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987.2 Boxster Track Build - The little 2.9 that could


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On the MX5 forums I had a 16 page thread on the build of my previous track car so I thought I’d start a thread here to document the build and running of the 987.2 Base Boxster I purchased about 2 months ago. It was sort of on impulse as the price was right (very motivated seller!) and while I would of preferred a Manual base Cayman they seem to go for 20k more than I paid for this car so for my purposes I compromised.

I’m not sure if many people know it but on the base 987.2 you get the same size brakes as the S (in black instead of red), it has a 6 speed unlike the 987.1 base cars which had a 5 speed and the base car also has a shorter 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th than the S which makes it a great track candidate compared to previous base models which weren’t as good. Combine that with the 9A1 engine with multiple oil pickups and no IMS for track reliability and I think it makes a good track candidate if you don’t care about the extra power.

Here is what it looked like on pickup day next to my NC2 MX5 street car (lightly modded - Ohlins, 4.1 Final Drive, sway bars)

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PR Tech looked at the car and said it was basically too nice to be modified as they could only find one mechanical issue which will cost ~$300 to fix so that made me very happy as I want to start with a clean car rather than something that has been thrashed.

Since pickup I did some minor changes like changing the side intakes to black, changing to coloured crests on the wheels, putting the 981 version Boxster badge on the back and fixing up the paint so it looks nice, here’s how it stands today

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I previously owned a 981 Boxster S with PDK which was an incredible car but honestly the chassis of the 981 is almost too good (much more refined than the 987) and the PDK makes it less involving. The price of the 981 was also something I was conscious of because for me it would be an expensive car to bin on the track.

In terms of motorsport I’m coming primarily from the MX5 world so HP isn’t really something I need much of but this car having around 65% more power than the MX5 is a definite plus! Before I got into the MX5 I had a 300kw Evo 10 and I learnt after I got the MX5 that I don’t need all of the HP to have fun.

My previous 2006 NC1 MX5 (Exhaust, Tune + tons of suspension/safety mods)which I built over 5 years was the best thing I ever had as I really learnt to drive on the track in it doing >50 track days in it. It did good times around circuits for what it is but nothing that is competitive with you Porsche guys.

Previous MX5 times (104kw of fury!):
SMSP GP - 1:50.94
SMSP South - 1:03.58
Wakefield Park - 1:09.87

Here’s a picture of my old NC1 MX5 out on track and a picture of the interior (very street car with it’s weld in cage).

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The plans for the Boxster is to just sort out the suspension, chuck on some Z221’s and probably put a tune on it to increase the rev limiter by 200RPM (7300>7500RPM) which will be very helpful to boost it up above the base Cayman power (just over 200kw) given the Boxster got a bit gimped by Porsche on the software side.

Unfortunately the car has already seen a tilt tray on a recent drive with some guys from this forum when the shifter cable broke but that was all sorted, let’s hope that’s the last tilt tray it sees for a while…
I already have a few parts ready to go on:
-      Apex SM-10 Wheels (Porsche specific fitment) - 18x8.5 +50 & 18x10 +36
-      Porsche Short Shift Kit
-      GT3 Brake Master Cylinder
-      Aim Solo 2 DL Datalogger (need to buy a CAN adaptor as I only have OBDII currently)

The list of other mods I have planned are:
-      GT3 LCA’s
-      Ohlins Coilovers (or similar)
-      Front & Rear Sway bars (likely GT3 Front, Tarett rear)
-      Brake pads (probably Pagid RS29's)
-      LSD (undecided on brand - Quaife, Guard, OS-Giken etc..)
-      Safety mods (seat & HANS harness)

I’m just waiting to get a quote for the extra parts + labour for everything to go on so I can get started.

The total cost for this build is going to be over half of what I paid for the car but I’m of the ‘do it once, do it right’ train of thought rather than doing things over time.

Hope to get this completed and see some of you guys out on the track soon!

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Thought this also might be interesting for anyone contemplating a base 987.2 as one thing I really liked about the 987.2 base is the shorter gearing of 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th but the thing that concerned me was that 2nd might be too short for the tracks so I did some calculations of gears based on vmin/vmax for the 3 tracks I most commonly go on which are Wakefield, SMSP South and SMSP GP Circuits.

I got most of the vmin the data from my Aim Data in my MX5 and cross referenced it with videos I found on Youtube (mainly iamcharliekay), surprisingly a lot of the vmins on corners in my MX5 seemed close and on the odd occasion faster but obviously the Vmax data was way off.

I did these calculations before I purchased the car by getting gear ratio and Final Drive ratio data but since purchasing the car I verified that it seems to be correct based on speed/RPM calculations.

It took me a couple of hours to do this but it will save me a ton of track time by taking the guess work out of which gear I should be in (if I don’t have enough revs I’m not going fast enough).

The thing that seems to be good about this car is for the most part I should be able to stay above 4k RPM with a very small amount of shifts on most of the tracks and even the corners, third just seems like it's perfectly geared.

Calculations:

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Wakefield

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Wakefield

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SMSP GP

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41 minutes ago, rego said:

 

Looks like you are building up a good track car, you might also like to consider adding a Mantis Racing extended 2ltr sump and If you a removing the gear box to fit a LSD, you could also fit a static crankshaft bearing that fits behind the rear main oil seal.

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21 minutes ago, WB997.2GTS said:

Looks like you are building up a good track car, you might also like to consider adding a Mantis Racing extended 2ltr sump and If you a removing the gear box to fit a LSD, you could also fit a static crankshaft bearing that fits behind the rear main oil seal.

Thanks for the tip!

To be honest I have considered mods like an extended sump or other mods like a sump baffle that one shop suggested but I think I'm going to leave it as-is and log the data (I can get Oil Temp and Oil Pressure logged onto my AIM Datalogger via CAN) to see if I've got an issue that needs to be addressed before I fork out the money especially since it doesn't seem to be a big issue on the 987.2.

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13 hours ago, Gavin (CliffToCoast) said:

Following this thread - a 2.9 has always been of interest to me & loving the data you have here.  Nice work!

Awesome, thanks for the support!

3 hours ago, flamingporsche said:

An additional cheap, easy mod is to put GT3 brake cooling ducts on.

Yeh, given how cheap they are seems like a no brainier. Will get some next time I need to buy parts from the dealer.

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Got my first track day done in the Boxster today at a very wet Wakefield park.  The car is still completely stock and on the Michelin PS3 road tyres but I figured given the rain the stock tyres and brake pads would be ok and I can just take it pretty easy while learning how the car goes.

Managed to keep it on the black stuff all day with no major slides or skids so I was happy to go home with a straight car, the BMW guys were much more enthusiastic and I got to see a lot of power sliding!

S9DW2en.jpg

I have to say I am very impressed with the handling of the car and it’s feel is way better than the 981’s electric steering. I only had one slight slide when I messed up a blip before turn 2 where the back of the car got a bit squirrelly and I could feel the weight transfer, definitely made me realise I still have to learn how to drive a mid-rear car.

The only negatives were the stock brake pedal which has way too much travel on the track but this should get fixed by the GT3 Brake Master Cylinder which will go on with the other mods along with uprated pads, it wasn't the end of the world but it did force me to use my full heel to blip rather than just doing a slight roll off the brake pedal which I'm used to. The only other negative is the shift mechanism having too much side to side play making it hard to easily find second for the slower corners but the short shift kit should fix that too.

I was 6 seconds off the pace of the top guy so I wasn't that quick, nor was it a race but I managed to bet 5th out of the 62 people there which I thought goes to show how good these things handle out of the box (unfortunately they put my car down as an MX5 given I registered with that car)F6FvDAe.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well it’s a very real build now after ordering all of the parts around a week ago. The only thing I haven’t ordered is a diff for the car as I’m still waiting on a quote for that.

After looking at the spreadsheet of costs I have, I’ve already gone slightly over what I thought this build was going to cost when I add in the assumed costs for labour + small things like fluids but as usual I went ‘why not’ on a few things like rear LCA’s which I didn’t really need and extra safety things like a GT3 bucket seat and Porsche specific Schroth Harness rather than using existing safety gear.

Here is the final part list which I’ve purchased.

Suspension:
Ohlins Road & Track Coilovers
Swift 9kg Coilover springs (for rear)
Tarett GT3 Front LCA with OEM Rubber Bushings
Tarett GT3 Rear LCA with OEM Rubber Bushings
Tarett Rear GT Series Sway Bar (19.1mm, 4 Pos Adjustable)
Tarett Rear Drop Links
Porsche Cayman S Front Sway bar
Tarett Rear Toe Control Arm
Tarett Locking Plate Kit, For Adjustable Toe Link

Brakes:
TRW GT3 Brake Master Cylinder (same as Porsche OEM)
PAGID RS29 Pads

Software:
FVD Tune
AIM Solo 2  DL + CAN Connector

Safety:
996 GT3 Bucket Seat with Harness Cross bar
Porsche 996/997 Schroth HANS Harness

Tyres:
Apex SM-10 Wheels (Porsche specific fitment) - 18x8.5 +50 & 18x10 +36
Hankook Z221 235/40/18 & 265/35/18

I’ve already installed the FVD tune on the car which went well. The rev limiter is now 200RPM higher at 7500RPM and the throttle is now more responsive plus the dip as the car comes on cam seems  to be gone. I wouldn’t normally bother with  a tune on an N/A car but  with the Boxster being gimped by 7kw under the Cayman and the tune making a claimed 10kw over that it didn’t seem like a ton of money for 17kw. That is the last modification for the car though engine wise as I don’t need more power. The only issue I have is the throttle might be too responsive but I’ll see how it goes at the track.
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Got the tyres fitted on the  wheels as well which I think look pretty good, I settled on 235/265 tyres to start with due to the current shortage in stock but I will move up to 245/285 for the next set.

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The big decision is black centre caps or silver, will have to look at it when it’s on the car to decide.

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Here’s the GT3 seat I picked up, wouldn’t have normally purchased a Porsche seat but for $1500 with the sliders it was too good to pass up

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The only thing I had a hard time deciding on was sway bars as I want to minimise the amount of sway bar I run (I’d rather use springs to control roll). I ended  up deciding to uprate the springs by ~1kg on each end on the Ohlins which should still be ok on the stock valving (put the 8kg rears on the front and put a new set of 9kg rears on the car), upgrade to the Cayman S front sway on the front bar which is the same as what the Cayman R runs and put on an Tarett adjustable rear bar that maximises the range of understeer/oversteer I can dial into the car relative to stock Cayman S bars.

I found it really fascinating the number of bars that Porsche has for different configurations of the car. If you have PDK you get a softer rear bar, if you have PDK + LSD you get a stiffer rear bar, if you have manual + LSD you get stiffer again etc.. with differing rates between base and S models.

I have a big spreadsheet comparing a large range of bars but ended up deciding that the Tarrett small 19.1 bar was near perfect for the rear of the car as I should be able to get plenty of adjustability out of it. I’m not advanced enough to do an accurate Front Roll Couple calculation including spring rates and I really just wanted to maximise adjustability relative to a stock Cayman S sway bar setup which this setup seems to achieve along with the ability to adjust the rear bar for tracks like SMSP South where I want more oversteer.

If I end up needing the highest setting of rear bar then I'll either put on even stiffer rear springs or put the fronts back to the stock spring and if I need more stiffness from the bars then I will upgrade to a 997.2 GT3 front bar which will add in additional stiffness at both ends plus adjustability but I’d prefer the simplicity of a single adjustable rear bar if I can as I hate having too many variables.

Here’s the comparison I did (not perfect as it's hard to find exact wall thickness etc.. for sway bars, but good enough for me):
pyK1OLO.jpg

Nice shot from a couple of weeks ago too at the cars first track day, shows how small it is!

kX5Z3gt.jpg

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17 hours ago, LeeM said:

Jeez you're going for it. Nice work mate 👍

First rule when building a car: Don't have a spreadsheet. Second rule: Double your expenditure expectations 😅

Sage advice 😂

Luckily the better half is understanding of my sickness.

7 hours ago, Troubleshooter said:

Lots of fun there for you mate - good looking rims too, I vote black centres.

Thanks, yeh I'm leaning towards the black centres too, less OEM looking and I think will match the black car + calipers

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  • 1 month later...

Picked my Boxster up from PR Tech today ready for its first track day at SMSP GP tomorrow and all I can say is wow! The quality of the PR Tech workshop really impressed me along with the professionalism and knowledge of all of the guys there who worked on the car over the last couple of weeks.

It just feels amazing to drive with it being far more responsive to steering inputs while still feeling relatively comfortable despite it now having springs 3x stiffer than stock which is what I should have expected out of the Ohlins dampers but wasn’t sure (I went even stiffer than originally planned with 475lb Front and 550lb rear + Tender springs ) I guess the compromise of sticking with the GT3 rubber bushings rather than going to monoball helps that as well.

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The Brake master cylinder and RSL1 brake pads makes the brake pedal very firm when driving around town but I did a couple of hard braking tests and as everyone said the pedal goes down much less than stock making it much easier to heel and toe (this will be even more pronounced on the track in the big braking zones).

I’d never seen a 987 Boxster with a welded in harness bar before but PR Tech had done one before and I was very happy with the work their fabricator in making one which doesn’t inhibit the seat movement on the passenger side and which also should not really alter the stock look if I ever put the stock seat back in for a trip somewhere like Tasmania.
jVudrBxh.jpg

All of the datalogging gear is in the car also with the harness bar creating the perfect place to mount  the SmartyCam, I still need to get the PR tech to guys to get it setup to from CAN rather than OBDII next time I go back so I can get steering angle/Oil Pressure/Oil Temp, wheel speed etc.. which don’t come out of OBDII.

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I’ve got 7 track days coming up over the next two months including 4x SMSP GP days, 2x Wakefield days and 1x SMSP South day so I should have a good feel for the car soon. The only downside is  that the data to guide setup will  be a bit flawed because we are still waiting on the Drexler LSD to  come in which will change the setup but I already purchased the next set of tyres which are A050's with a slightly wider front tyre to offset the LSD's push a little bit

Uw30FEq.jpg

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Boxster is looking great @rego.

1 hour ago, rego said:

The quality of the PR Tech workshop really impressed me along with the professionalism and knowledge of all of the guys there

+1.  The guys at PR have helped me out several times (and I have read several others on PFA too), so good work relying on their expertise. 

1 hour ago, rego said:

I’ve got 7 track days coming up over the next two months

I'm very jealous of the fun you're going to have with it at the upcoming 7 trackdays - Dayyumm that sound good. 

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On 12/09/2020 at 16:53, ML13 said:

looking great Rego

 

On 12/09/2020 at 17:34, luzzo said:

Boxster is looking great @rego.

+1.  The guys at PR have helped me out several times (and I have read several others on PFA too), so good work relying on their expertise. 

I'm very jealous of the fun you're going to have with it at the upcoming 7 trackdays - Dayyumm that sound good. 

Thanks guys for that, absolutely loving it!

Got back from the track earlier (it was just a morning event,) the car was turned 1:48's in every session from the second and felt very composed.

Sc2Ubhb.jpg

Today was  more about acquiring data so I tried a bunch of different lines in the corners, plus different gears like second at Turn 2/Turn 9 etc.. which I'll analyse before Wednesday when I'm back  out  there  to implement what seems to be the fastest way around.

Looks like the best rolling lap was a 1:46.6 and the theoretical is in the 1:45's so there is plenty for me to understand about the fastest lines from the  data I already have.Pi03nC3.jpg


The PSM light was flashing on all of the tight bends to tell me it was braking the inside tyre despite it being off which tells me the diff will be a very welcome addition when I get it in a few weeks time to  lay  the power down out of the corners. I've read that some people put a switch on the yaw sensor to disable it completely which is something I'll consider if it keeps doing this following the diff going in.

Here's the  1:48.34 lap I did in the second session,  I had some problem with the Aim overlay so excuse the lack of brake/RPM data. You can also see me putting my hand down to shift gears where I'm used to shifting in other cars 😂

 

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6 hours ago, LeeM said:

46's isnt hanging around mate. Nice work 👍

Thanks mate, lots of learning to do in this car!

Also had this video of my brown undies moment at T1. After 30-40 track days at SMSP I have never touched the dirt so this was a good reminder of me needing to respect the track and not do dumb stuff like picking up the throttle before the Apex (bad line) and then lifting off too quickly!

Luckily I didn't end up on the inside wall like so many have done.

 

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Got out again on Wednesday and had a good time but couldn't break out of the 1:48's. Both a combination of me not being consistent enough and a few laps when the tyres were right but I ran into traffic.

There were a couple of instructors there I trusted to do a reference lap but unfortunately they aren't able to get out in customers cars at the moment. Boz said he'd do a lap next weekend at Wakefield so I guess I'll see then where the pace is and get a professional opinion on the setup.

I'm really in love with the car, it's the perfect step up from the MX5 as a track car in that it's fast enough to allow me to turn slightly faster times and actually overtake people but not enough power that it compensates for poor corner exits.
 
Oh and word of warning for anyone considering PagID RSL1 pads, they are insanely loud! I normally don't mind sound and I've run a lot of aggressive 'track only' pads over the years but these things are on another level for sound, even more so than the 29's!
 
Couple of cool pics from the day:
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On 14/09/2020 at 09:59, edgy said:

Nice work! 

I like the detail in your build, 1:48's with potential for 1:45/6's is very impressive! 

PR Tech have been very good to me over the years too, especially with their focus on motorsport. 

 

Thanks mate. Yeh, I actually live really close to Autohaus so they would be the natural option but PR Tech to me seem to have that extra edge on Motorsport knowledge like you say.

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Good stuff! 

I found SMP GP circuit needs you to be super invested into it, I never quite spent the same amount of time finessing it there like I did at Wakefield with my 7.1 GT3, so I didn’t get the results, the guys who did, did it a lot and saw the gains... next time (car) round I will... but I am really tempted to follow in your footsteps and get another Boxster or cayman to beat on track. 
 

Also, I think the fear factor is a bit higher there, more speed and more concrete to keep you honest and in check 😂 

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4 hours ago, edgy said:

Good stuff! 

I found SMP GP circuit needs you to be super invested into it, I never quite spent the same amount of time finessing it there like I did at Wakefield with my 7.1 GT3, so I didn’t get the results, the guys who did, did it a lot and saw the gains... next time (car) round I will... but I am really tempted to follow in your footsteps and get another Boxster or cayman to beat on track. 
 

Also, I think the fear factor is a bit higher there, more speed and more concrete to keep you honest and in check 😂 

Agreed, SMSP GP is a confidence track which takes a lot of skill to drive well and demands respect. Have rarely seen a cheap crash there.

Yeh, get one! Prices are up a little at the moment due to COVID but I reckon these 987.2 cars are great value as a track car especially the Boxster S manual models at ~50k if you can do the soft top thing. I guess the main downside though is it would be a bitch to sell if you mod it and don’t part it out as no-one wants a track Boxster 😂

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18 hours ago, rego said:

Agreed, SMSP GP is a confidence track which takes a lot of skill to drive well and demands respect. Have rarely seen a cheap crash there.

Yeh, get one! Prices are up a little at the moment due to COVID but I reckon these 987.2 cars are great value as a track car especially the Boxster S manual models at ~50k if you can do the soft top thing. I guess the main downside though is it would be a bitch to sell if you mod it and don’t part it out as no-one wants a track Boxster 😂


I definitely am not opposed to the soft top life!! 😎 

It’s crazy with Covid and all, literally the reverse has occurred to what the speculation was early on.... people are getting busy living, that’s for sure!

Ill see you at the track one of these days soon no doubt. 👍

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Went out to a Trackschool day at Wakefield today and managed to turn a 1:09.36 which was a but slower than expected but I had a ton of fun driving the car, the extra weight compared to the MX5 is far more noticable at Wakefield than SMSP which is something I need to get used to.

I had one of the instructors go out and turn a lap for me to get some reference data plus feedback on the car, he took it pretty easy and managed a 1:08.56 (after doing a 1:08.63 the previous lap) and said that if he pushed it (using kerbs, driving more aggressively) the car could pretty easily go into the 7's.

BWdkjle.jpg

His feedback was that the car was well balanced but really needed the traction control completely disabled as it is interfering very badly in accelerating out of the tight corners causing a ton of lost lap time which was my thought as well but I wasn't 100% sure that it wasn't just me taking shitty lines causing the PSM to intervene despite it being 'off' so it was validating to get that feedback.

I think I'm going to leave traction control as-is for the moment and when the diff comes in a few weeks I'll also put a switch on the yaw sensor to allow me to completely disable traction control as I won't have any use for it anymore (it's currently braking the inside tyre on tight corners to make up for the lack of diff).

I'm absolutely loving the new Race Studio 3 beta that allows side by side video analysis, it definitely makes it easy to compare laps and visualise where I'm going wrong, I uploaded a video showing it working comparing my lap with the instructors (it cuts off the video just before the end as you can see which is a bit annoying but the last half second isn't that important anyway).

I still think the Racelogic is superior at the moment in video analysis but I've been an AIM user for a long time so I'm much more comfortable using the software which is a big thing for me as I can break laps down in a few minutes these days and figure out where I'm losing time.


There are a bunch of mistakes in my driving like braking too early and double pumping the throttle on occasion but It's pretty clear looking at the data and GPS traces that the biggest loss was on turn 5 where I'm turning in a bit too early which is a mistake that carries all the way to the fish hook so that is something that I am working on addressing.

Heading out again next Monday so hopefully can sort some issues out and get the time down.

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