The Porsche 911 GT3 is a beast, wailing down the road with an incredible 9000 RPM engine. In terms of suspension refinement and adjustability, though, it might be one-upped by its little sibling, the Cayman GT4. Here's how.
Chris Harris just put out his video review for the Cayman GT4, and (here's the bad news for those of you fighting against the Cayman Inferiority Complex) concluded that the 911 GT3 still feels like a more special car. The GT3's engine cannot be discounted.
However, in discussing what the Cayman has under its skin with engineering chief Andreas Preuninger, it seems like the GT4 is more of a special product than the GT3 when it comes to suspension components, design, and variation.
Much of the GT4's suspension is taken from the GT3. The front end is particularly similar, with the same parts number on the forged aluminum wishbones where you can adjust the camber. The uprights are the same between the GT3 and the GT4, as are the stabilizers and the stabilizer settings.
Even better than what you get in the GT3, however, are the roll bars. The front and rear roll bars are both adjustable, so you can soften the front on its three settings and stiffen the rear on its three settings to give yourself a very slippy setup. That's what Chris Harris uses in the video.
There are also ball bearings at the top mounts, between the uprights and the lower wishbones, and between the wishbones and the front subframe.
Also adjustable is the front diffuser — you can take out a flap at the front to let in more air and get more downforce, though you need to change the rear wing from 4.5 degrees of attack to seven so that you balance the car out. The rear wing on the GT3, by contrast, is fixed.
At the rear, the uprights are all new for the GT4, new pivot points, new uprights, new forged aluminum wishbones again with camber adjustment, a reinforced crossmember with new geometry, and ball bearings "all over," as Preuninger says. The damper is new from Bilstien, with a very light spring and a helper spring. The current GT3 doesn't have helper springs. Only Porsche's most special GT cars of recent years have. The original 911 GT2 got 'em and the last GT3 RS 4.0 liter got 'em, too.
So while the Cayman GT4 has to live with a Carrera S engine and the 911 GT3 gets its own bonkers powerplant, you could argue that the GT4 is more special when it comes to suspension and design.
Now who wants to swap a GT3 engine into a GT4?
Contact the author at raphael@jalopnik.com.