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Written by Ollie Marriage
This is the key thing with the new Porsche Cayman and many other turbocharged sports cars. A few of the comments on the drive were asking what the big deal was with the switch from flat six to four cylinders, since it was only the noise that had taken a hit. But it"s not just the noise there are three main elements that lose out when an engine is turbocharged: the noise, the response and the power characteristics.So not only does the Cayman sound cheaper (although it"s plenty loud as Porsche has made sure volume hasn"t suffered), but throttle response is a hair slower as it takes the exhaust gas driven turbo a moment or two to wake up and get going, which means you don"t have the purity of pedal response you used to have in the naturally aspirated car.Lastly, turbochargers yield great torque, which gives them booming mid-range deliveries, but fewer reasons to hold on for high revs. Now everyone likes torque, so this is a harder sell, but a great naturally aspirated engine will build and build as the revs climb to a screaming crescendo, ideally somewhere out beyond 8000rpm. A turbo isn"t as exciting. It thumps in about 3000rpm, blows hard and gradually runs out of puff around 6,000rpm. Now the Cayman"s new engine is better than that and maintains thrust clean through to a relatively high rev limiter at 7500rpm, but there"s no real crescendo to it, no sense of building excitement.In other words no, it"s not just about the noise.Review: TG drives the new Porsche 718 Cayman S
Date written: 16 Jul 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 4286
This is the key thing with the new Porsche Cayman and many other turbocharged sports cars. A few of the comments on the drive were asking what the big deal was with the switch from flat six to four cylinders, since it was only the noise that had taken a hit. But it"s not just the noise there are three main elements that lose out when an engine is turbocharged: the noise, the response and the power characteristics.So not only does the Cayman sound cheaper (although it"s plenty loud as Porsche has made sure volume hasn"t suffered), but throttle response is a hair slower as it takes the exhaust gas driven turbo a moment or two to wake up and get going, which means you don"t have the purity of pedal response you used to have in the naturally aspirated car.Lastly, turbochargers yield great torque, which gives them booming mid-range deliveries, but fewer reasons to hold on for high revs. Now everyone likes torque, so this is a harder sell, but a great naturally aspirated engine will build and build as the revs climb to a screaming crescendo, ideally somewhere out beyond 8000rpm. A turbo isn"t as exciting. It thumps in about 3000rpm, blows hard and gradually runs out of puff around 6,000rpm. Now the Cayman"s new engine is better than that and maintains thrust clean through to a relatively high rev limiter at 7500rpm, but there"s no real crescendo to it, no sense of building excitement.In other words no, it"s not just about the noise.Review: TG drives the new Porsche 718 Cayman S
Date written: 16 Jul 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 4286
