Help me soup up my boxster

[blue2000s]

Drag strip cars are best made when starting out with a turbocharged engine. AWD DSMs are famous for cheap speed, for example. They started out with a reasonably stout drivetrain and a virtually indestructible iron engine block. Just reinforce what you need to, increase fuel flow and airflow and you're off to the track. 11s are not difficult or all that expensive with those cars.

Different story with an aluminum engined, high compression, mid engined Porsche, as has been noted, longevity will be an issue.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

11.0 second quarter mile takes about 500 HP in a 3000 pound car.

And some sticky drag radials.

[trieullionaire]

How about a different perspective. Well, we are living in tough economic times as indicated by the news media and talks of government efforts in recent weeks. I say it is okay to drag race, but a fundamental shift in our thinking is necessary, a paradigm shift if you will from orthodox thinking - slowest one wins and saves fuel. :dance:

I was at Sebring when they had the 48 hours just a couple weekends ago, and it's impressive seeing the old box keep up with some of the other heavy hitters out there. One of them was a stock 2.7 no mods except for a shorter pulley, fabspeed exhaust and headers. That thing sounded amazing and with everything ripped out, probably was a bit faster than my stock set up. I still have exhaust envy to this day, but hey my car looks fast when I'm not moving so it's all good. I forgot my point, but its coming back to me...mods like that track car seems to me the best way to harness your engine's potential in a way where you can sleep easy at night and you might not be winning straight line races, but it be a real hoot to drive and listen to the sound of a beautiful exhaust note.

[Jake Raby]

The key is increasing USABLE power and enhancing throttle response for great performance on the road course and street. Many times we have won races with lesser HP figures with increased torque and throttle response through the most critical portion of the rev range. This gets the car off the corners and onto the straights faster and on the street it REALLY increases the fun factor.

Thats what I am most pleased about with my current 2.5 development by far. The snap this combo has is unreal and the engine pulls to redline so fast that it can't be shifted fast enough... Tomorrow I am turning up the revs to 7,400 :-)

As for the exhaust note.... well our Clients are much more concerned with that than I am.. in fact I generally have to ask my employees and others about their thoughts on sound because it generally doesn't impact me that much.. Sound doesn't increase or efficiency or numbers, so it doesn't do much for me at all. :-)

The past two days on my 83 mile commute I averaged 34 MPG in the test car in the current state of tune... everything follows efficiency!

[Boxster_luver]

Thanks alot guys, you gave me alot of helpful information!! Now I did meen to ask this...What is this about 996 parts fitting the 986?? What exactly can you swap and why havn't people done this before? If I am able to do an engine swap is it just a 2.9 that I can fit? 300hp sounds great for me, I know now i'll never get a 10 second car but a 300hp is plenty fast for me. Now about super chargers and turbo chargers, that was what I really wanted to do. I e-mailed TPC and they said they don't offer a super charger OR a turbo charger for the 98 2.5. So is there a way I can make my own?? What all is involved in making one and installing it and is it something that my dad and myself can do our selves?
For enhancing the throttle responce what would you suggest I change or modify?
I'de like to ask all of you questions because each of you seem to have knowledge in your own way but it's hard to keep track of all your posts lol.

Michael

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Boxster_luver

Thanks alot guys, you gave me alot of helpful information!! Now I did meen to ask this...What is this about 996 parts fitting the 986?? What exactly can you swap and why havn't people done this before? If I am able to do an engine swap is it just a 2.9 that I can fit? 300hp sounds great for me, I know now i'll never get a 10 second car but a 300hp is plenty fast for me. Now about super chargers and turbo chargers, that was what I really wanted to do. I e-mailed TPC and they said they don't offer a super charger OR a turbo charger for the 98 2.5. So is there a way I can make my own?? What all is involved in making one and installing it and is it something that my dad and myself can do our selves?
For enhancing the throttle responce what would you suggest I change or modify?
I'de like to ask all of you questions because each of you seem to have knowledge in your own way but it's hard to keep track of all your posts lol.

Michael

The best way to make around 300 hp is to drop in a 3.4L from a 996 or have Raby bore and stroke your 2.5L and do a total rebuild.

[mikefocke]

You seem to be a results-based engineer and the results I've seen say I wouldn't let one near my car for longevity reasons.

Can you cite any independent tests that refute the ones cited here ?

[Boxster_luver]

I think that is what im going to do to get the power that I want, swap engines.
Ok, so should the 996 engine fit perfectly in my boxster or are there modifications I need to make?

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

You seem to be a results-based engineer and the results I've seen say I wouldn't let one near my car for longevity reasons.

Can you cite any independent tests that refute the ones cited here ?

Mike,
I typically am not a fan of K&N filters, in fact I generally find that they are counter productive for power plus a lot of the gripes that you stated in the article on your site.

The M96 filter has not followed suite with the previous units I have noted for other applications. I feel that part of this is due to the location of the Boxster's air intake. I have not noted any issues with the unit and my shop is at the end of a 1/8 mile dirt road.

I was able to pick up a solid 1 MPG (data logged) with the K&N in place and in every run on my dynojet I have seen a 2HP increase at minimum. Tonight I ran a test and saw almost 4HP from an engine that I was gathering baseline data from before we do an ECU flash tomorrow. I swapped the K&N for the stock filter back to back as I do with most every combination.

I give everything a chance to prove it's self and the K%N was something I was objective of until I saw the benefits in data, and didn't notice any degradation in filtration.

A bone stock engine won't see enough of a benefit from the K&N to justify it's expense and added maintenance, but when a 2.5 approaches and exceeds 200 RWHP the benefits are favorable.

My only gripe is that over-oiling the element can foul the mass air sensor and cause problems.

[jhandy]

http://www.turbowerx.com

These guys here in Austin have a neat twin turbo upgrade for the boxster. I have driven one of thier test cars and i must say it is impressive. Enough power to scare the hell out of me. They sell it for @8-9000$. I suspect that your engine will explode after a while, but the power is monstrous.

Imagine a Jake Raby modified motor with a twin turbo addon....That would be insane.
I wonder if the car could even put that much power to use without melting the tires?

[Topless]

Jake,

I have used K&N filters since the 70's in off road racing. They worked great in that application but we cleaned them every race and rebuilt the motor every 10 races. I don't want to do that with my Porsche. I have studied the dyno runs, compared flow rates and particle intrusion testing and the K&N doesn't make sense to me on a M96 motor. A good clean paper filter still looks like the way to go. If we significantly increase displacement or intake flow rates, we may need a larger tuned intake and larger paper filter but a K&N still isn't clean enough.

I appreciate your knowledge and experience with Porsche motors and I have learned a lot from you about the internals of this very German machine. I have to agree with Mike on this. The K&N filter goes against everything you have been saying about improving the reliability of M96 motors over the past year. It is inconsistent with your design philosophy. Give this some thought while you ramp up production as a major player in the Porsche M96 aftermarket business.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Boxster_luver

I think that is what im going to do to get the power that I want, swap engines.
Ok, so should the 996 engine fit perfectly in my boxster or are there modifications I need to make?

This is one of the most disussed topics on the board so I would advise you to do a search on here and you will have more info than you can shake a stick at.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by Topless

Jake,

I have used K&N filters since the 70's in off road racing. They worked great in that application but we cleaned them every race and rebuilt the motor every 10 races. I don't want to do that with my Porsche. I have studied the dyno runs, compared flow rates and particle intrusion testing and the K&N doesn't make sense to me on a M96 motor. A good clean paper filter still looks like the way to go. If we significantly increase displacement or intake flow rates, we may need a larger tuned intake and larger paper filter but a K&N still isn't clean enough.

I appreciate your knowledge and experience with Porsche motors and I have learned a lot from you about the internals of this very German machine. I have to agree with Mike on this. The K&N filter goes against everything you have been saying about improving the reliability of M96 motors over the past year. It is inconsistent with your design philosophy. Give this some thought while you ramp up production as a major player in the Porsche M96 aftermarket business.

No use in taking this original poster's thread any further off topic than it already has been.

We'll save this topic for later discussion as I continue to gather data and experience with the K&N unit. I will say that I have not outfit any customers engines with the K&N unit, only test vehicles and the jury is still out.

[kabel]

Originally Posted by Adam

This is one of the most disused topics on the board so I would advise you to do a search on here and you will have more info than you can shake a stick at.

+1 Thank you Adam, I dislike repeating myself more than once.

[mikefocke]

"I am more concerned with coming up with cost effective combinations that can be purchased with the budgets of most Owners."

More than what?

Maybe, with the K&N, the recommendation shifts to clean the filter every ?k miles and replace the oil every ?k, and with that the particulate buildup would be tolerable. Please do base your recommendation on your tests and give us some more insight into what your oil tests and tear-downs reveal.

Learning is half the fun. Driving the other half?

[Jake Raby]

"I am more concerned with coming up with cost effective combinations that can be purchased with the budgets of most Owners."

More than what?

More than catering to the 5% that has a budget of 5K for a couple of bolt ons from a company that has a huge name, but hardly any comparative data.

I'd much rather make progressive packages that people can afford to apply one item at a time and still end up with a known performance package in the end.

Maybe, with the K&N, the recommendation shifts to clean the filter every ?k miles and replace the oil every ?k, and with that the particulate buildup would be tolerable.

Exactly. And that would depend on the atmosphere the car is exposed to heavily as well. In a metro area there isn't as much dust and etc as I see here in my rural area with a dirt road to traverse daily. Dust is THE HARDEST thing for an air filter to collect and it collects faster than anything else.

Please do base your recommendation on your tests and give us some more insight into what your oil tests and tear-downs reveal.

Thats all I will do. I learned long ago not to condemn a product or process until my own eyes and data have proven that it is not acceptable, that said, I do test everything very objectively and everything is guilty until I prove it innocent. I do not and will not allow other people's experiences to cloud my development and half of what we have developed for all Porsche engines would not have existed if I had "listened" to reports from others or their recommendations about what works and doesn't work.

Learning is half the fun. Driving the other half?

Learning is half the fun, perfecting it is the other 49%.... To me driving it is just proving what we have developed and thats only 1% to me...

This is all a challenge, thats the only reason why I ventured into this engine in the first place.

[renzop]

There's an old adage in racing circles "Speed costs, how fast do you want to go?" Basically a 300hp iBoxster s available right now new from Porsche - it will cost you about $70K and have a 4 year warranty. It still won't turn 11 second quarters.

Or you can get a 300hp Boxster by dropping in a different motor or turbocharging your existing 2.5L. Either method is going to cost you $10K and neither comes with any warranty.