718 GT4 and Spyder. Cool, yet I am disappoint

[G.Irish]

Surprising no one, Porsche has officially announced the 718 GT4 and Spyder.  40ish more horsepower at 414, more downforce, current GT3 brakes and suspension, yadda yadda.

It got an 8000 rpm 4.0L, which is great, but it turns out that it's a bored out version of the Carrera motor, not an actual GT engine. And it has the same max torque as the old motor.  The car is a full 120lbs heavier than the old model, while using the same gearing that was too tall for the 981 GT4.

I expected this car to be more expensive than the previous gen, but a base price of $13k more, puts it at $100k before you start adding options.  If you figure $10-15k in options for a sensible build, you're right in used 991 GT3 territory.  Porsche says the GT4 is 10 seconds a lap faster around the 'Ring which should translate to it being about as fast as a 991.1 GT3 around a racetrack, but I would think with the same tire the GT3 would still be faster since it has more power, and weighs about the same.


Still, being able to configure the car the way you like it, and roll out with a full warranty is definitely worth something.  Will be interesting to see how insane the dealer markups are.


https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2019/pro...ngine.html

[D_Eclipse9916]

On the flip side; the GT4 version of the race car was just the 3.8 Carrera motor with the X51 package. That makes the 4.0L in the street car a nice surprise. While peak torque may be the same; I would be interested if the entire powerband gained 20-30 torques.

I love it! A common complaint about the 991 version of the GT3 is that it lost it's knife edge in chassis feel.

Gimme a 718 Spyder in white or red; that would be my choice.

[G.Irish]

One plus of the 4.0L is that maybe there's a lot of headroom for power mods.

I like the Spyder either way, just because I can't think of a better convertible for the money, or significantly more money. Like, it would be cool to have 911 Speedster or 458 Speciale Aperta, but for one-third the price I'd be pretty happy with the Spyder.

[ScottyB]

i'm just glad the 4 cylinder is gone. F that noise, Porsche you had me worried there

[Evan]

Love the car. Disappointed about the price, but its not like any of us was going to buy one new, and the previous car sold for way over sticker anyway.

Hopefully they will make/sell a ton of them so they will depreciate and we can all buy them as track cars in 15 years :-p

[G.Irish]

Some points I've read since the press release:

-Supposedly the standard for how the car is weighed for gov't purposes has changed. They must quote weight with standard equipment, so apples to apples the new GT4 is lighter
-Production numbers are going to be far less limited than last time. Porsche is gonna make as many as people want
-The base chassis is rumored to be the same as the 981 since that was what was homologated for racing with the Clubsport. That being the case, the whole strut towers tearing themselves from the chassis problem might not be fixed
-Gear ratios the same, so might be same gearbox that had 3rd gear issues

[ScottyB]

the whole strut towers tearing themselves from the chassis problem might not be fixed

how. how have the Germans still not mastered how to keep a chassis from doing an impression of wet paper towel?

[G.Irish]

the whole strut towers tearing themselves from the chassis problem might not be fixed

how.  how have the Germans still not mastered how to keep a chassis from doing an impression of wet paper towel?

It's kind of a weird outlier problem.  Regular 981 Caymans don't have the problem.  Have only seen one GT3 have it happen, and a lot more 991 GT3's were made than 981 GT4's.  But there's been 4 or 5 confirmed cases of the failure for the 981 GT4, even though only about 2000 were made.

One theory is that there isn't enough bump travel in the suspension as implemented on the GT4. So some full compression events fully compress the bump stops too and smash into the strut tower housing.  Apparently that housing is reinforced on the Clubsport GT4.

[D_Eclipse9916]

the whole strut towers tearing themselves from the chassis problem might not be fixed

how.  how have the Germans still not mastered how to keep a chassis from doing an impression of wet paper towel?

It's kind of a weird outlier problem.  Regular 981 Caymans don't have the problem.  Have only seen one GT3 have it happen, and a lot more 991 GT3's were made than 981 GT4's.  But there's been 4 or 5 confirmed cases of the failure for the 981 GT4, even though only about 2000 were made.

One theory is that there isn't enough bump travel in the suspension as implemented on the GT4. So some full compression events fully compress the bump stops too and smash into the strut tower housing.  Apparently that housing is reinforced on the Clubsport GT4.

Those clubsports are very disappointing; I had really high hopes; but they just tend to have issues.