If you have been following our Porsche Cayman project, you know we have meticulously built the car with some of the best parts to make a great track machine. The only thing left is the aerodynamic aspect. Aerodynamics is probably the most difficult things to dial in on a track car. Another issue that complicates things is that our car is relatively low powered so the aero must be efficient without a lot of drag. The aftermarket is is full of aero parts but looking at them with an engineering eye casts doubts on how effective the parts are. Aero parts for Porsche products are also very expensive! We were considering getting the parts used on the IMSA Grand Am ST class cars but didn’t feel that that was going to be as effective as what we wanted due to them being 10 years old technology. The fact that the car had to retain some street drivability precluded the ability to run a large front splitter. The alternative was for us to design and build our own aero but this would be expensive and require a lot of testing to perfect. Fortunately for us, Verus Engineering came to our rescue with their superbe, exquisite quality and highly engineered and tested Porsche 987 Aero system. The Verus Engineering system can produce 1000 lbs of balanced downforce at 120 mph with minimal drag while still being streetable!
Read all about Project Cayman!
The heart of the Verus aero system is their swan neck wing. It is a very efficient single element airfoil made out of autoclaved dry carbon. It is both strong and light.
The reason why swan neck wings are in favor now days is that they allow for the bottom of the wing to be aerodynamically clean with no brackets to disrupt the air flow. The bottom of the wing is where most of the work in creating downforce is done.
The brackets are CNC machined, hard anodized to prevent galvanic corrosion and bonded in place from the inside of the wing.
The wing mounting arms bolt to a sturdy dry carbon spoiler that bolts to the truck lid. There are support pillars included with the wing that replace the factory retracting wing actuators. These take up most of the downforce that the wing makes while still allowing the trunk to open and close. The wing mount is quite strong and 3 adult men can actually stand on a mounted wing without it breaking. It also looks super awesome!
6 comments
Although I’ll never be able to afford this outrageous Carmen, I’ve been interested in the Caman since it’s inception – it just made sense even if Porsche “put the lid on its development to preserve their 911 market. I always believed in the Cayman concept like a newly converted religious sinner! I will never even see much less drive this highly developed iteration of the Cayman. But, I greet it as the very best Porsche ever built and potentially if not presently The Best Sports Car in existence bar none.”The best was expected” and it wasn’t Porsche that delivered!
Well, since the new GT3 finally has double wishbone suspension, I doubt that the Cayman is the best Porsche ever built. But, it is obvious that they have been holding out with MacPherson strut suspension for as long as possible. Finally, the ultimate street Porsche is here…if you can afford it.
And, you can get it with a manual transmission!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wJLmc_M-0ng
Do these renderings mean that there’s not much to gain by raising the rear wing higher? The color of the air hitting the rear wing is the same as the color of the clean air in front of the car.
Yes there were no indicated gains by putting the wing higher. Lower wings usually work better on fastback cars as the flow stays attached to the roofline and deck better.
I remember in the video on the initial build that the plan was to use the hydraulic HLS system to drop the rear of the car in the straights to reduce the rear wing angle and low the drag like a DRS system. Theoretically could you information from a shock travel sensor to continually adjust the height of the front and rear suspension to hold the aero in an optimum height as the car pitches and rolls through braking and cornering?
We are not that smart. Correction the owner of the car doesn’t have the money to pay for the development of that.