Transforming a street car into a race car

Kent at Precision Chassis Works in AZ has my Boxster and started by stripping out the entire interior to prep for fabricating a custom safety cage.



Step 1: take out everything from the interior

Step 2: Next, Kent starts fabricating a safety cage

A cage fabricator is found

In trying to learn more about Spec Boxsters, I have have been reading a lot of the posts at Brad Robert's website dedicated to BoxsterSpec.com specifically under the Build section where folks from around the country are posting about their respective build process.

One of the builder's who does some extraordinary work with exceptional attention to detail is a guy named Kent Porter out of Gilbert, AZ who runs Precision Chassis Works. The detailed pictures of his Boxster builds as well as the numerous endorsements of his work by other builders sold me.

It ends up working out that Kent is able to drive over to check out my Boxster for me during my buying process to validate for me exactly what I am getting. After the purchase was made, Kent picked up my new car in his enclosed trailer and took it over to his shop to begin the process.

A donor car is found

After much consideration to alternatives...

I found a 1997 Porsche Boxster perfect for gutting and transforming into a Spec Boxster eligble to compete in Porsche Club of America Club Racing, NASA GTS-2 and SCCA ITR.

The car is currently in Phoenix, Arizona. Need to determine my next move on bringing it home or I have an idea on a great AZ resource for a cage.

This car has a very worn out interior and the engine is not currently running. I am assuming the worst that the engine is toast. The price reflects the interior condition and need for replacement motor.

The search for a new track car/ race car

A few key criteria:

• Ability to compete in wheel to wheel racing
• Handling, no doubt above and beyond what I already have
• Ability to take a passenger so that I can still use it when instructing
• Raw speed, ??? hmmm this one gets expensive to buy and maintain, will likely downgrade here
  

Options:

• Transform my 996 into race car: emotional attachment keeps me from tearing it apart and the fact that it is a hybrid already
  
• Different 996 C2 race car eligible for Spec996??
• maybe further down the road
  
• C5 Z06 race car
• Radical SR3 or SR4
• extremely fast :)
• incredible handling
  
• the running costs for one of these ends up being much much higher than I initially thought
  
• Spec Boxster
• it is a relatively new series that is well positioned to grow
• cars will handle extremely well
• power will be down by 100HP at the wheels vs my current track car
• I won't be racing with my wallet  :)
  

A change in focus

After spending a few years developing my 1999 Porsche 996 into a pretty decent track toy, I decided to give the red car a rest instead of transforming it into a race car. I'll quiet it down a bit and primarily use it as an occasional weekend car and perhaps sell it. :(

Part of the logic behind this is that the car has been upgraded with a 2003 3.6L motor when my original motor broke a connecting rod. This change makes the car a bit of a hybrid as far as to where it could possibly fit in a race series and for now I'll go in a different direction.