I attend my first ever autocross event in my new C4S on Sunday. Had an amazing time, not only driving, but meeting some great people and getting some excellent personal instruction. The event was attended by two clubs, the Porsche PCA and a Miata one, as well as a few oddballs (Minicooper, BMW, etc).

What amazed me most about the day was how little a difference the car made in the performance. 30 y/o 914's were coming within a seconds of a GT3RS w/ slicks (had the best time of the day), stock 20 y/o BMW 3 series beating out a modern day Carrera 2S, and so on. I had what I figured to be one of the fastest cars there, a 997.2 C4S w/ PDK (only ones I know that was faster was the GT3RS and a moded Miata) and yet, I was almost 10 seconds behind the best time of the day (not bad for my first time at auto-x and first time driving a rear engine car).

So my question (more like food for thought) is, how much does the performance of the car REALLY matter? Yes, there is no doubt adding 40HP, a diffuser, spoiler, bigger better tires, does add some degree of performance, but in the end, does it really matter? If a 30 y/o stock street car can come within a few seconds of a true race oriented car, how much is getting the "S" over a non-S really going to matter? I had reservations before, when I heard people say to spend money on driving school instead of mods, but now I see the true value of that advice.

 

I found - at auto-x, the biggest mod is the driver mod.

You might find that the 'S' model will net you more fun on open roads (extra power), and especially on road courses when you are cornering at a higher speed, braking from higher speeds, and well, hitting higher speeds.

This best mods you can have for auto-x, is all suspension and tires.

The biggest difference in power is where the torque comes in on the powerband (since you rarely/never shift).

Just my opinion.

 

Yes, the driver makes a huge difference. I don't autocross, as I have very limited weekend time, but going to the track is where you will use your legs in your new car.

 

There is only one primary gasket that really matters in the car - the one right in between steering wheel and driver seat. means - you.

All plastic that folks put on a car is for looks alone. But what you probably should do later on after you get used to your car is to get ECU softronic or similar flash, as it will tune car to 93 octane gas.

Exhaust upgrade - questionably helps, but mostly for sound. I have to say, for $2.3K fabspeed pipes I got are nice, but performance benefit is not really significant (if any).
For tires you just get PS2 and forget about it. They are as good as anything else.

Ultimate answer here - any mods are getting done mostly for your own fun. If you find no fun in messing with your car and hammering your new 997 with chisel - do not really get concerned about all this non-sense.

Spending money on driving school is definitely worth it. BTW, how did you find this event - just from PCA membership? Did you have to bring in helmet and other racing accessories? Just curious. Would be fun to get there on track again, I just wonder how it was organized by PCA, as I never had any experience with that sort of events.

 

utkinpol, I signed up with PCA and checked the calendar and saw there was an event this past weekend. It was $35 to register for the event, and all I needed was my car, drivers license, and a helmet (picked one up from local motorsport store). Everyone was put into a class based on their car, and worked the course while half the classes were running and swapped mid way through. There were a ton of experienced drivers who were more then happy to sit shotgun and give some pointers and great advice while I ran the course. Everyone was really friendly and willing to share their knowledge and experience with me. Even if I couldn't have driven, I would still have had a great time there just the same.

 

I see. $35 is nothing, so, thanks, good to know. Sounds simple enough.
If I`ll have time next month I`ll try to attend too perhaps. Should be fun.

Where was the track located?

 

It was at the Devens Airforce base in Ayer, MA. About an hour from Boston. It was run on a series of connecting runways (?).

 

I used to autocross in Columbus, Ohio. Every weekend, one club or another had an autocross somewhere in town. Generally, the locals did well in national autocross events. A few drivers regularly came up from West Virginia for the more intense competition.

One fellow was Paul Dikinson who had a 911E & ran a driving school for police/emergency veh. drivers in West Virginia.

One weekend, the times out at Powell Speedway for all the regular drivers were within the usual few tenths of a second, except for Dickinson, who was over 4 seconds faster than everyone else. A local hotshot filed a protest, saying that there was no way that Dickinson could beat him by that much if the car wasn't heavily modified.

Dickinson got in that guy's car and beat that guy's time by 3 seconds! So, it was the driver that was unfair, not the car.

I rode with Paul a couple of times. He was so smooth, it felt like the slowest laps I had ever experienced, but we were posting fastest times for the day. Dickinson went on to win the SCCA nationals at least 3 times (as I remember).

A well-running, balanced car matters, but autocrossing is more about vehicle control than top speed. With such a short, demanding course, deficiencies in driving technique can show up faster than what you will see in DE.

A good driver's school (esp. attended more than once) is the best way to gain an unfair advantage, while making your daily drives safer at the same time.

 

I see. It`s not too far from me - I`m in Natick.

How did you find your 991 on a track for a first time? Any odd feelings entering corners? Was it difficult to keep car`s front pressed in while making turns?

I still cannot figure how to drive it properly on serpentine roads if you have no way of keeping constant acceleration, this car steering definitely requires getting used to.

 

For me it meant getting a whale of a discount versus the anemic deal the local dealer wanted to make on an "S". As a newbie to the P world I would never know the difference between an "S" and a non-"S" (heck for that matter a turbo) if it wasn't for all the stuff online and in magazines I torture myself with.

My own real world driving tells all of my senses I bought a world class supercar. For me, my car is mind-blowing fast and after watching my friends' and wife's faces on our first drive together I think they all agree. I'm a very happy base model Carrera Cab owner.

 

Driving the 911 was completely different from anything I was used to. I was at first taking the advice of others here to never lift on the turns. This was however causing a huge issue as the back would kick out cause me to spin. I got an instructor with me and he told me perhaps the best single piece of advice for the day: if you're turning the wheel away from being center, you should be on the brake, if you're turning it back to center, you should be on the gas and be on it hard. You really do need to go slow in to be able to go fast out, and boy does this car go fast out of a turn. The biggest issue I had was in the slaloms, as I didn't know whether to be on the brake or the gas, and wound up just kind of costing along or fumbling between the two. And incase anyone is wondering, the car runs over cones remarkably well.

 

The first statement is 100% correct. It's largely driver when it comes to auto-x.

If you get serious about auto-x - PS2s are ok but definitely not the best choice.

If you are an auto-x novice don't worry about any mods other than getting instruction for a while. If you mod your car and get serious about auto-x you may put yourself at a serious competitive disadvantage by moving into a class where you need *serious* mods to be competitive.

 

It`s same problem I have still - several local roads I take on way back from driving my kid to in-laws have nice S curves with no driveways from properties so I constantly push car there trying to feel it better.

Initial break to lower front and then hit on gas to keep it pressed sort of works but it speeds up too fast to keep it like that for long and constant break-gas reduces time so I assume it should be done somehow smoothier.

Well, it just means I have to go to driving school too and re-learn it from scratch. But boy oh boy when car sticks properly to the road it goes like a surface glued rocket. I just always afraid it can get suddenly unglued and eject away.

 

I am for quite long time already truly completive with myself only. Somehow all that competitiveness and desire to proof myself in eyes of others evaporated somewhere, quite some time ago... I am probably just bored by life too much and prefer this sort of chatting on forums to actual adrenalin rush 'out there'.

I was racing while in university but it was mostly light FWD carburetor cars on a dirt. Plus I did winter racing on ice - that was FUN and it was quite different from asphalt or concrete auto-x. Would be fun probably to try it all again after that many years.

 

You may want to read this article by Scott Good. I believe it is very important to work your way up to proficiency with this technique.

http://www.scottgood.com/jsg/blog.ns...ks/SGOD-6NY25Y

Here is a excerpt….


"See, the weird thing here is cars are stable and happy when they're under acceleration and they're stable and happy when they're under braking but, for reasons I'm not sure I actually understand, they are not stable and not happy coasting, which is what you're doing when, using conventional right-foot braking, even with a pretty-highly-calibrated right foot, you transition over to the throttle. The car is unstable--sometimes uncomfortably unstable--until you get over to the gas and get some power back on. Once you get back on the gas, everything's good with the world again but for a few moments there you're not sure you'll actually make it through the turn.

As I said, a little weird, and substantially worse with rear tires accentuating the lateral transitions.

But here's the thing: If you left-foot brake into One (there is no need to change gears), you can start applying the throttle while you're still on the brakes just a bit, during the first quarter of the turn. When you do that and then transition smoothly out of the brake as you go smoothly to full throttle, there isn't that dicey bit of transition time...it stays happy and stable all the way through and lets you carry a good bit more speed than you could do otherwise.”