Porsche 911 Carrera (993)

A half-cage has gone in and the back seats are out in a bid to make the Porsche more hardcore

THE TOOLKIT HAS BEEN OUT recently, and likewise the 993’s back seats. More on this in a moment, but first you need to hear my justification.

When you are surrounded by performance cars day-in, day-out, as I am fortunate enough to be in my job as evo’s staff photographer, you can’t help but feel drawn towards certain models, and also to analyse exactly what it is about them that appeals so much. Over the years there have been a handful of cars that have had me feeling a deep urge to sell my kidneys to own them. The first was the incredible 997-generation Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0, then later the Cayman GT4, Mégane R26.R, 458 Speciale, Golf Clubsport S and Ruf SCR 4.2. As you can see, there’s a theme here of mostly pared-back, driver-focused cars. This is clearly my ‘go to’ spec.

So, unsurprisingly, I had an urge to make my 993 a little more hardcore and, yes, driverfocused. I figured the perfect way to achieve this would be to install a bolt-in half-cage, as this would increase the car’s body rigidity and also allow me to fit harnesses at some point. I chose a cage produced by German company Heigo, specifically its Clubsport model, and over a weekend staff writer Will Beaumont and I, with some extra help from Will’s father, removed the Porsche’s rear seats and assembled and installed the cage. Heigo has cleverly designed its half-cage so that you don’t need to destroy your carpet or weld in fixing plates for it. Instead it picks up on the original strengthened areas, including the front and rear seat belt fixings. Another positive is that we managed to fit it without having to remove the front seats. And although the kit weighs 25kg, after removing the rear seat belts and seat backs, the final extra weight to the

‘ The 993 is starting to become my ultimate fast road package and I can’t wait to get on the road’

car is a relatively minor 21kg.

As well as the cage, I’ve also installed a front strut brace, similar to the one used in 993 RSR race cars and even the aforementioned Ruf SCR. When researching parts I was surprised to find that you can purchase this brace on its own via Ruf UK. It’s ultra-high quality and easy to install, and the benefits are reduced strut tower flex (as both towers are tied together) along with reduced chassis flex.

The 993 is starting to become my ultimate fast road package and I can’t wait to get it back out on the road and track this summer to test the new set-up.