Caught the power bug .. pretty bad

[nefarious986]

Yesterday while driving, I was challenged by an STI and I took that challenge. He beat me easily from the launch. From a roll I had a better race, but he still walked. During our 2nd run an RS4 joined in and smoked us both. LOLs.

Now I am stuck in a pretty bad place with few options ( budget ~ 45k ):

1. Sell the Boxster and get a replacement either Viper or Carrera

1a. Carrera S:

I love the way I can throw the Boxster around, and with two seats, to me, its a true sport car. The Carrera has 4 seats, no side vent, and is a rear engine setup which to me is inferior to our mid engine setup ( correct me if I am wrong please ) !

Price for a Carrera ~$30k + $10k for super charger kit would give me a 434 crank hp and 370 ish to the wheel. That's all I would ever really need for a street car.

So this option, +2 for power, -1 for looks, -1 for sportiness, -1 for handling vs a Boxster.

1b. Viper (SRT10):

Definitely this car is hot, its like a go cart and looks the part. Problem is spending $45k for a Dodge.

This option I would give +2 for power, +1 for looks, +0 for sportiness, -2 for handling vs a Boxster.

1c. Get a 06 987 S

I can get this car CPO for $41k right now. It makes 280hp stock, and can be swapped with the 3.8L 997 engine or supercharged later on for hopefully $10-$15k which would put it over budget, so for now, we'll only consider the 280hp. The 280hp should satisfy my craving for HP for a bit but not too long. Still wont hold off those v4 turbo cars.

So this option gets +1 for power, -1 for looks (because I do like the 986 look better), +0 for sportiness, and +1 for handling vs a 986 and +1 for warranty.

2. Swap a 3.4L into the Boxster.

Cheapest and most direct route the HP I think but most shops do not want to perform this swap. I don't know why. I talked to two local Porsche shop and both almost immediately quoted reliability issues and warned against swapping to 3.4L motors.

Also, spending 50% of the KBB of a car to swap in a used motor when nothing is wrong (mechanically ) with original motor makes no sense.

So this option gets +1 for power, -2 for bad financial planning.

Although going this route, I might have enough maybe a year down the line to get the 3.4L supercharged also, that would get me the HP I want but push real close to the 45k limit that if anything went wrong reliability wise, I'll be modding my bicycle.

I do realize that there's space limitation for the engine, but if I supercharge the 3.4L, I would want lose the rear trunk for extra space + maybe air / water cooling. I m sure someone can build this setup custom.

So this option gets a +2 for power, -3 for stupid financial planning. LOLs.

When I add up the #, the best thing to do seem to be the 987 option. Yes, it would be the smartest thing to do financially since I can make more back selling an 06 987 than I could selling a modded 986. BUT somehow my heart isn't really into it. Spending another 20g for a newer car that I don't like as much look wise because it has 35 more hp and a longer warranty doesn't make too much sense either. Especially since my car is still covered somewhat as a Porsche CPO car.

*sigh* .. I've been up all night and all I can come up with is I need more $$. LOL.