Doing Donuts In BBi Autosport’s “Project Swan” 997 Turbo
Betim Berisha of BBi visits the Hoonigan Donut Garage and turns tires into smoke.
When you think about Porsches, it's unlikely that your first thought gravitates toward tire shredding burnouts and skids. Porsche ownership is more elegant than all that tomfoolery, you might be thinking. Well, when you're invited down to the Hoonigan Donut Garage for one of their "Daily Transmission" videos, you bring the biggest and baddest thing in your garage and you whip a mad donut or two (or ten). When Betim, head of BBi Autosport, got the call, he immediately fired up Project Swan to make that smoke show a reality. Check out the video below, this 997 Turbo really rips.
The video begins with Betim giving us all a walkthrough of what Project Swan is made of and why it came into being. Obviously an AWD 997 Turbo would be a little difficult to coerce into doing something like this, but this particular 997 Turbo has had its front drive axles removed for maximum rear-wheel drive tire slaying. Furthermore, the engine has been completely rebuilt from the ground up to produce mega airflow into the cylinders with lots of GT3 parts and custom aftermarket parts as well. This is basically a GT3 engine with slightly lower compression to handle the boost pressure from the giant turbochargers.
Probably the coolest part of this entire build is the fact that it is a 100% street-ready car with a sequential manual gearbox. Betim's explanation of the need to accelerate in first gear in order to upshift into second is mind boggling in its complexity and magnitude-of-awesome. This car was built for a customer that wanted a wildly fast car to drive, and they basically gave Betim and his lackeys carte blanche on the build. What they ended up with was basically a Pikes Peak racing car for the street. We get it, Project Swan, you vape...