[edevlin]

I have found that tuning can be a mixed bag, mostly because its expensive. I have a 2000 2.7L Boxster that I felt was also running fine, but I wanted it to be a bit more resposive. The first mods I did involved installing a chip and cold air intake, I found that was, by far, the best mod for the money. Dyno results after the mod came in at about 198 hp. But more importantly, the car had a vey flat torque curve which gave the car a far more responsive feel from about 2.5K to 6.5K. Having chip and intake done should cost you anywhere from 1500.00 to 2500.00 depending on the chip and intake, which is about 100.00/hp.

I then went the next step playing with the exhaust which is still in process, that can be quite expensive and so far (ECU tuning is still ongoing) adding a performance exhaust system has provided only modest increase in HP, but it does sound great. Headers, 100-cell cats and muffler can cost over 5K, so be careful if you go this route. I dont know a lot about the whole exhaust thing, some folks have reported modest increases in HP with just a muffler. But when looking at getting more air out of the car, the stock headers and first set of cats comming off those headers seem to be a bottleneck for moving more exhaust gasses.

As wiser heads have commented on the forum, perfroming mods on these cars starts one down a slippery slope. In my particular case, I am not able to sell my car and get a newer, or "S" model, which probably would have been the way to go if that option were available to me.

But, the work I have done on my little 2.7L really has transformed the driving experience and I am loving my car now, it is light, responsive, really sings from the exhaust and is making better than 240 hp at the crank. Others that know more about this should chime in, as I know just enough about this stuff to get myself in trouble, but I am having a great time doing so.

Ed

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