My new to me 987.2

Hello all, Long time member first time owner here! Last September I sold my beloved 944 track car and I've been on the hunt for a replacement, I thought I was priced out of these cars until I stumbled on this car that fit my budget. It spend most of it's life in Saskatchewan where it racked up a lot of the miles. The previous owner took really good care of it but the PPI showed some overrevs in the DME report. I had a compression test and leakdown test (and a bore scope while they were in there) at a respected shop locally and all the numbers were perfect. I'm not too concerned about this as I just want to drive this car and enjoy it. It came with some nice track focused upgrades too, here's the abbreviated spec list: 2009 Cayman S 6 speed Soul valved exhaust KW v3 suspension 19" Apex SM10 wheels Hawk DTC60 pads Numeric shifter cables View attachment 291398 View attachment 291400 View attachment 291401 View attachment 291402 I must say coming from an NA 944 this car RIPS! It sounds great and handles really well. I got quite comfortable with this car rather quickly which I attribute more to the platform than my ability. Plans for this car over the winter are: Get 18" track wheels/tires (the 19" are sold already), Front GT3 style control arms, Rear toe arms, Track alignment, Paint correction and ceramic coat, Replace drive belt/tensioner/pulley.

Congrats. A perfect track car and much of the heavy lifting has been done in terms of mods. Those LCA's will help with tire wear. Are you going with Apex wheels?

Welcome to Planet-9, the Porsche Racers Home Away from Home.. Great looking car - came outfitted with the numbers? Really happy to see you saw the memo on photos in intro messages - they're great, and glad to see this was a 2nd post after ummm... a bit over 5 years. I hope we'll see more posts with pics on your adventures on the track, we don't get enough of that here.. Thanks again for the belated intro..

Well done and welcome (again!). I think you're gonna love this car at the track.

Yes, I like the look of the SM-10 from Apex. I've been considering the SM-10RS forged version... this is probably my front runner. LOL... yah... 5 years... let's just say I originally wanted a Cayman but found a great track prepped 944 that I ran for 4 years. But I'm here now.... I've been hard at work doing some odd jobs on the car new cabin/air/oil filters and oil change. I ran new vacuum lines for the valved exhaust since the previous install was uh... dubious at best. Plus a rodent made a meal of a portion of it and it didn't actually hold a vacuum. Prior to my first track day, I reset the KWs to the factory recommended default settings. The previous owner had them on full soft, which was nice for driving around but bro, this is a track car bro... Truthfully, I only have a somewhat theoretical understanding of what the compression and rebound adjustments do. Hopefully I'll be able to leverage these adjustments now that I have the capability. Next up was a Rennline pedal set install. I bought this primarily because the first time on track, I couldn't heel toe for the life of me. I have this set on my 993 and love it. It works great, it's wide enough and the height is adjusted up a bit to where I can heel toe by rolling my foot over which is my preferred method. Last up was a set of wheel studs. I hate, hate, hate, hate wheel bolts. So this was a mandatory modification for me.

Wow. You’ve gone right at it. I have the same pedals. They work great. If it hasn’t been done already, one mod you might consider for the brakes is a GT3 master cylinder . It improves the brake feel 100% and removes the squishy feel. Far less pedal travel before engaging the brakes.

I've been thinking about doing the GT3 master cylinder along with brake lines and fluid. Do you know where to get them from, and part number that works for a 2006 Boxster S ?

I believe the TRW part number for the GT3 MC is PMN166. Porsche number is 997.355.910.30. Up to you if you want to pay the P tax or not. I can't guarantee the fit on your 2006.

A few more goodies to install. I bought a function first shift kit, because the shifter in my car is pretty loose. There's a lot of play both lateral and fore/aft. A friend of mine has this kit in his 996 and really likes it. Also bought a belt, pulley, and tensioner damper as I have no history of them ever being changed.

Got a few more jobs done, got an end of season wash/iron remover. Weather here hasn't been great, but at least the car is clean and ready for paint correction. The paint really needs a good polish, there's a ton of swirls and a few scratches. Also a couple of chips that I want to fill in. I managed to get the Function First ball bearing shift kit installed. I did not particularly enjoy this job. I usually don't mind wrenching on things, but for some reason with this job everything was a struggle. This was some of what I needed to remove. I have the Bose sound system so that make it more annoying. All done: All back together: The end result is a shifter that feels mostly like it did before. I'm a bit bummed that it didn't take out some of the front to back slop. I might need to investigate that at some point. It's not the cables because they are relatively new Numeric ones.

Paint correction and polish comes out amazingly well with black cars. Here's my 2004 BS after my, first do all the steps. On a 12year old car. You can see everything in my garage with this mirror like finish.

Oh that looks good. I went through the paint correction/ceramic coat last year on my white 911 and it was not very rewarding. I mean it looks great, but white really hides all the defects anyway. I'll see if i can get some good 50/50 shots while I'm working on it.

Which compound and polish did you use?

On my list of things to do with my new to me 2009 Cayman black on black. Just bought the milwaukee polisher and some chemical brothers polishing kits. Going to try on the wifes old white 528i before I go after the black Porsche !

Spend a few hours over the course of the week and did a cutting pass on the car with a wool pad and some fine compound. It got a ton of swirls out and looks great, you can see the line where I stopped on this picture of the roof. I noticed the wool pad/fine compound left some haziness in some areas. So I think I need to go over the whole car again with some ultra fine polish and a foam finishing pad. The paint isn't perfect, there still are some swirls/scuffs that show up when I get my strong light on it but I doubt you'd see it in the daylight. I'm pleased with the results so far!

Finally got the whole car done with finishing polish. It looks great, now I really need to resist the urge to make it perfect!

Lovely! What products do you use? Are you going to ceramic coat?

LCA's are the soul of the suspension, for that reason I use Tarett Race Cup front and rear. I have had these in use for over 5 years and 40k miles. I also use Ohlin R&T rather than KW's as their valving is not replaceable or rebuildable? There is no rubber in the Tarett LCA bushings and the solid center puck really connects and the forward and rear movement very well especially in the rear. I also had a Wavetrac LCD installed. It provides great forward and engine braking traction. It's not 100% lock up like the clutch Guard models, but its mechanical gears and the wavetrac slider provides great torque transfer from the unweighted wheel to the outside drive wheel without much understeer. Numeric shifter also shortens up the throw and tightens the side to side position of the shifter. The shifter works great with the cables allowing shifting into 1st gear at 23 mph. I've enjoyed mine for 5 years without issues.

I've been using Rupes series of polishes, they have course/fine/ultra fine. A friend of mine uses them and recommended them. I don't have a whole lot of experience doing paint correction, but I found them generally easy to use and I'm happy with the results. Yes, I am going to ceramic coat as well, I have CQuartz UK 3.0. I used it last winter on my 911 and it worked out well. I actually pulled the trigger on a set of front LCA. I went with Rennline ones mainly because I didn't want to wait for if/when Tarett has stock. Also I didn't want to rattle my fillings out going monoball. How do you find the Race Cup arms on the street?

I felt that the monoball Tarett Cup Race LCA's were the way to go 5 years ago and now feel even better about my decision. It's the media that distorts reality. The only road that this setup does not work well for is non rolled chipseal black top back country roads that cause a lot of NVH. Most regular roads around Seattle are perfect and the Ohlin's handle the vibrations very well. I have no idea about Canada's roads. I really like the instant turn in that the monoball and solid center puck (solid thrust arm bushing) provide. However, I am not running 7-800 spring rates but the standard 400 lb/in f and 458 lb/in r. So, its the combo of the shock valving, the spring rate and monoball bushings of the Tarett working together to provide an excellent suspension. Shown, Elephant Toe link with bump steer adjustment, Tarett Race Cup LCA's, GT2 rear brake duct, Ohlin R&T Coilover, Tarett down link Tarett GT Swaybar. Not seen is a Pedro's rear frame brace. I use RE71RS as summer tires. Michelin PS4S as winter tires and their associated sidewall spring rates. I do use the lowest air pressure that the tire manufacture allows to smooth out the ride. The Bridgestone tires have very stiff side walls and can withstand even lower pressures if needed.

Love getting parts in the post! Front GT3 control arms (with an assortment of shims and related bits for install), and rear toe arms (and eccentric lockout). This will be a fun project to dig into over the Christmas holidays.

There is rubber in the rear oem LCA; oem center puck (rubber coated thrust arm bushing) that allows the rear wheels to move almost 3" forward and back according to Cantrell Motor Sports. That's the reason for rear Tarett Cup LCA;s. Its a solid puck no rubber shown in post 21. The red center solid thrust arm bushing really helps keep the alignment true, especially through slalom sections with gas on and off. Tarett Cup LCA description below. "Solid thrust arm bushings and sealed monoball inner ends are used to eliminate the spongy rubber OEM bushings and provide a precision ride for improved feedback, steering response, and overall handling. Both are CNC machined from 6061-T6 aluminum alloy and are anodized red for a corrosion resistant and attractive finish. The solid thrust arm bushing is adjustable for increasing or decreasing wheelbase and adjustable caster".

Yah, Tarett makes great stuff, I'll probably get their sway bars for the Cayman at some point. They had a 5 week wait for their arms, and I did not want to take a chance not getting them in time for next season. In the meantime got to assembling. I've got a bunch of shims, but currently have 17mm worth installed. Aiming for -2.8 degrees of camber in the front, and -2.5 in the rear. Zerk fittings on the ball joints is a nice touch.

There is a reason for the backlog on these arms.

I think that they are missing a decimal point. I think you'd have to completely remove the rubber puck to get 3" of fore aft travel at the wheel. Those Rennline arms look good. If they had been available when I was looking I would have bought them instead of the Tarett GT3 spec. I could have bought the front and rear for what I paid for the fronts. FWIW: I'm running -2.4F/-1.8R and my tires wear really evenly on the street and track. I'm running Nankang CR-S and they are one of the stickiest 200TW tires available. I've read in multiple places that you should have around .5 degree less in the rear. You might want to try -2.8/-2.3 to start out.

Well, I can attest to the fact that my Tarett GT rear swaybars were gouging the OEM LCA's to a point where I had to change to the Tarett Cup LCA's. That center thrust puck rubber was completely gone, I had Cantrell take pictures to send to Tarett showing the damage to the OEM LCA's. That was 5 years ago. Cantrell did not give any indication of how much longer those OEM LCA's would have taken to break aa the swaybars on both sides where making deeper and deeper gouges in the LCA.s. So, in the mean time, I chopped off the sway bar at the last hole to give the existing LCA's space to live until the new CUP LCA's were available. No marks on the Cup LCA's in 5 years running. Luckily I do not need the softest swaybar setting in the rear. The Tarett Cup LCA's do not have any rubber compared to the GT3 spec. So no no missing a decimal point. It actually happened. Both sides like a surgeon took a knife and slit the OEM LCA'. Pictures were sent to Tarett from Cantrell. I tossed the all the OEM LCA's after this issue.

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Thanks for that... that 0.5 less balance is what I aimed for on my old track car as well. My goal was to keep it within 0.5 to 0.3 difference. I always seem to kill the outer edge of my tires, so I was thinking more negative camber would be better Interestingly I was considering getting the CR-S tires, but was wondering about durability... How many days do you get out of a set? Ideally I want a set of tires to last a full season...

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone's getting time to enjoy some holidays. I've had some down time over the holidays, I have applied 2 coats of CQuartz 3.0 UK ceramic coat on the car. I really don't like detailing, I don't know why I do this to myself. Anyway, it's done now and it looks decent. It's far from perfect, and I've resisted the urge to try to make it perfect as well. Hopefully this will make cleaning the car simple for the next couple years... or longer ideally 😀 End result: Look at that reflection!

¡¡¡Excelente trabajo!!! felicitaciones

Looking good in the middle of the Canadian winter. You going to start the suspension work soon? I would suggest you at least look at the rear LCA's center thrust arm puck rubber. If nothing else replace that puck if its worn. Remember the 3" axle travel that those worn pucks allow. I know you want to float along without NVH but the worn thrust pucks can affect the rear wheels tracking sort of why there is bump steer adjustments on some rear track bars. "Rear Adjustable Lower Toe Control Arms/Track Rods Lowered 966,997, Boxsters and Caymans run out of rear toe adjustment range. Our Adjustable rear toe links extend the range of adjustment and add bump steer correction. Adjustable Length – Threaded double adjuster for easy toe settings. Angled Head – Lower the car and the toe links angle down. This shifts the ball stud from its center and limits the available range of articulation. We solve this problem by angling the head to move the stud back towards the center of its range of articulation at static ride height. Bump Steer Adjustable – bump steer adjustment that lets you dial in a minimal bump steer curve.

Yah, I'm planning on digging into the suspension next. I plan to inspect all the components while I'm in there. I also need to lower the ride height on the rear of the car, as I have an excess of rake.

Finally got around to using the polisher and doing all the steps. Ceramic coated after this and it looks even better! The endcaps did not get done...