Porsche 987.2 Cayman Build Part 1.

By:MarkMiller

Like lots of you, once owning one Porsche, you catch the bug for more Porsches. What began as a 2006 997 4s has morphed into three total vehicles for me. First, I added the ’17 Macan GTS thinking I would drive it more often than the 997 and it would satisfy the bug. And it did for a while. But every time I got back into the 911, I realized how much I missed it. Over the years, the 997 morphed into a ’21 Cayman GTS 4.0 and finally, a ’23 718 Spyder. But I had the itch to buy a second Porsche sports car and teetered between a 944, 996, and my first love, an 84-89 911 in Guards Red with a whale tail (cue high school memories and posters on the bedroom wall.) Well, it seemed like prices were going up by the day for the 911 G cars, which was great for owners and bad for me.

Many of you know I own a business called Westminster Speed & Sound, and we have specialized in upgrades to Porsche vehicles for 13 of our 54 years in business. Please know this is not a sales pitch, but rather, adds some context to the story. Every vehicle I buy gets upgrades to it that allow us to show clients and friends the possibilities with their own vehicles. In the process I get to enjoy all these fun goodies. In part one of this story, I will talk about all the exterior upgrades along with the performance modifications. One important thing to note is that I design everything around the premise that the vehicle can go completely back to stock so as to not affect the car value.

Aniano did a fantastic job keeping the exterior in excellent condition and the original owner had paint protection film applied on the front end, so the car was in great condition for 79,000 miles. With that being said, the film was 14 years old and was showing its age, so step one was to remove the old film. Once that was done, our team did a decontaminant wash to remove any iron deposits or other impurities that had gotten embedded in the paint. The next step was to do a paint correction and apply touch up paint to any of the small stone chips the vehicle had acquired over time.

At this point, it was time to start the improvements. We began by installing paint protection film to the whole front end, A-Pillars, leading edge of roof, rocker panels, behind the rear tires, headlights, and side mirrors. The goal here was to keep the good finish intact as I am planning to drive this car a lot.

The next phase involved installing the Gulf livery stripes on the car. I have loved these graphics since I was a little child and the arctic silver paint works great as a base color. Once the stripes were installed, a ceramic paint coating was applied to all exterior surfaces, including the wheels. These coatings have to be one of my favorite things you can do to a vehicle as it needs washed a lot less and when you do wash it, the grime comes off a lot easier. And let’s just say I am one of those people that do NOT like washing my car. I have loads of respect for people that can spend hours detailing their vehicle, but that is not me.

Next up was improving the handling, sound, and stance of the vehicle. As many of you already know the Cayman R has developed almost legendary status for how well it handled along with a ride that was still quite nice. I did some digging and found that my car had the same front swaybar as the R, but the rear bar was different. The springs and struts were also different than my base Cayman. So I ordered the Porsche rear swaybar and retail was only like $230! Who knew some factory parts could be so reasonable? I also sourced the R springs, and while they were more expensive, they retailed for around $600 for all four. When I priced out the factory R struts, they were quite expensive, so I decided to order a set of Koni “yellows” for 40% less, and in my opinion, got a better product. The springs lowered the car .8” so it helped the stance immensely. Once we had the suspension installed, I had it aligned to Cayman R specs.

Wheels are one of the most important aspects of a car to me. The first part is the visual and of equal importance is the performance benefit. My car came with 17” wheels and they had to go. I was leaning towards 19” wheels until I ran across a newer wheel brand called Triton. They are an American brand that offers forged wheels made in the USA. And they didn’t break the bank, so that was even better. When I found out that they offered a bronze color, that sealed the deal for me. Currently, 18” fitments are their only offering for a 987, so that is what I ended up with. Add in the fact that they weigh 1.5lbs less per wheel than the Porsche 17” wheels, and I was a happy guy. I spec’d Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season 4’s for it as I wanted to drive it year round unless it was snowing.

The final piece was to improve the engine sound. This car did not have the sport exhaust, so it was too quiet. I landed upon an AWE Tuning cat-back exhaust for the car and love the sound. You can now tell it has a flat six with a nice growl, but not overbearing at all. When I took the car out for the first drive after everything was finished, I was in love. I knew it was going to be lots of fun driving this car all over the place. In the next article, we will talk about the audio and technology upgrades, custom installed radar, dash camera, front & rear cameras, and window film.