sure... and I want a track day there as stated seems like a amazing course.

StormRune

To honest, I didn't think to consider body roll. However, my brain never specially noticed any body roll and I have to assume I would have noted it considering we were near the limits of lateral traction at a few points.

I would have to say it out-handled my S but a longer time on the track in both cars would really be needed to say for sure. They aren't going to be night and day different though except in one regard: the lack of understeer we experienced was pretty wonderful, even when the tires were already at the limits and squealing as we went into turn 12. I was expecting an understeer there but it didn't happen. I can't say I've gotten it completely tuned out of my car since I haven't had the opportunity to hit a track since my last more-aggressive alignment and I don't push quite to that edge out on public roads. I imagine some of it is still there.

I think you'll love getting out on the track here. At many events, the ones that aren't huge, there is often the chance to take your car out on the track. I've had the opportunity four times now at various events including this one. It's quite a thrilling track. BTW, I prefer to watch from higher seats in the turn 15 grandstands if you have no other preference. There can be a lot of action in the esses in front of that.

StormRune

I just made a big correction to my original post that helps explain some things with respect to handling. PASM is now standard in all models as I just learned reading the book/brochure they gave us yesterday, so now we do have more of a direct comparison between my 997.2 with PASM and the 991.2.

Koorean

I believe PASM is standard on all 991.2. You can get sport SPASM as an option.