30 Top six modified 911s: SharkWerks
31SHARKWERKSSPECIALISTS IN UNLEASHING THE TRUE POTENTIALOF MODERN GT 911SHundreds of991 GT ownersall aroundthe worldhave ditchedtheir factoryexhausts for thebanshee howlof a SharkWerks Sports system, but the engineeringingenuity of this NorCal concern goes far beyondimproving how the 911 breathes.SharkWerks was born out of the need for more,after Alex Ross, one quarter of the SharkWerks team,campaigned a 996 Turbo on the drag strip at the startof the Millennium, with notable success. The evolutionof that build, which turned Ross’ Turbo into a recordbreaker,eventually gave birth to the outfit we knowtoday, with ‘Sharky’ Ross teaming up with Joan Woodand ‘mechanical wizard’ James Hendry, followed byDan Kennedy, the team setting up shop in Fremontnear San Francisco.After focusing on upgrades for the then-new996, the team migrated to the 997, culminating in abreathtaking revision of the 997.1 GT3 RS, going from3.6-litre to 3.9-litre specification. The trailblazer for thatwas a Viper green RS affectionately known at Kermit,and it became something of a blueprint for the levelof modifications SharkWerks could deliver. Speakingof blue, a Gulf-coloured 997.2 GT3 RS was reworkedto 4.1-litre specification at a time when Porsche hadn’tyet mustered its own 4.0-litre RS, SharkWerks sincebringing a 3.6-litre 997.1 GT3 into the 4.1 club. “Out ofthe box Porsche has always delivered what we believeto be the world’s greatest daily driven sports car,but for some people that just isn’t enough. We craveinsane levels of horsepower, tightly tuned handlingand serious braking,” Alex Ross informs us fromSharkWerks HQ.SharkWerks 997s are faster, sharper and strongerthan stock, with reliability a key ingredient of its recipefor high performance. Perhaps the greatest testamentto SharkWerks is the fact that its workshop has beenbusier than ever, despite a significant rise in thevalues of 997 GT cars in recent years. Its customersare, like the team themselves, true petrolheads, withany notions of investment coming second to a purehit of driver interaction. SharkWerks delivers thison a scale not seen anywhere else on this era of 911.The company’s reach is worldwide too, a 997.2 GT3RS 4.1 recently rolling into The Netherlands afterbeing shipped over to California for development (allcomplete builds must be done in-house).Porsche has of course moved onto the 991 and 992platform, but while SharkWerks is happy to provideindividual parts for upgrade here, its projects havegone the other way, focusing on the air-cooled 964. It’sreignited a passion for Ross and his team: “I think froma driver perspective [the 964 is] the best air-cooled 911.It has modern brakes and suspension, a nice torqueyengine and sometimes AC that even works. It has thebest ingredients that we can then take and enjoy onour canyons or back roads. We’ve built a good fewreplicas of our ‘93 red Canyon Bomber. We’ve got firsttimecustomers coming in with 991 GT3s and tryingour 3.8 re-geared 964, then coming back a month laterwith a stock 964 to get sharkafied!”It’s arguably a left-field move for a company that’smade its name from the water-cooled cars, but theresponsiveness of the SharkWerks 964 engine andtactility of its chassis (we drove said Canyon Bomberin issue 157) underlines the dexterity behind thiscompany’s prowess. As for 2020? “Expect to see more4.1s, 3.9s, 3.8 964s, and bolt-ons for 991 and 992s,” Rosssays. You might say sharks belong in the water, buthere, air makes for a happy hunting ground too.“SharkWerks 997s are faster, sharper and strongerthan stock, with reliability a key ingredient of itsrecipe for high performance”