I Lifted My Porsche Cayenne For A 5,000-Mile Rally To The Arctic Circle

My iPhone buzzed with the notification of a text from a friend in California: "Let's say hypothetically you and I were to sign up for the Alcan rally next summer." I didn't even need a second thought about it. I've always wanted to participate in the Alcan 5000 since I first heard about it twenty years ago. What's the point of being an adult if I can't make plans to drive to the Arctic Circle with a friend I haven't seen in a couple years? Besides, Alaska is one of the two states remaining I haven't visited yet, so it's time to knock that off my list. 

I replied within seconds. "Yeah, I'm down. What are we taking?"

If you're not familiar, the Alcan 5000 (derived from a portmanteau of Alaska and Canada), is a massive 5,000 mile Time Speed Distance-style rally that began in 1984. It's known for extreme conditions and exhausting hours on the road, and alternates between a winter rally and a summer rally every year. I don't think I'm ready for a winter rally, with participants seeing several days of below-zero and harsh conditions. The summer rally, meanwhile, is scheduled for this September and threatens no worse than the annoyance of bugs. I'll take bugs over freezing temps any day of the year. 

Forbes had this to say about participating in the Alcan: 

No matter what you drive or how you finish, the Alcan 5000 Rally camaraderie is great. People help each other when someone is in need and folks are friendly. We're all there with a common goal: to experience the journey as much as the end destination.

In a world growing increasingly insular and isolated, I absolutely have the desire to get out there and see it all with some new friends.

At the end of the conversation we decided that we'd take my 2013 Porsche Cayenne Diesel. It's by far the most comfortable of the options available to us, and certainly the most reliable driver in my fleet. The only thing that really sidelines these trucks is the high-pressure fuel pump, and I replaced mine last year, so it should be ready for a few thousand miles of Canadian and Alaskan wilderness.

The rally mostly takes place on public roads, so it probably isn't necessary to modify my decade-old Porsche SUV anyway, but I'll take any opportunity to make a cool car even cooler. I've already got a good set of rolling stock on the truck. As soon as I bought the thing a couple of years ago I swapped the stock 20-inch wheels with rubber-band tires for a chunky set of Braid Fullrace T Dakar Beadlock B wheels in 17-inch diameter and made up the difference in tire sidewall. I could probably go bigger on the tires, but these 29.5-inch Mickey Thompson Baja Boss tires are almost exactly the same rolling diameter as stock, so I don't have to worry about my speedometer (or odometer) being way off, and I still have plenty of gravel grip.

Bradley Brownell

Aside from a few choice cosmetic modifications, I hadn't done much to the Cayenne thus far, aside from the maintenance required to drive it mostly trouble-free for nearly three years. Some of my pals have recently asked me, "Why mess with a good thing? If the Cayenne is good as-is, why modify it?" Because I'm exercising radical free will, my good man. Why do anything, if not because you think it'll be rad as hell?

Could my Cayenne manage the Alcan without a suspension lift or a winch or a bull bar full of auxiliary lighting? Yeah, it almost definitely could. At a minimum, I wanted to make sure the car's vulnerable plastic oil pan had more protection than a cheap flimsy factory underbody tray could offer, so I went looking for the right solution. What I found set off a snowball of modifications that I couldn't prevent myself from committing to. 

I was already aware that EuroWise was the go-to spot in Cayenne off-roading mods, and I'd already been eyeballing a few of the company's components for beefing up my daily driver Diesel. When they announced a Black Friday sale last fall, however, I was tipped over the edge and practically forced to put in my credit card details and order about $3,600 worth of aftermarket off-roading components. The order list included quarter-inch alloy skid plates for the engine and transfer case, a two-inch lift kit, a massive steel winch mount plate behind the bumper, and a bull bar with mounting tabs for rally lights. 

Bradley Brownell

Staring down several hundred dollars worth of shipping costs, I opted instead to set my order for pickup and wait until the shop had some time to install the parts on my Cayenne with me. I am a big boy with a big garage full of tools, and I'm fully capable of installing these components myself, but I'm so happy I decided to have these experts with a super clean shop and a nice in-ground lift give me a hand with the project instead. What would have likely taken me half a dozen days to piece together, the homies at EuroWise had done before lunch time. They really know what they're doing.

Look, I understand that it's tough to take my review at face value because I spent good money on some shiny stuff that doesn't really make my Cayenne a better daily driver. Of course I'm going to try to justify my expense. Do you need this stuff if you're staying on public roads? No way. Do I like this stuff and think it's cool? Yes, of course. That being said, if you have a Cayenne (or half a dozen other European SUVs), the stuff that EuroWise makes is incredibly high quality and I was very happy with how it went together. 

Bradley Brownell

I took a Friday and drove down to the EuroWise shop in Charlotte, North Carolina from my home in Cleveland, Ohio, about a 600-mile one-way trip. The money I would have spent on shipping covered all of my fuel, food, and hotels for a weekend in the warmth of a southern town. I'll take the experience over the convenience every time. I pulled up to the shop on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. ready to rock and roll. Within twenty minutes the car was on the rack with the wheels and front bumper removed. These guys move with clinical precision; it was amazing to be a part of. 

Bradley Brownell

The only component of the car that needed permanent modification was the radiator shroud, which had to be pretty much sliced in half to accommodate the winch plate and winch. The stock stamped steel bumper was jettisoned for the new winch plate, bolting to the stock frame rails. It didn't take long to get it installed and aligned, and before I knew it, the bumper cover was re-installed and the bull bar was getting worked into place. 

While Eurowise offers different combinations of steel tube and plate high-clearance bumper options, I don't really want to go that aggressive with my Cayenne, keeping it mostly stock without resorting to hacking away massive parts of the front bumper cover. Instead I chose to keep things easy with a bull bar that bolts into the stock tow hook locations. I won't be doing a Rubicon trail, this is totally fine.  

The suspension lift was the most involved component of the day. Each corner had to be torn apart for the shock housing to be removed and fitted with the two-inch lift spacer. With the spacer installed, the re-installation process is quite a bit more difficult than the removal of the stock suspension. Getting the rear control arms to flex to beyond normal droop required three full-sized adults hanging their weight from a six-foot section of cheater pipe in order to get the bolt holes to line up. "If you were doing this yourself, you would definitely need to drop the rear subframe to get that lined up," confirmed one of the mechanics. 

Bradley Brownell

The skid plates were the last thing installed, and took no time at all. Put a handful of riv-nuts in some factory-supplied subframe holes and it bolts right up without difficulty. The two segments then bolt together with three supplied carriage bolts and everything feels strong enough to hang my entire body weight off of. Every bolt head on the bottom of the skid plate has a nice little ramp up to it so they won't ever get caught on rocks or downed limbs. 

A quick jostle around on a pile of rocks next door to EuroWise confirmed that everything was bolted up properly and there weren't any new suspension clunks.

With just half a day's work, my Cayenne now had two additional inches of ground clearance, underbody protection, and the requisite components needed for recovery and auxiliary lighting. Time will tell whether I actually need any of this to get to the Arctic Circle.

I still have a bit of work to do before the rally, but plenty of time to get it done. The front bumper has to come back off to install my winch and wire up the rally lights. There are a few small reliability mods I need to affect, including fixing a small coolant leak that just popped up. My shop in Ohio just had about a foot of snow dumped on it, so we'll kick that project out a few weeks.  

I could theoretically go taller with it if I added the EuroWise subframe spacers, and I've been told that my Porsche will now take up to 33-inch tires without rubbing. Then again, I haven't really ever been one for big lifts and giant tires, so I think the extent of the modifications here are pretty much done.

Maybe I'm a slave to vanity, but I like my Porsche to continue looking like a Porsche instead of the jacked up Transformer-look that some people have taken. I don't mean that as a knock against anyone, if you like your bumper, I'm not going to yuck your yum. You're welcome to call mine a Mall Crawler if you want, but I'll be smiling doing thousands of rally miles and enjoying the look of my "rig." 

I still need to get this thing out on the trails, but after 600 miles back home on Sunday, I'm happy with how it turned out.