Back in July, TPC Racing picked up our brand new 981 Boxster S. Right off the showroom floor, we could tell that the car had a fantastic and capable chassis, making for an exciting driving experience. The 981 represents a huge leap forward for the Porsche Boxster. Immediately after picking up our new test mule, we brought it back to our facility and gave it a full inspection, front to rear while taking note of all of the changes from the previous model. During the inspection process, we did a factory spec alignment in order to get a valid baseline. After noting all of the significant changes, we could not wait to get the new car out to the track to really get an idea of just how much beter this new car was. We set off for an R&D session at New Jersey Motorsports Park during the David Murry Track Days event, where we put over 200 miles on the car. Mike was delighted to find that the car handled extremely well out of the box, but could tell that there was great room for improvement to take the grip and balance to whole new level.


As we have done for previous Porsche models, we knew that the first step in improving the 981 chassis, was an upgrade from the stock sway bars to a TPC Racing Adjustable Sway Bar in orders to make the car perform better on the track, and also provide the driver with a fun car for the street. As always, we relied on our roots in professional racing and chassis engineering to come up with the design and rates of our new 981 Sway Bars. With 10 years of race wins and poles of our own, and based on the success and feedback from numerous professional and club racers, we had a very good idea of what we wanted from our newest 981 offerings. After developing multiple sway bar designs, we took them to the track to swap out between sessions and found the perfect bar. We developed a larger front bar with 5 ranges of adjustment, and a rear bar with 4 ranges of adjustment. This setup provides the entire range of adjustment needed to achieve the best-balance and quickest possible setup for the street or track using the excellent showroom stock shocks and springs. We are also extremely confident that these rates and ranges will be well suited to drivers with much stiffer chassis setups.

After developing the new TPC Racing Sway Bars, it was straight back to the track for more testing. This time we spent 2 days experimenting with different sway bar adjustments to find the perfect baseline balance for the car on its stock dampers and springs. We were able to confirm the rates and adjustment range of our 981 Sway Bars were right were we wanted them. At this point we started to shift our focus to fine tuning the smaller details for this vehicle that was otherwise stock. The next issue that we decided to address was a weak spot we found with the rear geometry.

In order to solve issue with the rear geometry, we built a set of our TPC Racing Adjustable Rear Toe Links specific for the new 981 chassis, complete with bumpsteer correction shims(a la ’10+ GT3 Cup type). With these corrections in place, we quickly realized that the 981 chassis is extremely sensitive, and has a very narrow window available in order to achieve minimum rear toe deflection. Rear toe deflection typically results in a loose car with significant rear balance issues, which prevents that driver from putting full power down on corner exit.

With it's improved chassis balance thanks to our new TPC Racing 981 Sway Bars, and the rear toe and bump steer correction thanks to a set of TPC Racing 981 Adjustable Toe Links, we have really dialed the new 981 chassis in to produce a car that you can drive hard and deep into the corner and come out the other side unscathed, and seemingly with amazing grip spare....all while using stock shocks and springs for superb street ride!






Front bar with 5 ranges of adjustment


Rear bar with 4 ranges of adjustment