When Porsche introduced the Cayman in 2006, one thing was abundantly clear: Porsche had muzzled its midship coupe to prevent cannibalizing 911 sales. Despite a more favorable weight distribution and an unflappable chassis, the Cayman lacked the power to exploit its excellent underpinnings, even in “S” guise. So like its Boxster sibling, the Cayman was destined to play second fiddle to Porsche’s iconic rear-engine flagship. From a business perspective, Porsche’s decision made sense. For enthusiasts, it was yet another bitter pill from Zuffenhausen.

When the Cayman underwent a refresh, there was always hope that a turbocharged variant would be included in the line-up. Predictably, that never happened. So the Cayman continued to stand on the lower/middle rung of the Porsche ladder, offering less power and a lower price than the 911. The Cayman could dance. It just needed an extra bit of oomph.

That’s where Mike Levitas comes in. Mike is the brains behind TPCRacing of Jessup, MD. Born of a family of automotive tinkerers, Mike spent most of his formative years learning about turbos and turning that knowledge to race cars – fast, reliable race cars that won championships. Like most other Porsche enthusiasts, Mike thought the Cayman could use more power. Turbocharged power. But unlike most of the marque’s devotees, Mike made it happen.

Levitas began producing race cars back in the late Eightes, and over the course of the next decade and a half he managed the turbocharger programs for the Nissan 300ZX, Mazda RX7, Lotus Esprit and Consulier GTPs in the IMSA Supercar Series. Mike’s background and advanced aeronautical training eventually led him to build some of the best Porsche race cars around. Porsche Club racing, Motorola Cup action, and a brief dip into Mercedes sedans eventually led him to the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series.

In 2000, TPCRacing began racing under its own banner, racking up more than 20 class wins (including one at Daytona in 2006) and an unprecedented 1-2-3-4 sweep of the driver’s championship. The team was so dominant that the lead car during that championship season never missed a podium. With all of that race history as a test bed, TPC thought it was time to offer some of its accumulated wisdom to the masses.

TPCRacing is now known as one of the premier outlets for readying your Porsche for track duty. Turbochargers, suspension upgrades and computer reflashing are all available to professional and club racers. And for those who’d like a little more performance out of their daily drivers, TPCRacing has you covered in spades. While most of the company’s work is devoted to 911s, TPC thought the Cayman needed a little something extra as well. They picked up a Guards Red 2006 Porsche Cayman S a couple of years ago and went to work. The result is the TPCRacing Cayman S Turbo Kit. Producing around 485 horsepower, it’s packing more ponies than – until recently – nearly any vehicle in Porsche’s lineup, save the GT2. And that’s only with 5.5-pounds of boost. With such a low amount of pressure, the turbo kit puts barely any additional stress on the stock internals of the 3.4-liter flat-six.

TPCRacing sells its Cayman Turbo Kit (with intercooler) for a buck less than ten grand. It includes nearly everything needed for installation: a cat-back exhaust, turbocharger, liquid-to-air intercooler, new intake plenum, all brackets/plumbing/fitting/hardware/clamps, upgraded injectors and custom silicone piping. The ECU needs to be shipped to TPC for reprogramming, but anyone with a fair amount of mechanical aptitude can do the installation. The total tab for our tester was about $12,000 according to the owner. Of course, he also went nuts with suspension, brakes, wheels, tires and body mods that more than doubled that figure.

A few extra bits are recommended by TPC, although they’re not included in the kit. Pop for a set of GT3 spark plugs as well as the factory Porsche front-center radiator and associated ducting and brackets, and it will add around $750 to the tab. Tiptronic cars can skip that last item, as they’re already equipped with the front-center radiator. The downside for Tiptronic owners is that the installation requires modifications to the transmission mounting brackets as well as relocating the transmission oil cooler.

TPC is also working on a non-intercooled Turbo Kit that eliminates the need for the liquid-to-air intercooler as well as the front center radiator and all the additional plumbing and water pump. Boost levels are a bit lower, but so is the price – an estimated $7,490.

We got a chance to sample the full-on intercooled turbo kit and, needless to say, it’s like no Cayman we’ve met before. It’s a mid-engine Jekyll and Hyde. In normal commuter duty the TPC drives exactly like any other Cayman on the road. That’s to say it has near perfect handling, with some of the best brakes and most precise steering ever engineered into a road-going vehicle. But dip into that throttle a bit deeper and… whoosh! As if a giant hand dropped down from the sky and gave you a gentle shove, you’re hurtled along into extra-legal speeds in seconds.

There’s no drama, only a throatier roar from the exhaust that fades as the RPMs drop. Although not quite as transparent as the factory turbo setup in the 997 Turbo, it feels just as fast. The power is available at seemingly any RPM too. There’s a progressive feel rather than the expected lag and burst of traditional tuner turbos – further proof that Mike and his crew know more than a thing or two about balancing linear performance and potent thrust.

Our seat time was all too brief, but it was more than enlightening. Levitas is a manic bit of energy, equal parts mad scientist and grassroots racer. Two of his customers, David and Kevin, happened to be computer engineers and even they were hard pressed to keep up with Mike’s constant stream of technical babbling. The one thing they definitely picked up is Mike’s passion for his work and ability to build an impeccably well-thought out and professional turbo kit.

Our sentiments and disappointments were echoed by several of Mike’s customers. While most would prefer a factory Cayman Turbo, Porsche didn’t build one. That left the door wide open for tuners and TPC happily stepped in to fill the void. For around $12,000 over the price of a Cayman, customers can have a unique, track-friendly daily-driver that’s ready to trounce its rear-engine grandfather, while still costing less and retaining its reliability. That’s a 400-hp formula we can get behind. Now we just need to start trolling Craigslist for used Caymans…

Story and Photos by: Frank Filipponio

Get the full Autoblog story here.

Check out the TPCRacing Cayman Turbo Kit here.

The fastest car I have ever driven is, without a doubt, the Switzer P800 variant of Porsche’s 911 GT2, as reviewed here. The folks at TPC have a roughly similar tuning package that retains the Porsche variable-geometry turbochargers, claimed to produce 775 horsepower and rather amusingly called the “775 Blitzkrieg”. This past September, I had the opportunity to take a ride with TPC’s founder Mike Levitas in the prototype Blitzkrieg. It’s awfully quick, if perhaps not quite as violently impressive as Switzer’s car. However, since TPC was unwilling to let us drive the Blitzkrieg, and since TTAC is unwilling to follow the lead of EVO, Top Gear, and pretty much every other print rag in the free world by writing-up a ride-along as a road test, that’s where we have to let the matter rest. It seems like a good car and if you have money to burn, give TPC a call to find out for yourself.

Luckily for us, TPC customer Joseph Lakowicz was on hand and he positively insisted that I drive his Meteor Grey 997 TT Tiptronic, tuned by TPC to produce approximately six hundred horsepower. Faced with this opportunity to pedal yet another ten-second car on the public roads, I did what any of TTAC’s readers would have done: I took the TPC Tip TT (that’s a mouthful) to visit my childhood home in Columbia, Maryland. I expected that we might be challenged at stoplights by machinery as diverse as the Toyota Highlander and Lexus RX350, and that we would smoke those mothers. This expectation was not entirely fulfilled, as you will see.

It’s been a while since I lived in the little house on Tower Top Court in Columbia’s Long Reach Village. In fact, it’s been more than twenty-six years. One might think that Porsche’s “PCM” navigation system would be capable of finding a three-decade-old home on the East Coast, but in the end Joe and I had to resort to using my BlackBerry’s Google Maps application. “I really don’t mess with the navigation… it doesn’t seem very good,” Joe opined, and he is correct. PCM is a mess and you could get better navigation in a twenty-grand Ford Fusion, or by selecting the very cheapest Garmin GPS at your local Best Buy.

Once the BlackBerry pointed us in the proper direction, however, we were able to head that way with nothing less than utter ferocity. This four-wheel-drive Turbo launches from a stoplight as if it were departing the USS Nimitz on the hook of a steam catapult. Like all pre-PDK 997 Turbos, this is a five-speed, torque-converter gearbox without launch control, so one merely steps on the brake and dials up about 2500 rpm. Releasing the brake will chirp all four corners, flash the traction light, and render the traffic on both sides invisible.

Given that the Tiptronic offers a dilatory, uncooperative sort of steering-wheel manual control, one might be tempted to make one’s own shifts during these stoplight blasts. My second attempt at doing so caused the grey Turbo to select neutral instead of second gear, forcing me to coast to the side of the road as the aforementioned Highlanders and RX350s cruised triumphantly by. Nothing short of restarting the car would permit it to select a forward gear again. It turns out that the 997Turbo is too smart to let you grenade the transmission with excessive force during a shift, surely a reassurance to anybody contemplating pumping-up their own Porsche with this kind of thrust. Best to leave it in “D” and enjoy a completely no-hassle trip into the ten-second zone.

After more than 24,000 satisfactory miles, Joe swears by the concept of the Tiptronic Turbo. I’m not so sure, but there is some massive satisfaction to be had from driving something so disturbingly quick and yet so completely tractable. In the stop-and-go traffic that characterizes Columbia’s main roads, the TPC tune is utterly unnoticeable. This Turbo is as friendly as a Camry while crawling at five miles per hour, and if the navigation is garbage, the hand-sewn cocoa leather dashboard is first-rate enough to soften the annoyance.

Let a hole in traffic appear, no matter how slight, and the big Porsche rips through it with a slurred downshift and a lag-free punch in the back. It is quiet, tractable, and faster than a 997 Cup Car in a straight line. This on-road supremacy is the fulfilled promise of the 1974 Turbo Carrera model, made reality after thirty-some years. Track junkies and back-road blasters will find more satisfaction in a GT3 or — whisper it — a Cayman S. The stock Turbo suffers from being a little slower than a GT-R or Z06, but TPC neatly rectifies this problem at a price considerably below what Porsche would charge.

I arrived at my childhood home to find it much smaller, and much humbler, than I remembered. A quick check of recent real estate sales, however, showed that it was worth more than four hundred grand. This Turbo is similarly deceptive. Subtle to a fault, easy to drive, it can still do the business like almost nothing else. The child in me likes it, as does the adult.

Jack Baruth

Get the full story here!

CLICK HERE for more info on the TPCRacing 775Blitzkrieg

As a child, I owned something called the Lego “Expert Builder Car”. It was a fascinating product. From one box of a thousand or so Lego pieces, it was possible to build many different kinds of cars, up to and including a two-seat roadster with a working transmission. Top-notch fun, and if Lego eventually took it off the market in favor of less advanced kits focusing on Star Wars, Disneyworld, and (possibly) Twilight then we have only the abject failure of the American educational system to blame.

Porsche has a Lego set as well. The same basic set of components is used to create everything from a $45,000 Boxster to a $230,000 GT2. If you think it costs five times as much to make a GT2 as it does a Boxster, you’re probably an outstanding candidate for one of those $11,000 Hublot watches that uses an el-cheapo ETA mechanism to actually tell time. Nope, it’s mostly additional profit at the top of the pyramid. Porsche protects their oh-so-exclusive product ladder by refusing to assemble their Legos into toys like, say, a turbocharged Cayman.

If one listens to Porsche spokespeople, they have many reasons why a turbo Cayman wouldn’t be possible, feasible, or reasonable. These reasons are quite convincing, and they are repeated ad infinitum. Eventually the strong impression is created that a turbo Cayman would be a feat equal to, say, the Manhattan Project. Which makes it all the more interesting that there’s a guy in a shed who builds them for ten grand.

Well, TPC’s Mike Levitas isn’t exactly a guy in a shed. He’s a former Rolex-GT-at-Daytona winner with an extensive engineering background, and he’s devoted a lot of thought to his pressurized Caymans. For $9,995 plus installation, he will put nearly five hundred horsepower behind the seats of Porsche’s factory-crippled hardtop Boxster.

I recently had the opportunity to drive a rather well-sorted TPC Cayman S Turbo at the company’s headquarters outside Washington, DC. In the name of “balance” — something Levitas can wax rather poetic about, given the opportunity — this car was set up for approximately 380 horsepower at 5psi or so of boost and modified with a variety of JRZ and TPC suspension items.

Outside of a racetrack, it’s difficult to get even a standard Cayman 2.7 to its limits, but I was able to verify in a few short triple-digit blasts that TPC’s power numbers seem very legit. This car has pull to match a GT3 and shame a 997S, delivered across a very broad torque curve. If anything, it feels stronger than a GT3 until the very end of the rev range. Naturally, TPC will happily reprofile your boost curve if you want that top-end hit for road course work or midnight street racing.

The rest of the TPC mods also seem reasonably successful. It’s not difficult to imagine that this car would run in nearly a dead heat with a brand-new GT3 around most road courses. Ride quality is no worse than what you would find in said GT3 and pothole compliance appears to be excellent. The (anonymous by request) owner of this particular example uses it as a daily driver and a stealthy, confusion-causing trackday toy. You could do the same.

And you could do it cheaply, relatively speaking. Early 3.4-liter Caymans are now crossing auction blocks for forty grand. A $25,000 check to TPC would nearly duplicate our tester, so it is perfectly possible to obtain Z06-matching performance for the price of a lightly-used Z06. Or you could look it as GT3 lap times for half price. Porsche Cars North America would no doubt prefer you didn’t.

Which brings us to one tiny problem with this lovely mid-engined coupe. The watercooled Porsche engines produced from 1997 to 2008 are famously fragile, even without turbocharging. Porsche kept its split-case race-style engine for the Turbo, GT3, and GT2 until the recent arrival of its completely re-engineered waterboxer. There is no way that this particular Lego set will be as durable as, say, a 2001 996 Turbo. Perhaps this was the reason Porsche never turbocharged the car, although it doesn’t explain why there’s no new-generation Cayman Turbo. Oh well. TPC states that they have yet to experience a turbo Cayman or turbo Boxster failure, which may be reassuring enough for most buyers.

As the price of Porsche’s 911 Carrera sneaks ever closer to $100,000 in even mildly-equipped form, it might be time for the German fiscal adventurists to admit that their core product is becoming rather irrelevant. A factory Cayman Turbo would offer performance just shy of the Nissan GT-R and Z06 Corvette for similar money. That’s a formula that has worked for Porsche in the past (see: 1986 Porsche 944 Turbo) and it could work again. Heck, it might just create a new generation of Porsche fans. If the men from Weissach want some help assembling their Legos, I suspect TPC would be happy to take their call.

By: Jack Baruth

See the TTAC article here

First off, thanks to Mike Levitas for helping me and SO many others on track this weekend. He’s incredibly generous with his time and knowledge. For two days he was jumping in and out of cars in every run group. GT3 Cup cars to Subaru wagons, Black drivers to Green drivers, didn’t matter to him, only that you wanted to learn. Congrats to Harr for his promotion! Awesome driving! We missed you Sunday.

My mistake was riding with Mike the 1st session of the 1st day. I hadn’t been to VIR before and should have gotten familar with the track before I asked him to ride with me. But it was still awesome.

JRZ’s……WOW! It’s hard to describe and I am not technical enough to explain the results, so here’s how it FELT.

One benefit of having Mike in the 1st session was having him setup a baseline for my JRZ’s. I immediately felt better control of the car. The rear end was putting down power without even a slightest hint of coming loose. I had some mild understeer so we made a couple of front rebound adjustments. The change, to my surprise, was easy to feel. It actually caused understeer in some corners that didn’t have it before; Mike predicted it before we made the change. So we changed it back but this time adjusted the compression. Understeer became very minimal but now the car was doing something I hadn’t really felt before, it was sliding (with just a slight lift), i.e. evenly sliding/rotating with little effort. It’s hard to explain but the car was super tight and planted but at the same time could be tossed around VERY controllably with throttle and brake modulation. This was huge for this track. The technical sections require you to roatate and point the car in order to keep your speed up.

This ability to slide the car was different for me. Previously I had to be somewhat aggressive to rotate the car. After just a couple of session with this setup I had awesome control with little effort. This lack of effort quickly built my confidence and reduced my fear when I pushed the edge of adhesion.

Thanks to some great instruction in Potomac PCA, rotation is something that I had been working on, so either I just figured it out or the JRZ’s made it A LOT easier. In any case, the car is extremely stable in & out of corners, stable at speed, stable over rumble, stable under braking and very controllable.

On the street? Not as bad as I thought they would be. I borrowed a trailer for the 5 1/2 hour drive to VIR, so I haven’t driven long distances with them on. But crusing around town they’re a bit harsh but not unbearable.

I had some buyer’s remorse going into this weekend thinking I wouldn’t be able to really appreciate these shocks at my experience level. Now I couldn’t be happier (of course it helps to have a pro driver on hand to setup your car). If you’re building a track car I would highly recommend these shocks.

First a little background….

In the past 2.5 years, I went through a series of cars after selling my much loved E46 M3(track prepped on Motons). E46M3 => 996Turbo => E60M5 => 997C2S => …

I currently own a 2006 Cayman S (manual), purchased from the dealership as a CPO vehicle early in 2008, 100% stock at the time. The wheels/tires combination were recently replaced with factory (Carrera Classics) 19’s wrapped in Continentals. The car came equipped with every option in the book minus the PCCB option.

Stock to RS350

The car was dyno-ed before the RS350 kit to obtain a baseline, and put down a respectable 277rwhp and 254rwtq. (refer to the RS350 review thread for specifics). With the RS350 kit, the car put down 300rwhp with significant gains in the mid range, completely removing the “dip” early in the RPM range that the car suffered from in stock form, and dyno-ed at 300rwhp and 264rwtq.

summary from the RS350 review – “the car pushes you forward like a 996TT down low, and extremely very eager to rev to redline like the 997C2S up top.”

RS350 to TPC TURBO

The TPC Turbo kit arrived and few weeks later, the installation was underway. The entire installation time took from start to finish, just over 2 weeks. Yesterday, I took delivery of my new car. The reason why I say I took delivery of my NEW car, is because that’s exactly, a completely different beast. An absolute ANIMAL trapped inside a “hard top boxter’s” shell.

Initial Impression

Without looking underneath the car, or have the engine cover off, there’s no sign of change to the car. The car idles like stock, drives like stock, feels like stock and handles like stock. I put the same junky 91 octane gas in the tank, I putt the car around town, and commute in and out of traffic.

That’s of course, only until the car hits operating temperature and you put your lead foot to the floor. Between 3.5k to 4k RPM, the car takes on a whole new persona. The first hint of force induction comes in with the high pitch whine of the turbo creeping up from behind. At 4k, the RPM needle starts to pick up speed and like a volume knob being dialed up, the turbo whine gets louder. While you’re busy admiring the symphony happening behind your right ear, you’re pegging redline. But wait, that wasn’t in 1st gear, that was third. The freakin’ car just revved to redline in third gear like it did in first… clutch in, shift, and the wastegate gives you a reminder that it’s ready to go again.

If that doesn’t paint the picture of awesomeness in your head, I dunno how else to describe it.

In its current 91 octane setup, the car is no slouch. Easily faster than my previous 996Turbo. How fast? Scary fast, like the first time i floored the V10 M5. Surprisingly, the car has plenty of traction, even with the slim 265 width Continentals in the rear, I didn’t have problems easing off the line and immediately stomping on the gas. Instead of chirping tires between shifts, the car snaps your head back with each succession.

Exhaust Sound

When Mike and TPC said there’s no drone in the exhaust, they REALLY mean it! In fact, around town while driving conservatively, it’s quieter than my Milltek, and very similar to the noise pitch of the Porsche Sports Exhaust. It’s extremely pleasant for my commute cruising 65-70mph in 6th gear and have absolutely no drone whatsoever.

Get on it and above 4000rpm, the exhaust note climbs, perfectly matching the sound of the Turbo as it spools up. It gives you the bark you need without drowning out just about the coolest sound you can hear inside a car. At its peak, I would guess that it’s a little bit louder than the Milltek exhaust it replaced, but definitely not enough to piss off any neighbors.

What next?

Once the initial test and check period is over and my underbody panels are reinstalled along with oil change, data logged via Durametric will be sent back to Mike @ TPC to further refine the 91 octane tune. All you California Cayman owners itching the pull the trigger, you now have the perfect excuse. A trustworthy, highly competent installer (check out the installation thread), and perfected 91 octane tune will be readily available.

My butt dyno is reading conservatively under 400rwhp with a bit more after Mike works his magic. I originally planned to dyno the car this weekend, I think I will push it back until after Mike gets a chance to check out the Durametric logs.

I will post in this thread overlay graphs and dyno charts as they are done along with video comparisons when available.

Special Thanks

TPC Racing

I would like to thank Tom/Casey/Josh/Mike (not in any particular order) from TPC for the incredible support they’ve provided over the course of the installation process. We’re not talking about a company that ships you a box and you’re on your own. These are a bunch of guys that loves cars, races cars, and wants to share their enjoyment with everyone else.

EuroAutoSpot, San Diego (www.euroautosport.com)

I honestly can’t thank Shane/Chris/Bobby/Linh over at EuroAutoSpot enough for the amount of care and attention that went into the install. For anyone reading this, you HAVE TO check out the Installation Thread. Shane literally prevented my car from burning to the ground with absolutely no chance in hell anyone would cover the damage. This is the same guy that’s worked on maybe 5 porsches EVER, with his first go at the Cayman being this Turbo install. Since they’re not a sponsor on the board, I don’t want to seem like I’m giving them free advertising, so if anyone is interested in getting this kit installed in California or nearby states, contact me in private and I’ll get you in touch with them.

As always…

I’m not a mechanic, not a race car driver, and don’t do this for a living. But like you all, I’m an enthusiast first, and would be more than happy to take anyone out for a spin in the car, or answer any questions you may have about the TPC kit, the RS350 kit, or just anything in general. I’d like to extend that same invitation to anyone that may be out of state, or not in San Diego, CA but happen to be in town. I’m sure TPC would be happy to sell you the kit, and EuroAutoSpot would be happy to schedule you in for the install, but even if you have no intentions on making the upgrade to your own car and just want to go for a spin, let me know.

Anyone with a stock Cayman, or have some sort of performance modification you’re interested in comparing to the standard TPC kit, please feel free to get in touch with me.