Cayman GT4: Where are we up 2 now? Déjà vu Edition

[MrDemon]

David,

You seem to have a very narrow-minded view of what makes a car good to drive. Somewhat surprising as you claim to have owned more cars than anyone I know.

I cut my keen driver teeth in the 1960's, 70's, and 80's. A raw, raucous, free-revving, 1293cc Mk1 Mini Cooper S with 649 cam, twin inch-and-half SU's, straight-cut gearbox, and a crude Jack Knight pawl-activated LSD, made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. The bark of a BDA engined Ford Escort, or the sewing machine whine of a 9000 rpm 998cc Hartwell Imp race engine, all etched an indelible mark on my brain right up to the present day.

However it may displease some, automotive technology is unstoppable and does not stand still. Due to increasingly stringent environmental constraints, we are currently in the midst of the turbo era as engine induction facilitator.

Turbo cars are not dull, big torque is not boring. "Newer" brings with it chassis development tweaks that only a decade ago would have only been available to supercars. I'm not talking about electronic stability aids here, like RWS, PTV, PSM, and such like, I'm referring to better engineered dampers, springs, anti-roll bars, and brakes.

My current 718 CGTS is a hoot to drive. It has better steering than my CR, is just as playful on the track, and has absolutely magnificent PCCB brakes. A feature that the CR was woefully short of. Having said that, the CR is the iconic car of its time.

Picking up your point on turbo lag, I can quite easily replicate turbo lag in my 718 GTS. This is how....select Normal mode on the dial, stick the gear selector in "D", and your brain in "lazy" mode. That'll dial-up turbo lag. I prefer to engage fully with my driving on the roads that are in my back yard. I select Manual shift, Sport mode, and my brain in keen driver mode. You know what? Turbo lag is non-existent. Just instant go.

At 70+ I embrace the modern era, even though I have a life-long attachment to the normal aspirated engines of yesteryear. The new current engines are not necessarily better to drive than their n/a forebears, just different.

Brian

I lost you when you said it has better steering than the R I have had a GTS for a day and owned the 981 Spyder, EPS is nowhere near the feel of the R and of course I have the best EPS to date in the latest GT3 and yes, I guess it's good enough now just !.

you get a faster rack and a smaller steering wheel and with wider track in the 718 it of course will turn in faster, but it has less feel by a county mile than an R! So you need to define "better steering"

have a go in a R again you would be very shocked what detail you gain from the old system ;-)

I would not say narrow minded, I just want more interaction, and my mate even thinks the 987.2 Spyder is luxury and is lacking over his 65 and 66 cars on that level.

I can embrace modern if it's good, the EPS in the GT3 is better than the eps in my new/old 991.1 GTS so yes when tech gets better it can be ok.

but my 987.2 SPyder is more involving than any of my big money cars.

I think if you drove my GTS with x51 (which has PDK btw of which I have to drive in sports plus manual mode to be interesting) or my GT3 you would get a shock just how good these 2 engines with throttle response and making power to red line is, and let's not talk sound which is a big part of owning a £100k car over driving a 4 pot daily like my Golf, I want to hear more than 4 pistons in my fun cars.

my mates got the 991.2 GTS and yes it's faster every where, but it's very easy and does not sound any where near as good.

So while it's great you can embrace new cars and can talk yourself into how good they are, one has to be realistic and they are not as involving as you say, so yes different, but yes also less involving.

I have what £330k worth of cars so could swap these out for anything, but the NA era with hydraulic steering is a very nice sweet spot, so no need to embrace new tech when you can still buy 2nd hand cars which offer more for the driver.

As I said goto a track day esp Silverstone and the big boys want the lap times in the big expensive do it all cars as easy as possable, it is what it is.

put them in a Caterham they would be backwards at the 1st bend !

your 718 is a very fast car, at 126 mph on this bit of road I test cars on I have still not beaten it even in the GT3 !

my GT3 is unusable fast, to a point I drive it very little, which leads me onto your GTS which is too fast for the road imo so you would get more fun at 60 mph from the R than the GTS, my GT4 was like that, I needed to go 120 mph on B roads to find it fun ! in a 987 it's more fun at slower speeds.

lets not even go into PASM ,, Manthey fit 3 ways passive's to all their cars and they lap faster ! I am sure Chris W would not go back to his PASM set up.

newer cars are easier to drive, sound worse and don't have the response of a tuned NA engine, it's that simple.

They are faster yes, but that's it, but a moot point when we have ave speed camera's every where.

 

[Brian_Innes]

David,

I'm not going to debate this topic with you, much as I enjoy your entertaining pithy comments, it's a no win situation for both of us. We share a different perspective on things.

Given another 20 years or so, I would wager your opinions will mellow with the passage of time. You say the current crop of Porsches are less involving and "easy" to drive. That may well be true, but it doesn't deplete the joy of driving on the relatively traffic-free roads in my part of the UK. Feeling the car telegraph the road surfaces and available grip levels beneath me when on the track is still there, despite the technological advances.

A crap driver cannot make a Porsche go faster. It still takes the skilled driver to know the lines, when to lift the throttle, squeeze the brakes, and turn the steering into the corner apex. That is where my "driving involvement" resides.

Brian

 

[MrDemon]

David,

I'm not going to debate this topic with you, much as I enjoy your entertaining pithy comments, it's a no win situation for both of us. We share a different perspective on things.

Given another 20 years or so, I would wager your opinions will mellow with the passage of time. You say the current crop of Porsches are less involving and "easy" to drive. That may well be true, but it doesn't deplete the joy of driving on the relatively traffic-free roads in my part of the UK. Feeling the car telegraph the road surfaces and available grip levels beneath me when on the track is still there, despite the technological advances.

A crap driver cannot make a Porsche go faster. It still takes the skilled driver to know the lines, when to lift the throttle, squeeze the brakes, and turn the steering into the corner apex. That is where my "driving involvement" resides.

Brian

PTV is the big one imo the cars just go round bends now with no effort, braking the inside rear wheel, it's painful to be inside a car driven this way.

the front tyres over heating , bending tyre treads and pushing while the rear brakes are working like a dog to get it round.

I see it every event I have ever been to the last 5 years.

So I do disagree as most people can do a ok lap now, say 5 seconds off the pace rather than the 10 they would be without PTV.

the cars a sorry state at the end of it, but they get you round.

I would say my other half would be as much as 30 seconds a lap faster in my GTS over my 987 Spyder due to tech alone.

the skill is finding the last 2 seconds but that's a high risk game with very high car wear and for a track day why bother risking a crash or only getting 4 track days per set of tyres !

 

[ChrisW]

I have to say that much as I hate complication for it's accelerated obsolescence ... the 992 is a very compelling package which falls just one step short of black boxes and speed limiters ... and a driver cut-out !

The wet road mode that automatically softens the car and increases feel is not a gimmick, nor is the PCM integrating to the PDK box, or the LED light system that senses oncoming vehicles quenching only the led's in the zone required to avoid dazzle and IR pedestrian or "moose" highlighting ... and I think the 964 bonnet, early 911 dash style and 993 style curves are yummy ... accepting that it's now a big car that dwarfs my early 911, but only weights 400Kg more. It's a lot of car !

We can try to hold back the tide, but I think we really must appreciate what we have now.

I am not volunteering to sample the forthcoming driver cut-out, or one step further, the car that takes over !

 

[Motorhead]

Nothing new here but this is a great shot of the new car.

Jeff

 

[ChrisW]

So how different is it to the 981 ???

 

[Motorhead]

Who knows Chris? The debate has been continuing on here and elsewhere for the last 18-months....yawn..!

I think the only definite is that it will feature a n/a flat-6 engine of, as yet, unspecified capacity (possibly 4.0L?) and will be fitted with a GPF which should make it quieter and therefore less likely to attract the attentions of the track day noise police. This engine should be good for about 420PS.

From the pics you can see that more attention has been payed to the aerodynamics front and rear, but as to the brakes, chassis and steering I suspect that we'll see something very similar to the previous car but updated as per the 991.2 GT3 - just part of the development process. A CGTS-type interior but with the ubiquitous (weight saving!!) door straps is a given, along with the usual v expensive Cayman options list. I'm expecting a base retail price of about £72k - £75k.

Jeff

 

[ralphmusic]

.... and it will come with a PDK option, but not at launch.

 

[Motorhead]

Yes, the rumour-mill has it that PDK will be an option on the second batch of cars, whenever that might be since we don't yet know when cars will actually be landing on our shores..! Quite why it's taking so long when PDK has been a race car fitment from the start is anybody's guess, but presumably the resource-strapped GT Dept has had its hands full with WLTP compliance and has yet to complete the necessary durability testing programme.

A PDK option will make the car more desirable to many potential purchasers, increasing demand. If 718 sales are slowing this could be an opportunity for Porsche to ramp up GT4 production and - maybe - to keep the price down, but I'm not hopeful as any slack in the system could be taken up by the rumoured 718-6 car for which there will be considerable demand if it ever appears (yet another opportunity for the speculators I fear!).

Jeff

 

[ralphmusic]

Rear of Clubsport at Spa yesterday showing aero tunnel, although this is fairly short as seen from Daytona pictures

 

[MrDemon]

do we need more down force ?

As they always quote it at 170mph or some thing.

So it's pretty crap any way and just seem to lower mpg, , imo as long as the cars not got lift it's fine.

cannot say I have ever felt the down force effect on a car sticking to the road, but I have lift.

 

[ralphmusic]

do we need more down force ?

As they always quote it at 170mph or some thing.

So it's pretty crap any way and just seem to lower mpg, , imo as long as the cars not got lift it's fine.

cannot say I have ever felt the down force effect on a car sticking to the road, but I have lift.

Think of it as negative lift

 

[Motorhead]

Does anyone know how much additional downforce the diffuser provides? It's quite small, so not a great deal I'll wager, but presumably it's been introduced with the race car in mind rather than for road use.

Jeff

 

[MrDemon]

do we need more down force ?

As they always quote it at 170mph or some thing.

So it's pretty crap any way and just seem to lower mpg, , imo as long as the cars not got lift it's fine.

cannot say I have ever felt the down force effect on a car sticking to the road, but I have lift.

Think of it as negative lift

correct there is no such thing as downforce , so it is negative lift of course on paper.

but we don't need it as it's too small to notice, as long as it cancles out lift I am happy.

Having 20 kg more at 170mph is for sales talk.

look at CUP wings and ride heights ! they are a long way off road cars.

I would rather a nice set of calipers and disks over 20kg more down force at 170mph...

 

[ralphmusic]

The exhaust arrangement for the 718 Clubsport is shown below, one assumes the road version will be similar in layout. The sports valves can be seen (more for relieving back pressure above a certain rpm level than "boys noise") and the one piece rear box has a cut-out presumably for the short central diffuser and looks more expensive to replace...

The tips are an improvement allowing easier fitting of downturn tips for track days.

 

[ted walker]

A German friend of mine has driven the new GT4 and told me" not to get too excited"

 

[ralphmusic]

Ted,

Difficult to know what to make of the comment, any context or detail you can offer?

People I know in the USA and Germany say (re Clubsport) it is a big jump in chassis and better power characteristics and so significantly faster on track.

 

[snowy999]

Ralph,

layout is is very similar to the Dundon GT3 exhaust adaptor for the GT4 isn’t it? Cats further downstream. Where will the GPF things fit - are they integrated into the catalyst unit?

 

[ralphmusic]

It is similar in the sense that there is one rear box across the chassis. The Dundon arrangement for the 981 requires their fitting kit plus a GT3 back box. The GPF needs to be close to the heads as they need higher temperatures than existing cats for regeneration. I understand it will be a 3-way arrangement as Porsche abandoned their 4-way technology for normally aspirated engines last October and restarted development.

Mercedes have been using GPF cats in their base S500 cars for a couple of years, maybe benefiting from extensive and direct experience of diesels, compared with Porsche's indirect diesel experience from Audi/VW.

The 781 GT4 will also have a revised engine with grey iron plasma deposition cylinder walls plus adjustable exhaust cams, and repositioned higher pressure small format injectors that are located very close to the spark plug, all for lower friction, better combustion and lower pre-cat soot particle levels.

And maybe the PDK version will have the very much higher torque rated 718 box which can handle over 600Nm and just maybe, fancier software with some or all of the GT3 PDK-S features.

 

[ralphmusic]

Ralph,

layout is is very similar to the Dundon GT3 exhaust adaptor for the GT4 isn’t it? Cats further downstream. Where will the GPF things fit - are they integrated into the catalyst unit?

Here is a picture of the TPC version of the GT3 style rear box exhaust for 981 GT4