Cayman Track Build Part 1
February has been a bit of a busy month, catching up on a lot of big projects in addition to the daily stuff that has been coming through with the unusually nice weather. Before track season slips up on us, I needed to get the next build finished which will be a 2006 Cayman S. For now we will be keeping it a semi street/track car, but maybe i’ll get my way in the future and get to gut the interior completely and get as much weight out as possible 🙂
First thing you do is to start with the correct color car 😉 Car came out of Atlanta, passed a goldcrest PPI, and appears to be in decent enough shape for building a track car. This car should compete in TTB with NASA if we play our cards right.
First thing to do was to tackle the suspension. I decided to mimic our SPEC boxster setup with Bilstein PSS9, upgraded swift springs, Tarret sway bars, drop links, gt3 front lower control arms, etc. Here you can see i’ve gotten rid of the softer bilstein springs and the rears are ready for install.
Poof. At the same time, the rears get the adjustable toe links which not only allow for easy adjust-ability, but also remove the rubber bushing from the stock link that moves around under loading which changes the toe setting mid corner. And of course S/S brake lines while in there.
Fronts get the lower control arms for extra camber adjustment, and the rest of the bits like the rear.
And of course we converted to wheel studs rather than bolts which make removing and installing the track wheels a lot easier and quicker.
The caymans have issues with a long brake pedal travel when pushed on the track, so the common upgrade is the GT3 master cylinder which gives a little more solid pedal.
Once the suspension was done, it was time to move on to move important things. Since we will be throwing a rollbar in the car, along with Sparco Evo seats, the old seats were yanked. This gives us a little more room for working in the interior anyway.
Another problem with the boxsters and caymans on the track is the power steering fluid overheating. There are a couple of solutions for this, including electric power steering setups, but another option is a smaller diameter crank pulley to turn the pump at slower speeds, thus reducing the fluid temps. Here you can see the size difference between the two.
And the new pulley installed, along with a new waterpump and low temp thermostat. The M96 waterpumps should be done every 3-4 years due to the poor design and potential for disaster if the cooling fins come apart, and is of course one of the first things we do before taking a car to the track.
And of course we have exhaust ready to go on as well.
Along with installing the center radiator kit to allow for additional cooling. Those parts should be here in a few days. In the meantime, I’ll move on to installing a 2qt deep sump plate, AIM Solo DL install for data acquisition, and a few other odds and ends to get this thing ready for time trial season. Stay tuned.
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One Comment
Leave a commentBob Charlesworth
February 13, 2015 at 10:08 PM
nice Karl. Keep notes as this is exactly what I am looking to do!!