Doug's Gen 2 987 Cayman S

[Dougle_turbo]

My favourite shot from C&M on Saturday.

[Dougle_turbo]

Just got the car back after having the rear coffins arms and control arms replaced. The Nurburgring took its toll on one of the coffin arms (started squeaking on the way home), so decided it was time to get them and the control arms done.

 

It'll be interesting to see how it goes at Anglesey on Monday. I decided it would be rude not to take a two day road trip through Wales beforehand, can't wait!

[Dougle_turbo]

I've been a bit slack recently uploading any of my track shenanigans.

 

This was from Snetterton a few weeks ago. Sorry the exposure is a bit OTT, this new GoPro is crap.

 

 

 

[GlosRich]

Hi Dougle,

 

Cool video. About to do my first track day, can you help with a couple of questions?

 

Which android app is best Harrys or RaceChrono?

 

What bracket do you mount the camera between the seats with?

 

Thanks

 

Rich

 

[Dougle_turbo]

I use Harrys, but haven't tried race chrono so can't really comment. 

 

I use a handle bar mount clamped to the metal bar thing. I use foam double sided tape to pad the clamp out so the it grips the bar (other wise it flaps about).

 

If you haven't changed your brake fluid recently then get it done before the track day. The number 1 reason for brakes overheating is crappy fluid boiling.

 

Enjoy, you will become addicted!

 

[Dougle_turbo]

I was just enjoying this month's Evo magazine this morning and bam! I see my car in an article!

[Dougle_turbo]

It’s been a little while since I’ve given you all an update on the car and I’ve had a few little bits going on.

 

First up, an averted disaster. I was at Bedford a few weeks ago enjoying myself thoroughly on track when bam, I suffered a total brake failure. Coming up to the 4th corner (which is a left - right affair) I stood on the brakes at around 100mph, as normal, and got nothing. Looking straight ahead there was some of run off, and then a metal gate and a tyre barrier. I didn’t fancy using these instead of the brakes so managed to change down and gently steer the car across the grass just missing the barrier and eventually re-joining the track. Not ideal.

 

Having limped into the pits I checked the car over and found that one of the Goodridge SS hoses I fitted only 9 months ago had split (front left)!

 

Not wanting to call the whole day off I set about trying to find a replacement, and after calling around I managed to source a standard front brake line. The incident occurred just before lunch and I was able (with the help of a good Samaritan) go and collect the hose and some new fluid and get back out on track around 3pm. This is why I always carry a pit box!

 

Once home I thought about the failure and it’s quite worrying really, imagine if it had split on a Welsh mountain road, or on a less forgiving track?

 

I spoke with Goodrige and they sent me some new lines and have taken the old line back to have a look. The guy I was dealing with had never heard of a failure and apparently they are rated to 2200psi.

 

 

Next up was shredding a tyre at Donington. It was my fault for staying out too long trying to catch a mates M3, but a lot of the reason was camber, well a lack of. So not wanting to ruin more tyres I decided to get some adjustable LCAs. A friend of mine had a 997 turbo which he ran on Elephant racing LCAs (front and rear), but he hated them and did around 500 miles before taking the whole lot off. I figured there was a deal to be done and took the whole lot off his hands, so 4 x LCAs and some Eurocup GT adjustable front castors arms!

 

I’ve now fitted the LCAs and castor arms up front and decided to dial in a pretty aggressive   -2.5. Effectively the front is now rose jointed (no more bushes) and I was concerned that it would trash the ride and feel harsh, not to mention tram lining on bad roads due to the camber. Thankfully I needn’t have worried because the car feels amazing. If anything I’d say the ride has actually improved and I’ve barely noticed any extra road noise (almost none) and it feels on rails. Really looking forward to Brands to give it a run out on the 14th.

 

Finally, as you may have noticed in other post, I decided to sort out the steering wheel position. It’s always been something I haven’t been comfortable with on the car because I can’t get the steering wheel close enough, especially when on track. So I’ve gone for an OMP Corsica with a Works Bell QR mated to a Momo adaptor. Having worked out that some plastic need trimming it all went on very easily. The setup has brought the wheel a lot closer than it was before, like almost 200mm closer! But now its sits perfectly for track work.

 

 

The other nice thing is that I used a spare steering wheel wiring harness to put resistors in for the airbags and to wire up the horn. This means I don’t need to disable the drivers airbag with my Durametric Pro, and can swap to OEM wheel and airbag if I want to really easily.

 

That does mean I now have 2 spare OEM steering wheels, one is a sport design wheel which could be a good project for someone. Its been through the wars a bit (the previous owner) but the Alacantara is in good condition. It will need a wiring harness, I’d be tempted to sell it if anyone is interested.

 

Anyway, if you’ve read this far well done, you must be very bored by now!

 

D

Edited August 5, 2019 by Dougle_turbo

[sevenfourate]

Nice update.

 

That's mental on the braided line. A rare failure indeed. Not that that's much help to you ! Thank goodness you got out of it ok. That could have been so-so much worse as you rightly say.......

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by sevenfourate

[Dougle_turbo]

Latest upgrade teaser, factory aerokit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sam@IoM]

Nice update.

 

Brake failure on track is bloody scary! Good on you for not parking it in the barrier! Looks like corrosion on the hose, possibly due to the outer sleeve having a hole in? Will replace with like of like or try a different brand?

 

Any pictures of the camber? I am really tempted to fit adjustable LCAs to the R just need the courage ha! What tyres are you running?

[Dougle_turbo]

The hose was less than 6 months old, so I'd be surprised if it were a corrosion problem. They replaced the lines so I decided to keep with the same brand. Fingers crossed.

 

I'll take some pictures of the camber for you at the weekend. I'd highly recommend going adjustable, it really has transformed the car, despite it being very good to start with!

 

 

[Dougle_turbo]

Hi all! Sorry I've been so quiet.

 

The business had me very busy, until this Virus took hold and now I've been busy trying not to go bust! Anyway - I have been doing some bits to the car along the way. 

 

First up - Donington track day in early January. This was great until the brake vacuum servo pump decided to come adrift on the back straight and ate itself. Initially I thought the engine had gone pop due to the noise but after limping into the pits I was able to identify the damaged part. Thankfully it wasn't a particularly expensive fix (£500 supply and fit from my Indy). A big shout out to Eporsch in Surrey for getting it sorted so quickly.

 

Next in the diary was a trip to Center Gravity. I had been wanting to get the car over there for ages and finally got booked in for some work. As some of you may remeber I have Elephant Racing lower control arms up front with Eurocup GT adjustable toe arms (so all joints are monoball). This transformed the cars ability to turn in. When these were put on I left the rear for the time being, wanting to see how the front performed. This left a camber mismatch between front and rear of about 1 deg which hasn't caused any problems, but was something I wanted to rectify. So my brief to Chris at CoG, was to fit Elephant Racing rear control arms along with Elephant Racing adjustable toe control arms. Then perform a full geo and set the car to -3 degrees of camber all round. The car now feels even more urgent in its ability to change direction, but I haven't been able to explore its ability on track yet. The car now has no rubber in its suspension arms. As a result (expected) the road noise has increased a little (as it did when I fitted the arms to the front only) but it's not too bad. I can still listen to the radio without issue, along with holding a conversation on the hands free.

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it) I noticed a weep on the one of the coolant hoses while the work was being completed. So now I'm going to replace the whole lot - (if I can get the parts while we are on lock down!) along with one of the jobs that has been on my to do list - the addition of a central radiator and GT3 RS smile vent. I'm really hoping that I can get the pipes out without dropping the subframe otherwise I'll have to get the geo done again !!!😓

 

In preparation, I started taking the front bumper off yesterday and managed to remove most of the coolant hoses - apart from the aforementioned cross over pipes. I'll carry on battling those today. Hopefully the center rad kit will arrive today and I can get that fitted and order the required replacement pipes.

 

This work was all in preparation for planned track days at Bedford on 30th March and then Nurburgring on 8th April, obviously these have now been cancelled. Who knows when I'll be able to get on track again. Hopefully soonish.

 

Anyway I hope you're all keeping well in these crazy times. I'll post some photos and updates when I get a chance later today/tomorrow.

[sevenfourate]

Self employed do i take it ?? I've kept away from the news / social media the last couple of days as there's a lot of scaremongery and crap around. I'm well aware how obviously dangerous this is - and have been keeping myself to myself. I gather theres news of self-employed workers from Boris tomorrow ?

 

Anyway - sounds great on the car. Looking forward to seeing the bumper vent especially !!!  "A slight upside having a little time to indulge right now"........

 

Take care buddy 😎

 

 

[PMGPete]

Great update.  That's one very sorted car.  Have you went down the route of a quick shift at all yet?  Our cars seem to follow a similar direction and that was next on my list lol

[Dougle_turbo]

Hi Pete,

 

Thanks, the car is really coming on now. Think I'm going to put on the H+R roll bar kit on for good measure while I'm waiting for the hoses.

 

Yes I have already fitted a quick shift unit. I think I did a little write up on it, not a difficult task but certainly time consuming. The most difficult bit was separating the actual gear knob from the existing unit! 

[Dougle_turbo]

16 hours ago, sevenfourate said:

Self employed do i take it ?? I've kept away from the news / social media the last couple of days as there's a lot of scaremongery and crap around. I'm well aware how obviously dangerous this is - and have been keeping myself to myself. I gather theres news of self-employed workers from Boris tomorrow ?

 

Anyway - sounds great on the car. Looking forward to seeing the bumper vent especially !!!  "A slight upside having a little time to indulge right now"........

 

Take care buddy 😎

 

 

Something like that - hopefully these measures are effective and we can crack on with some work.

[Dougle_turbo]

@PMGPete Have a look back on this thread, page 2 - December 2018 was when I installed it. There's a link to a help full video.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Dougle_turbo

[Dougle_turbo]

Hi guys,

 

Hope you are all keeping well.

 

So I've finally managed to finish changing all of the radiator pipes and hoses at the front end, along with installing a third radiator and GT3 RS front grill and HR front and rear ARBs. For the most part it was very straightforward. However bleeding the system (even with a Vacuum system) was a serious PITA. I took me several days to get it sorted!

 

Adding the third radiator was super easy, bumper off, assemble and mount radiator, remove bungs in existing rads, connect pipes and that's it. If I did it again I would probably buy the parts separately - instead of buying the kit. I say this because the kit from Porsche shop comes with the 987 mounting bracket - what I didn't realise at the time (despite trying to check online) is that the GT3 RS mounting bracket sits at a different angle and sends the air up and through the smile vent. The 987 bracket forces the air under the car which will reduce downforce. Witht he 3 RS there is also a second air guide which funnels the air though the smile vent. As a halfway house I have adjusted the angle of the 987 bracket which will allow air up and out through the vent. If it becomes apparent it's not working correctly then I'll get the 3 RS parts.

 

Changing the front hoses was a little more difficult but if you're confident with spanners it's pretty straight forward. I was able to get the old hoses out without dropping the subframe - but strangely couldn't get the new ones back in. This didn't matter because I was doing the ARB at the same time, which needs the sub frame dropping to get in and out. For those of you who are thinking of doing the radiator pipes I would recommend dropping the subframe as it gives you loads more room to work.

 

Changing the ARBs is easy once you have dropped the front subframe. The rear ARB comes out easily.

 

The GT3 RS 'smile vent' was a little more tricky. I didn't bother spending the £80 plus for the metal template and made my own from cardboard. A word of warning: The internal shape of the vent is very different to the outside. It would be very easy to get this wrong and cut the hole too big. Again I didn't bother buying clips to hold it in place and just made my own clips. Doing it this way saved a lot of money but won't be for everyone. 

 

As I mentioned above, bleeding was a total bitch. I'm not sure why it took so long but I persevered in the end. I'll put a link below for the best procedure I could find. It worked eventually. 

 

Anyway, now I just need to wait until this all blows over and then I can see how the car feels with the new geo setup and ARBs.

 

Stay safe people.

 

https://www.planet-9.com/threads/diy-coolant-flush-fill-and-bleeding-procedure.237653/

 

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Dougle_turbo

[Andrea]

Coming along super nicely Dougle!! 

Regarding the front radiator normally you need to cut a section of the under trays/cover to let the air escape as the radiator is facing down.  As you said there is an alternative inverted bracket to make sure the air points upwards. Otherwise the GT3 smile is pure aesthetic and no function. 

 

I've read somewhere you are running -3 degree of camber at the rear, I wouldn't go that far, you might find the rear end a bit too floaty on hard breaking. Instead a maximum of -2.5 rear and -2.8  front is ideal. Hope this helps. Obviously depends what caster angle you are going for (non adjustable VS adjustable LCA bushings) and toe overall toe of course.

 

Stunning motor man!

[Dougle_turbo]

Thanks  @Andrea!

 

I have put some packers into the existing radiator bracket that should now channel the air out of the smile vent. It's a bit of a bodge, but I'm hoping it'll work (I'll take some photos.)

 

I have gone for -3 all round for the camber under the recommendation of Chris @ Center Gravity. The car is running adjustable LCAs and toe control arms all round, I'll see how it goes. Chris will dial it back for me if it's a little loose under braking.