Boxster S Stage II Upgrades....

[PorscheDoc]

Yup, adam got it right, we use the OBDII port (diagnostic port for reading down codes, and getting into the cars ECU for other information) to "flash the ecu", which means we change the fuel and air curves for greater performance. Porsche leaves quite a bit of room to work with for tuning on these cars. Every different car has a "master" program you could say, which of course was tuned and mapped by GIAC. I go in and load that program into the ECU, which takes about 30 minutes.

As far as the Stages go, every different "tuner" has levels of tuning for a given car. For instance, our stage I kit consists of muffler, and air intake, which adds about 10hp. A stage I is therefore a few minor bolt on modifications that add a few horsepower, but nothing drastic. In this case, we are adding more air in and more air out...a good combination when used together. If you do one, you really should do the other, in order to optimize what goes into the engine and what comes out. Then the "stage II" would add the ECU flash, which will add another 15hp or so, and so on. Since the stage I changed the air coming and and going out, now we can more effectively "tune" the car to more horsepower. In the case of this boxster S, we also went with the secondary cat bypass, which gained us a little more horsepower, which i guess theoretically we could call a "stage III." More or less it just describes the extent of the modifications that have been done. As far as figuring out what goes in a stage kit, it kind of goes like this: We take what is available for the car, and then break it down into stages as we see components working together best.

I will do a writeup with pictures on the B&M short shifter for the next car i get in for you guys, so you can see how that is installed. Very easy to do as well, though getting the center console apart for the first time can be a little tricky when you are shooting blind.......Once you know where all the screw are, it is cake.