By 
We are delighted to announce that we’ve acquired a new development car – a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4.
Here at Suspension Secrets, the two marques we work on most are BMW and Porsche.
Last year, we revealed our BMW F80 M3 development car, which continues to be a great project. Since acquiring the car, the outreach from the BMW community has been very positive. Customers are keen to discuss the car, and relating to their experiences behind the wheel has been much easier.
So what about Porsche? Following the acquisition of the M3, it became apparent that we needed a Porsche.
The Cayman GT4 was chosen as we consider it the best platform for illustrating how much further the chassis can be developed with our in-house suspension upgrades. The Cayman GT4 is an excellent starting point for illustrating just what Suspension Secrets can do.
The 718 Cayman GT4 is a purpose-built high-performance car that is powered by a 4.0L flat-six engine. The Cayman uses a mid-engined platform that is, in terms of chassis dynamics and physics, the ideal layout for cornering performance. A mid-engined chassis gives nimble handling, good chassis balance, and good traction due to the centralised weight in the chassis. What makes the Cayman an interesting prospect is that it sits below Porsche’s respected 911 in their model line-up. This is particularly interesting as the Cayman’s mid-engined chassis is technically superior to the rear-engine layout of the 911.
In response to this, Porsche has always made a point of restricting the outright performance of the Cayman models in an attempt to prevent the Cayman from dethroning the 911 as their best performing car. The Cayman GT4 (and GT4 RS) are the highest-performance versions of the 718 Cayman.
The 718 GT4, like every Porsche GT model, has a fully-adjustable chassis from the factory. The front and rear camber and toe angles, ride heights, anti-roll bars and aerodynamics can all be adjusted for improved cornering performance on the road and track. From our experience of setting up hundreds of GT4s, we’ve found the chassis to be quite limited in terms of what can be achieved when setting a GT4 up even with the in-built adjustability of the chassis.
It is for this reason we chose the 718 GT4, as the scope for improving the GT4’s chassis is wider than that of the GT3.
Much like our BMW project, we’ll be assessing the Cayman GT4’s capabilities and discovering its strengths and weaknesses over a longer period. As we explore the car we’ll then begin to introduce upgrades in a stage-by-stage process which will see our Cayman GT4 transform from a great fast-road car into a fully-blown track car.
We’d like to extend a big thank you to Gary and the rest of the team at Kaiimans International for their enthusiasm and assistance with our acquisition.
Visit our shop here if you’re interested in taking your car to the next level: shop.suspensionsecrets.co.uk
