I am trying to spec out a Cayman R. I had an Acura NSX for almost ten years and this would be its replacement. Most of the options seem to be pretty clear but I am having trouble with two.

PDK: This seems like it should be obvious. I've always been a 4, then 5 then 6 on the floor kind of guy, but all the cars I see road racing on SPEED are now using sequential shifters. Yet the reviews I have read of PDK have been uniformly negative. Why is that?

One problem I see is all the reviewers used the transmission as an automatic, which seems to be counter its purpose. I look at it as a possibly superior standard transmission that can be forced to sort of act as an automatic if pressed. Is that the case or is it really a bad transmission?

Sport Exhaust System: As far as I can tell the ONLY purpose of this option is to make the car louder. It appears designed to reduce restrictions in the exhaust system, which ordinarily ought to increase power, but Porsche makes no claim of this. Why would anyone want to spend $2600 just to make their car louder? Is there another purpose?

 

I haven't followed the cayman R closely, but the guys at the cayman club (planet-9) can probably answer the questions better no doubt!

 

Thanks. I am not familiar with all the forums or which might be best for a particular question. I'll repost over there.