[PaulE]

Some of you may recall my 2003 S suffered and IMSB failure last July and I elected to have my engine rebuilt by my local independent Porsche shop. As part of that process I decided to have the engine enlarged from the stock 3.2 to a 3.6 using LN Nickies and JE Pistons. Other modifications in the rebuild were ARP rod bolts and the 987 oil pressure relief spring/valve and the IMS Solutions. External to the engine modifications included a 987 airbox, Fabspeed Sport headers with catalysts and a Softronic custom tune for the 3.2 increased to 3.6 and a 987 MAF.

The car ran and performed nice after I got it back and the engine was broken in. But my shop suggested that the tune could be verified and perhaps improved with some dyno pulls, so I scheduled an appointment which was yesterday.

I was able to see one demonstration of my car on the dyno. I was expecting to see a typical rolling road with the rear tires on drums, but the shop uses a Dynapack unit which has hydraulic resistance/measurement units that attaches directly to the hub of each driven wheel after the wheel is removed. When they do a run on this kind of dyno they just put it in 4th gear and run it up through the rpm range. The initial pull showed my car had 243.7 HP at the wheels, and that it was running rich. They were able to get Softronic to modify the tune file and it ran better but they could tell it was still being restricted by the exhaust, which was stock after the headers. They had in stock a new set of Circuit Werks mid pipes with resonators but no secondary cats, so I gave them the go ahead to install them which increased the HP to 254.7. The shop said the HP at the wheels is about 85% of the HP at the flywheel, so that would be just about 300 HP at the flywheel. You can see the before (green) and after (red) in the picture below. I am happy with the results. On the highway the car pulls very nicely when at 3,000 RPM in 6th gear. It is even more awesome running up through the gears and really starts to come alive after 4,000 RPM. The sound is a bit louder with the 987 airbox, headers and midpipes but not annoying and there is no drone with the stock muffler. And I'm still learning to drive on the track in HPDE's, where I need more power like a turtle needs air brakes, so it's all good!