Porsche Cayman 981 Black Edition

[rex]

Thanks buddy! 

And the promised photos with the car "in action":









Some stiffer ARB's are definitely needed:






Next up... video / videos (after I have some time to edit them). Stay tuned!

[Jakey]

Very nice. also love the colour of that GT sport 

[rex]

Cheers! 

[rex]

And the fastest lap of the trip:

Not that proud of this lap as I usually am, because there were less times when I was on the limit than I would have liked. Anyway, it's a solid starting point.
Also I am struggling a bit with selecting the proper gear for some bends because of the huge difference with the Golf's gearing.
Like I previously said, my best time with the Golf was 8:56 but it was a much better lap than with the Porsche. Nonetheless, I managed 8:30 with the Porsche and it all comes down to the power difference 160 bhp vs 275 bhp.

This was the 6th lap of the trip (out of a total of 7) and I will probably post the 7th one as well because I follow a Seat Cupra 330bhp (advertised), 1200kg and it may be interesting...

Like always, any comments/advice are welcomed.

[rex]

Before continuing with the European road trip, I will post the pictures I just got from the first track day with the car (from the Hungarian Formula 1 track - Hungaroring)  :















 

[rex]

Returning to the Nurburgring trip, after my best lap (the 6th lap in the Porsche), I still had one more lap to go. I decided to take my wife along and to have a closing, not very aggressive lap:

The BTG time is irrelevant because I was slowed down a lot by traffic (Fox Hole - Fuchsröhre for example has cost a lot of seconds), but what is interesting is the "duel" I have with a rental Seat Cupra - I have to slow down for some traffic on Kesselchen, the Cupra overtakes me and I follow it till the end.
The Cupra has 330bhp, 1200kg (full specs here) and I am quite surprised of the fact that sometimes, I have to short shift not to get to close... Even if I have 275 horses, they seem to be very healthy 

Next up, THE FIRST MOD 

[rex]

So, first mod... I bet this is not quite what people expected...
I got to have the ISOFIX kit installed. The kit comes with the ISOFIX mounts and with a way to deactivate the passengers airbag.
Images below:









Unfortunately, one of the mechanics the Stuttgart Porsche Dealer (where I had the car serviced and the ISOFIX installed) scratched my Aluminum interior trim (the part that opens the cup holders) so now I have to change that part too... I am a bit upset of the way the Dealer handled the situation but the trim should all be their expense.

[rex]

And one more thing about that Nurburgring trip, but I am afraid it's not a good news...
On the return trip, I came through Italy (btw, went on that highway bridge that collapsed 2 weeks after in Genoa, killing 35 people) and 15 km from the Slovenian border, I managed to crash the car  .
The most frustrating thing is that I was not speeding or anything, just a traffic jam where all the cars stopped and I did not anticipate that... I thought they were just slowing down. Nobody was hurt, but I was (still am) very frustrated about my mistake.
Fortunately, nobody hit me from behind, even if there were other cars that hit each other just behind me.
The car's front bumper was damaged and the structure behind it... This was taken after the crash:



This was the car a few days after the accident after I when to my VW dealer, they heated the bumper and it popped back out, straightened the number plate, and now the damage is barely visible:



The car is getting a new bumper and other minor repairs as we speak.

And for this not to be a sad post, something positive: I also bough winter tires and rims.
I went for 19 inch BBS CH-R in Silver - I would have liked the Anthracite but CH-R have a silver lip that is covered by some tape in the photos in order not to get scratched and I don't like how the black or anthracite wheels look with that silver polished lip.
If I decide to track the car more heavily, these might be the track day rims as well.













All in all I really like how they look and the offset is much more appropriate - it fills the wheel arches better than the OEM wheels, I might buy some spacers for these.
Thanks for watching! 

[rex]

Got the car back from the repair shop on Friday (with the new bumper) and could't help myself: bought and installed the GTS Taillights and the GTS Lower Spoiler.
The installation was not quite easy but I can't say it was difficult... I chose to take the whole bumper of and that made things much easier. It was a 3 hour job for me but I think a mechanic can do it in an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

So, the 2 taillights side by side:



And the left side with the new lights and the right side with the old one:



This was the state of the car at 2 AM last night:







The stock lower spoiler:



The GTS lower spoiler:



And the end result:





Really glad I can once more enjoy the car!
 

[rex]

Yesterday was a really productive day and it didn't end until I did one more thing to the car: installed some "home" grills to prevent various debris from hitting the radiators.
I bought a large grill painted black and made of Aluminum:



I cut the grills to size:



And then installed them:







Once more, really happy with the end result - you can barely see any difference!

[eddie pk]

great thread -  keep up the good work 

[rex]

Thanks! 

[rdfcpete]

@rex

Sorry Rex, in my previous post - yes of course as I'm sure you realised, I meant the 981    I'm realising the subtle differences that the GTS has compared with the 'S' model, although I couldn't really spot them knowingly until your thread now, particularly the tail lights

I love driving the GTS from RSR, hopefully they keep it another year or two as they seem to be getting rid of their not-so-new and more expensive to run cars!

The fog grille mods look superb, I love something home-made that ends up OEM looking 

The 981 Cayman S is still very expensive in the UK (£35k + still) which shows it's appeal and resale value is still substantial. Be great when the values settle a little because they're a great weekend and track-car as you're demonstrating with this build 

[Shoduchi]

Great work @rex! 

[wipperman]

Hi Rex,

Finally had some time to discover the well hidden topic  and the car in action, I quite enjoyed the second video, even if you say it was slower, I find it very fluid despite the traffic and ultimately for me this is most important on the Nring beside safety  .  I’m a little curious about the steering  feel on a track like Nordschleife (I’ve never driven a Cayman on the track) , you seem to do a lot of ‘’in bend ‘’ corrections ?, especially on the first video, maybe being used to your usual track car and adapting gradually?  Nevertheless, very good, real (=changing gears ),  driving as usual  and beautiful, special, car especially irl, quite jealous as I sad 

Sorry about your misfortune in Italy, it could’ve been much worse as you said, besides you didn’t have a central radiator behind the bumper to start leaking, immobilize your car and ruin your trip  .  You shouldn’t be too harsh on yourself, in Italy they don’t have the reflex to manually activate the emergency lights in hard braking as in Germany or most of the other countries, the collisions are the rule over there.  I can see by the way you quickly recovered and the car looks better than ever, love the GTS additions, very impressed by your mechanic and custom work also 

Finally, it was really a pleasure to meet again and share our common passion at the Ring, see you next time soon! 

Best regards,
wipperman

P.S. If I were to guess, that Seat doing such a clean run is driven by a local at the rental company, not by a customer, fiy, one more reason to be pleased with your run