What's between you and the open road? (A850 Porsche 996)

[Fit4aking]

Spanky's Speedshop first jump into the mysterious world of Rear Engine Rear Wheel Drive.  

That's right, Porsche Tuning.  A recent trip to Italy allowed a short day trip to Germany.  After a brief tour of the Factory I was inspired.  The latter part of our tour took us to the re-asseembled display of an old Guggenhiem automotive show.  Suprisingly enough there were several versions of the car for sale.  After little disussion and some head scratching, 3 were loaded up and ready for the states.  

This is car #1, the 996.  Keepin it simple and not trying to get in over my head I decided to keep it in A-class.  I ran it stock and absolutely hated it.  I changed my braking points and found the car only slightly unstable, mostly due to my late and trail braking tendencies.  More "nut behind the wheel" adjustments and it was much better.  Platforming only made it better and just a few quick adjustments made it very predictable.  Dare I say that I was fairly comfortable driving this car.  The A-class Professional series saw me very close to my Tuscan S time on Maple Valley and beating it around Road Atlanta.  I look forward to more testing and I really think that the car will teach me more about my driving than anything else.  More laps to come as well as a finalized build, so far the car is powerful enough and the extra grip made a big difference.  I think I will compare the cars times to other German cars instead of overall times, unless I start beating them all.  (You hear that Bimmer, I'm tired of chasing your M3's around)

So, What's between you and the open road.

[fndrbndr]

FF paintjob on an RR car....cool. 

Also, this is the only drivetrain I haven't really played with.  I'll be following along.  Might even build one of these things.  Dunno what Doc will say, though.

[Matio612]

Wow, what a great design... done by you?

Will you share this tune with us?

[Fit4aking]

So far I've only changed one or two settings from default.  I lowered the car 2 clicks and decreased the decel diff setting by 5 to help with the off throttle oversteer I was having.  Other than that I haven't gone totally through the car yet.  It looks promising and I will definately post the tune when I'm more comfortable with it.

That way you guys can pick it apart and make it better. 

[dredawg83]

Is that a final fantasy paint job I see on that hot little porsche?

[Fit4aking]

It most definately is.  Its one of 3 that I have from Fruitster.  All are awesome!  Its just a shame that I've had them for so long and rarely drive the cars.

My current build/tune list includes all of my aquired paints.

[Detrick]

Adjusting the brake bias forward to 52% helped my oversteer issue when braking on these cars.  I, like you, love to trail brake but found the rear end wanting to swap with the front.  I've been working with the 997 RS recently and am falling in love with it.  I've got one in A-class one I bumped to S900.  My next little project will be to apply feuer's V5 calc. to it and see what happens.

I'll be following your progress here.  Good luck.

[Fit4aking]

I ran the crap out of this car this weekend, tweeking as I go.  I really like this car, its very fast, launches well, maintains speed well, and has suprised me on no less than 3 tracks.  I've chased down several Fairlady Vers. S's on Maple Valley, Ruined a pair of AWD 432's day on Sunset Infield, and ran away from a room full of TKR (?) Team guys on Suzuka East.

It really is a go-to car.  I guess I should start picking it first and getting real familiar with it.

I still haven't Biased or SWR'ed the car!!  So far its all by feel (and Matio's gear set).

[fndrbndr]

It seemed pretty hard to keep up with when we were running.  Sweet car, man.  Guess this just reinforces the old wisdom of driving it default first, eh?

[Blooze]

It seemed pretty hard to keep up with when we were running.  Sweet car, man.  Guess this just reinforces the old wisdom of driving it default first, eh?

Amen Brother!!! 

$

[Fit4aking]

After a lot of tweeking, and not a lot of improvement I think this car is close to done.  I needed something to test it against but decided that another RR car in the same class would be best.  What to do, what to do.....I guess I'll just build them all. 

So that's what I did.  I went and build out all of the Porsches.  Almost, still haven't touched the Carrera GT or the 959 but every other one is done.  Boy are these cars fun.  I can't believe I overlooked them for so long.  The 996 is a real gem, the 997 T is a great car, but the 997 AWD gives me fits.  My newest favorite is the 911 T 3.3.  I kept each car in the class is started in so no huge improvements, no engine swaps, no drastic changes.  These are really good cars to begin with and minor builds make big differences. 

Online I like them cause noone gives grief and I've been able to run away on several occasions.  I set several to 200 times in Exhibition in both A and B class and I think I'll have these as go-to cars in the future.  Looks like I'll have to finalice the builds and post them up soon. 

[fndrbndr]

Sweetness.  Guess I'd better find some upper-class Tiny Terrors, then...hehe.  Actually, I may start messing with some of these myself.  Very informative, Fit.  Thanks for posting this.

[Fit4aking]

Decided to write down the tune and share with the rest of the class.  Its still not 100% of what it could be but I'm very comfortabe driving it.  By no means do I consider it done and it can be improved on I just stopped making large changes in lap times so I consider it very close.  Thanks to Matio for the trans setup, it works very well.

The Build
Engine Parts: Race Exhaust
Platform Parts: Full Race, Sport Weight Redux
Tires and Wheels:
     Tire Type/Brand: BF Goodrich Sport
     Rim Style: Fikse Mach V
     Rim Width: 255/35-18 (ft) 315/30-18 (rr)
Spoilers and Diffusers: None

The Toon
Tire Pressure:
     Front: 28
     Rear: 29
Gearing:
     Final Drive:  3.55
     (1-6): 3.16, 2.13, 1.72, 1.40, 1.15, 0.96
Alignment:
     Camber Front: -0.8
     Camber Rear: -0.7
     Toe Front: 0.1
     Toe Rear: 0.0
     Caster: 5.5
Anti Sway Bars:
     Front: 13.42
     Rear: 8.23
Springs:
     Front: 362.5
     Rear: 591.4
Dampers:
     Rebound Front: 6.2
     Rebound Rear: 10.1
     Bound Front: 3.1
     Bound Rear: 5.0
Aero Adjustment:
     Splitter (Ft):
     Spoiler (Rr):
Brake Bias:
     Bias: 48%
     Pressure: 100%
Differential:
     Acceleration: 70
     Deceleration: 60