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Old 02-27-2009, 01:22 PM   #1
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Any REAL gains to mod exhaust on a 2.7??

I have read piles of threads on this site after searching for exhaust, headers, etc....

some people say they got 20hp, some say they got only 5 from a full blown exhaust. one issue is that there are 2.5s, 2.7s, and S models with the 3.2.

some people went totally catless and changed software, some did just a header, or just a secondary cat bypass, some did only the muffler...

I'm wondering if on a smaller engine, like my 2.7L, if I would gain hardly any power at all given the motor only makes 217 to start with?

If I were to add either a header, secondary cat bypass pipes, or a muffler - would I really get any more power out of my car?

If I would only get 5-10 hp, given the costs - it seems like it's not worth it.

** I live in CA - so when you factor in the smog nazis / emissions testing - any removal/change of that FRONT header is going to potentially create problems. if the smog guy sees it and knows it's not OEM you fail. end of story. they might not see it as the exhaust stuff is harder to see on the boxster and a lot of them don't have a clue what the stock exhaust looks like...so YMMV here in CA on that issue.

if I WAS going to change somethign aside from my muffler - does it make a difference if you do the header vs the secondary cats? like if I keep the restrictive header with cats, but put on cat bypass pipes, will it not really do much b/c I've got all the restriction upstream or will it still help? would it be noticeable when I drive it if there is a gain or is it some minute gain on a dyno that your butt would never sense?

from everything i've read - i'm starting to wonder if modding the exhaust is just a big fat PITA that won't yield any real benefits. but then again, there are posts here of guys claiming they did a fabspeed system and got 20 wheel hp, others sasy they got only 5.

i really don't give a crap what the dyno says. i don't drive on a dyno. i'm curious about real world driveability. does the car rev up faster, feel livlier, or does it feel the same - and only "sound" fast.

if I"m only after sound, i'll chang ethe muffler and get sound that way. i'm curious about the other parts of the system - and whther messing with them is worth it?

thanks!

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Old 02-27-2009, 01:47 PM   #2
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You have some options.

1. If sound is what you want, get an OEM Porsche Sport Exhaust. They sound great! I have the version 1 on my '01 S and I love it! I don't know what year you have, but the PSE will set you back around $2000.

2. You can purchase NHP (Maxspeed Motorsports) headers and bypass pipes to stay CA legal. These two alone will set you back $1300 if you keep your current muffler and I would expect some performance gains from this system.

3. Go high end and get the Fabspeed system. It's really nice, but headers and bypass pipes alone will set you back $3000 or so if you retain your stock muffler.

4. Do either 2 and 3 above with replacing your muffler and you will be another $1500 in the hole on top of the prices mentioned above.

5. If you don't care about getting a CEL, get Turbowerx headers and some fabspeed bypass pipes along with a Dansk sport exhaust. You will spend some money here, but will add power there for sure. As far as smog legal, you WILL NOT BE, so you better retain all your stock stuff and be ready to have it put back on prior to being inspected.
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Old 02-27-2009, 02:01 PM   #3
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Interesting read here from BoxsterSpec.com

Gives you a good idea of what can be gained, but most likely too loud for normal street driving.

I'm hoping Flat 6 Innovations will have some "tested" solutions for us soon. That way we will know in advance how much HP/torque and noise our dollars will buy.
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Old 02-27-2009, 07:10 PM   #4
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I have been evaluating exhaust systems scientifically for the past 2 weeks.. i am almost done with the 2.5 testing and in the middle of the 3.2 testing, the 2.7 will come next.

I have seen HUGE differences with different systems during this... My evaluations are being done for my engine program so lots more than just TQ and HP are being measured. Things like Db levels in the cabin, acceleration, AFR, 0-60 times and 40-80 times as well as drive-ability are being measured..

on top of that Put my Wife in the car with each system and attain notes from her on the differences between systems as well..

More later, but today between two systems tested absolutely back to back on my 2.5 equipped with our stage 3 bolt on kit I saw some extreme differences. No one would believe what the worst system here is if I were to release it, they'd also not believe what the best system is.. I was amazed when I dropped the hammer on the dyno.

The dyno graph would not upload, but the difference was 20HP of loss...

What I see very clearly is that we MUST develop our own aftermarket system for our engines and I am attaining the data to do this the best way possible all around...

More later on my new monthly podcast next week :-)
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Old 02-27-2009, 09:51 PM   #5
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[QUOTE=jwade]You have some options.

1. If sound is what you want, get an OEM Porsche Sport Exhaust. They sound great! I have the version 1 on my '01 S and I love it! I don't know what year you have, but the PSE will set you back around $2000.

There you go, another happy PSE owner....Did i mention i have one collecting dust in my garage (1st $650 takes it--see classifieds section)
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Old 02-28-2009, 12:51 AM   #6
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My 2000 2.7 has a B&B Tri-Flo exhaust, and I was thinking about getting the NHP headers with the 200 cell cats and secondary cat bypass pipes. I have some time to decide, as the car will be in storage for some time yet.
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Old 02-28-2009, 05:12 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bkiersz
My 2000 2.7 has a B&B Tri-Flo exhaust, and I was thinking about getting the NHP headers with the 200 cell cats and secondary cat bypass pipes. I have some time to decide, as the car will be in storage for some time yet.

A forum member here has that setup and is pleased with the results.
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Old 02-28-2009, 05:13 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Raby
I have been evaluating exhaust systems scientifically for the past 2 weeks.. i am almost done with the 2.5 testing and in the middle of the 3.2 testing, the 2.7 will come next.

I have seen HUGE differences with different systems during this... My evaluations are being done for my engine program so lots more than just TQ and HP are being measured. Things like Db levels in the cabin, acceleration, AFR, 0-60 times and 40-80 times as well as drive-ability are being measured..

on top of that Put my Wife in the car with each system and attain notes from her on the differences between systems as well..

More later, but today between two systems tested absolutely back to back on my 2.5 equipped with our stage 3 bolt on kit I saw some extreme differences. No one would believe what the worst system here is if I were to release it, they'd also not believe what the best system is.. I was amazed when I dropped the hammer on the dyno.

The dyno graph would not upload, but the difference was 20HP of loss...

What I see very clearly is that we MUST develop our own aftermarket system for our engines and I am attaining the data to do this the best way possible all around...

More later on my new monthly podcast next week :-)
Very interested in seeing your results...especially on the 3.2.
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Old 03-05-2009, 05:48 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Raby
I have been evaluating exhaust systems scientifically for the past 2 weeks.. i am almost done with the 2.5 testing and in the middle of the 3.2 testing, the 2.7 will come next.

I have seen HUGE differences with different systems during this... My evaluations are being done for my engine program so lots more than just TQ and HP are being measured. Things like Db levels in the cabin, acceleration, AFR, 0-60 times and 40-80 times as well as drive-ability are being measured..

on top of that Put my Wife in the car with each system and attain notes from her on the differences between systems as well..

More later, but today between two systems tested absolutely back to back on my 2.5 equipped with our stage 3 bolt on kit I saw some extreme differences. No one would believe what the worst system here is if I were to release it, they'd also not believe what the best system is.. I was amazed when I dropped the hammer on the dyno.

The dyno graph would not upload, but the difference was 20HP of loss...

What I see very clearly is that we MUST develop our own aftermarket system for our engines and I am attaining the data to do this the best way possible all around...

More later on my new monthly podcast next week :-)
We really have to watch these results at they develop. What podcasts are you refering to?
As the contributor early in the thread described, it's easy to spend may thousands on a car that is only worth less than $20K, and gain nearly nothing. So, doing it right is critical. Thanks for the efforts, Jake.......

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Old 03-05-2009, 08:48 AM   #10
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Interesting about the 2.7

I also have a 2.7 engine and recently called a local independent shop to find out what can be done to give my stock engine a bit more power. I had asked about the ECU reflash with softtronics and they had mentioned it would be a waste of money on the 2.7. Stating that the 2.7 spec had maximize most of it's potential direct from the factory. And that they could do the reflash but it wouldn't make much of a change. Anyone who winded up doing it on a 2.7 chime in on this? It is a pretty well respected shop in the area so I'm confident they know their stuff but it is always nice to hear from people who did the reflash.

What they had recommended instead was to change out the headers w/ deleting the first set of cats. Explaining that the first set of cats was likened to the metal coiled scrubbers for dishwashing except much more denser and essentially the engine has to work harder at the lower rev limits to get passed that dense wall. The tech says that would be ideally the first thing to swap out should he do an upgrade to gain some hp on a small budget. Btw, is it pretty hard to swap out the headers yourself? I was quoted roughly a little over $400 to get the headers replaced with their aftermarket headers and that they would reprogram the ECU to "Rest of World" for the first set of O2 sensors to not be detected.

After this he said, you can do the shorter pulley which would give you some noticeable gains although he did mentioned it was mainly for the water pump issues that a lot of track cars experience.

Anyhow, they do have a dyno...so if I should decide to go with the header upgrade with them, maybe we can get a before and after dyno on it. My biggest hesitation though, is really the deleting out the first set of cats whereas a ECU reflash is easily reversible and storage free. Especially if I ever wind up relocating to California...that would now mean more PITA bread.
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Old 03-05-2009, 09:09 AM   #11
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Someone seriously need to sticky this.

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/boxster-cayman/162730-fabspeed-986-performance-package-dyno-results.html
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Old 03-05-2009, 09:20 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trieullionaire
I also have a 2.7 engine and recently called a local independent shop to find out what can be done to give my stock engine a bit more power. I had asked about the ECU reflash with softtronics and they had mentioned it would be a waste of money on the 2.7. Stating that the 2.7 spec had maximize most of it's potential direct from the factory. And that they could do the reflash but it wouldn't make much of a change. Anyone who winded up doing it on a 2.7 chime in on this? It is a pretty well respected shop in the area so I'm confident they know their stuff but it is always nice to hear from people who did the reflash.

What they had recommended instead was to change out the headers w/ deleting the first set of cats. Explaining that the first set of cats was likened to the metal coiled scrubbers for dishwashing except much more denser and essentially the engine has to work harder at the lower rev limits to get passed that dense wall. The tech says that would be ideally the first thing to swap out should he do an upgrade to gain some hp on a small budget. Btw, is it pretty hard to swap out the headers yourself? I was quoted roughly a little over $400 to get the headers replaced with their aftermarket headers and that they would reprogram the ECU to "Rest of World" for the first set of O2 sensors to not be detected.

After this he said, you can do the shorter pulley which would give you some noticeable gains although he did mentioned it was mainly for the water pump issues that a lot of track cars experience.

Anyhow, they do have a dyno...so if I should decide to go with the header upgrade with them, maybe we can get a before and after dyno on it. My biggest hesitation though, is really the deleting out the first set of cats whereas a ECU reflash is easily reversible and storage free. Especially if I ever wind up relocating to California...that would now mean more PITA bread.
I attended a dyno test demo at a local respected speed shop hosting a PCA dinner. The 911 Turbo on the machine registered massive gains with reprogramming tricks. I asked the expert about my Boxster 2.7 and he said what was said above, that it would be a waste of money as it's pretty close to what can be expected from this engine. And exhaust changes will provide minimal gains at big $s. Might be better to take your time and shop around for a 1-2 yr newer Box S. For a reasonable price the S gives you bigger CCs, better sound, bigger brakes and a 6 spd, not to mention the badge.
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Old 03-05-2009, 09:34 AM   #13
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"I also have a 2.7 engine and recently called a local independent shop to find out what can be done to give my stock engine a bit more power. I had asked about the ECU reflash with softtronics and they had mentioned it would be a waste of money on the 2.7. Stating that the 2.7 spec had maximize most of it's potential direct from the factory. And that they could do the reflash but it wouldn't make much of a change. Anyone who winded up doing it on a 2.7 chime in on this?"

I got 16 hp or so on the dyno with just the Autothority 2.7 chip for the 2000 boxster. But also got quite a bit of more low end torque and drivibility, check out my link below for a couple of dynos (with exhaust and intake).

Ed

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Old 03-05-2009, 11:25 AM   #14
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I thought I would add, that most of the tuning of my 2.7L 2000 Boxster is based on TTP parts Link to TTP. My intake and headers are TTP and the Autothority chip I am using is based on the TTP ECU parameters. I find it interesting that TTP says that adding their chip, headers, intake and high flow muffler gives a 2.7L 2000 Boxster about 25hp, which is almost exactly what I see on the dyno. Like others have said, getting much of a HP increase out of our cars with bolt-on's and such is difficult and expensive.
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Old 03-05-2009, 11:40 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edevlin
I thought I would add, that most of the tuning of my 2.7L 2000 Boxster is based on TTP parts Link to TTP. My intake and headers are TTP and the Autothority chip I am using is based on the TTP ECU parameters. I find it interesting that TTP says that adding their chip, headers, intake and high flow muffler gives a 2.7L 2000 Boxster about 25hp, which is almost exactly what I see on the dyno. Like others have said, getting much of a HP increase out of our cars with bolt-on's and such is difficult and expensive.
Can you estimate the price of the chipping only. That seems like the biggest bang for the buck.
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Old 03-05-2009, 12:07 PM   #16
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"Can you estimate the price of the chipping only. That seems like the biggest bang for the buck."

There are several folks making good-performing chips, the only one I have experience with is Autothority's chip which is very expensive these days. It has increased in price since I got mine almost 2 years ago. The current price is just under 2K Autothority Website.

As others have wisely said to neophytes like me when I first got my car, modding our cars is a slippery slope of expenses, its easy to get carried away, I know I did. Even so, it sure has been a lot of fun and interesting for me to learn about and mod my 2000 Boxster, my very first Porsche. I was driving today with a big grin on my face and continue to wonder at the performance of this "base" model Boxster (104 mph in third gear, sure got there fast, must be the cold weather....).

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Old 03-05-2009, 04:17 PM   #17
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Lots of things do work, lots of things do not work... ECU flashes are not all created equally, if anyone thinks that an ECU flash is a "one size fits all" they have another thing coming. To optimize my performance package for the 2.5 I spent 3 solid days applying different flashes, gather OBDII and analog data and then working on the final details of the flashes to best hone them to the package.

I ended up keeping the cam timing table from one flash, the ignition timing from another and then the AFR down low and up top from two other flashes.. That was over 60 dyno pulls and 800 Mb of data from the DL-2.

When it was all said and done the car was much faster, even though the dyno didn't show all the gains, it certainly showed up on the street and the engine runs better and I have gotten as much as 34 MPG!

The 2.7 is the same, it is a well tuned package from the factory, just like all the cars, but with real effort it can be done.. It took me 4 solid days but I added 10HP to a 2001 Boxster S and a ton of throttle response and from what I have seen the 2.5 and 2.7 cars have MUCH more left in them from the factory than the 3.2.

The majority of whats on the market today has little to no development behind it, there may be one dyno graph from one car, but most all of these components are not coming from "developers" that have had these things applied to more than one car...

I have data from 3 different cars that PROVES that a single 2 thousand dollar exhaust system can create a 20HP reduction in performance over stock on a 3.2 and 14HP reduction from a 2.5! It'll also cost you 6 MPG! It sounds great, but it sucks.

More performance can be found, but not without the application of an optimized package, most everything I have tried has reduced performance, made a lot of noise, burned a lot of gas and killed efficiency.
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Old 03-05-2009, 04:40 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ekam
How bad do you want an extra 20 hp and 20ft/lb of TQ? Put $5,000 in their hands and it's yours.
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Old 03-05-2009, 05:20 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Raby
Lots of things do work, lots of things do not work... ECU flashes are not all created equally, if anyone thinks that an ECU flash is a "one size fits all" they have another thing coming.

The 2.7 is the same, it is a well tuned package from the factory, just like all the cars, but with real effort it can be done.. It took me 4 solid days but I added 10HP to a 2001 Boxster S and a ton of throttle response and from what I have seen the 2.5 and 2.7 cars have MUCH more left in them from the factory than the 3.2L.
-
Jake, in your opinion is a "rolling tune" provided by a laptop with the proper software plugged into the OBD II port the best way to go? Also, I'm surprised you think the 3.2L has less potential than the 2.7/2.5L engines. The factory got 280 hp out of the 3.2L before they retired it and it had to meet sound/emmisions standards. To me it seems like the early 3.2L's left more hp on the table?
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Old 03-05-2009, 06:34 PM   #20
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Lots of things happen when a 3rd party is able to test these components... My primary goal was to investigate the best bolt ons for our much larger engines, like the 3.6 big bore that starts life as a 3.2

From what I have seen the 2.5 has a ton of capability for added performance, more so than any other engine in stock form. We are now at over 200RWHP from an internally bone stock 2.5 and guess what, the car is fastest with the stock muffler.

The .7 hasn't seen as much effort from my crew yet, but it comes next.
I have put over 100 dyno pulls on a 3.2S in the past 10 days and my results rival that of the fabspeed page posted below. Up to 234HP, after that the variables are introduced that do not allow absolute comparison.

Thus far I have only seen ONE performance exhaust that makes LESS power than the OE 3.2 muffler on a bone stock engine... The investigation work is ongoing as we work to make changes to the muffler internals to gain more power. The stock muffler has proven it's self and when I figure out how to best post all of my data this will be clear.

Its more than dyno graphs, thing about 28 channels of OBDII/analog data including DB readings, harmonics, fuel economy and both 0-60 and 40-80 MPH tests.

I'll be testing our ECU flashes with the data logger employed in our 2.5 test car at Road Atlanta soon.. Meaning I'll throw my best driver in the car all day and he'll put 4-5 laps on each flash, we'll then pull in the hot pit, rip out a file and replace it then start the data logger again taking notes time after time. It takes a mix of dyno data and practical application to fully develop a product and thats been my specialty.

I don't want to say too much right now... Heck I even have my wife critiquing the different exhaust systems... So far all I see is a lot of hype, lots of noise and not much in the way of real development...

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