Cheap HP?
 

16? A boxster? Consider yourself a lucky kid and forget the additional horsepower. Now, go get a haircut and do your homework !!!

I think you need to define "CHEAP" for us and we might be able to help a bit.

Re Tires. I have had good luck with Yokohamas. Good tire for the money!

Thanks for joinng us!

:cheers:

Cheap and H.P.
 

Cheap and h.p. don't play well together in Boxsterland. The mods I have planned for my 04 2.7 to give me about 25h.p. are going to cost about 4-5k...These cars are not cheap to hop up. But with intake, exhaust, headers, cats and ecu you can get real power gains and a much lighter wallet. :)

WoB, hope this will be taken in the spirit it is intended. In your lucky position and at your age I would recommend that instead of putting the $2K into parts to make your car faster, you spend it on educating you to drive even better. There are several performance driving schools as well as local Porsche Chapters' Driver's Ed/Autocross events that would fit well within your budget and produce a better outcome than bolting on various bits of plastic and metal, etc. The stock Boxster has more performance than most people's skill can ever use. It has been estimated that most people don't drive these cars to more than 60% of their potential performance. So one way of thinking about it is you could get a ~35% performance gain (40% would be going to the edge a bit) by improving the driver's skills to utilize the full performance of the car vs. changing the car itself in some way.

Also, this is an investment that you get to take with you when you change cars later and doesn't depreciate like the car and accessories will.

I've done the local autocross "school" and a driver's ed event and it made me a faster, safer driver (and I'd had a few years more of practice up to that point than you :rolleyes: ). You'll learn to carry more speed through corners and how to stop better, etc.

BTW, if you need new tires, that $2K could already have found a new home...

Unfortunatley, the Boxster just isn't set up for 'tuning' in the way Hondas and their ilk are. There are cheap and not-so-cheap ways of differentiating you Box from others i.e., changing the rear spoiler, new rims, etc., but exhaust seem to start @ $700 or more, intakes at $400, and in the end they really don't add much in the way of hp. Which isn't to say you shouldn't do it, just be prepared to part with cash. BTW, congrats on scoring a great ride at 16. The advice about going to a performance driving school is very good. I just attended the Bridgestone F2000 school at Mosport and I'm 38. I wish I'd done it sooner.

The driving school idea is top rate. Thanks for that!

Dang! I had to wait until I was 42 to get my dream car. You're either a far better saver that I ever was with a good paying job after school or you have a parent who likes to give you very nice cars to drive and is willing to pay what must be <i>outrageous</i> insurance, huh?

What on earth will you have to look forward to in your 40's if you're driving a Porsche now? :)

Do the driving school thing as suggested and save the rest though. I've looked into more HP and it's stinking expensive and makes the car somewhat to very unreliable. Maintenance isn't cheap on our cars either, and yours will be far more than most, I'm afraid. Why?

I say this from personal experience as a complete driving fanatic my whole life and the ability to recall how I drove my cars when I was 16.

At 16, a person has a far greater sense of invincibility, and less fear of loss. So, one usually drives faster, is then required to jam on the brakes more, and must prove to all one's friends that Porsches, even non-S models are far faster than the rice burners with coffee cans for tailpipes his buddies are driving. Believe it or not, driving school will show you how to beat every one of your buddies in a race... and they can even be driving corvettes and you'll win!

For the most part, a young, highly spirited driver without driving school = lots of tires, brakes, shocks, clutches, etc.

You may be one of those conservative 16 year old men who drives conservatively, but I must admit if I were you and at your age, I would not be driving cautiously and slowly in a boxster!!! :D

Oh yeah, don't forget about speeding tickets. If I were you I'd be saving up to pay those and the additional insurance premiums that go with them... no radar detector works well enough to keep a 16 year old out of fine-paying EVERY time. :eek:

Carrera GT? :)

Yup -- spend that $2k on cheap tires and driving school.

Normally I'm a huge advocate of good tires (S02's, Pilot Sports, etc.), but given your age, I say you get a set of Kumhos, because you're going to wear them out so fast doing stupid stuff. I know I did when I was 16!!! Haha, what am I talking about -- I'm 22, and I STILL do!

I can't imagine any insurance willing to cover a young driver of any Pcar...
Well, first, legal driving age is 18 here, and then usually, if you are not 25 you'll have beg insurance companies to let you pay them a fortune to insure such a car !
Wow ! Congratulations...you have all this fun NOW, enjoy&be careful, it's not only about money, but about staying alive too.... :cool:

Actually, in the US, insurance is very cheap on the Boxster. It's less money than I paid on my BMW, and about the same as what my dad pays for his F-150.

Of course, my insurance company kicks BUTT!

Obviously we are talking the remote control Porsche Boxster right? A 16 yr old with a Boxster sacre blue. :rolleyes:

ok, car = cheaper in US. gas = WAYYY cheaper in US. insurance = cheaper...

:ah: grrrr.......

Only 2 k to spend? You are going to need a lot more then that to add the kind of HP you might be looking for.
I like the driving school and kumho tires idea. I personally like the Pilot sports more(thats what I have) but I dont tear them up. I almost never intentionally spin my tires.
When I was 16 I didnt have the priviledge of driving a Porsche, but have been fortunate enough to have some very nice cars along the way. I would say enjoy the car as much as you can in its semi-stock condition. It should be plenty of power for you.
If you want to see what I did to my 986(Boxster) the feel free to browse www.09860.com
Enjoy your car!

Hey, my first car was a 63 Vette, but of course that was in 67, so it was not QUITE such a big deal.

Paid $2250 for it!

Hmmm, I should have kept that car?

:cheers:

Especially if it was a split window coup. Doh!

Frankly I'm suprised at all the back-handed comments regarding this guy's age. Seems to me he's gone out of his way to find an informative site and has asked the question we all ask; 'How can my Boxster go faster'. And in reply, most people are making broad assumptions regarding the' stupid' things he's likely to do. At 16, Sebastion Bourdais competed at Le Mans, surely he had the talent and intelligence to snag the ride. I suspect no one said 'Sacre Blue' which should be spelt 'Bleu', by the way. I wont make any judgement calls on that poster's brain-power based on a spelling mistake. Nor will I point out that 22 is a tiny hop from 16, and in no way speaks to any greater degree of wisdom or skill. And aren't we all in a position to consider ourselves lucky that we can afford to drive a Boxster? At 16 or 60? I'd now go get a hair-cut but genetics and time have taken care of that option, and as for homework, I never did it when I had it! And don't anybody get their panties in a twist, just think how you'd feel if you went to ask for some helpful suggestions, and got some of these responses instead.

I tend to agree with IceBox. he didn't ask the best way to spend $2000, he asked for the bang for the buck HP gains, hopefully under $2,000. Something we are all looking for, but unfortunately, as we are all painfully aware, $2,000 does not go far in the porsche world. what are we looking at? headers and exhaust? will that net 5HP? 10?

i know for me i am dying to know how porsche got 30 extra HP out of the same 3.2 that i have. or is it the same?

By the way 'Sacre bleu' is spelled 'sacrebleu' in one word, FYI :-)

..and if I'd need to find out info about cheap HP, I'd skip my age in the first sentence of the question, don't you think?

Maybe you should think through people's responses before you criticize. Take mine, for example:

He asked how to make his Boxster faster. I agreed with others than the best way to make his Boxster faster is to learn how to push it to its limits from professionals. Not out of line, I wouldn't say.

Then he asked about tires. I pointed out that while normally I would recommend Pilot Sports, based on my experience being 16 years old, showing off to friends, and racing down back roads, I would not want to suggest that he spend a ton on tires. Not unreasonable, either.

As for your comment about 22 being a tiny hop from 16, I agree. But my point is that there MIGHT POSSIBLY be a slight chance, based on my PERSONAL experience (and aren't these questions a request for personal experience, anyway?) that he's going to burn more unnecessary rubber in the school parking lot after football practice, than I do in the company parking deck after crunching numbers all day. So however small or large of a "hop" 22 is from 16, I think there was a difference in the way I drove my car then and the way I do now. And that's not to look down on it; had I the chance to go do donuts in the high school parking lot at 16 years old to the amusement of all my friends, I would do it all over again!

Not meaning to tear your post apart -- but you might want to think about the comments you are criticizing before you go out of your way to tell us all we're wrong.

You know when I bought it they had a silver split window for sale for about $200 more. I really only had the money I paid for the convertible and was going to owe my Mom for the fees etc.

Moreover, it was summer and you know, having the top down really did make it seem way better than having the coupe.

It was only years later that collectors decided that they had to have the split window!

Go figure.

Re: our new member, I say, to have a Box at 16 is might :D y awesome indeed.!

Yeah, he will certainly have no problem with the girls at his high school! :) Unlike I, who had to convince even my GIRLFRIEND at the time that my 1986 535i was in fact a BMW, and not a Volvo as she kept calling it. :rolleyes:

Skipping one's age in a question like that assumes the person composing the message knows that most everyone else on this list is 30-50 years old and JEALOUS!!! I'm more than happy to confess this in print and take full ownership of it!

Woboxster, just know that we're all very happy for you. I'll work very hard at showing you the respect you deserve as a fellow Boxster driver.

Please humor us though as we work at it though... you must understand that a guy like me saved every extra dollar for 12 long years to buy a 1997 Boxster in rough shape. When my elderly parents gave me $50 for my 40th birthday two years ago, it went right into the Porsche fund. My first car was a $400 '72 Toyota Corona Deluxe, which was a piece of crap 4 door with a 4 cylinder and an automatic transmission on the column...I'm sure you can see why we're a bit envious or jealous.

I'm sure many of the members of this forum could tell similar stories. In our 40's we're just now living a car dream that you've attained much earlier in life and that's a hard pill for us all to swallow.

Welcome to the forum, and you are indeed welcome, despite the long initiation! :cheers:

So true! My first car in high school was a 1962 Rambler, w/3-speed, & a 192 Cu. in. 6-cylinder, pink to boot (luckily mostly faded to a kind of beige). I was embarrassed to drive in the car myself (let alone convince anyone else to) but it was either that or buy a new "racing" (10-speed) bike for the $125 I had at the time. I chose being dry and getting where I needed to go in a solid shape car. At least it lasted most of the way through college (and kept generating cash before I got rid of it for parts - long story). :cheers:

is anyone burning rubber in a 2.5? If I even attempt it, I wind up glazing the chutch.... although i can break the back tires loose in a corner. :)

lol, you're absolutely right. Those 255's don't like to break loose for anything shy of a redline 1-2 shift in the middle of a hard corner. :)

Just something I wanted to add to my old post. What I think would provide the best Hp bang for the buck, for under 2k would be to get your car chipped. have it tuned. You should see a pretty nice increase from that and shouldnt cost you more then 1500 depening who does it for you.

Does anyone realise that the kid who started this thread has not replied to anything? We've hijacked his post :)

Well, I certainly didn't know how to appreciate a car at 16. I just wanted to be cool and go fast. Oh well, with age comes ... sanity?

i had noticed that myself. its like he told his friends "i bet i know how to get a bunch of old porsche guy's panties in a wad..... watch this."

we are so sad. ;)

LOL^ So true. Hey kid, come back. These guys aren't so bad after you get to know them.

Is Humor dead here?
 

I did not realize that we are so politically correct here or that our underwears are so tight that you can have clean fun with a rookie. My state of mind and brain power are well thank you and don't worry about a typo here and there since English is not my first language but mispelling in french is irrelevant to me. So no offence is taken. I thought my comments were innocuous and not deragotory to the young man. Obviously the pc committee opines differently. :ah:

It is ALL good. Lets remember, it is about THE Car!

I think all you guys are great.

Drive on!

Pilot,

I actually think that most of us are more than jealous that there was no way that we could have owned our own Boxsters at 16. Quite frankly, I say, more power to him. I wish I had a P-car when I was younger. It does seem to bring up an interesting point that I've wondered myself... I've always wanted a Porsche. Now that I have one... whats next? Once I get to the 911s, what next?

I don't think anyone was flaming you pilot. I certainly wasn't.

"Move along, nothing to see here..."

After the 911 Carrera then you got to go for the Gt3 Johnny. I'd rather have one of those in my garage than a Turbo. How can you go wrong with turbo like acceleration and a 8,200 redline. Not to mention reflexes like a like a scared cat

completely digressing from the original post, but i have to say a 993 (cab and/or turbo) and a 968 added to my stable would see a grin that a crowbar could not pry away. after that? well, a prancing horse or two sure would compliment the german-heavy landscape. say what you want, they are fantastic cars.

being that im 36, i think the 993 and the 968 are in my future. the italian stallion? god, i only hope. :rolleyes:

Pilot, I wasn't in any way suggesting a move to political correctness, as anyone who knows me would attest. Perhaps I wasn't very clear, so I'll summerize: I think people should answer the main thrust of the post. He didn't ask how anyone drove when they were 16, he asked for cheap hp ideas. I re-read all the posts, and frankly veiled jealousy isn't really humour. Then again, humour is to a degree subjective so whatever floats your boat. Personally I think a car priced in the Boxsters' range, with the used market and all, will see owners from many walks of life and many tax-brackets and age groups. Only RandelN was prepared to be honest, and saying a 16 yr old is damn lucky to own a Boxster...well the same could be said for a 22yr old. And at 16 I don't recall doing donuts in the parking lot to ammuse my friends. Which would lead me to believe Yello and I drove quite differently at that age. And it's an irrelevent observation at any rate, as the question was about cheap hp gains, not how do I impress my pals in the parking lot. I don't think it's PC to avoid stereo-typing someone based solely on their age or on an individual's own experiences. That comes off as kinda arrogant! "I did it so everyone would do it". Anyway, my point is just answer the question if you have an answer. I hope I never see a response to one of my questions with "Boy what a dumb question...when I was 38 I knew all about..." And Yellow, this is just MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, and JUST MAYBE I've learned a thing or two about speaking before I think...Read my post again and you'll find out what I mean...in the interim "Physician, heal thyself"

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
 

I am aero engineer in construction which is all about accomplishing tasks and get it done in a 20 atmosphere pressure cooker type day. No psycho babble for me. I am deeply happy for the youngster to have his P car and there is no veiled envy or jeaulosy of any kind. I am impressed that someone that young is appreciative of a Boxster let alone wanting to do all the things he wants to accomplish. That was the genesis of my comment or what floated my boat at that particular tide.
May I make a suggestion for the future:
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate . who needs french anyway? :cheers:

"who needs french anyway?"

Not many apparently. Do they still make cars anyway?

:)

What a caricature! Let me take the defense of the constantly-bashed-French. Yes, they still do make cars. UK car industry is practically non-existent today (Rover? Jaguar? Rolls? Bentley? talk to the Germans...), but yes, go ahead, bash the French who had their most successful year in 2004. Renault controls Nissan for example since 1999.

QUOTE
The combined production of Renault and Nissan today represents over 9% of the global market, at over 5 million vehicles a year. The Alliance is one of the top five carmakers in the world, with its five brands: Nissan and Infiniti for the Nissan group; Renault, Dacia and Samsung for the Renault group.
UNQUOTE

You can dislike their cars (and so do I), and you might think that they are not existent because they are not on US roads anymore...but surely, the humorous statement from above is not supported by facts, but by something more down the line of a widely accepted and politically tainted French bashing "fashion", which, as a European I find quite unfortunate, especially when it is coming from the site owner.