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Track Mods

Lenny39

Well-known member
Joined
26 Oct 2018
Messages
104
Hi all, I'm 3 months into 997.2 C4S and enjoying it. However having come from various track focused Exiges, I would still like to go on the odd track day. My 911 is standard. Are there any obvious mods for track? 95% of the time it will be on the road rather than track.
 
Lenny
I'd recommend a geo set up from Centre Gravity. There is some great adjustability in the 997. I went down with a pig of a car handling wise, and I drove back home with a better GT car and a better sports car.
This required no additional parts. I'd also look at your tyre age, tread depth and brand. Wrong PSI can make the car feel broken and awful. Michelin MP4S tyres are generally considered the go to performance tyre if you don't have warranty to worry about.
That's a starting point that still gives you a nice street car. Past that, the options are endless
 
FZP said:
Penny
I'd recommend a geo set up from Centre Gravity. There is some great adjustability in the 997. I went down with a pig of a car handling wise, and I drove back home with a better GT car and a better sports car.
This required no additional parts. I'd also look at your tyre age, tread depth and brand. Wrong PSI can make the car feel broken and awful. Michelin MP4S tyres are generally considered the go to performance tyre if you don't have warranty to worry about.
That's a starting point that still gives you a nice street car. Past that, the options are endless

:agree:
 
Start with the brakes you find the limits of these before anything else.

GT3 Brake cooling Ducts front and rear and high temp brake fluid, Castrol SRF or Motul RBF660, both are very cost effective upgrades.

Decent pads will help further, Pagid RS42 are good dual use pad. RS29 are over kill unless your spending circa 70% of your car usage time on track.

Tyres and suspension would follow, what you do depends on how deep you wish to venture down the rabbit hole!

The standard suspension has limited adjustability, but a geo will confirm that it's all pointing in the right direction.

Lose weight where you can.

Dependent on how committed you are fitting a bucket seat make a significant difference versus sliding around on the standard leather arm chairs.
 
That's great feedback. Many thanks.

Car will need to lose weight because I'm certainly not!!
 
Some good points here, set yourself with a bit of an uphill struggle by going 4S after Exiges though in my mind.
 
crash7 said:
Start with the brakes you find the limits of these before anything else.

GT3 Brake cooling Ducts front and rear and high temp brake fluid, Castrol SRF or Motul RBF660, both are very cost effective upgrades.

Decent pads will help further, Pagid RS42 are good dual use pad. RS29 are over kill unless your spending circa 70% of your car usage time on track.

Tyres and suspension would follow, what you do depends on how deep you wish to venture down the rabbit hole!

The standard suspension has limited adjustability, but a geo will confirm that it's all pointing in the right direction.

Lose weight where you can.

Dependent on how committed you are fitting a bucket seat make a significant difference versus sliding around on the standard leather arm chairs.

Totally agree about the brakes. I do track days on bikes but last year I did a track session at Donington in my 997.2 turbo. The brakes were cooked after 2 laps and I was coasting to my brake markers thereafter. It wasn't just me either, Easternjets had the same issue.

Not a huge outlay- appropriate pads, braided hoses and a decent fluid will go a long to sorting things I'd say :thumbs:
 
The return of Marty Wild said:
Some good points here, set yourself with a bit of an uphill struggle by going 4S after Exiges though in my mind.

Agree. Although I purchased the 911 as a road car with the odd track day. The Exiges were all purchased as track cars used on the odd road. I'm not trying to make it like an Exige, just make a few mods. Brakes/Geo seems a sensible place to start. Is there anywhere in the South, I'm on the South East coast that does Geo set-up?

Cheers all.
 
I take my C4S to the track occasionally, and I would only add - in addition to the comments on tyres, brakes and alignment - that I liked the stiffer RSS engine mounts for better control of the 200kg engine out back, that the TPC Racing DSC controller was a very effective upgrade to the PASM, and that a paddleshift steering wheel is vital (if you have a PDK). All this assumimg you have a healthy car with lots of fresh fluids.
 
Best advice I can give you about tracking your C4S is 'don't'.

As Norfolk has said we both had the same issues with the same cars.

If you don't take my advice and let's face it most people don't! Then change your pads, change your fluid and put on braided hoses. If you can, get a second set of wheels, cheapies, and fit track tyres on such as Toyo's. Get your suspension checked and sorted and if you have the money spare uprate your shock's.

Most road cars are far too heavy to hustle around a track, you'll also get sick of guys in kit cars lapping you as you just can't compete with them at all no matter how much modding you do.
I took my 911 turbo, a supposed 'supercar' round Donington and flippin frightened myself with how bad it performed, trouble was it was too fast and with road brakes was just scary and as Norfolk says after 2 laps the brakes were 'toast'.
You can buy a S/H Boxster for 3 4 5 grand and have a lot more fun than with a valuable 911.
Another thing that became apparent at our Donington day was that lads in Corsa's and Civic's don't give a s##t about you in your Porsche so you'll be driving with your head spinning.
 
easternjets said:
Another thing that became apparent at our Donington day was that lads in Corsa's and Civic's don't give a s##t about you in your Porsche so you'll be driving with your head spinning.
No truer word spoken. :thumb:
 
If we want to open up the debate a bit, then I'd add that perhaps it's best to do club days, instead of open pit lane stuff. No-one wants to be the target, and I really don't want some knob in an Astra trying to outbrake me down the inside and just t-boning the car because he locked up.

In other words, you want to be in matched groups, ie cars with roughly the same speed, and drivers with roughly the same ability in events with excellent discipline (such as only overtaking on the straights).

I have driven at open track events, but the big (expensive) coupes with similar or more power (Jaguar, Maserati. BMW etc.) couldn't keep up with the 911 going into or out of the corners (ie under braking or accelerating out of the corners), and the drivers tended to outdrive themselves in frustration.

But this is just my experience, I've not driven a Turbo on the track (I've only chased them down).
 
My experience of 'club days' well Lotus ones has been very positive, open days...not so good. I was thinking of going down the 'club day' path.
 
A bit of an old thread revival, but I'm doing a TIPEC club evening at Donington next month, my first time on track.

I have changed to uprated brake fluid, fitted GT3 brake cooling ducts, had a geo, and oil change (fluid changes were all due anyway).

I have about 5mm left on brake pads, so am wondering whether to slip in some £70 brembo pads at the front for the sake of better heat dissipation? Discs are fine.

First time on track, but I don't want to be curtailed by brake fade after a couple of laps. I also don't want to have to replace pads the next day! :nooo:

Am I likely to eat up standard pads with 5mm remaining in 3hours of track time (open pit lane)? I have no idea.....???

I realise that pagid RS4-2 as mentioned above are a more serious pad, but are they really twice as good as the brembos from CP4L? (cost is double)

Would there be a downside of fitting new pagid RS4-2 to used discs?

Will it be detrimental to have newer pads up front than at the rear?

:roll:
 
Change fluid to a Dot 5 fluid or Race fluid.

Yes the Pagid's are worth every penny and perform brilliantly on std discs. You can fit them to your used discs just remember to run them for a few weeks before to get them bedded in.

Most of your braking, probably 80% is on the front. Personally if I was doing a lot of track stuff I'd put the pagid's all round.

Even though you have 3 hrs of open pit lane I'd be surprised if you do more than 15 mins at a time, it's pretty knackering especially if it's hot.

Donington is a good circuit, just watch the first corner at the end of the pit straight, it's tighter than you think!
 

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