987.1 Cayman S - First Foray into the world of Porsche

The mission? Deliver the thrills of my 240bhp/tonne E30 trackday car, whilst being easier to live with and without significantly multiplying budget. And also be something mrs motorhole would drive and be happy to spend time in - making memories and all that.

For anyone interested, the E30 story starts and ends here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

I've always had a thing for Porsches. 911s in particular. It started with a ride in a 1980 3-litre carrera race car. What a thing! My E30 ended being much quicker, but the 911, at least from the passenger seat, just felt so mechanical, so adjustable on the limit. And looked fantastic.

Then I got that Lego Technic kit, the Orange 991 GT3 RS with working PDK. This is a fantastic model for a petrolhead, especially a Porsche fan, to have and what a pleasure it is to put together.

I'd thought about trading the E30 for a 996 a little while ago, but their interiors are a bit of a letdown, they all look tired with out spending a lot of money and a Carrera 2 would still need even more money throwing at it to get close to the E30 around a track.

Then about 12 months ago, I wondered whether a 992 C2S would fit the bill. Yet again, the man maths just didn't add up. By the time I'd put enough money into it to be capable on track along with the borkage factor offered by the M97 engine, I was at real risk of being over £40k deep in a car that does 3k miles a year. That, to me, just didn't make sense.

A Cayman though? They start a lot cheaper. The 1st generation 987s have a classic Porsche look to the styling. The entry price for a nice example was more than £10k less than a similar condition/age/mileage 997 C2S. And they are more trackable out of the box with a lower kerb weight.

Thing is, is a Z4 3.0Si a better car for me? It's certainly cheaper, I love the styling and it doesn't have the M97 borkage factor. I checked one out with the wife and it was indeed a very nice car. But felt a lot more cramped than the Porsche and it had a lot less storage capacity. Plus the missus didn't think it was as comfortable as the Porsche. Decision made then, the search began.

I looked at quite a few. Some cheap. Some low mileage. Some new, some old. None of them the car for me. Then I came across a 2007 example that stood out from the rest. It looked pretty immaculate inside and out. Furthermore, the rear ARB and drop links didn't look like they'd been raised from the bottom of the sea. The manifolds weren't crusty. Inside the wheel arches looked like new all round. Even the shocks looked pretty new. It was by far the cleanest I'd seen underneath, even including the 38k mile example I checked out the week before.

It was also a nice spec as a road/track car, with the 'special' feeling extended leather and sports chrono pack, PASM, yet without the rear wash wipe, electric memory seats or the Bose sound system. Just under 72k miles on the odometer and it drove great. No, it hadn't been borescoped. But it didn't tick when hot or smoke when cold and ran smooth as you like, so I took a risk...



It also has lots of brake and tyre, along with a new clutch having been fitted some 7k miles previous. A Topgear cat-back system means it sounds great when you give the beans but it's nice and quiet on a motorway cruise. Braided brake lines and GT3 brake cooling panels have also already been fitted.

Yet it's not perfect. Now I've driven it a bit and have given it a pretty thorough inspection, I do have a list of jobs to do / get done...
1) Needs new aircon condensers
2) Looks like its still on original water pump. So this needs to be done and will fit a low-temp thermostat and new drive belt for good measure
3) Oil leak from RMS. This doesn't look bad, I had to properly get under the car to see it and it doesn't drip. But it is annoying given the clutch has recently been changed!
4) Oil leak from chain tensioner
5) Probably needs front coffin arms within the next 12 months

Still, the cost of getting this sorted should be less than a new set of PS4S, pads and discs. Given many of the examples I looked at needed both, or more doing (along with whatever else was lurking under the skin) I think I've done okay. Fingers crossed it's a good un!

I foresee many people asking me this...

Now you can't say that without posting up pictures of your own! Cheers

It should be getting condensers etc sorted on Friday. After that, well the plan is to keep it standard for a few months and see how I get on with it after the Porsche novelty has worn off. Only if I decide to keep it after that will I start thinking about mods to help it deal with a handful of trackdays a year on top of being a fun GT car and summer drive blaster.

The oiling issues are what keep me up at night. But from forum reports it's hard to make head or tail of it all. There are those that have done 10 days a year for 5 or 6 years with track tyres and no issues at all on standard oiling setups and those that have fitted uprated baffles and pumps only for the engine to eat #6 main bearing on day 1 using street tyres. As always, this suggests there are many factors at play in the failures including:
- Oil grade & temperature
- Coolant temperature
- How well an aftermarket baffle is fitted - if it doesn't seal against the engine block it could prove worse than the standard baffle
- Ability to rev match (Aggressive clutch engagement on downchanges will put load on #6 bearing and won't help oil surge either)
- Fuelling and fuel quality (detonation also puts a huge load on main & rod bearings)

So I figure when the time comes, do what an experienced specialist recommends for such use (occasional track use on street tyres), just drive the wheels off the thing and hope for the best! Just a new experience for me, coming from a BMW where for a relatively low cost, I'd been able to build an engine that could take literally hours of redline treatment on a trackday with no ill effects. Worried I'll break this beautiful thing if I treat it the same way!

This is why you need some Porsche logo side stripes!


Waterpump would be the first thing to do on that mileage if still on the original, and get one with a composite rather than metal impeller.


Anyway, you've got me listening to exhaust sound clip vids on topgear's site now - is it a valved or unvalved one?

https://www.topgear.co.uk/porsche-987-1-boxster-an...

https://www.topgear.co.uk/porsche-987-1-cayman-and...


P.S. It is no big deal if the engine blows up, you can get a Hartech 3.7 rebuild for as little as 17 grand I've read.

that looks great

Do like myself a Cayman… it’s on the list of cars to try even though running costs and potential for borkage terrifies me.

I've been toying with the idea of going from cayman to m2. Sounds like you prefer the cayman. How do they compare guessing the cayman has a better sports car feel to it.

thanks the cayman is indeed a hard car to replace. Will probably keep for now seeing as its mainly a weekend car and maybe look to upgrade the suspension. The only thing it misses is a bit of 3rd gear overtaking pull due to the long gearing not much that can be done about that. Corners is where its at.

Lovely car, and they do look great in red!

I bought my first Porsche (987.2 Boxster S) about 1.5 year ago and absolutely love it, they're just great allround cars.

Lovely looking car. A Cayman is top of my shortlist when the time comes for a toy - they look nicer than recent 911s imho.