Euro GT3

For anyone considering MOTON's (and they are indeed great) there's only one guy/shop to consider to do the work: Chris Cervelli at Premier Motorsport in Denver (chriscervelli@msn.com); (303) 341-7666. Besides being a winning IMSA & PCA driver, he's done more R&D on the 964RS, 993RS/Cup, and 996 GT3/Cup than most entire race shops. He also does consulting/crew work for The Racer's Group and many others. He's done my 964RS Clubsport and GT3 Clubsport -- we just put a full GT3 Cup suspension in my GT3 CS and man what a difference on the track (keep in mind its a dedicated track car only with - 4 degrees camber!) I agree with the above comments of build up your driving skills first as a Mark II GT3 "out of the box" will crush 99% of anything else on the track in terms of braking/cornering IF you know how to drive it. Just ask Tommy Archer, John Heinricy and the rest of the Speed World Challenge drivers who got "schooled" by Wolf Henzler at Infinion & Laguna Seca last year in his debut to US road course racing (albeit that was a GT3 Cup). Get the Recaro/Euro sports seats (used sets on eBay & Rennlist all the time), single-mass flywheel and sport clutch (may take ECU reprogramming) offered in the RS/Clubsport, and you can always think about the $45 crankcase breather valve that has been tested to provide 5hp on street cars and about 10-15hp on race cars (see Rennlist post on this). I'm dyno'ing several exhaust solutions (Schnell, Fabspeed, others) next week to see if any real gains are available for my Mark 1. Later,

I would agree with Greig that unless you are a Supercup team driver, you will NOT outdrive the brakes on Mark 1 GT3. I have a GT3 Clubsport (first/only one in the USA) and am an experienced/winning racer in the Porsche Club here in the US (also having driven a GT3 Cup last season as a point of comparison). Run Motul fluid (instead of ATE Super Blue) and Pagid "Black" pads (I have literally melted Pagid Orange's where they crumble). Don't believe the wives tales that the Blacks are hard on your rotors -- that's bollocks! The Black pads will handle heat over 1000 degrees F. The 330mm rotors offer plenty of stopping power for someone with good brake modulation skills and smooth driving technique. My suggestion is DON'T GIVE UP on your car or lose confidence, simply upgrade your pads/fluid and work on braking technique. Happy motoring.

Barchetta - if you want an honest opinion, you'll waste your time/money doing a GT3 conversion because nobody will want to buy it when you're ready to sell it. No only will you need to change the drivetrain, but also the suspension and braking system to the 350mm calipers, etc. You're talking about a boat-load of time/cost/headache and then you've gotta do the aero kit and wheels (another $10K) if you want it to "look the part." Instead of spending $45K+, why not just dump your 996 for $40K now and put the additional $45K with it and buy a 2004 GT3 for $85K -- there's a nice Speed Yellow car here in the Dallas area (been in the Pano for months) as well as others on Autotrader.com for the $85K-$90K range......once the 997 GT3 is delivered next year, the 996 based car values will plunge. Be patient and you could be driving a real GT3 in a year and protect your resale value -- or you could still be under the hood hemoraging money trying to build a clone. Just my $.02

Dr. Carrera - you will not see the prices on the GT3 Clubsports drop, to the contrary, they are RARE and in demand, so they may increase in price in the near term. I just imported the first Mark 1 GT3 Clubsport into the USA (track use only) and I can tell you that even with my travelling to Europe frequently and working with a former Supercup team manager to find a good car -- it took 6+ months to find a car for 63.000 Euro's (all others were as much as 70.000 Euro's). I think you should go for the car if you like the colour and the condition of the car (have your Porsche Centre check it out). The rough idle problem happens with my car also -- only upon first start up. Once its been on the track for one 20 minute session, she purrs like a kitten the rest of the day. I agree with the Scottsman (or whoever said) that its the single mass flywheel creating the idle deviations. This car drives like a scalded cat when you stab the accelerator -- its almost as much fun as my GT3 Cup that I sold earlier this year!

Jim - when I read your post I had to join this forum/site. That's no rumor about a 1999 GT3 Clubsport joining PCA Stock C because I just checked my garage and sure enough, the car is sitting there ready to race. Well almost, we're dyno testing a GT3 Cup exhaust on the car next week -- then it will be ready to race. I'm the owner of the car -- but it didn't arrive until Oct 12, so how did you hear about it a month in advance such that you posted this query in Sept 2005? Spooky. Check out my website at www.euro-rs.com and you'll get a better understanding of my side hobby of importing rare Euro-spec Porsche's into the US for PCA members. I'll be racing the GT3 at TWS, Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen, Mosport, VIR and maybe Road America in PCA next year.....might even sneak the car out to the October NASA race at Infinion (great event, but a long haul from down here in Texas!) The other guy(s) are correct that the GT3 is competely different animal from the regular 996. I considered the X51 route, but the 996 motors are derived from the Boxster design (street production) while the GT3 motor is a race derived motor -- they have very different tolerances for track abuse, etc. Joel Reiser (PCA Technical) can fill you in, but the GT3 (if taken care of) is virtually bullet proof. I race a GT3 Cup last year and had fun, but the $5K-$7K weekend race bills got to be too much. The Mark 1 GT3 was the perfect answer -- GT3 performance on a "working man's budget" and Stock C offers a fairly good field of competition (althought not as much as Stock F). I tested a new suspension set-up in the car last Saturday and couldn't stop grinning -- and we're just getting started with the sorting prior to the 2006 season. I think I'll keep her.