GT3 RS Race Car anyone?
- Thread starter PhilRS
- Start date
timarnold
New member
I still have one for sale that's £55K and doesn't need an engine rebuild! Plus when it does, my mate who looked after it when it was racing can rebuild the motor for circa £15K. On top of that, if it was driven with a 7,500 rpm limit (instead of using the full 8,500) it wouldn't need rebuilding so frequently (every 50 hours for racing) and it would still annihilate pretty much everything else on a track day!
It's a 2002 ex factory GT3RS S2, 420 bhp; competed in the 2002 Grand Am in the US, then Tech 9 ran it in the Monza 1000Km, and since then Peter Cook owned and ran it in Britcar races. A customer of mine has had in for a while and now it's for sale again.
Edited to add: Here are couple of videos of the car at Oulton last year... first is of it leaving the pits, second passing the pits. They're very short, taken with my phone by one of our helpers while I was in the passenger seat. It isn't going very fast on the pass of the pits, it was the day Den took delivery of the car from Pete at the track, and he was very slow, a bit scared of it (still passed the Caterham and a few others though)!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racinginstructor/3780126957/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racinginstructor/3780089467/
In the right hands that car can do sub 1:40's round Oulton! [
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It's a 2002 ex factory GT3RS S2, 420 bhp; competed in the 2002 Grand Am in the US, then Tech 9 ran it in the Monza 1000Km, and since then Peter Cook owned and ran it in Britcar races. A customer of mine has had in for a while and now it's for sale again.
Edited to add: Here are couple of videos of the car at Oulton last year... first is of it leaving the pits, second passing the pits. They're very short, taken with my phone by one of our helpers while I was in the passenger seat. It isn't going very fast on the pass of the pits, it was the day Den took delivery of the car from Pete at the track, and he was very slow, a bit scared of it (still passed the Caterham and a few others though)!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racinginstructor/3780126957/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/racinginstructor/3780089467/
In the right hands that car can do sub 1:40's round Oulton! [
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ORIGINAL: timarnold
It's a 2002 ex factory GT3RS S2, 420 bhp; competed in the 2002 Grand Am in the US, then Tech 9 ran it in the Monza 1000Km, and since then Peter Cook owned and ran it in Britcar races. A customer of mine has had in for a while and now it's for sale again.
In the right hands that car can do sub 1:40's round Oulton! [
As Phil & H says they ain't cheap to run. Nothing is cheap on them. Hard on tyres , brakes clutches and g'box's oh and then there's the engine. Don't know the going rate for 64 top end but i'd guess at 5k so three times that for the GT3 cup .....ouch. They look to make a lot of sense until running cost are considered. In all honesty a 64RS is costly enough as a track day machine. GT3 Cup etc in another league.
timarnold
New member
ORIGINAL: RSGulp
No! Wrong Peter Cook!
However, going off-topic, I met that one once... we were racing at Ingliston circuit near Edinburgh in 1979 ('we' being RF Racing - Robert Foden of the Foden trucks family); and bizarrely we had been listening to Pete and Dud's 'Derek and Clive' tapes on the way up there in the coach (motorhome/transporter); on the Saturday night we went into Edinburgh to a club called 'Buster Brown's'... we had only been in there half an hour when this entourage came in surrounding the man himself. He was typically wearing a grey pin-stripe suit with trainers and had a trilby on with a card stuck in the band that had hand-written on it in black felt pen 'Don't drink and drive, with Derek & Clive!'. Cook saw us (four of us) sitting around a large round table, and asked if we would mind them joining us... we didn't of course! And spent the rest of the night in the company of the comic genius getting very drunk! Brilliant, one of my greatest memories! [
]The other Peter Cook (the racing one), I met a couple of years or so later in 1982, and have been friends with him ever since; he blames me for getting him into motor sport after I took him for a fast ride round our local town in a Lotus Esprit Turbo in 1985! [
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timarnold
New member
A complete brand new engine for the GT3RS S2 is £45K. To be honest they are quite cheap to run for track days. Bear in mind they are designed to run flat out for 24 hour races and everything about them is built for reliability. The chassis and suspension, engine and box will stand up to track days much better than a road car. The only downside is you have to trailer it to the track and you need some 'kit' to run it. You'll need a 'wheel gun' (either air or electric) for the centre-locks ('cause you'll soon get fed up with using a 6ft torque wrench!); a gas cylinder of either air or nitrogen (for some reason nitrogen is cheaper than air [&:]) for the air-jacks (you don't have to use the air-jacks but if the car's got them you're gonna want to aren't you? LOL); a set of rims with wets mounted in case it rains; and a dry-break fuel churn to refuel it with. That's not all of course, but they're probably the main things.
PhilRS
New member
Try this link and check the videos section for nice in-car laps
http://www.lehkeen.com/
Aside from the engine I am told that gearbox costs are also considerable.
This denotes an interesting bifurcation in the second hand 911 race car market then: The maintenance costs of the GT3 models together with their heavy depreciation would not give them the same sort of second life in the trackday scene as that of the 964 and 993 models. But judging by their numbers on trackdays, this does not seem to apply to the GT3 Cups, only to the R, RS and RSR. Any idea why?
I am also told that the suspension set-up of these cars (compared to the 964 and 993 CUPs) are much more critical and require genuine experts. Myth or reality?
http://www.lehkeen.com/
Aside from the engine I am told that gearbox costs are also considerable.
This denotes an interesting bifurcation in the second hand 911 race car market then: The maintenance costs of the GT3 models together with their heavy depreciation would not give them the same sort of second life in the trackday scene as that of the 964 and 993 models. But judging by their numbers on trackdays, this does not seem to apply to the GT3 Cups, only to the R, RS and RSR. Any idea why?
I am also told that the suspension set-up of these cars (compared to the 964 and 993 CUPs) are much more critical and require genuine experts. Myth or reality?
timarnold
New member
Well no, I'm serious. Pete would tell you. Next time we're all at Oulton I'll get him to come if he's not there already.
If you're not stressing everything as you would be when racing, the things are as reliable as a road car.
It depends on the gearbox - a sequential is expensive with high-maintenance costs; but the car we're selling currently has an h-pattern box in it. Flat-shift up-changes gain you a few essential 10ths in racing, but it really doesn't matter for track days! Engine wise, I know of one that's used on track days that's up to 85 hours without a rebuild; it's regularly leak tested to be on the safe side, and is still going strong.
GT3 Cups - there's a lot of them about that's why, and they aren't as far removed from a road car. Plus until recently they were much cheaper to buy; the proper race cars like the GT3R, RS, RSR being hugely more expensive to buy. The car I'm talking about about was circa £180K; I'm pretty sure Pete paid £120K for it s/h about 4 years ago; so it's a bargain at £55K, it's unlikely to drop much from there.
Suspension set up - is critical to good lap times. Again if you're racing and trying to dial in the perfect set up, yes you need a race engineer that knows exactly what he is doing. When Porsche build these cars the continue to develop them and customers have to buy upgrades to remain competitive. I remember Andy (Pete's engineer) having all the suspension of a brand new GT3RS soon after Pete bought it, to fit an upgrade that cost £13K! That involved new magnesium mounting brackets and wishbones, links etc... all just bolt on. The camber and castor is pretty much all pre-set (not much adjustment), all the mechanic has to do is set the tracking, ride heights, corner weights, roll bars and dampers. You put them on a standard set up and they will stay on it, only needing to put the bars on soft and knock the dampers back three clicks for the wet.
Very little goes wrong with them, all that's needed is a regular 'spanner-check', Compared to a road car (even an RS Club Sport) you're not stressing it on track days, whereas road cars get heavily stressed.
Look at the video I posted - that M3 was really trying and Den was tootling around like a pussy, yet still pressuring the M3!
Tim, you clearly know alot about it - far more than I do. I just cant help feeling that whilst it probably is reliable as a road car, as its not stressed, if/when something does need replacing it aint going to be road car prices.
Interestingly I had a good look around a mates cup car at Snetterton this week. And watched his mechanics prep the car before he went out in the Carrera Cup. I know racing is very different, but the setup and prep was a whole world away from trackdays.
Interestingly I had a good look around a mates cup car at Snetterton this week. And watched his mechanics prep the car before he went out in the Carrera Cup. I know racing is very different, but the setup and prep was a whole world away from trackdays.
DSCBoy
New member
IMHO GT3 Cup is a completely different world to a R/RS/RSR... Cup car is a glorified road car designed to run a season without major work... the R/RS/RSR is as Tim states a specific 24hr machine. When I raced LMES in 2004, we looked closely at costs on a GT3 RS at the time before plumping for the Lola LMP2... when I tell you the Lola cost £1 per second it was on the circuit in tyres/gearbox/engine/fuel only and it was the CHEAP option you'll see what I mean...
I had a friend running a GT3 RS competitively that year and he reckoned about on spending about £40k for a weekends running of which team costs were about £10k if I recall correctly, take out some entries etc and I think it was £25-30k for 8 hours of running. Which is basically £1 a second as well if my maths is right...
Clearly though you aren't going to stress it nearly as much on a trackday and you don't need to abuse engine/gearbox as much.... but I recall his visits to the parts truck always ending in tears... £300 for a small pulley wheel for the engine was I think his silliest bill...
So your differences are basically engine/ gearbox rebuilds and parts if you have a shunt I'd guess... everything uses tyres and brakes...
I had a friend running a GT3 RS competitively that year and he reckoned about on spending about £40k for a weekends running of which team costs were about £10k if I recall correctly, take out some entries etc and I think it was £25-30k for 8 hours of running. Which is basically £1 a second as well if my maths is right...
Clearly though you aren't going to stress it nearly as much on a trackday and you don't need to abuse engine/gearbox as much.... but I recall his visits to the parts truck always ending in tears... £300 for a small pulley wheel for the engine was I think his silliest bill...
So your differences are basically engine/ gearbox rebuilds and parts if you have a shunt I'd guess... everything uses tyres and brakes...
timarnold
New member
h, Phil, it's all relative really. As Rick says, running one in LMS could cost £30K - £40K per weekend, but a huge chunk of that is from entry fees, tyres, fuel, crew, transport etc..
Two teams I know that run in LMP2 reckon on £75K+ per weekend... I was involved in running a Viper in the 2003 Daytona 24 and our budget for that one event was £150K (and that was on a tight budget!)... the tyre bill was $25K! Porsche GT3RS runners were on similar costs.
But to run the GT3RS in say Britcar or British GT was costing Pete around £10K a weekend... now take into account that included entry fees of around £1000, tyres around £1500, a team of six (engineer, mechanics and gofers) crew.probably another £1500, fuel probably near a grand (GT and Britcar control fuel being about £4 a litre - but the car will fine on super unleaded from Tesco) and also factor in rebuilds @ racing levels i.e. £15000 - £20000 @ 25 - 30 hours on the motor, pads, disks, clutches, etc, etc, that you would be giving a lot of grief to in a 2 hour race, and other than that, the mechanical costs aren't that great.
We were doing Belcar a couple of years ago... the ferry charges for the truck and motor home came to over £2000! So when we talk about race budgets you have to realise it's not indicative of the realistic costs of taking the same car to a track day.
Two teams I know that run in LMP2 reckon on £75K+ per weekend... I was involved in running a Viper in the 2003 Daytona 24 and our budget for that one event was £150K (and that was on a tight budget!)... the tyre bill was $25K! Porsche GT3RS runners were on similar costs.
But to run the GT3RS in say Britcar or British GT was costing Pete around £10K a weekend... now take into account that included entry fees of around £1000, tyres around £1500, a team of six (engineer, mechanics and gofers) crew.probably another £1500, fuel probably near a grand (GT and Britcar control fuel being about £4 a litre - but the car will fine on super unleaded from Tesco) and also factor in rebuilds @ racing levels i.e. £15000 - £20000 @ 25 - 30 hours on the motor, pads, disks, clutches, etc, etc, that you would be giving a lot of grief to in a 2 hour race, and other than that, the mechanical costs aren't that great.
We were doing Belcar a couple of years ago... the ferry charges for the truck and motor home came to over £2000! So when we talk about race budgets you have to realise it's not indicative of the realistic costs of taking the same car to a track day.
Ummm yes, they are big figures. Tim, I see the point, and maybe they can be run at a reasonable cost as a trackday car. All of that said, I guess there currently arent many being run as such, and you wouldnt want to be one of the first, in case you got it wrong. I also think its harder to understand what state the car is in when you get it. Maybe if yours is well known, with good history, then its fine. I guess the horror stories will come in a few years, when people have tried to run in a minor series for minimal budgets and the cars come out on the trackday market tired!
In the interim, I'll stick to something that people have tracked for many years now at well understood costs. I am neither brave nor have deep pockets. [:-]. Now if I had Jay Leno's budget for cars....[]
In the interim, I'll stick to something that people have tracked for many years now at well understood costs. I am neither brave nor have deep pockets. [:-]. Now if I had Jay Leno's budget for cars....[
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Steve Brookes
Moderator
Tim, I think you should buy it yourself and rent it out at trackdays.....say £1,000 a day all in. I'm sure I could find someone to go halves with me to hire it from you []
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timarnold
New member
ORIGINAL: Steve Brookes
Tim, I think you should buy it yourself and rent it out at trackdays.....say £1,000 a day all in. I'm sure I could find someone to go halves with me to hire it from you [
Hahaha! Yes Steve and that would be a case of pig 'flew'... unless you want to lend me the £55K to buy it! [
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