Cheers Digital Panda... and as promised here's an update, we installed the headers, cats and the ESR underdrive pulley to see what more we could eke out of it. The black line is the baseline with just mufflers. The blue line is the RS350 kit. The red line is the addition of headers, cats and ESR pulley. No software changes were made. With the EVOMSit software and we were able to make 18 more wheel horsepower and 12 more wheel torque. Remember... this was all done on 91oct. We ran out of time to do 93oct testing, so expect a few more with 93 and the EVOMSit being able to use the higher ignition maps. The addition of these parts took us to 335whp and 282wtq.

 

I finally had a chance to drive the RS370 Cayman S yesterday. I took it from Costa Mesa, CA to San Jose, CA (a distance of 380 miles). Being from SharkWerks, it may be hard to see my post as unbiased, but I think I've driven this Cayman as much as anyone for one long drive. Alex sat in the passenger seat for the drive and could add his experiences as well.

Traffic, low speeds
I was in traffic on I405 for about 30-40 minutes at the start of the drive. I'd guess the average speed during this section was about 30 MPH, with several complete stops / bumper-to-bumper. The car drove like a stock Porsche. The idle was consistent. There was no shuddering from low speeds, or stalling out of gear or otherwise. The car threw no codes or gave any indication it was modified during this time. The throttle response is very quick but easy to manage. I did not stall the car once from a stop. During this time it was obvious the car was quick, but I could not judge its acceleration. I only noted that it took little throttle to get back up to speed.

Cruising
I drove several hundred miles at speeds between 60 and 85 MPH. Even in 6th gear at 50 MPH, the car had more than enough torque to pass without downshifting. I could get from 60 to "in trouble" quickly, even keeping the RPMs well out of the powerband (~3000). This is the case of most flat-6s, but to me the lower RPM torque felt like a 3.8 car.

The drive from LA to the bay area includes several hill climbs, especially the grapevine and highway 152. Sometimes I'd downshift just because the lightweight flywheel made it so fun, but I typically just left it in 6th. The mileage was around 25.0 MPG.

Cargraphic Exhaust
The RS370 car has a Cargraphic exhaust, headers, and cats. It has aggressive tips and I imagined (looking at the car as RSS rolled it out of the shop to leave on Saturday), that I had an unpleasant drive ahead of me. I expected drone and resosance, which I've seen with most exhausts on 986/987s.

The Cargraphic was quieter than I thought. When cruising at 70-80+ MPH, it's close to stock. When I gave the throttle a little kick it made some noise and reminded me that there's a big exhaust back there, but for the purposes of road trips and freeway cruising, I could not imagine a better exhaust for this car. The Toyo tires on the car were significantly louder than the exhaust. You could clearly hear them, while the exhaust was subtlety humming in the background.

Last time I was in the car, it had the Remus system, which sounded fantastic. The only drawback for the Remus (IMO) was that it was really loud at freeway speeds. You could not escape that sound vibrating the cabin unless you drove really fast or used a lower gear.

The Cargraphic was loud enough to please me. It sounded great from inside the car, especially at higher RPMs. I have not heard the exhaust from outside the car (Just Alex pulling a test run in front of RSS' shop ), but have driven quite a bit with the windows down and liked the sound. I am trying to get the camera gear ready to film some videos today since we finally have the car back at the shop.

RS370
I had many chances to romp on the gas once I was out of LA, but waited until we were off I5 to have a real go at it. I first jumped on the gas leaving the gas station at Kettleman City, accelerating toward I5, then onto the onramp heading north. I only took the RPMs to 5000 RPMs, and I know Alex was hoping I'd rev it higher. I decided to wait until there was nobody else around.

A while later I pulled off the freeway, and onto 152. There was a large open stretch of highway leading to the reservoir and no cars in sight. I jumped on the gas from 2nd gear at about 20 MPH and stayed in the gas until about 95 MPH. It felt good at lower RPMs, but went through them pretty quick. Then when the car hit 4000 RPMs, it's like a switch was flipped. Pure evil. It felt like forced induction: adding a bunch more power suddenly, then all the way up to 7000 RPMs. Look at the graph for the dyno and you can see this peak that starts to ascend rapidly around 5000 RPMs and I thought I could feel every pixel of it.

Until yesterday, Alex had not been in the car with all these recent modifications. After that proper run, he yelled out "Now try that in a stock Cayman!". He also said "this car's a beast" at least a few times. I agree. I knew it would be faster with all these new mods, but the way the power is delivered was really surprising. I'm hoping video will demonstrate this "effect", or you can get a ride in the car so you can feel it for yourself.

We were both exhausted from the trip and drive, so I took it relatively easy after that, only using the power to pass a couple times and just enjoyed the suspension and tires around the 152 bends.

I hope to get more seat time in the car soon. It was nice meeting the RSS guys, thanks for hosting.

 

What kind of wheels are the RS370/350?

Thanks

 

Hi Unison... they're Champion's powdercoated black...

For the rest of you check out this month's issue of European Car magazine (March edition) since we've got a feature on the car: