Having endured a baptism of fire, it was only a matter of time before the Cayman fought back.
Since the sodden Bedford track day in November I’ve noticed I’d been reaching to top up the oil increasingly often. With no signs or smoke or telltale oil patches in the driveway, it left me a little confused as to where all the oil was going. That was until I lifted the engine cover and shined a light on the sticky, black mess lurking below.
It turns out the breather system hasn’t enjoyed itself quite as much as I have, deciding that splattering oil all over the top sections of the crankcase and heads would be more fun. Sticking by my mantra of ‘break and upgrade’ it seemed the perfect time to treat the car to another visit to my favorite Porsche Doctors; Regal Autosport.
Upon dropping the sickly Cayman off the guys explained the cause of the issue, which thankfully turns out to be very common. On the right hand side of the engine sits a plastic air / oil separator. This often splits, coating the engine bay in a lovely shade of Mobil 1. Unwilling to accept this visit would be repair mission only I also plumped for an Evolution Motorsports V-Flow air intake and matching EVOMSit Stage 1 Software. When fitted, the EVOMS Stage 1 should give an additional 22bhp and 22ft/lb with improved throttle response and even better drivability too.
Within thirty minutes of my train journey back to London the team at Regal Autosport text me an image of the Cayman laid bare, with the offending cracked air / oil separator removed. Oil leak fixed and a breather pipe replaced, the Cayman had a clean bill of health to begin tuning. I was almost tempted to convert the car to the Porsche Motorsport oil / air separator which is a dual chamber unit, aimed at further reducing oil consumption under hard use. I decided to direct funds towards more power this time around, but perhaps later I’ll look to do the conversion along with a deeper, X51 sump.
All UK EVOMSit ECU tuning work is carried out in a dedicated office in-house at Regal Autosport. Working closely with EVOMSit in Arizona, results are proven and cross checked by both EVOMSit’s and Regal Autosport’s in house dynos. If you’re unfamiliar with Evolution Motorsports or EVOMSit you’re in for a treat of a google search, with 1700WHP 997 Turbos and 1500WHP 997 GT3s only a click away.
In a baseline test before tuning the car made bang on the nose of 295bhp, a testament to the reliability of Regal’s Mustang dyno. It’s just a shame the Cayman won’t be bothering it’s 1000WHP capacity any time soon. Back in London and typing away, this update has come too soon to know the outcome of the final power test, but one thing’s for sure – I’m pretty excited to find out!
Bonus Images
