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Porsche 997 GT3R Bi Turbo

Updated: Sep 25, 2019


It's always good to have a home grown build especially when it's one that wears an aero kit of your own, to actively promote and have around you at your disposal Is so good to have, especially when the build in question is owned by one of your close friends Iby the owner of Speedwell Wheel Refinishers, personally I'm extremely pleased he took the bull by the horns and took on this epic build, as I know how anal he is when it comes to perfection and that's exactly what this 997 Turbo is... utter perfection.

Porsche 997 Turbo-R

As most of you know that follow the blog or our social media news, this 997 Turbo started life as the Dragon performance demo car, you can read all about that in an older blog as the car has come an awful long way since that stage in its life, the less said about that look the better, and the first 12 months of its life with Iby the 997 remained in its basalt black colour-way but I always knew it wouldn't stay that colour as a black 997 was never really on the shopping list to start with, but right car, right place and above all the right money the deal as we know was done, with a colour change at some point in the near future.

Now we loved the car in its black form, but it did hide a lot of the beautiful touches the R aero kit has and with the new colour you get to see those touches in all their stunning glory, as they just stand out, like the front fender vents, the rear bumper vents, and just how wide the car really is, it’s so wide, at roughly 7 feet and it just oozes road presence, I personally was pretty sceptical when Red was discussed with regards the potential colour change and I have to say he nailed it, because it really is stunning.

As with any build you get to collaborate and get involved with various companies, and although Iby did most of the work himself there are a few companies that need a mention with regards the input and help that has been fantastic, especially Taj and Perfection Midlands Limited who just so happens to reside next door to the Speedwells empire, he applied the first round of paint, giving the build its first lease of life

Shoot location, the custard factory Digbeth Birmingham

The boys at MSL Customs who have totally transformed the look of this R conversion, I must say the wrap is the best we have seen to date and I have personally been around a lot of wrapped cars, this one they smashed it out the parts as this is not an easy one to pull off, the beauty of this is it looks like paint, the finish is that good.

We would also like to thank Bilstein uk for not only supplying a first class set up for this Turbo, but also for the bespoke specification we so desperately needed for this conversion, which we now offer exclusively for the 997R conversion, along with the up and coming 991R.

Markski Tuning has also been an absolute legend with the tuning side on this Turbo, with his Intercoolers sitting either side of the R bumper and his ECU mapping skills makes for one seriously fast road car, with the best part of 700 HP now on tap, it certainly has the go to match all that show.

With the Build now complete and Iby content for the foreseeable it was time to take the car out for a little shoot, so we paid our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman a visit down in Digbeth Birmingham which is a great location for such an epic car.

It’s now time to enjoy the build and get to as many shows as we can this year and it will soon be joined by another GT3 road car with our very own BMW Z4 V8 coming to the end of its build and if you fancy building your very own 997R then get in touch with us, we will be more than happy to discuss your individual requirements.

Speedwells Porsche 997 GT3-R Turbo

Porsche 997 GT3R Makeover


When Iby from Speedwells decided to sell his beloved Supras and finally secure the dream of owning a Porsche 997, most people that know him were pretty shocked, mainly because he is known as one of the Europes Supra kings, you only had to see his red turbo example to see why, immense is an understatement, so as we know the beloved Supras were sold and the Porsche 997 was purchased, but not a normal 997, nope this is Iby were talking about so it wouldnt be a basic chassis it had to be the turbo example, nothing else would cut the mustard. He looked long and hard for a red example, which is extremely rare in turbo disguise, but a clean black example was located as talked about in previous posts, and we have known for a long time its not a colour that Iby liked, so we always knew a change was on the cards, we are just amazed it took over a year to make those changes, but November 2018 it was taken off the road for a major power upgrades and a colour makeover.

Porsche 997 GT3R > Turbo-R

We will be discussing the power upgrades, in another post as we have quite a lot to talk about as there has been a few headaches in the upgardes and build, but as they say its all come out in the wash, and the car has surpassed the stock 500 hp and has been drastically increased, to stunning effect, more on this topic at a later date. Now onto the comstetics of this overhaul, with so many colours being discussed over the last few months, white, blue, grey to name a few, even a burnt orange was a serious consideration, but it always came full circle to gloss red, which is what Iby wanted from day one for his 997R conversions and we must say what an inspired or should I say spectacular choice, as I personally always showed lots of selfish negativity when a colour change was discussed as I do love the black on black look with this 997 GT3R conversion, but I also don't mind admitting when I am wrong and on this occasion I was, the red shows just how wide the GT3R conversion is, all of the 7 feet width actually looks wider, its shows all of the wonderfull R body details too, the front fender vents now pop, the grills front and rear, the rear bumper side grills all stand out and boy of boy the width of this beauty is just incredible.

MSL Customs working their magic on the Speedwells Porsche 997 Turbo-R

For a few months paint was discussed, but Iby decided against that option because he wanted the base car to remain a factory colour, so after a chat with Shabs at MSL, the job in hand was given to the MSL custom crew, these boys are local business based in Birmingham 5 mins from speedwells, which is great for a collaboration of this magnitude and we must say they have done an incredible job, the workmanship is of the higest quality with beautiful details all around the car. The front splitter and canards have been finished off with PPF so that now matches the rear enagine cover and spoiler, the wheels have been repainted in a matte and gloss black combination with gold hardware, with the front lights, rear light lenes and DRL's all coming in for a touch on tinting, the rear side intake vents are being replaced with carbon GT2 style intakes with the slate grey stripes from front to rear finishing off the attention to the details, with the car about to be finished this week we can't wait to get behind the lens and get some shots of this beauty. Get in touch with us for more details on our full carbon fibre GT3R aero conversion for your 997 chassis, we can supply, or arrange supply and fit, as well as suuplying various other parts, bespoke Bilstein coilover suspension for the GT3R conversion, as well as megnesium or aluminium forged 3 piece wheels, adjustable control arms, various designs of engine covers and rear wing set ups, exhausts and the super wide Michelin tyres.

Full VAD // Speedwells photoshoot coming soon.

 

Porsche 997 GT3R Bi-Turbo


We Are a huge fans of the Porsche brand, it’s a brand we have always had a real affection for, dating back to the late 70’s and early 80’s with the wonderful Kremer 935 K3 & K4 of Erwin Kremer and his brother Manfred, we just have a fondness for the 911 chassis in general, in all engine configurations, but our personal favourite at the moment is the 997 chassis, it just has the right mix of the 911 of old, with stunning driving characteristics.

Back in early 2013 we built our version of a road going 997 RSR based on the 997 Turbo chassis, some parts of the build we loved, , but some we loathed like the fit and finish and quality of the out sourced RSR aero kit, it was terrible, as were the rather over sized wheel choice, we just got some of the finer details wrong, the design of wheel was spot on, but the 20" size and the finish was just a huge fail,

but as far as producing Europe’s first ever turbo RSR road car based on the Turbo model certainly had the desired effect of global recognition, the car had mixed reviews and reactions but the main thing was the car had plenty of people talking about it, which is why we build cars, the the main criticism the size of the chosen wheels, but we managed to rectified slightly by painting the wheels matte black, which certainly toned it down and helped with the overall look.

Fast forward to late 2017 when our buddy Iby from Speedwells had sold his pair of beloved Supra’s and was looking for a change, and wanted to build another show stopper, after seeing our GT3R aero kit from a couple of our recent 997 builds we collaborated on, Sleepers Speed Shop in California and Scribante Racing in South Africa, he just wanted to build a pure road version of the R, but it had to be based on the Turbo chassis, nothing else would do and seeing that both of our last collaboration builds were both Turbo base cars, off he went in the hunt for the Turbo.

We haven’t discussed the build in detail and we didn't show the base model he managed to source, but that is with good reason, the engine was well looked after and strong as you would expect of a Mezger Turbo engine as they are renown to be the best, strong and robust, but as we speak Iby in on the hunt for even more power, if you know him you know that anything less that 700hp just doesn't float his boat, so the engine is out and is busy being cleaned, whilst swapping and upgrading everything that moves, new ECU, new hybrid Turbos, new stainless steel performance manifolds, uprated intercoolers,

etc, we will get full performance overhaul listed in a future post when we feature the new look for 2019 but the good news is all the mods should see the best part of 700bhp or more by the time he puts it back in the car.

The body work of the base model, Iby knew that he would be replacing the majority of the bodywork,

everything apart from the doors and the roof would be discarded and looking what he took off the car it was a blessing, we really do applauded his vision. The car belonged to Dragon Performance, looking at the Fastcar feature, it was their demo vehicle, fitted with a one off bespoke hand made aero kit, which was all made out of metal, it was all removed within an hour of being back at the Speedwells HQ and we estimate between 30 to 40 Kg of weight saving once the car was relieved of all the splitters, scoops, air pockets, spoilers, now don't get us wrong we are all for car modifying, but we can honestly say it was ridiculous, we are trying to understand the thought process of ,firstly building something like that and secondly deciding to add all that excess weight to the car, were sorry but what a mess and a mess that unfortunately ruined the Techart bumpers that were hiding underneath the hideous Frankenstein creation.

With all the parts discarded that wouldn't be needed it was time to see what needed to be done, Iby has built numerous cars before so his fabrication skill set is on point and it wasn't long before the kit was all mocked up and on the car, wheel specs measured, suspension sorted, and all of the little modifications needed for the larger tyres that would be fitted, the biggest job of all was moulding the rear quarter panels with the turbo vents, getting then all hooked up to the air channel that feeds the gulps of air to the intercoolers, we still think this is the coolest rendition for this build, with every build taking a different route when it came to the side air vents, the Turbo air vents are by far the best to look at, obviously extremely functional, so you get that wonderful Turbo look in a super wide “R” conversion, it just gives it that authentic road OEM look, albeit that much wider, well over 7 foot wider to be more precise. With the aero kit fitted and in place it was time to make all of the small adjustments, and then off to the paint booth, with Taj from Perfections Midlands laying down the Porsche Basalt black finish, which was finished to an extremely high standard, which is what we have come to expect from Taj, his paint skills are just superb, with a hint of how good he is you only have to refer to the name of his company.

Speedwells Porsche 997 GT3R Road going Bi- Turbo Under Construction

The conversion has been finished off with some extremely trick suspension parts, all adjustable with a special coilover kit manufactured for us specifically for this conversion, with separate reservoir and lots of adjustment so the car can become a track beast at the turn of a few clicks of the suspension.

The exhaust has also been upgraded to a full bespoke X pipe stainless centre exit 3” hybrid system, with a new set of Litespeed racing super lightweight concave RS5 replacing the 6 spoke VAD CR-Evo wheels that were fitted originally, sized we went with 10.5x19 front and 14x19 rear, with much larger tyres over the stock turbo set up, 265/35R19 and 345/30R19 Michelin cup 2 have been used and the ride quality and handling are exceptional as we reported in our previous blog from the Players Classic show.

We get asked on a regular basis if the aero kit will fit the other 997 non turbo models, the kit will fit every model, C2, C4, along with the wider S chassis as well as the GT2, GT3, we must admit to being quite keen to see this aero kit fitted on a 997 Cabriolet, it would take a small amount of adjustment adapting the rear quarter panels at the top leading edge, but completely doable and a must for 2019.

Porsche 997 GT3R Bi-Turbo

Speedwells Porsche 997 GT3R Bi-Turbo

Back home, outside the Porsche centre in Solihull Town centre

Porsche 997 Turbo GT3R

So what is next for the UK’s best looking street 997 Bi-Turbo, well the colour is set to be changed along with the wheel colour, we are privy to the colours in question, (has been swapped a couple of times)but have been sworn to secrecy until its launched to the world in 2019 once it’s out of hibernation.

This is one build we have been privileged to be involved with, its helped us get over the previous RSR mistakes we made with the first attempt, and this build is just better on every level, this one id just beautiful in every department, as we knew it would be, just impeccably put together with methodical precision, which is just how it should be when building a car of this calibre.

The "R" road programme for the 997 is becoming quite a popular conversion globally with us taking on an American partner to get the cars built for the USA market, as well as having our own Gen 1 & Gen 2 RSR carbon aero parts, we have every look available for the 997 chassis, with development for the 991 chassis now well under way 2019 cant come quick enough.

To view the full gallery of the UK first road going Porsche 997 GT3R Bi Turbo click the link below

 
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