VF Engineering/Sony Cayman - That’s Entertainment

A supercharger and a big stereo maximise this Cayman’s fun factor.

Every now and then we come across an interesting customised Porsche built by its owner for a specific purpose like the SEMA Show, or sometimes just for fun.

Some of these cars are still with their original owners, or maybe have since been sold once or twice. But always, because such a car is so special, the current owner keeps it in tip-top condition and continues to proudly show it off at car club events.

We were told about one such Cayman S a few years ago when it was still with its original owner, Shawn Bennett. VF Engineering in Anaheim, CA who did the one-off supercharger installation, asked Shawn to bring the car over to their premises for us to drive and photograph.

This very special Cayman was built in just under 90 days from the word go for the 2006 SEMA Show. The two teams involved were VF Engineering who did all the mechanical work, and Shawn’s company, Image Audio Designs, who did the custom audio installation.

“The car is mine, and Sony were the lead sponsor,” Shawn explained. “The deal I made with Sony was that the car would be used at major auto and audio shows like the CES to show off Sony car audio for one year under the Team Xplod label.”

At the time Shawn’s company, Image Audio Designs had already been building audio show cars for Sony USA for five years. The first of the line was a Dodge Silverado packed with a high-powered sound system and 28 separate TV screens ranging from 7 to 17-inches!

“This Cayman S was the first real enthusiast drivers’ car in that project car line,” he told us. “It created quite a stir at SEMA that year as the motor, brakes and stereo are all one-offs devised for this car.”

The most obvious exterior mods to this 2006 Cayman S, unsurprisingly dubbed “Silver Bullet”, are the TechArt front spoiler, side skirts, and door mirrors, painted and fitted by Spectrum Collision Centre in Irvine. The orange side markers were replaced with clear Euro-spec ones, and Pro-Tec invisible paint protection film applied. The cars stance and handling were improved by fitting KW Variant 3 fully adjustable coil-over suspension with the ride height set 30mm lower than stock.

That is where the German upgrades stop and US-based talent took over. Wheels make a car and the Cayman’s arches are filled by 245/30ZR20 and 305/25ZR20 Yokohama Advan Sport tyres on 8.5J and 11J x 20-inch wheels, made in the US under the Boyd Coddington label. Boyd is arguably the most famous hotrod builder in the US, and enthusiasts can see his amazing work on his US TV series, ‘American Hot Rod.’ As part of their services his company will build one-off wheels to customer requirement, as was the case here.

The big-brake kit that can be clearly seen between the wheel spoke comes from Clover, South Carolina-based specialist Performance Friction (PFC), who supplied the four-pot monoblock alloy callipers clamping the 14-inch (356mm), two-piece, cross-drilled, vented discs.

The core of the engine conversion is a California-made Vortech V2SQ centrifugal supercharger. Boosting at 0.5 bar, this increases the output of the 3.4 litre flat six motor from 295hp to a healthy 402hp at 7,300rpm, with 376Nm of torque at 3,000rpm.

To reach these numbers, larger capacity Bosch injectors were fitted, while GIAC, one of America’s most prolific ECU software specialists remapped the Bosch ECU to suit the new fuelling and ignition curves, and edited out the top speed limiter. With the emphasis on drivability, the torque curve is flat from its peak at 3,000rpm all the way to 4,000rpm, before dipping to around 90%, which is then maintained all the way to the redline.

Like all mid-engine cars, the Cayman engine installation has a heat soak problem out of the box, so VF put a lot of work into reducing the charge air and oil temperatures to maximize both output and longevity.

The VF Engineering team came up with a twin liquid/air charge cooler with a massive 11-litre capacity and coupled this to a bespoke aluminum intake manifold that features an integral heat exchanger for each cylinder bank and a K&N filter. VFE also used a custom crankcase breather system, Porsche OE front center water radiator, and their VFE-Bosch boost over-run system. At the output end, an Awe Tuning cat-back stainless steel exhaust liberates a few more horses and makes a deeper, more inspiring noise.

The work on the cooling system has paid off handsomely, and even in Southern California where summer temperatures that can easily hit 37 degrees C, the motor is able to maintain near optimum output levels.

My time with Shawn’s unique Cayman S impressed greatly. This is the first Cayman I have seen where the engine is not hidden. “It looked so good on the engine dyno with the chrome and bespoke blue painted intake plenum, it was a shame not to leave it on display,” Shawn explained. “This led me to design a half-inch thick acrylic engine cover to show it off. Just the mould for this one off engine cover cost US$6,000, but it was worth every cent!”

As this car was built for Sony to show off their state-of-the-art car stereo, the installation is pretty over the top visually. This is especially so at night when the front and rear compartments and door speaker grilles glow with a cool blue light when you activate the eye-catching Sony Xplod system that Shawn built to complement the Cayman.

The head-unit is a dash-mounted Sony XAV-A1 7-inch widescreen CD/DVD player, that feeds its signals to the single XM-2002GTR 2/1-channel amp, and the two XM-D9001GTR Class D mono amps mounted in a custom rack in front. You can see part of these amps through the clear Plexiglas window of the fiberglass enclosure that Shawn built.

Shawn commissioned Stitchcraft Custom Interiors to install the GT3 seats, which they re-upholstered along with the headlining, and they also built the custom neon door panels that contain a pair of Sony XS-HF167 6.5-inch two-way separate component speakers in custom fiberglass enclosures with an aluminum-trimmed center grille.

Original article posted by 9tro. Writer/Photographer: Dr. Ian Kuah. March 28, 2018.