- 08/13/2019
- 9 Min Read
- By: Antonio Alvendia
Real Life Gran Turismo – Pandem Widebody Porsche Cayman S
Growing up with Gran Turismo, we virtually took cars off the dealer floor and made them into race cars. Dionne Mascunana is living just that with his Porsche Cayman S.
It is literally every kid’s dream growing up on Gran Turismo: take a car that’s essentially off the showroom floor and make it look like a crazy race car. Add big wings, big tires, a roll cage, and a widebody kit. I think that many adults also want to live that dream, but not many get that chance. So, it’s easy to look at this car in jealousy rather than admiration. However, if you got to know Dionne, you’d know that this car wasn’t given to him and much of this was of his own hard work. We can give you some insight into who he is with this car.
Plastics 4 Performance is used to replace all of the glass with lighter and yet durable polycarbonate material. The driver and passenger windows are fixed, but you can open the WRC sliders to allow air in or your arms out for signaling.
Even with what a typical Pandem body kit owner does with their car, Dionne’s car is still functional. The 300mm Momo steering wheel feels right in the hands while giving you the only information you need: where straight up is and how many turns you’ve done with its neon yellow center stripe. If he needs to use the horn, the red button gives him a quick reach option to do so. The gauges are factory still from Porsche.
Attaching that Momo wheel is an ASR Billet Hub Spacer which is attached to a Works Bell Rapfix GTC Pop-Up Steering Wheel quick release. Instead of removing the entire steering wheel, it just pops it up so that the driver has the room to enter the car but not have to worry with re-centering the wheel as it will already be centered when locked in.
To row the gears of the Getrag 466 (or G87.21 in Porsche parts talk), Dionne installed a CAE Street Ultra Shifter topped with a titanium shift knob while the stock Porsche cables are replaced by CAE SS Shifter Cables. The new shifter also required a set of CAE’s carbon fiber center trim pieces to fit but retain the look of a complete interior.
Giving the Cayman more of a race car feel, the standard carpet floor mats are replaced by a set of Rennline Aluminum Floor Panels. They are matched to a set of Rennline Aluminum Pedals and enhance Dionne’s footwork when heel/toe shifting.
A proper race car needs proper seating and securing. Here, a set of Recaro P 1300 GT Seats contain both driver and passenger in the Cayman while a set of Schroth PROFi III-6 six-point belts keeps them from moving around in high-G forces. These carbon kevlar seats also provide further head and neck protection from side loads during cornering and whips during accidents. It’s also one more part to prevent debris from contacting the driver’s head if something were to penetrate the polycarbonate window.
The brackets are not only made for the Cayman and the P 1300 GT seats but are also FIA certified for crash safety in a motorsports environment. They are included with the seats as part of a kit and still allow them to move forward and back to fit different driver heights and comforts.
The headliner is a custom part cut out of suede material but fits like the original. You can also see the Zoom Engineering carbon fiber rearview mirror.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the Pandem Widebody Kit that extends the front fenders by almost two-inches (50mm) and the rears to nearly four-inches (100mm) on each side. This alone can give it an RSR like feel; however, Dionne went the next step and added custom made aerodynamic pieces. You won’t find these parts for sale anywhere as they were all designed by Dionne and handmade by him. The three-piece front splitter with matching double-stacked canards gives it a GT2 look. The aero touches also required a custom-made front bumper.
Of course, you can’t have that look without a set of functioning, custom 3D printed fender vents held on by custom, stainless steel fasteners.
Because that Pandem kit adds so much room under the fenders, you need wheels and tires to fit properly. A set of Work Wheels Meister M1 wheels in 19x11 front, and 19x14 rear were the only way to get the correct look. To get the correct fitment for the Toyo Tires R88R, a set of RSS Tuning wheel spacers were added with 18mm (just under 3/4-inch) in the front and 25mm (nearly one-inch) in the rear. Instead of relying on wheel bolts, Dionne converted it to Tarett competition wheel studs with their conversion kit and used a set of Project Kics R40 Iconix lug nuts in Neo Chrome.
Hiding just under those Meisters is a set of Brembo GTS brakes with their six-piston and four-piston rear calipers. They squeeze their Brembo Race Pads on 380mm slotted front two-piece and 355mm rear Brembo Rotors.
The suspension is just as trick as you should expect from a car like this. Front and rear both feature a set of Moton three-way coilovers. Under the front trunk, the external reservoirs sit in the open for quick damping adjustments. These control the motion from the Tarett billet front control arms. Since the car is lowered, a Rennline bump steer kit realigns the Rennline tie rods to those arms while the caster is adjusted by a set of Tarett front caster arms.
The tops of the coilovers feature Tarett billet monoball strut mounts. Body roll is kept in check by a Tarett 30mm front sway bar with a bladed end. This allows for adjustment of how stiff the sway bar will effectively be by rotating the blade arm from straight up towards parallel to the ground. The more towards parallel, the softer the bar will effectively be.
Out back, you see more custom aerodynamic work by Dionne. The triple stack rear canards and GT500 Six-Element Full Diffuser are all of Dionne’s design. The Spyder Auto tail lights match the modern LED design of the Spyder Auto headlights.
The engine of the Cayman S is impossible to see as you must drop it out to do any major service. However, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t seen some work. An IPD plenum is fed air from a GT3 electronic throttle body, which is controlled by a Tuning Box pedal module. Flowing out of a set of Fabspeed long-tube race headers, the spent air finally exits via a Fabspeed race exhaust, giving it that crisp sound only a flat-six can make. Between the engine and the Getrag transaxle is an Aasco flywheel with a Sachs Racing clutch.
You probably think the piece-de-resistance is that Pandem kit and the killer Meister wheel setup. We argue otherwise. It’s this rear wing, which starts with a Voltex spoiler element. You then see that it’s attached to a true piece of art. These are custom CNC machined swan-neck uprights designed and drawn out by Dionne.
These aren’t just for looks, either. They are integrated into the chassis with a custom-made chassis-mounted brace. This setup not only allows Dionne to adjust the angle attack on the wing itself but also where it sits forward and aft of the chassis brace. There is beauty in the function of this design, and it’s a bit of a shame it’s hidden by the rear hatch.
A little less hidden, but still under the hatch of the Cayman is the GMG bolt-In cage custom coated in Acid Green to match the side mirrors. The halon fire extinguisher is mounted to this cage by a custom, billet bracket on the harness bar and the reservoirs for the rear Moton coilovers also mount to the down tubes. Mounted between the X-brace gussets is a custom CNC billet with his media logo, DM Film Studios.
More Tarett parts are under the rear of the Cayman. This includes a set of Tarett billet rear control arms and rear caster arms. A similar bladed sway bar is fitted, but the bar is 27mm rather than the 30mm Tarett billet bladed front kit. While you can just see it in this picture, a Rennline rear subframe stabilizer with tie-downs stiffens the rear subframe and tying the two-piece Porsche part into effectively a single piece. Otherwise, cornering with high-G forces will twist the two pieces and negate any suspension adjustments as well as cornering potential.
Just looking at this car in real life, it doesn’t seem like it is real. The Porsche Intelligent Design livery by Skepple, the SuperGT-inspired Toyo Number Plates on the doors, and the Gran Turismo windshield banner make it feel like it’s from a game. Yet, here it is right in front of our very eyes. It’s like virtual turned into reality, but it’s absolutely a dream come true.
Dionne Mascunana lives another dream for many of us. All the cool video media you drool over from Toyo Tires is created by him, he’s even listed on IMDb for directing and editing the 2017 video on the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. His talent goes beyond the lens as he also modifies his own cars like his Miata and even parts of this Cayman.
So, it’s more than just this wild Pandem-bodied Porsche Cayman that makes this car and Dionne special. He is a true enthusiast that happens to own cool cars and isn’t afraid to touch them himself. That’s something we can all appreciate.
Story by Justin Banner
Photos by Antonio Alvendia
