Church

Fit stock catted frontpipe back & warm up engine prior testing for emissions.

Entire car, except audio, bumpers, fender garnishes and fuel injection system

Given that new & prepainted costs just £15.60 including VAT, imho it makes little sense to clean rust & paint old one.

mispost@wrong thread, ignore

If -2.9 camber is mentioned .. i guess one will need to adjust front camber from stock. One or both strut lower mount bolts will need to be replaced with camberbolts, or, if those mentioned fensport coilovers have their own camberplates included, increased camber using camberplates. BTW, do check, if springs used in coilovers you plan to buy, are of smaller diameter then stock springs, so that you DO increase inner wheel clearance.

Does it need to be painted?

225 or 235 imho is a bit too much stretch for 9.5 (which IIRC had 245 min, 255-265 optimum, 275 max suggested tire sizes by manufacturers). If 225-235 tire widths are planned, why not go for some 18x7-x8.5 widths instead & have lighter wheels as free bonus? As for wheel width/flushness for stock height or if 1" lowered, imho worth look up offset charts for flushness in ft86club wheel directory first posts.

No, not MUCH heavier. And probably they would have been lighter if of same size. But for mentioned size - heavier. JR11 18x9.5 from googled up weight 10.5kg, while stock OEM 17x7 wheels (made by enkei btw) are 9.1kg. For comparison my taneysia T6 17x7.5 weight 6.2 kg :). More lateral grip of wider tires may help in auto-x with slow speed and lot of transitions, but on track/hpde if paired with stock NA power not backed by forced induction, lap times probably will be slower due a bit slower acceleration & more rolling resistance. Also no gains in driving within legal limits on public roads. If winter usage is considered, then it's often worth having narrower tires (then even stock). Certainly not fitting due too much stretch on that wide wheels. Unless car will have turbo or SC, unless it's to increase aftermarket BBK clearance, i'd limit wheel size to x8 with 225 width tires. And probably still R17. As for style .. few look under car to tell how wide wheels there are. Fitting as wide wheels as on ferrari won't make car as fast. And for those with clue hurt function due form imho will look more like posing then cool. What most people will see - is wheel outer design/spoke form/color. So imho it's worth to choose wheel by design if you want different looks or personalization according your taste, but not go overboard with width, few will notice. Will enable you also to care less about clearance and tires will be cheaper, letting save in long term.

I'd rethink though, if it's worth to put wheels that are heavier and deal with realignment and need to buy coilovers for more wheel/tire clearance and need to buy more expensive tires just for arguable looks most won't notice, and making car a bit slower and less fun.

What is part number of it?

Graemel: bronze will go well with blue car, congrats

Actually, if one drives within legal limits and without hooning, no mods are needed to follow those porsches on alpine roads. If they regularly go much higher over posted speed limits, constantly do dangerous takeovers, push very fast on dangerous roads even in blind turns .. i'd rethink if it's sensible to drive together with them.

Perfectionist in me want to fix that somehow. Googled if some custom extra window heating lines cannot be added in brakelight's area too

Extra tape can be added on sides too, i guess. BTW, you guys with intec's .. no issues with fogging that area during winter? If yes, how do you deal with that?

Mine is not Intec's but Wheelhaus CF one. Imho there is some correlation with unsticking double sided tape & direct sunlight & heat in summer. One can use special 3M primer .. but it will make it almost permanent glue on hard to remove if needed. Imho it would be nice to manufacture some springy bracket of sorts, that could be hidden out of sight within brake light body, and would press it against window in addition to doublesided tape.

Problem with mods in my eyes, that they are worth doing only if one will keep car for long time. There is little chance to recuperate money spent on mods if/when selling car off, or often even harder to sell non-stock car, as most buyers assume that modded cars were abused heavily. Though then again deprecation of upscale expensive cars also is something worth keep in mind for. No doubt that cayman IS better car. There are many better cars out there then twins. But their cost and cost of keeping them running is so much higher too. Painful to hear that about GT3. It's a pity for THAT good purpose-built car to never be used as such, but only for showing status :/. M3 also is fun on track, but GT3 .. damn, it might feel cargasmic, when pushed

Long trips of cruising .. i don't believe for that to put very heavy strain on engine/transmission and thus for such test to be of any value. It's track abuse and how well car stands against it, which imho should be counted. As for more capable initially car vs modded cheaper one. I'm split on that. One thing if gt86 with modded suspension/brakes/transmission/built engine/added forced induction may cost as much as cayman .. but to me more important would be how expensive upkeep of one vs other car would be. After all, maintaining porsche will have porsche prices to it. My own choice is to be more modest, i have enough fun on track even with stock NA power. I'd rather pay for even more track days & track wearables/consumables, then mod heck out of car at cost of visiting track several times less (due finite budget). More power will mean also higher wear on many parts of car, thus upping those spendings too. I choose not to. Most cars i meet on track days cost as much as mine or less. Old bmw-s, fiestas, pumas, civics, crx, imprezas, old wrx & sti, old evos, rx-8, golfs, opels & volvos, old audi-s, lada-s. Most expensive are usually race-track prepped from these with ripped interiors/cages/suspension & engine mods. Porsches? Rare guests (remember seeing cayman only once .. hmm, per 25 trackdays i've been to? Same for something like GT-R). I better have car i can afford to trash on track, then one that potentially might be better, but i'd be scared to risk trashing with pushing any more then 7/10.

Not squeeling pads at daily might be underperforming pads on track. If you can, i'd say to buy some hydraulic jack and another set of pads for track and change to those prior track day. Procedure of changing pads really isn't THAT difficult nor THAT time consuming. This way there would be no compromises both on track and during normal driving on public roads. As for "i am not a late-braker" .. well, among things to learn at track, several braking techniques are among those that also one should try out & learn there. Not braking at right braking point but much sooner and less doesn't meant that it will be much easier on brakes, rather that one drives much slower then car can. After all, you could have still accelerating till point of right (hard enough) braking point. Lap time can be shortened (and sometimes gained wished turn in handling change) can also be got via trail-braking. Opposite to not braking late. Right braking points for specific track, trail braking, threshold braking, left foot braking, heal & toe, mass transfer with brakes, grip management (including it's braking part), lot of stuff worth learning. While indeed, it seems wrong to hard brake at daily driving outside very rare emergency braking cases, both comfort wise and to lessen chance someone rear ending one, it's opposite on track, where in hunt of speed & cutting lap times and for having more adrenaline & fun, comfort takes less precedence . And as our cars are not too powerful, but relatively light, one of things how one can catch up to heavy powerful porkers is outbraking them. And i somewhat predict, that after few track days driving there yourself, or eg. having feel as passenger in cars of other trackday participants or with HPDE instructor at wheel, soon you'll start brake as hard as they do

Lauren: depends on which coilovers. Some have shorter travel from beginning (and vice versa, eg. i've heard that KW's have longer travel) and even if their height is adjustable independently and even if total height can be set to that of stock and thus adjusting it may mean it won't reduce travel below initial, i wouldn't claim 100% that coilovers = keep same suspension travel (as unmodified stock).

Try turning it 90dg?

Was similar way since beginning (of course rather noticeable, if usually driving in trackday with window half lowered). Imho in general flimsy/rattly windows guides designed (maybe to save $, maybe to save weight). I just don't care. What i would care (if car is still in window) is to watch if lines of scratches not starting to appear on glass, where guides rollers are, and if so, in timely fashion replace glass/guides by warranty.

Safest would be to bed in special rig, where rotors and pads can be mounted and it performed on it according set pressure/duration and so on. Very few specialised shops have such, so probably this option can be ignored Find some stretch of road where you won't get stopped by police (though if it's about stock brakes and not the most track oriented pads, probably can easily be done within legal speed limits) and where you won't interfere with other traffic (i doubt someone behind you will enjoy you heavy braking on highway )& just bed yourself using repetitious heavy braking w/o completely stopping. Watch that youtube vid i linked in.

low hum from behind of driver? Hmm. Maybe it's just what you hear from exhaust itself during cold starts that passes through our not well noise insulated car body? Or something vibrates in trunk/rear seat/other interior bits in rear due more vibrations during cold starts?

Lowering springs are often of higher rates, to compensate reduction in travel, so most often chance to completely bottom out similar to stock springs. Travel is reduced though of course.

Rich: by chance daily driving on track pads? Common scenario. Higher temps needed to bring track oriented pads upto temps to transfer pad material onto rotor. Once driving normally on public roads with light braking, that layer is worn off, needing to rebed brakes again to quiten them down.