What to do with my 992 GT3 Cup?

[Harryj159]

Hi all

I have never posted on PH before, however, a thought that sprung into my head recently has stuck there and I cannot get shot of it, therefore it may be a good one, it may be a money pit...

I have recently acquired a GT3 Cup, 992, don't ask, it was financially irresponsible but also the best thing I've ever bought, sadly, the mrs is making me get rid, I was looking at the viability of selling this and buying a GT3 RS, 992, however, I'd need another £250k - give or take and that would probably go down even worse. This is where the thought came in.

The car has to go regardless, but, with the price of the GT3 RS being c.£500k '2nd' hand, if I converted my GT3 Cup into a road going GT3 Cup car and acquire an SVA... My understanding is I would need to, as a minimum, sort the following on the car:
- Front/Rear Lights - or would I, as they're supposedly identical to the road version?
- Cats
- Exhaust
- Tyres
- Mapping (to suit exhaust and road fuel)
- Seatbelt
- Register it (plates)
- Horn
- Class 5 speedo???
- Rear Fogs
- Door glass?

Any thoughts or opinions before I plunge a shed tonne of money into this? My thoughts are, spend c.£30k on the conversion, register it, sell it for a slight profit...

Would also be interested in knowing any other suggestions you have on what I'd need to make it road legal?

Thanks

[Matt_T]

I was looking at this last night thinking that it woul be a whole lot of fun to drive - could you swap it out for this?

https://racecarsdirect.com/Advert/Details/137883/p...

[Sebring440]

Matt_T said:

I was looking at this last night thinking that it woul be a whole lot of fun to drive - could you swap it out for this?

I don't think he could "swap it out", but he may be able to swap it.

[honda_exige]

Sounds a great project, there's some road legal 997 Cups and I've seen a F430 Challenge car road legalised.

You forgot a hand brake

I'd speak to people who specialise in getting kit cars through IVA as they will know this stuff inside out.

Eg https://www.dowsettscars.com/the-comet

Or www.lemanscoupes.com

Or Lanzante if you've got very deep pockets

[braddo]

A cool idea in theory, but is there realistically anyone who wants a £250-300k Cup car with sequential to drive on the road?

At least they have aircon these days, right?

[Terminator X]

Pics or it never happened.

TX.

[bosshog]

I can’t see the point if you are going to sell it.

[keo]

I’d get rid of the Mrs

[Julian Thompson]

I think you absolutely should sell it as a race car.

There are so many differences between the racing car and the road car that nobody is going to cross shop them. The guys buying the road ones are driving them hundreds of miles to tracks, enjoying a day there and driving home again. They’re not going to want to do that in a stripped out rose jointed thing like that with no road weather protection (inner arches etc) Even things like the steering lock is worse, and the ducts that feed the brakes will get ruined on the road in five minutes. Also the ride height and front splitter and everything is optimal to run at track height. To make that work on the road you’ll have to run it high and then it’ll be less good on track and you’ll also be running the driveshafts and suspension at angles it wasn’t designed for which might be fine or it might not.

There will be a great market for your car as it is. Me and a friend looked at buying 2 new cayman race cars the other year and we couldn’t even get anyone at Porsche to return our calls. The cars are just hard to get unless you’re a team, and so for people like me your car appearing on race cars direct would be a fantastic opportunity. If you butcher it to get it through SVA then I wouldn’t be interested and I think it would be worth less as a racing car.

Edited by Julian Thompson on Thursday 28th September 08:05

[Riskins]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH3YpRYVTBM

GT3 with cup parts, I am sure you could go the opposite way to some degree.

[ImbackYo]

I looked into this. I was told the biggest issue is with a sequential box. I was told they are designed to work at full chat. Poodling around a one way system would be detrimental to the box and would make an awful drive.

[Harryj159]

ImbackYo said:

I looked into this. I was told the biggest issue is with a sequential box. I was told they are designed to work at full chat. Poodling around a one way system would be detrimental to the box and would make an awful drive.

There is ways to make things smoother, i.e. flashing the box, mapping the box, doesn’t make it seemless but a lot better. There is also the gearbox conversion but that’s almost a non-starter.

[Snowy999]

I found it tough at first when my ex divorced me but wife no.2 is simply brilliant.

So maybe keep the GT3 Cup.....

Just joking !

[Slippydiff]

Harryj159 said:

ImbackYo said:

I looked into this. I was told the biggest issue is with a sequential box. I was told they are designed to work at full chat. Poodling around a one way system would be detrimental to the box and would make an awful drive.

There is ways to make things smoother, i.e. flashing the box, mapping the box, doesn’t make it seemless but a lot better. There is also the gearbox conversion but that’s almost a non-starter.

Looks fun doesn’t it ? :

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gWG6ZJ1vT8c&pp=y...

Trust me, the novelty will wear off VERY quickly.

As Julian says, a Cup car is designed primarily as a race car, and that comes with a plethora of compromises.

You may be able to “improve” the gearchanges, but the flywheel has next to no mass, and the clutch is effectively an on/off switch, and as others have said the Cup drivetrain is optimised to be used flat out at all times, and any other mode of use will be sub-optimal and compromised accordingly.

996 and 997 Cup engines ran without Variocam (I know, I fitted a 997 Cup engine into a Mk 1 996 GT3 road car)

The removal of the Variocam system and it’s replacement with high lift, long duration, large overlap inlet cams makes the engine very cammy and intractable, it also narrows its powerband, reduces/removes a large amount of its low and middle range torque and massively impacts its drivability.

If the car doesn’t have cats (996 and 997 did) then fitting them either won’t be possible (due to the aforementioned cams) or will require the engine ECU to be re-mapped to run with them, if it’s the latter, you’ll need to establish IF the ECU can be mapped (the 997 versions were a Bosch Motorsport item that was sealed/locked, for obvious reasons)

By all means do the conversion, but don’t be under ANY illusions that the end result will be anything other than a very compromised, flawed and unpleasant road car.

[ImbackYo]

I built a M3 "road legal" track car in 2015 as i was sick of trailering a car. I did one trip to the ring in it and then left it there as the drive to and from was horrendous. As said already, aggressive cams, gearbox, ride height, lack of creature comforts made it utter miserable.

[GTRene]

Sometimes I see such cup cars for sale, Porsche's Ferrari's on a German website, you see the price and think, hm, maybe put such on the road, forgetting the Dutch high Taxes on Co2/gr/km and even when they are older, but never road registered course racecar, the Tax people see it then as a new car... and prices getting crazy with their climate scam and trying to get us out petrol cars so even higher Co2 tax , say for such porsche could be (now 72k but later almost 100k tax only...lol) ow, ex btw maybe also.

so in our cases, keep it as a cup racecar, I guess maybe overthere its cheaper to do? no idea.

[ChrisW.]

Julian Thompson said:

I think you absolutely should sell it as a race car.

There are so many differences between the racing car and the road car that nobody is going to cross shop them. The guys buying the road ones are driving them hundreds of miles to tracks, enjoying a day there and driving home again. They’re not going to want to do that in a stripped out rose jointed thing like that with no road weather protection (inner arches etc) Even things like the steering lock is worse, and the ducts that feed the brakes will get ruined on the road in five minutes. Also the ride height and front splitter and everything is optimal to run at track height. To make that work on the road you’ll have to run it high and then it’ll be less good on track and you’ll also be running the driveshafts and suspension at angles it wasn’t designed for which might be fine or it might not.

There will be a great market for your car as it is. Me and a friend looked at buying 2 new cayman race cars the other year and we couldn’t even get anyone at Porsche to return our calls. The cars are just hard to get unless you’re a team, and so for people like me your car appearing on race cars direct would be a fantastic opportunity. If you butcher it to get it through SVA then I wouldn’t be interested and I think it would be worth less as a racing car.

Edited by Julian Thompson on Thursday 28th September 08:05

This is why the air-cooled race cars are so interesting.

Even the 964 3.8 RSR was supplied by Porsche to dealer and privateer run race teams to compete without factory support.

The ECU's can be re-mapped to overlap road and race maps ... just ask Chip Wizards (Wayne Schofield).

They look great and are plenty fast enough to have fun ...

[rawenghey]

keo said:

I’d get rid of the Mrs

Unless she's the one bringing in all the coin, then yeah I agree.

[964Cup]

I converted my old 964 cup car to road use. Bearing in mind that the 964s were built as road cars first, so registering it was much easier than it would be for a 992. Mine was not in any way standard: 3.8 motor with GT3 crank on Motec and throttle bodies, GT2 brakes with no ABS, GT3 gearshift, mostly plastic bodywork and windows, extended cage, race fuel cell and on and on - there's an ancient thread on here somewhere. It was very, very fast for the time (2004) - about 360hp and under 1000kg.

It was also unbearably horrible to drive on the road. I mean actually like torture. Fantastic at full chat around a track but horribly noisy, tramlining, brakes that basically don't work when cold, on/off clutch making traffic horrendous, race suspension so bad road surfaces were not only uncomfortable in the extreme but also dangerous. I think I used it on the road about three times before I gave up.

Don't bother. Sell it to someone who wants a track toy and use the money to buy a road car. In fact, if you want a road car that feels like what you think a racecar will feel like on the road until you try driving an actual racecar on the road, maybe we should talk about swapping my 991.1 GT3RS for your cup car. I only use mine on the track and have been thinking about going back to a proper racecar...