Boxster S Stage II Upgrades....
 

Had a boxster S come into the shop friday evening for some upgrades, and thought you all might want to see what is involved. I put on a B&M short throw, dansk muffler, fabspeed Secondary cat bypasses, GIAC flash, and evo cold air intake.....I forgot to take a few pictures along the way, but the bulk of it is there....All very DIY in a few hours, with the exception of the flash load....

From the blog....
http://www.turbo911.com/showthread.php?p=1412#post1412

Good pics. Thanks for sharing. That thumb looks like it hadda hurt. If possible try to get some feedback from the owner of the car concerning the mods.

Hehe, it wasn't too bad till i dumped the peroxide on it to clean it :D

Hey Porschedoc - I've always wondered what exactly the stage X rating means. I've played many hours of Gran Turismo and see it referenced on the net but don't know really what it means to have a stage 1 2 3 or 4 upgrade done... other than faster car... enlighten me please.

Thanks for taking the time and sharing the info.

Porschedoc,

Great pics and great informations. Whats flashing the ob II sensor? I see in the pic your using a lap top and have some idea its dealing with the computer. Are you making adjustmnents to fuel and mixture because of the intake change? Thanks again for this great info....

:cheers: PS Glad the thumbs still intact!!!!

That's right. He's loading in software from GIAC to alter the F/A mixture and other parameters to accomodate the mods.

Yup, adam got it right, we use the OBDII port (diagnostic port for reading down codes, and getting into the cars ECU for other information) to "flash the ecu", which means we change the fuel and air curves for greater performance. Porsche leaves quite a bit of room to work with for tuning on these cars. Every different car has a "master" program you could say, which of course was tuned and mapped by GIAC. I go in and load that program into the ECU, which takes about 30 minutes.

As far as the Stages go, every different "tuner" has levels of tuning for a given car. For instance, our stage I kit consists of muffler, and air intake, which adds about 10hp. A stage I is therefore a few minor bolt on modifications that add a few horsepower, but nothing drastic. In this case, we are adding more air in and more air out...a good combination when used together. If you do one, you really should do the other, in order to optimize what goes into the engine and what comes out. Then the "stage II" would add the ECU flash, which will add another 15hp or so, and so on. Since the stage I changed the air coming and and going out, now we can more effectively "tune" the car to more horsepower. In the case of this boxster S, we also went with the secondary cat bypass, which gained us a little more horsepower, which i guess theoretically we could call a "stage III." More or less it just describes the extent of the modifications that have been done. As far as figuring out what goes in a stage kit, it kind of goes like this: We take what is available for the car, and then break it down into stages as we see components working together best.

I will do a writeup with pictures on the B&M short shifter for the next car i get in for you guys, so you can see how that is installed. Very easy to do as well, though getting the center console apart for the first time can be a little tricky when you are shooting blind.......Once you know where all the screw are, it is cake.

Doc, Adam

great info once again. Is the Giac program something I can buy? I thought about playing with some of the mapping. Mostly I would like to read my own codes and trouble shoot and reset. I have a five years old battery that I am considering changing. I read in the bently book that there might be issues with disconnecting and may need to reset some codes as well as a bunch of other crap Ie window settings and the other list of things. Which brings about another question can I plug one of those cigarette lighter battery backups in and do the battery switch (quickly) with out damaging anything and also not losing power(above issues as well as reseting the radio) . The snow is falling here so Im playing in ther garage alot... THNAKS............................

:cheers:

Hey Doc, Thanks, this is great info. A couple questions; 1). Will stage one still pass emissions tests? I'm wondering about the Cat bypass. 2). Does stage 2 pass emissions? I'm wondering about changes in fuel mixture.

Thanks, Jim

The GIAC program will need to be installed by a dealer. There are a couple of options, you can find a dealer who is close to you by going to GIAC's website (www.giacusa.com), or you can pull the ecu yourself, which is easy, and send it into a GIAC dealer and have them benchflash it. The programing is then set, and can not be changed as far as going in and modifying it yourself. There is the option of using a flashswitcher, which allows you to switch back and forth between the performance file and the stock program. When it is in the stock form, the dealer can not see any performance file in the ECU. Garrett with GIAC does the programming, and quite honestly there isn't anyone out there better, so it the files are pretty much tuned to the best you are going to get them.

For reading codes and such, you would need an OBDII reader, which would allow you to read the codes, clear the codes etc. We have a tool made by Baum at the shop, which quite expensive. We also utilize the PST2 which is the software the dealers use, and can do everything from programming keys, to clearing codes, to see what position the cam is at with the variocam systems, etc....quite elaborate.

The only code you may need to reset after pulling the battery would be the radio code. This should be a 4 digit code, found in your radio manual. Once you turn the car on for the first time with the new battery, you just have to punch in the 4 digits on the radio, and it will work again.

I have pulled batteries out of 996's and boxsters, and on occasion it will not ask for the radio code, like the battery was never out of the car. On the last GT700 kit we did on the 996, we had the battery out for at least a day, and somehow it kept the code.

Stage I and II will pass emissions no problem. As far as with the secondary cats removed, that i guess is going to depend on how strict the testing is. Obviously you are still utilizing the original primary cats, as well as all 4 O2 sensors, so in theory it should still pass. PorschePhd might have to chime in on that one, but i don't think it is a problem.

Thanks again Doc, Those dansk pieces look great. Now I'll have to be on the lookout for someone with one so I can check out how they sound.

Jim

PorscheDoc

You mentioned the stage 3 mods adds 35hp and 37lb of torque. Do you have any dyno charts you can share with us? I'm curious about the range of the increase - I saw one where the increase was significant only above 6000rpm.

Even if the major gain is above 6,000hp(which it probably is) that is not a huge drawback. When you want max accleration you floor it and shift at red-line. People complain about lack of a power increase or even a loss in the low and mid-range but when I want to open it up I don't shift at 5,000 rpm.

Hi,

Hard acceleration calls for Torque more than Horsepower. Even at 5k RPM, you're already past the Peak Torque.

Power is Power to be sure, but the Best Power on a Street Car is Usable Power...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Sure, torque moves you down the road but without hp you go nowhere. They have a direct relationship. One memeber on here made a good analogy regarding TQ and HP. He said if a large waterwheel is our engine, then torque would be the size of the buckets and Hp would the rate at which the wheel spins. The best power band in the boxster would be between the TQ and HP peaks which would be between 4,600 rpm and 6,250rpm in the boxster S and 2.7Ls. However, in order to keep the boxster in the upper portion of the power band shifting above 6,250rpm is necessary.

Wow, ever have one of those days where you respond to a post in your head, but don't type anything? I don't have any dyno charts handy on the Stage II + secondary cat bypass pipes, but next car i do them on, I will see if I can work a couple of dyno runs into the deal. I had some on our dyno computer for a previous car, but the computer took the "big" one, and we lost all of our dyno runs from the first 6 months we had the dyno. I'll see what i can come up with.

I agreed with MNBoxster, I get the most enjoyment with usable power on the street. I installed an EVo air intake several mths ago and I love the sound when I push the car above 4500rpm. However, I only enjoy it for a few seconds in the city since 2nd gear redlines at about 70mph.

I moved to an S about 6 months ago and I felt the difference throughout the range from my old car.

If there is a 35/37 increase in tq/hp with the mods as PorscheDoc stated, it'll be like moving from a regular Boxster to an S. Also, I think it'll sound awesome.

I figure it's about $3500 with all the mods installed. Worth it to do? Let's start a discussion.