How the sound of the 991.2 RSR has changed over the years: 2017-22 Porsche GTE-class car tribute!

2023 will be the last year for the GTE class as it will be replaced with GT3 cars in 2024, with the GTE Pro class that already saw its final race in 2022 and with the GTE Am which will see it at the end of this season. Since the 991.2 RSR has been my favorite car of these rule set, I wanted to put together this video showing how its sound has changed over the last 6 years (and also how the car has evolved).

The 2017 version of the Porsche 911 (991.2) RSR was unveiled in November 2016 as the replacement for the 2013-2016 Porsche 911 (991) RSR. The car immediately caused a stir because of its 'reversed' engine-gearbox unit, modifying the typical rear-engine layout of the 911 model into a mid-engined car. This allowed to improve weight distribution and to design a bigger rear diffuser (permitted in the new GTE rules) since there was much more 'free' space at the lower, rear part of the car. The engine was a 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-6 with direct injection.

For the first half of 2017 the car had two separated exhaust pipes, on the very left and right of the rear diffuser. This layout gave the car a dark and old-school sound, very reminiscent of the naturally aspirated 993 RSR 3.8 or even the 996 RSR. I managed to record the car in this configuration during the 2017 WEC Prologue in Monza and later in 2018 when Porsche was again in Monza for a private test and during which they tried a few exhaust setups.

The 991.2 RSR became the moving orchestra that we have all come to love at the 2017 Le Mans 24-Hours Test Day early in June. The two Porsche GT Team's RSRs were fitted with a new exhaust which made the two pipes converge in the centre, like it was on the previous-gen 991 RSR (or on the various 911 GT3s). This gave back the higher pitch sound but it also provided an incredible amount of decibels, due to the total lack of mufflers. The official cars remained like that until the end of the 2018-19 WEC Super Season which ended in June 2019 with the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 2018 customers also received the new 991.2 RSR so the amount of noise on track increased a lot!

In late 2018 spy shots of an upgraded RSR were seen, taken at Weissach's test track with initial rumors saying that the car would be turbocharged, with a new exhaust system placed on each sides of the car, just in front of the rear wheels. In May 2019 I was lucky enough to record this new car testing at Monza Circuit. It was called 'RSR-19' and it made its racing debut at the 2019 4 Hours of Silverstone, first round of the 2019-20 WEC Super Season. The car was unveiled at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

The RSR-19 featured a fully revised body kit, from a new front bumper and hood, new mirrors, wing profile, to the new side exhaust system which allowed to design a new and bigger rear diffuser. The new GTE-class racer turned out not to be turbocharged but Porsche introduced also an upgraded 4.2-liter flat-6 engine. With that exhaust configuration the car went back to a more old-school tone but not as melodic as the 'early 2017' RSR. I've always compared it to how the Ford GT LM GTE might have sounded if it didn't have the two turbos. Loudness was still there. And probably I lost some of my hearing during that test in Monza.

Customers and private teams were still using the screaming, previous-gen 911 GTE car for the 2019/2020 season but it was obvious that sooner or later Porsche would have provided them with the new spec RSRs. Back in August 2020 I recorded two RSR-19s which had a revised rear exiting arrangement, similar to the one of the infamous RSR 2017. Since the RSR-19 with side exhaust was even louder than the 2017 RSR by a couple of dB, Porsche developed this new rear exhaust featuring little mufflers to reduce and comply with the increasingly stringent noise limits imposed in more and more circuits around the World.

With this specs the RSR-19 started to be sold to private teams from 2021, allowing them to join test days at more race tracks in which noise rules are stricter. Thanks to being back to a rear-central layout, the cars have regained the high-pitched sound but sound level is quite far from the 2017-spec cars. In fact with this muffled exhaust, Porsche stated the RSR should be around 10 dB quieter than before. And you can really hear the difference even on a video.

0:00 2017 vs 2018-19 vs RSR-19 vs RSR-19 '2021'
6:49 RSR 2018 vs RSR-19 '2021' in Goodwood
8:36 Miscellaneous

#Porsche911RSR #911RSR19 #Porsche991RSRGTE

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Camcorder: Canon Legria GX10 & HF G40 + Canon DM-100 Microphone
Events: Porsche Testing 2018-2021 / WEC Prologue 2017
Where: Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy

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