3K miles has now been clocked up with the Yorkshire Moors run last weekend and perhaps now is the time to review where I am with this new car.
It's just over 2 months since I apprehensively chopped my gorgeous Ferrari 430 Scuderia in for a new Gen 2 997 Turbo. Initially the Porsche felt ponderous, heavy and lacked urgency - urgency is an overriding characteristic of the Fessa. (we're talking relativity here, of course.) But when you accept the iconic 911TT has now evolved into a GT Sports Tourer and the basic philosophy of the 2 marques are as chalk and cheese, things start to make more sense.
I now conclude the Gen 2 Turbo is a very fine sports car indeed. It's fast - maybe faster than the Scud - although that's difficult to confirm since acceleration was always accompanied by a cacophony of noise - the best sound in the world IMHO - and it always felt like permanent warp drive. I also loved the F1 semi-auto gearbox. It banged home the gears in a dramatic and wonderfully satisfying manner. But PDK is a triumph of technology and engineering and however many full throttle gear changes you do, you don't get a nagging feeling that a 4 grand clutch replacement is just around the corner.
There's no doubt the ride in Ferrari is superior. The weight of the vehicle, closer to its centre, is much more conducive to flat cornering and a more compliant setup - that's not to say the Porsche is poor - it's just Ferrari is better. Technology cannot completely overcome the laws of physics.
I had an inkling my Porsche was not giving of its optimum in terms of road holding and handling. So on the way to Yorkshire, I made a detour to Center (sic) Gravity Ltd. in Atherstone. Chris Franklyn is the Porsche chassis set-up guru there and gave my car the once over.
The first thing found was that the TPM is not accurate and the tyres were over-inflated by around 2 psi in each corner. Not much, but can make a difference to the way the car feels. Additionally, chassis alignment was not symmetrical having different settings from one side to the other. A poor handling car can be tolerated when it's the same each side but different handling left to right is much more difficult to overcome. At the rear, both camber and toe-in differed on each wheel and cross toe was actually outside factory tolerance. At the front, both camber and individual toe were outside factory tolerances.
I was looking to improve high speed directional stability and obtain a sharper turn in. Bringing all settings within factory tolerance, Chris was able to equalised both sides, slightly decrease cambers and reduce toe at the rear whilst increasing it slightly at the front. The result is the car does feel more stable, safer to drive and has the sharper turn in I wanted. The man certainly knows his stuff and I was able to give the new set up a good workout over the lumps and bumps of the Yorkshire Moors to test out the improvement.
I am very happy with my new Turbo. It's quick, reliable and (comparatively) cheap to run. I'm only achieving around 22 mpg atm (I used to get 26 in the GT2) but it's heavier and I'm maybe less subtle with the go pedal these days. Best of all I know it'll work every time and won't let me down. I'm also enjoying all the toys that came with it. The phone works perfectly, the Gen 2 Sat Nav is an improvement, although still needing work and my kids bought me an Ipod for my birthday. This works fine with the integrated sound system.
Also the brakes seem quite adequate - so I'm a happy bunny.
Best of all, Judy loves it too!
Regards,
Clive.
It's just over 2 months since I apprehensively chopped my gorgeous Ferrari 430 Scuderia in for a new Gen 2 997 Turbo. Initially the Porsche felt ponderous, heavy and lacked urgency - urgency is an overriding characteristic of the Fessa. (we're talking relativity here, of course.) But when you accept the iconic 911TT has now evolved into a GT Sports Tourer and the basic philosophy of the 2 marques are as chalk and cheese, things start to make more sense.
I now conclude the Gen 2 Turbo is a very fine sports car indeed. It's fast - maybe faster than the Scud - although that's difficult to confirm since acceleration was always accompanied by a cacophony of noise - the best sound in the world IMHO - and it always felt like permanent warp drive. I also loved the F1 semi-auto gearbox. It banged home the gears in a dramatic and wonderfully satisfying manner. But PDK is a triumph of technology and engineering and however many full throttle gear changes you do, you don't get a nagging feeling that a 4 grand clutch replacement is just around the corner.
There's no doubt the ride in Ferrari is superior. The weight of the vehicle, closer to its centre, is much more conducive to flat cornering and a more compliant setup - that's not to say the Porsche is poor - it's just Ferrari is better. Technology cannot completely overcome the laws of physics.
I had an inkling my Porsche was not giving of its optimum in terms of road holding and handling. So on the way to Yorkshire, I made a detour to Center (sic) Gravity Ltd. in Atherstone. Chris Franklyn is the Porsche chassis set-up guru there and gave my car the once over.
The first thing found was that the TPM is not accurate and the tyres were over-inflated by around 2 psi in each corner. Not much, but can make a difference to the way the car feels. Additionally, chassis alignment was not symmetrical having different settings from one side to the other. A poor handling car can be tolerated when it's the same each side but different handling left to right is much more difficult to overcome. At the rear, both camber and toe-in differed on each wheel and cross toe was actually outside factory tolerance. At the front, both camber and individual toe were outside factory tolerances.
I was looking to improve high speed directional stability and obtain a sharper turn in. Bringing all settings within factory tolerance, Chris was able to equalised both sides, slightly decrease cambers and reduce toe at the rear whilst increasing it slightly at the front. The result is the car does feel more stable, safer to drive and has the sharper turn in I wanted. The man certainly knows his stuff and I was able to give the new set up a good workout over the lumps and bumps of the Yorkshire Moors to test out the improvement.
I am very happy with my new Turbo. It's quick, reliable and (comparatively) cheap to run. I'm only achieving around 22 mpg atm (I used to get 26 in the GT2) but it's heavier and I'm maybe less subtle with the go pedal these days. Best of all I know it'll work every time and won't let me down. I'm also enjoying all the toys that came with it. The phone works perfectly, the Gen 2 Sat Nav is an improvement, although still needing work and my kids bought me an Ipod for my birthday. This works fine with the integrated sound system.
Also the brakes seem quite adequate - so I'm a happy bunny.
Best of all, Judy loves it too!
Regards,
Clive.
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