What to Do with my 2002?

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Hello All:

I bought my yellow 2002 Boxster from a dealer in May, and drove it all summer. I love this car! People will say I'm crazed, but I like it better than the 911. I love the feel of the mid engine design, like the cabin, etc. etc.

Anyway, 217 HP is a little anemic, I gotta admit.

So, I'm thinking of spending about 3 grand on engine tuning, cold air intake, and a Dansk exhaust ( not only HP but looks really cool).

I've gotten mixed reviews regarding whether or not these enhancements are worth it.

Questions:

1) Will all this bump me up from 217 HP to 240HP?
2) Will 240 HP bring my 0-60 down to about 6 sec?
3) What about putting on 18 inch wheels (I have 17's). Is it worth it in terms of handeling and looks? Anyone know where I can find yellow rims?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.Yellow

[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

:dance: :dance: :dance:

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Originally Posted by 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

:dance: :dance: :dance:

Hi Ed:

Thanks for the reply, very informative.

I paid 31K for the car at the dealer, which included 2 year warranty. The car was low mileage, about 22 K.

Last month, i lloked at going back to the same dealer and picking up a yellow 2004 Boxster S, but they wanted 40K, and would only give me 21.5K on the trade!


Hell with that. Not much difference overall in the 2 cars, except HP jump from 217 to, I think 270. So, I figure spend about 3 grand to get me up to about 240 HP which is respectable enough, and I'm alot better off than trading for a newer S.

Any other opinions?

[z12358]

YellowPorscheMan2002:
"Anyway, 217 HP is a little anemic, I gotta admit."

If it felt like that in May (and that's a big IF), the best bang/$ would have been getting an "S" then. Even now, switching your base for an S may still give you the best bang/$.

Personally, I have not been too much into mods. I may have too much respect for the designs as they come out of the factory. I'd feel pretty arrogant to question the optimality of a design that must have incorporated hundreds of engineers, designing, simulating, testing, having Monday meetings, then going back to the lab, all for the purpose of matching all the parts together and finding that sweet spot of performance and durability. So here comes Z and says: "You fools, you could have gotten 10hp more if you had programmed the chip this other way and 10hp more if you had the mufflers done this other way!" How would I ever know why they didn't design it that way themselves? Was I at the meetings? Did I hear the cons? What makes me think that some after marker guy in his garage could find performance where the original engineers couldn't?

There's a prevalent theme in the "mods" world that getting more performance is mostly a matter of how much money you are willing to spend. My take is that it's usually much more complicated than that: There are other costs involved caused by the cummulative effects of each particular "mod" through time to the car as a whole. Though the extent varies among mods, by modding, the originally designed optimal point has been shifted in the parameter space into a (for us) unknown space, and the risks/costs associated with that are usually underestimated. As usual, the collective wisdom aggregated in the market is telling us the same, as a heavily modded car is much harder to sell then its stock equal.

Just my thoughts.

Z.

[z12358]

Sorry, I was typing my previous response as you posted this. Cast a wider net when searching. Go to edmunds.com and figure out the difference between a base and S for the year you are looking. If I remember correctly, when equally equipped, S becomes only $5-6k more expensive than base, NEW. This difference should only shrink the older the cars get.

Z.

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Hi Ed:

Thanks for the reply, very informative.

I paid 31K for the car at the dealer, which included 2 year warranty. The car was low mileage, about 22 K.

Last month, i lloked at going back to the same dealer and picking up a yellow 2004 Boxster S, but they wanted 40K, and would only give me 21.5K on the trade!


Hell with that. Not much difference overall in the 2 cars, except HP jump from 217 to, I think 270. So, I figure spend about 3 grand to get me up to about 240 HP which is respectable enough, and I'm alot better off than trading for a newer S.

Any other opinions?

[djomlas]

man forget about all that, get some spinnerz and some TVz yo and some curb feelers and you will be rollin' chrome chrome chrome

[Adam]

Originally Posted by z12358

YellowPorscheMan2002:
"Anyway, 217 HP is a little anemic, I gotta admit."

If it felt like that in May (and that's a big IF), the best bang/$ would have been getting an "S" then. Even now, switching your base for an S may still give you the best bang/$.

Personally, I have not been too much into mods. I may have too much respect for the designs as they come out of the factory. I'd feel pretty arrogant to question the optimality of a design that must have incorporated hundreds of engineers, designing, simulating, testing, having Monday meetings, then going back to the lab, all for the purpose of matching all the parts together and finding that sweet spot of performance and durability. So here comes Z and says: "You fools, you could have gotten 10hp more if you had programmed the chip this other way and 10hp more if you had the mufflers done this other way!" How would I ever know why they didn't design it that way themselves? Was I at the meetings? Did I hear the cons? What makes me think that some after marker guy in his garage could find performance where the original engineers couldn't?

There's a prevalent theme in the "mods" world that getting more performance is mostly a matter of how much money you are willing to spend. My take is that it's usually much more complicated than that: There are other costs involved caused by the cummulative effects of each particular "mod" through time to the car as a whole. Though the extent varies among mods, by modding, the originally designed optimal point has been shifted in the parameter space into a (for us) unknown space, and the risks/costs associated with that are usually underestimated. As usual, the collective wisdom aggregated in the market is telling us the same, as a heavily modded car is much harder to sell then its stock equal.

Just my thoughts.

Z.

Agree, but sometimes the factory purposely holds a car back. The boxster S could've had 280 hp from the get go instead of 250hp but Porsche wanted to bump up the power of the 996 first. The car got a 30 hp bump and they didn't even need to up the displacement. That tells me some of these engines have some untapped potential.

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Interesting and varied opinions......

Check out my car!

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Adam

Agree, but sometimes the factory purposely holds a car back. The boxster S could've had 280 hp from the get go instead of 250hp but Porsche wanted to bump up the power of the 996 first. The car got a 30 hp bump and they didn't even need to up the displacement. That tells me some of these engines have some untapped potential.

It may not (and probably isn't) tappable without changes to cam timing (as the later engines have with lift), port, cylinder and head design and all kinds of external engine stuff as well. Expecting the simple intake, exhaust and chipping to make anything more than a modest increase in power (at the expense of tolerance to bad gas or excessive thrashing) isn't realistic.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Interesting and varied opinions......

Check out my car!

That car is stunning. Save the money on the mods, buy a nice girl friend to sit in the other seat!

Better ROI for sure.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Interesting and varied opinions......

Check out my car!

Hi,

Nice Car. But, is your spoiler broken? It's not supposed to be extended at 0MPH...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Adam]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

It may not (and probably isn't) tappable without changes to cam timing (as the later engines have with lift), port, cylinder and head design and all kinds of external engine stuff as well. Expecting the simple intake, exhaust and chipping to make anything more than a modest increase in power (at the expense of tolerance to bad gas or excessive thrashing) isn't realistic.

No, I believe the engine was held back and the statistics prove it. The 2000 3.4L 996 engine has 88hp/liter while the 2000 boxster S only has 78hp/liter. These engines are based on the same technology and time period. There is no doubt advances have helped both the 911 and the boxster but there's no disputing Porsche has always sandbagged the boxster. They won't even give the car a limited slip....

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Adam

No, I believe the engine was held back and the statistics prove it. The 2000 3.4L 996 engine has 88hp/liter while the 2000 boxster S only has 78hp/liter. These engines are based on the same technology and time period. There is no doubt advances have helped both the 911 and the boxster but there's no disputing Porsche has always sandbagged the boxster. They won't even give the car a limited slip....

What I'm saying is that the 250hp 3.2 from 00-02 and the 280hp 3.2 from 05-06 probably have different internal components that allow for the difference and if you want the early engine to match the output of the later, it's going to take more than simple bolt-ons and an ecu tune.

Did Porsche mean for the Boxster to always have a lower output than the 911? Of course.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

What I'm saying is that the 250hp 3.2 from 00-02 and the 280hp 3.2 from 05-06 probably have different internal components that allow for the difference and if you want the early engine to match the output of the later, it's going to take more than simple bolt-ons and an ecu tune.

Did Porsche mean for the Boxster to always have a lower output than the 911? Of course.

My point was that Porsche could've easily given the boxster S 280+ hp in 2000 without the high tech stuff like variable valve lift, etc etc. In fact I think the 280 hp 05-06 boxster S's don't even have variable valve lift or any cylinder head redesign over the older boxster S's. I read somwhere that the increase was due to the use of headers with equal length runners, bigger higher flow intake and newer 7.8.8 Bosch ECM. Basically, chip intake and exhaust.

[blinkwatt]

@ yellowporscheman

You have a 00'+ so that means you have 4 cats. You can get secondary cat bypass pipes for $500,gain 9hp and shed 30lbs.
http://www.epiqautosport.com/pro_boxster_secondary_catalytic_bypass_pipes.php

Then you could do the intake. Gain 8-10hp for $400. Easy D.I.Y.
http://www.epiqautosport.com/pro_boxster_fabspeed_high_performance_air_intake.p hp

The jury is still out on this one,Che's(Board Sponsor) 00'+ headers. I have only read on review w/o a dyno graph for 00'+,gain 6hp. $470

Now with novice mechanic skills you could do all those in your garage in a day and give some "S" a run for their money. Oh yeah and with the money you save from installing the parts yourself you could put in RoW sway bars!

Why not head to the track and see if you can handle the power in turns? Everyone that I know that tracks their Boxster doesn't complain about the power,it's more then enough to have fun in turns!

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Originally Posted by MNBoxster

Hi,

Nice Car. But, is your spoiler broken? It's not supposed to be extended at 0MPH...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Hi:

Nope, my spoiler's not broken. I extended it on purpose for the photo. Sometimes I like driving around with it extended. We all have that option you know....

[edevlin]

"You have a 00'+ so that means you have 4 cats. You can get secondary cat bypass pipes for $500,gain 9hp and shed 30lbs.
http://www.epiqautosport.com/pro_bo...ypass_pipes.php

Then you could do the intake. Gain 8-10hp for $400. Easy D.I.Y.
http://www.epiqautosport.com/pro_bo...ir_intake.p hp"

My experience has been that the claimed HP increases by the manufactures does not match what the Dyno says. When I put the fabspeed cat bypass on my 2.7L I may have picked up 2 hp on the dyno. But the intake and cat bypass offer a nice improvement in the sound of the car to my ear, and sure make it sound like the car is going faster.

Ed

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Adam

My point was that Porsche could've easily given the boxster S 280+ hp in 2000 without the high tech stuff like variable valve lift, etc etc. In fact I think the 280 hp 05-06 boxster S's don't even have variable valve lift or any cylinder head redesign over the older boxster S's. I read somwhere that the increase was due to the use of headers with equal length runners, bigger higher flow intake and newer 7.8.8 Bosch ECM. Basically, chip intake and exhaust.

If anyone on the board can show a 30 hp increase with external mods, I'd like to see it.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

... Sometimes I like driving around with it extended. We all have that option you know....

Hi,

We indeed have the option if we so choose, no doubt, but it's a little Ricer IMHO...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[edevlin]

I am still in process with the mods on my 2.7L 2000 Boxster. I am currently using a stock muffler with TTP headers and high-flow cats. I suspect the stock muffler is somewhat of a bottleneck for the exhaust gas, so I am going to try sticking on a Dansk Sport muffler in the next couple weeks. I should add that I have also stuck on a TTP intake and chip. The chip is also still in process, as it has not been completely tweeked to the exhaust rig as yet.

Anyway, I am now pretty consistantly getting around 202 hp on the DynoJet dyno which works out to a little over 20 additional hp at the crank, figuring a 15% drive train loss. I think it was racertroy that found he was getting a 17.8% drivetrain loss with his 2000 2.7L Boxster. Assuming a 17.8% drivetrain loss, that would put almost 29 additional HP at the crank. My guess is that with my car with a new muffler and the chip dialed into my setup I will end up getting in the neighborhood of 206-210 or so HP on the dyno, which is pretty close to a 30 hp increase. But don't even ask what all this mod playing around costs, for what by most standards is a very modest increase in HP, but hey, I'm having fun.......

Ed

:dance: :dance: :dance: