I have a very small dilemma i wanted to ask you great people about, when i say small dilemma i might already have made up my mind, but it dosnt hurt to either get inspired or confirmed.

Some of you may have guessed, since i only have pictures of our Spider on racetracks, our Spyder are on racetracks from time to time, where it belongs by the way.

Now its time for new tires, the original tires has been okay, even on track, but they had been on hard work some times. We dont use the car in rain anyway, unless we are taken by surprise. That makes R compound tires like Michelin Pilot sport Cup among other in my mind the obvious choice. I went and asked Porsche:

Porsche DONT recommend R compound tires on any Boxster or Cayman even Cayman R !

Then there Master mechanic whispers me in the ear, that he run R compound on his Cayman R, you just need to make sure that oil level are at Max.

So I really didn´t get much out of that question.

Does anyone have any experience +/- R compound or regular, i know Porsche are really sensitive to wrong tires, we have also alot experience with R compound that we run on our trackday car, works very well, only problem is fuel supply some times be course of the amazing grip in that old car, a 27 year old 944 still going strong.

 

Stilling: I can only guess the answer the Porsche mechanic gave you relate to oil starvation issues at the track for our Spyder's engine. The lateral grips of the R compound would create an issue for our engine since they do not have a dry sump system like the current gt3's Mezger engine. The oil system on the newer DFI engines on the Boxster/Cayman models have been improved since MY2009, but it's still not optimal for race conditions at the track. Porsche, more worried about warranty issues, will not encourage anyone to make matters worse by using the R compound tires on their Spyders and Cayman R's at the track. The mechanic, who is using R compound on his Cayman R, wisely recommends that anyone doing using these aggressive tire compounds make sure that their oil levels at at Maximum to minimize the oil starvation issue. But the issue still is there - these are not engines truly design for racing in the long run. That is why Porsche only truly supports the gt3's for competition purposes.

Welcome to Teamspeed. I have a friend in Denmark that races 356's and early 911's. I am seriously considering going to Aarhus in June to see their annual races in that Danish city. I am sure many Swedes will be there too.

For your information, I just took delivery of a MY2012 Spyder this month (see below). Saludos, z356

 

For the track I have run
Toyo Proxies R888.
I have custom wheels which allow me to run 255/35/18 & 275/35/18. That is the widest possible front without rubbing. The rears could go wider but this offset has a lot of the natural understeer eliminated.
Hoosier R6's I believe have the same sizes as the Toyo's and the OEM sizes.

There are many racing leagues on the cayman platform that have the same engine as the spyder, which run r compounds without a problem. The oiling in the new engines are vastly improved over the previous generation cars.

 

Damn mechanic can afford a cayman r. No wonder service costs are so much.

 

Hi Z356

Congratulation on your new Spyder, it will grow on you with every mile you drive it :-) Your configuration is amazing, wouldn´t have guessed it work that well, but it really fantastic. I´m a big fan of red interior, in Europe its not that popular out side Germany, so you almost never see it here in Scandinavia unfortunately.

Well ours is more like a stealth fighter, if we had black wheels on we might have to call it Darth Vader, it is Black in Black, so we like the flashy Turbo wheels to break it a little.

I have the new Michelin Pilot Super sport in mind, its a tire in the mittle of Pilot sport and Pilot Cup, its has some of the Cup tires advantages in not to be messed compleedly up on a warm racetrack and its is at normal high performance tire, not the same grip as the Cup tire.

Now i´m forced to announce that i only have been Swedish for 2 month, after 9 years in Sweden. I am Danish :-) so i know alot of the people behind bough the Historic Granprix in Århus and Copenhagen. Denmark is a very small Country and Racing / Trackday even smaller so if i dont know your friend i´m sure i know several of his friends :-)

Could be cool to met up in June i have alot of friend in Århus.

 

z356 we need a new thread with a shoot of that baby!

 

Hi JCay

Sounds interesting, i suspect from your signatur that you drive a GT3, or am i reeding it all wrong ?

I have heard the same that the last two model years it shouldn´t be a problem as long as the oil level is at maximum, but i recognize the fact that only the GT cars are build with a kind of dry sump, that really makes you think.

I have lost one Porsche engine that way, not cool when you are there to drive.

 

DJ, you may be right. I will work on that next! Saludos, z356

 

Stilling: Thanks for comment on the Aqua Blue Metallic & Carrera Red Spyder. Apparently nobody thought that color combination would work here either...so I had to try it. It is the only one I know of in the United States. I have seen a photo of another one in Europe but that is it. So, yes, this combination is quite rare and I am glad it worked out when I finally saw it in person. DJ has asked me to post a thread about it and I will do that shortly.

I will strongly consider the new Michelin Super Sports when the original tires on my Spyder are 'done'. We had heard that they had been approved for the Spyder and were going to be put on some of the last cars built this summer. However, we don't have a single confirmation yet of that. On my own Spyder, built around July 18th, the tires were Goodyears. The latter (surprisingly) have a good reputation & feedback from those that have them on their '11 Spyders. I suspect that in my case, I will changed them in two years or so due to their getting old & hard, not because they will be worn out!

My Danish friend is Flemming Viktor Andersen. His team is called SilverFox. He owns a Super 90 356 and is working on an early 911 race car too. I am seriously considering going to Denmark next June for the '12 races. The last time I was in your home country was in 1972, after I graduated from college. I had a great time, loved the open-faced sandwiches and the Carlsberg Pilsner. I fact, I visited the brewery several times to get the free beer after the tours. But most importantly, I must tell you that I have never seen prettier women in my life. Prettier than I ever saw in Sweden and Norway! So the races will be icing on the cake! Hope to see you then if I make it over.

Here is a video of Flemming on this year's race at Århus:

NO38_CRAA_2011.mp4 - YouTube

Your black Spyder looks terrific. Best of luck with it.

Med venlig hilsen, z356 (Carmel, CA)

 

I have a Cayman with a GT3 engine going into it.

Yeah, losing an engine would definitely be a downer.

Interesting food for thought is that the next GT3 will also be built on the 9A1 engine block (supposedly), so retrofitting the dry sump system might very well be possible in the future. Although costly, it will be far more cost effective than a full GT3 engine swap.