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YAWN WARNING: 964RS ARE UNDERVALUED!


ORIGINAL: ChrisW


Choose, so what cars would we put up as good inexpensive prospects ?


???

:)
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Hi Chris , you have sampled more of the Porsche line-up than a lot of us and your road cars have always been interesting and probably good value when resold .
Steve 'boxsey' came up with an interesting call, a 996C2 as used in Club Championships with a bit of fettling to the oil system ( to avoid starvation in the turns) and a lot of stripping out could be a cost effective platform for tracking . Cheap to buy a road car , and maybe a ready sorted 'circuit' car could come available , bit like my 964C2 . Parts cheap , lots of choice of indies to maintain it , can run 17 or 18 inch wheels / tyres . I put 80,000 road miles on a '98 3.4 C2 without any engine dramas and it was the cheapest long term Porsche I have run ( if you ignore depreciation !!!!! )

PS exclude 996 Cup Cars......different economics [:D]

 
Racing Porsches is never going to be cheap, maybe 944 / 924s actually. But a 911 is going to 1 tonne in race trim which is going to hurt on wear.

As Chris points out racing a car puts a lot of strain on it, and you end up replacing parts as a result. Road cars dont like it.

As for Caterhams it depends on the car, we run a 1.6K series, you could by a crate engine for 5k, when I raced, but equally we had a sealed engine, with a single builder who would do a top end for 1200 pounds. As it was sealed, there was no performance advantage to be had, We did a head refresh once a year, that was it. I blew my engine up (poor maintainance, and got a second hand engine for 1000pounds including fitting, we still got that car on the podium.

If you race R300s its going to cost a lot more.

The Jedi wasnt cheap, it followed colin chapmans principle and broke a lot as a result. but for a car that would carry that amount of performance, it was a bargin. When you can lap faster than an Intersteps car at Donnington, and about the same pace as an F3 at Spa but you are spending 1/10th of the money, you can expect some issues.

Racing something MX5, clios, caterhams, westfields, clubmans, can all be done for 10-15k a year.

However, none of that touches the experience of driving a sorted 65 car amoungst a full historic grid, or even with RSRs etc. And there is the problem, for us (All of us), the others give their thrills, but we actually want to race 911s, and its never going to be cheap.

maybe we should all play the lottery instead
 
Actually, I owned a fantastic MX5 ... now there's a thought :)

John, anything 996/997/Boxster/Cayman Gen1 is a prospective disaster.

Even Hartech refreshed their engines mid-season -- that would be at around 10 hours.

Pete Morris lunched his engine just before mine went at Snetterton last year. In fact he saved me --- I would have been a DNF if they hadn't stopped the race due to debris on the track and back calculated the placings by one lap !

I think the 964 is a real sweet spot ...
 
Guessing I should throw my rules of track fun into the mix:

1) DON'T build a track car/race car. Always buy one ready done. Economics are terrible otherwise.
2) Anything on slicks is more fun than the best Supercar on the track. I've had as much fun in a £3k Renault 5 Turbo as a LMP2 car.
3) I've been there Chris W, 2013 I broke 2 * 924 Turbo engines, gearbox in a DB2 Aston and 3 engines in the Flower. Racing like that is expensive and NOT satisfying at all. But when it all comes together...
4) Don't race anything you can't afford to fix. The enjoyment is never going to be the same.

If I was in the market for a track toy? I'd buy a 2000 onwards Clio race car. Sequential shift, unburstable engine, just throw some slicks on it and you'll have endless amounts of fun.
 

ORIGINAL: ChrisW

John, anything 996/997/Boxster/Cayman Gen1 is a prospective disaster.

Even Hartech refreshed their engines mid-season -- that would be at around 10 hours.

Pete Morris lunched his engine just before mine went at Snetterton last year. In fact he saved me --- I would have been a DNF if they hadn't stopped the race due to debris on the track and back calculated the placings by one lap !

I think the 964 is a real sweet spot ...
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I can see where you're coming from where racing is concerned. Engines are bound to suffer when subjected to the stress of racing. Even without something failing they get rebuilt after a number of hours. I believe the Paragon 964s get rebuilt each season even though they're supposed to more robust than the M96 engines. However, do you think a 996 (Mk1 3.4 which seem to be the most robust even though not the quickest) with Hartech style engine mods would still be a great risk as a track day build? Those of us who only do trackdays are unlikely to stress them anywhere near as much as one that is raced i.e. we drive them slower, don't use slicks and probably apply more mechanical sympathy because we have to drive them to and from the track.

Building a 996 track car is something I've been thinking about because even a 964C2 is getting to the point where they could become too valuable to track. There was a time that it did not make economical sense to build a 996 track car because the total cost would add up to nearly the price of a 996GT3. However the latter are now shooting up in value since the arrival of the latest digital GT3s. Hence why I think it could become viable?
 

ORIGINAL: DSCBoy

1) DON'T build a track car/race car. Always buy one ready done. Economics are terrible otherwise.
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A very experienced racer told me one day that you better buy a car, which is race ready AND directly from the track, where you could testdrive it.


ORIGINAL: DSCBoy

If I was in the market for a track toy? I'd buy a 2000 onwards Clio race car. Sequential shift, unburstable engine, just throw some slicks on it and you'll have endless amounts of fun.
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I followed one of those in 2006 at a trackday in Oschersleben - these things are NOT slow. The money to fun ratio is probably unbeatable.


But: That´s a different story. For the Porsche enthusiast nothing replaces the feeling of being on track in a Porsche. From my personal point of view clubsport and trackdays in a Porsche 964 Cup were fun - I wouldn´t have exchanged that for proper racing in a Clio. No matter how much fun these cars probably are. The solution? Enjoy a Porsche on track from time to time and -if you´re a racer- race a Clio or anything like it.

How to make a small fortune in racing? Start with a large one!


Regards,

Hacki
 
Well, I went down the Clio racing route (admittedly a MK1 Cup Car, so pre sequential box and other trick bits - essentially a shopping car with a climbing frame in it !), and having started with what I thought to be a sound, sorted, base, over the past three years have proceeded to spend more on it than it would have cost me to buy a fully sorted 944 or 968 race car, and without the benefit of ending up with a properly competitive racer !
Whilst the Clio is huge fun, and if running on slicks would be an absolute weapon, the real lesson I have learnt is that there is no substitute for raw grunt. If you start with a hot hatch, the only way to get it to compete with more powerful machinery is to spend money adding a lot of lightness and then winding everything up to 11. You then create unreliability as the car is stressed beyond its original design capacity. Granted the newer Clio Cups are much more capable things right out of the box, and are rightly a viable alternative.
It's no surprise that in the categories that most of us are likely to race in, it is reliability that tends to be the key, and time and time again it is the Porsches that find themselves at the front of the fields. They are the best engineered and generally the least stressed even under race conditions.
A well sorted 968 running on slicks will be (in trackday terms) as quick as anything up to, and including, GT3s and will cost you less than £15k, plus you will still have a car with reasonable residual value as and when you decide to move on.
If I was to start down the racing route today, knowing what I do now, I would have spent a bit more initially and bought a 944 / 968 over the Clio, and would have ended up spending much less overall and retained much more residual value.
Hence I bought the 968 CS to take over trackday duties from the RS. Still not cheap to run (just going into Parr to have leaking JRZ shocks rebuilt - £1,800+VAT !!!), but a very capable car, and a new challenge. Meanwhile the Clio is going into semi-retirement.
 

ORIGINAL: Steve Brookes


ORIGINAL: ChrisW

John, anything 996/997/Boxster/Cayman Gen1 is a prospective disaster.

Even Hartech refreshed their engines mid-season -- that would be at around 10 hours.

Pete Morris lunched his engine just before mine went at Snetterton last year. In fact he saved me --- I would have been a DNF if they hadn't stopped the race due to debris on the track and back calculated the placings by one lap !

I think the 964 is a real sweet spot ...
Click to expand...

I can see where you're coming from where racing is concerned. Engines are bound to suffer when subjected to the stress of racing. Even without something failing they get rebuilt after a number of hours. I believe the Paragon 964s get rebuilt each season even though they're supposed to more robust than the M96 engines. However, do you think a 996 (Mk1 3.4 which seem to be the most robust even though not the quickest) with Hartech style engine mods would still be a great risk as a track day build? Those of us who only do trackdays are unlikely to stress them anywhere near as much as one that is raced i.e. we drive them slower, don't use slicks and probably apply more mechanical sympathy because we have to drive them to and from the track.

Building a 996 track car is something I've been thinking about because even a 964C2 is getting to the point where they could become too valuable to track. There was a time that it did not make economical sense to build a 996 track car because the total cost would add up to nearly the price of a 996GT3. However the latter are now shooting up in value since the arrival of the latest digital GT3s. Hence why I think it could become viable?
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The rpm technik 996 csr looks a nice overall package at mid 20's re: outlay
 
Lots of experience accumulating here ...

1. Yes it is better to buy a race car than to build one.
2. Choose something without a history of unreliability.
3. 944 / 968 are serious options, but still go wrong.
4. Racing is expensive ...

How much cheaper is a 968CS than a 964 C2 like John's ??

Chris
 
ORIGINAL: ChrisW

How much cheaper is a 968CS than a 964 C2 like John's ??
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From tonight's weekly meeting of the NorthWest 964 club, down the pub, our conclusions went something like...

Quite a lot cheaper
Probably just as quick because they're easier to drive

..but they don't get the pulse racing like a 911....so it looks like we'll be keeping on tracking our 964s because they're still the sweet spot [;)]
 

ORIGINAL: DSCBoy


If I was in the market for a track toy? I'd buy a 2000 onwards Clio race car. Sequential shift, unburstable engine, just throw some slicks on it and you'll have endless amounts of fun.
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Exactly! Just bought a 2002 genuine clio cup, running it on slicks

I would add one other element for cost effective racing - race in single make class racing. Why are MX5 caterham, etc so cheap? Its because you cant spend money on making them go faster, you focus on car setup and the driver much more.

The rules are written to ensure a level (ish) playing field, that is focussed on keeping the costs down.

 
We've been here before, how many people have swapped from 964 to 968 for track use and stuck with it for a long time, happily being thrilled and challenged for years on end without swapping back? Not many, the thrill isn't there. I like 944s/968s but they are not as rewarding as a good 911.

See you all at Curborough in November and at various tracks next year!

As for Kevin's origional post, I would entirely understand if he seriously limits the track time in his lovely new car.
 

ORIGINAL: ian harvey

We've been here before, how many people have swapped from 964 to 968 for track use and stuck with it for a long time, happily being thrilled and challenged for years on end without swapping back? Not many, the thrill isn't there. I like 944s/968s but they are not as rewarding as a good 911.
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Probably correct, but for the time being it's a new toy to play with and learn, plus it's still a rare Porsche. I anticipate being quite happy with it for the foreseeable... I can get a full spare set of wheels in the car, so don't need to wear down my track tyres with road driving. I can turn on the aircon (gasp ! yes, aircon, and I love it !), wind the shocks back to full soft and drive to and from the track in great comfort. The 6 speed box also makes it a very relaxed motorway mile-muncher.
Yes, it lacks the noise and drama of the 964, but is no slouch - I suspect real-world pretty much as fast as the 964 and with performance that is easier to exploit.
I accept that those who do a LOT of trackdays might tire of it, but as I am unlikely to do much more than half a dozen days a year, the boredom threshold is still quite a long way away.
If it all goes wrong I content myself with the fact that I have only £14,000 at risk, rather than £100+ for the RS.......
The other problem is that the RS phenomenon has dragged up the C2 RS-alikes, thus the old C2 that I sold 8 years ago for £15,000 would now cost me over £30,000 to get back into - and that arithmetic just doesn't work for me. With 20:20 hindsight the C2 would have been a great car to keep. After I sold it it was stolen off the street in Maida Vale, then found over a year later stripped at a race-shop somewhere up North (shell and parts of the engine anyway). So unknowingly parts of my old car will have found their way into many other 964s and RS replicas...............
 
No, fair enough, quite a compelling defence. I often look at similar cars that i might share with my son now that he's passed his test.

Being a Porsche, they may well tolerate a good few track days without reliability issues.
 
And to be fair, this is all about FUN [:)]

These cars are our fun, the driving and the cameraderie that goes with them ...

 
Interesting one and I would like to a couple of pence to the discussion. My time with what was considered to be one of the best 964 RS's in Europe was a true pleasure and I am real fan of these cars. Unfortunately even with 300 odd horses they aren't that much fun on track and on numerous RMA days the thought of getting 'swiped' by all and sundry in their race prepped Fiesta's meant you were always on tender hooks. I purchased my 968CS from a doctor in Edinburgh and spent a nice load of hard earnt on making it an out and out track car that stands me at just short of £20k. It is a truly awesome piece of kit and a genuine giant killer. Less is more and whilst a 3.0 litre SC is under my gaze as a project car (road) I feel very comfortable sliding my purple front engined 68 round in the wet knowing if we have an off and do couple of grands worth of damage whilst harassing more powerful 911's, Kevin at EMC will light a fag and say well done (not oh shit) .........

Big Dave.
 
That sounds like Kevin :)

Alex wasn't quite so optimistic for the fortunes of the engine of my Gen 1 Cayman at Donny. Unfortunately !!

Still waiting for the prognosis, so I guess I may be lucky ...
 
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