where are the Porsche cayenne expo builds?
- Thread starter jluck
- Start date
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Roof rack fitment
Front Runner makes a wide variety of pretty useful stuff and I recommend them, but the trial and error fitment of the rack would, I think, apply to a wide variety of racks from many suppliers.
When ordered, the plan was to use the Front Runner “grab on” mounts to attach to the factory roof rails. This would give the lowest mounting and certainly seemed the obvious way to do it. It didn’t work as well in practice, though.
First, mating the rack with the rails wasn’t easy. There were lots of nuts and bolts, but very little clearance between the rack and the Cayenne roof in which to work. The theoretically simple task of tightening a couple dozen nuts took over an hour and was fiddily enough that no one would want to do it on anything approaching a regular basis.
Second, there wasn’t a place to position the rack where there wasn’t a noticeable front-to-back pitch. We probably could have shimmed it up, but that would have added even more to futz with.
Third, the minimal clearance between the bottom of the rack and the top of the Porsche made attaching or moving the various attachments difficult, plus opening the sunroof would ********** it into the bottom of the rack, causing some really expensive damage if I—or another driver—tried to open it. (In practice, I think it’d be pretty much mandatory to pull the fuse.)
I lived with this setup for a couple of days but knew it wasn’t a good long term solution, so Plan B was ordered up. This was to leave the factory crossbars (nearly identical to Thule Aeroblade bars) in place and mount the rack onto the crossbars. Front Runner has dedicated mounts connectors for the Thule crossbars that slip into the rubber-covered slots on the top of the crossbars to make this simple.
Overall, the increased clearance made the installation much faster and easier, plus the rack could be positioned to sit pretty much flat. Equally important is that the sunroof will operate normally and there’s plenty of clearance to attach the accessory parts to bottom or sides.
The best part of this configuration, though, is that it is now VERY easy to remove the roof rack. All that’s required is to release the four socket head screws that lock the crossbars onto the roof rails. At that point, the roof rack can be lifted off with the crossbars still attached at the bottom.
It’s easy for most any two sufficiently-tall people to get an empty rack off this way, and we are talking literally three minutes or so. But things got even more slick when I was able to mount a $100 Harbor Freight electric hoist to the ceiling of my shop and, using webbing straps with the hooks through the Front Runner rings at the corners, now lift the loaded rack off with the push of a button. The Cayenne is just driven out from under the rack and then I can either lower the rack with crossbars to the floor to store it or take components on or off, or I can leave the rack hanging on the hoist until I want to put it on again.
This works well enough that, if it will be a while before I off-road again, it's sensible to remove the rack just to save the fuel the rack's drag eats up, or even just to be allowed through the car wash.
Lowering the rack and crossbars back down onto the factory rails has proven easy, with no difficulty in getting the crossbar ends to mate correctly with the rails. Overall, I'm happy running the rack about four inches higher than absolutely necessary in exchange for a setup that is totally sturdy but VERY quick to put on and take off, even with all the overlanding stuff attached.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I'm back and, as promised, want to share my adventures with mounting a sizable roof rack on the Cayenne's factory roof rails . . .
Front Runner makes a wide variety of pretty useful stuff and I recommend them, but the trial and error fitment of the rack would, I think, apply to a wide variety of racks from many suppliers.
When ordered, the plan was to use the Front Runner “grab on” mounts to attach to the factory roof rails. This would give the lowest mounting and certainly seemed the obvious way to do it. It didn’t work as well in practice, though.
First, mating the rack with the rails wasn’t easy. There were lots of nuts and bolts, but very little clearance between the rack and the Cayenne roof in which to work. The theoretically simple task of tightening a couple dozen nuts took over an hour and was fiddily enough that no one would want to do it on anything approaching a regular basis.
Second, there wasn’t a place to position the rack where there wasn’t a noticeable front-to-back pitch. We probably could have shimmed it up, but that would have added even more to futz with.
Third, the minimal clearance between the bottom of the rack and the top of the Porsche made attaching or moving the various attachments difficult, plus opening the sunroof would ********** it into the bottom of the rack, causing some really expensive damage if I—or another driver—tried to open it. (In practice, I think it’d be pretty much mandatory to pull the fuse.)
I lived with this setup for a couple of days but knew it wasn’t a good long term solution, so Plan B was ordered up. This was to leave the factory crossbars (nearly identical to Thule Aeroblade bars) in place and mount the rack onto the crossbars. Front Runner has dedicated mounts connectors for the Thule crossbars that slip into the rubber-covered slots on the top of the crossbars to make this simple.
Overall, the increased clearance made the installation much faster and easier, plus the rack could be positioned to sit pretty much flat. Equally important is that the sunroof will operate normally and there’s plenty of clearance to attach the accessory parts to bottom or sides.
The best part of this configuration, though, is that it is now VERY easy to remove the roof rack. All that’s required is to release the four socket head screws that lock the crossbars onto the roof rails. At that point, the roof rack can be lifted off with the crossbars still attached at the bottom.
It’s easy for most any two sufficiently-tall people to get an empty rack off this way, and we are talking literally three minutes or so. But things got even more slick when I was able to mount a $100 Harbor Freight electric hoist to the ceiling of my shop and, using webbing straps with the hooks through the Front Runner rings at the corners, now lift the loaded rack off with the push of a button. The Cayenne is just driven out from under the rack and then I can either lower the rack with crossbars to the floor to store it or take components on or off, or I can leave the rack hanging on the hoist until I want to put it on again.
This works well enough that, if it will be a while before I off-road again, it's sensible to remove the rack just to save the fuel the rack's drag eats up, or even just to be allowed through the car wash.
Lowering the rack and crossbars back down onto the factory rails has proven easy, with no difficulty in getting the crossbar ends to mate correctly with the rails. Overall, I'm happy running the rack about four inches higher than absolutely necessary in exchange for a setup that is totally sturdy but VERY quick to put on and take off, even with all the overlanding stuff attached.
Let me know if you have any questions.
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mhiscox
Expedition Leader
I had about 150 pounds on the roof and everything seemed happy. Lots of cruising at 80 mph on the Utah and Idaho freeways without any apparent problems, and there were admittedly some high speeds for short intervals when passing on the two lanes. Neither the rack or the contents was affected.
I, too, have wondered whether a roof top tent work work and have concluded that, if fastened the same way my roof rack is, it should be fine. My main concern is that the bigger the solid object on the roof, the more the air is going to get weird around it and maybe produce some handling issue. But with my numerous smaller objects, though, handling was not affected at all, so perhaps a reasonably-sized RTT won't be an issue.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the rated loads, which are dynamic (in movement) loads, are often only 20-25% or so of the static (at rest) loads, so I think the 100 kilogram Porsche limit suggests an occupied two-person RTT wouldn't be close to causing a problem, and the solidity of my roof rack seems to suggest that would be the case. Additionally, Thule says that each Aeroblade crossbar can support 800 pounds, so the bars certainly won't be the weak point. And when one considers that there are lots of Suburu Outbacks sporting RTTs . . . well, I'm doubtful the Cayenne is any weaker.
marcantoine77
Observer
I changed the pcm Porsche
for an android device, to have the applications for the practice of off-road
And good GPS
Android 6.1
Octacore
Wifi + Bluethoot + 3G + DVD
App installed
Twonav
4x4 inclinometre
Wikiloc
Google Map
Thork ODB
for an android device, to have the applications for the practice of off-road
And good GPS
Android 6.1
Octacore
Wifi + Bluethoot + 3G + DVD
App installed
Twonav
4x4 inclinometre
Wikiloc
Google Map
Thork ODB
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Roof Rack Trip Report
My recent trip to, from and across Southern Utah in my Cayenne Turbo went great. The short version is that we went about 2,000 miles on Interstates, 1,000 miles on two-lanes and about 500 miles on dirt, and the Cayenne seemed happy on each.
Here are a few quick observations about the roof rack added to the Cayenne and discussed in a couple of posts above . . .
Overall, the setup exceeded expectations. Using an external rack was pretty non-negotiable in any event, since I shouldn’t carry fuel in the car and didn’t want to swiss-cheese the cargo area with mounting holes for things like the CO2 tank and shovel. Fortunately, the rack and everything on it were rock solid for the entire trip, with neither high speeds nor rough terrain causing any issues whatsoever, suggesting that the Front Runner rack and hardware are well-engineered.
There’s never been a matching trip done in the Cayenne without the rack, so I’m guessing when I say I suspect the rack--with the decidedly non-aerodynamic stuff I had on it--increased fuel use by about a mile per gallon. Maybe half of that was the rack itself, with another half being the effect of the load. Just my spider sense, though; there’s no empirical data.
The roof rack makes some noise (duh), but with my particular load, speeds up to 60 mph produced a pretty faint “rustle” that you almost had to focus to hear. By 70, the noise was noticeable, but not intrusive and you rarely made note of it. At 80 mph, the wind over the rack was a definite noise, but it was not objectionable and at no point did I think about slowing down to reduce the noise. So far, so good.
HOWEVER . . . If you were pushing the Cayenne into a headwind, the noise often increased substantially. This is largely, I'm pretty sure, the predictable effect of 80 mph speeds combined with 20 mph head winds being like driving at 100, though with cross- and quartering winds, there was perhaps even a bit more noise added by the wind not being channeled by the deflector, swirling around, whatever. In any event, though, when I was driving west across Southern Idaho at 80 into a stiff headwind, the rack definitely did cause objectionable amounts of noise. That said, though, the Cayenne in these conditions was quieter than the same route in my Wrangler JK at twenty mph less.
The stuff on the Cayenne's rack was, somewhat surprisingly, perfectly accessible for 5’10” me by standing on whatever door sill was closest to where I was reaching. I did, however, also carry an 15” tall folding plastic seat/step which took up virtually no space in the cargo area and made life even easier. I had this stool from using it my Sprinter, so I took it and it worked fine, but if I hadn’t had it, I don’t think I would have cared enough to buy one.
And when we were home, the loaded rack, as described above, got hoisted off with zero difficulty. With the crossbar mounting now having proved to be totally secure both at high speeds and over rough terrain, I’m even more convinced that this is a good strategy for a removable Cayenne roof rack. We took the CTT to the carwash about 20 minutes after getting home.
My recent trip to, from and across Southern Utah in my Cayenne Turbo went great. The short version is that we went about 2,000 miles on Interstates, 1,000 miles on two-lanes and about 500 miles on dirt, and the Cayenne seemed happy on each.
Here are a few quick observations about the roof rack added to the Cayenne and discussed in a couple of posts above . . .
Overall, the setup exceeded expectations. Using an external rack was pretty non-negotiable in any event, since I shouldn’t carry fuel in the car and didn’t want to swiss-cheese the cargo area with mounting holes for things like the CO2 tank and shovel. Fortunately, the rack and everything on it were rock solid for the entire trip, with neither high speeds nor rough terrain causing any issues whatsoever, suggesting that the Front Runner rack and hardware are well-engineered.
There’s never been a matching trip done in the Cayenne without the rack, so I’m guessing when I say I suspect the rack--with the decidedly non-aerodynamic stuff I had on it--increased fuel use by about a mile per gallon. Maybe half of that was the rack itself, with another half being the effect of the load. Just my spider sense, though; there’s no empirical data.
The roof rack makes some noise (duh), but with my particular load, speeds up to 60 mph produced a pretty faint “rustle” that you almost had to focus to hear. By 70, the noise was noticeable, but not intrusive and you rarely made note of it. At 80 mph, the wind over the rack was a definite noise, but it was not objectionable and at no point did I think about slowing down to reduce the noise. So far, so good.
HOWEVER . . . If you were pushing the Cayenne into a headwind, the noise often increased substantially. This is largely, I'm pretty sure, the predictable effect of 80 mph speeds combined with 20 mph head winds being like driving at 100, though with cross- and quartering winds, there was perhaps even a bit more noise added by the wind not being channeled by the deflector, swirling around, whatever. In any event, though, when I was driving west across Southern Idaho at 80 into a stiff headwind, the rack definitely did cause objectionable amounts of noise. That said, though, the Cayenne in these conditions was quieter than the same route in my Wrangler JK at twenty mph less.
The stuff on the Cayenne's rack was, somewhat surprisingly, perfectly accessible for 5’10” me by standing on whatever door sill was closest to where I was reaching. I did, however, also carry an 15” tall folding plastic seat/step which took up virtually no space in the cargo area and made life even easier. I had this stool from using it my Sprinter, so I took it and it worked fine, but if I hadn’t had it, I don’t think I would have cared enough to buy one.
And when we were home, the loaded rack, as described above, got hoisted off with zero difficulty. With the crossbar mounting now having proved to be totally secure both at high speeds and over rough terrain, I’m even more convinced that this is a good strategy for a removable Cayenne roof rack. We took the CTT to the carwash about 20 minutes after getting home.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Winch and Tire Info
I figure I might as well add a couple of other notes from the Southern Utah trip.
The Comeup winch never got used on the trip, though it worked fine when messing around with it pre-trip. I was pleased to find out that you wouldn't ever know it was back there except that the rear parking sensors pick it up when backing. When I put it into the receiver, there was a little bit of play that made me think it might rattle over rough terrain, but it didn't happen. It noticeably reduces the departure angle, so I had carrying space saved in the cargo area to carry it, but on the moderate trails we did, it cleared okay, so it made the whole trip in position. What it didn't do was get into the way much, as we had no trouble getting luggage in and out of liftgate.
The Duratrac tires got a better test. They were more than adequate for all the off-pavement work we did, remembering that we purposely avoided the worst of the mud to keep from tearing up the trails. More significant was how well they did on pavement. As noted above, they're pretty quiet, but the more important finding was that they held up their end of the Porsche's handling on curvy two lanes. At any socially-acceptable speed, the tires weren't a weak link, which was a nice thing to find out.
Overall, for a trip like this, the Cayenne was great. Very comfortable, of course, and plenty fast, but also not problem taking it off-road. Given it's still a somewhat valuable overland vehicle (though WAAAY less than the previous owner paid new), I'm not yet going on any trail of more than 5-6 difficulty, and under those circumstances, the comfort and highway performance of the Cayenne more than made up for a bit less ultimate trail capability.
I figure I might as well add a couple of other notes from the Southern Utah trip.
The Comeup winch never got used on the trip, though it worked fine when messing around with it pre-trip. I was pleased to find out that you wouldn't ever know it was back there except that the rear parking sensors pick it up when backing. When I put it into the receiver, there was a little bit of play that made me think it might rattle over rough terrain, but it didn't happen. It noticeably reduces the departure angle, so I had carrying space saved in the cargo area to carry it, but on the moderate trails we did, it cleared okay, so it made the whole trip in position. What it didn't do was get into the way much, as we had no trouble getting luggage in and out of liftgate.
The Duratrac tires got a better test. They were more than adequate for all the off-pavement work we did, remembering that we purposely avoided the worst of the mud to keep from tearing up the trails. More significant was how well they did on pavement. As noted above, they're pretty quiet, but the more important finding was that they held up their end of the Porsche's handling on curvy two lanes. At any socially-acceptable speed, the tires weren't a weak link, which was a nice thing to find out.
Overall, for a trip like this, the Cayenne was great. Very comfortable, of course, and plenty fast, but also not problem taking it off-road. Given it's still a somewhat valuable overland vehicle (though WAAAY less than the previous owner paid new), I'm not yet going on any trail of more than 5-6 difficulty, and under those circumstances, the comfort and highway performance of the Cayenne more than made up for a bit less ultimate trail capability.
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The Cayenne is Remarkably Capable, and Reliable!
I take mine anywhere and everywhere I've ever wanted to go! And mine is not even remotely set up for it...I just go! The more I drive it off-road, the more I consider making it more capable though like mike0120 did...as it's obviously set up for the road, not what I'm doing to it! Mine is a 2006 Cayenne S Titanium, same year as Mikes. I have 20" wheels which are ridiculous to be taking to the places I'm going, but because I'm living in the car (tent camping, hotels, and sleeping in the trunk) I can't exactly do much to it, so I just drive it as-is! I'm currently on month 3 of a 1-2 year long road trip to visit all of the National Parks in it.
The reliability of these things is unparalleled. I've been driving mine since 2007 with zero issues. When I'm done with this trip, I'm buying another one, guaranteed. I'm currently looking to get a Mercedes Sprinter van (immediately!) because I can't deal with sleeping in the Cayenne anymore, otherwise I'd keep going in it!
I've driven it on some pretty fun roads on this trip!
Tomboy Mine Road in Telluride (Didn't make it all the way up, got it up on 2 wheels and decided to hike the rest!
Shafer Trail in Utah
Potash Mine Road in Utah
Cache Valley Road, Utah
Tons of unnamed BLM land roads, including a really fun one today here in Mount Carmel Junction, Utah!
I take mine anywhere and everywhere I've ever wanted to go! And mine is not even remotely set up for it...I just go! The more I drive it off-road, the more I consider making it more capable though like mike0120 did...as it's obviously set up for the road, not what I'm doing to it! Mine is a 2006 Cayenne S Titanium, same year as Mikes. I have 20" wheels which are ridiculous to be taking to the places I'm going, but because I'm living in the car (tent camping, hotels, and sleeping in the trunk) I can't exactly do much to it, so I just drive it as-is! I'm currently on month 3 of a 1-2 year long road trip to visit all of the National Parks in it.
The reliability of these things is unparalleled. I've been driving mine since 2007 with zero issues. When I'm done with this trip, I'm buying another one, guaranteed. I'm currently looking to get a Mercedes Sprinter van (immediately!) because I can't deal with sleeping in the Cayenne anymore, otherwise I'd keep going in it!
I've driven it on some pretty fun roads on this trip!
Tomboy Mine Road in Telluride (Didn't make it all the way up, got it up on 2 wheels and decided to hike the rest!
Shafer Trail in Utah
Potash Mine Road in Utah
Cache Valley Road, Utah
Tons of unnamed BLM land roads, including a really fun one today here in Mount Carmel Junction, Utah!
Do you have a list of what you have done on it? Interested in the winch, wheels, tires, lights etc. Considering adding a roof tent to mine and making it really off road capable like yours.
marcantoine77
Observer
a storm is expected tonight
he will still have fallen 1 meter of snow tonight
Envoyé de mon SM-N950F en utilisant Tapatalk
he will still have fallen 1 meter of snow tonight
Envoyé de mon SM-N950F en utilisant Tapatalk
ViperNL
Observer
marcantoine77
Observer
installation of Mudflap .
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dr_r2r
Observer
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marcantoine77
Observer
Thanks ! 
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