About ten minutes into my first drive of the new 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0, I had an epiphany.

Until then I'd been utterly seduced by its new 4.0-liter, 500-horsepower flat six. I was screaming around Silverstone at 8,500 rpm, electronics off, tail out, game on. It was brilliant fun — in every regard the visceral, soul-enhancing, tire-destroying orgy of excess I'd planned on having. After all, this is the final GT3 in a series stretching back to the last century. It was only when I eased back for the final lap that it dawned on me: I was driving it the wrong way.

And the Right Way?

If you want to understand what the new four-liter engine does for Porsche's greatest road car, forget the headline power figure. It's impressive, it shaves a tenth from the zero-to-sixty time, but it's not what this car is about.

Instead, the new GT3 RS is all about torque. In previous GT3s, the only major problem was their combination of peaky engines with wide gear ratios. In isolation either is fine but together they add up to a car that has to be driven like your pants are on fire to get the most from it. Which is why I was driving the way I was.

To make this engine, Porsche extended its stroke by installing the crank from the RSR race car (the bores were already maxed out), a move that finally provided the GT3 with the only tool it was missing. On paper, the extra 22 pound-feet of torque doesn't look like much, but that's only the peak number. When you overlay old and new torque curves you see not a thin ribbon separating the two lines, but something closer to an Interstate.

More Than Just a Bigger Engine

But before we examine the effect this has on the GT3's already well documented abilities, it's worth bearing in mind that while the badge only says "RS 4.0" (it's the first GT3 not to carry the name), in reality there's far more here than just an extra 196ccs of displacement.

Normally, when you stroke an engine you expect to gain flexibility at the expense of top-end bite. Porsche took it a step further by adding higher flow air filters and a new intake manifold along with freer flowing catalysts with 300 instead of 400 cells. The extra breathing capacity boosts the engine's output from 117 hp per liter to 125 hp per liter. Then the engineers drove it 2,000 miles at maximum engine speed just to see if it was as durable as Porsche's other motors. It was...