What to Do with my 2002?

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Hello All:

I bought my yellow 2002 Boxster from a dealer in May, and drove it all summer. I love this car! People will say I'm crazed, but I like it better than the 911. I love the feel of the mid engine design, like the cabin, etc. etc.

Anyway, 217 HP is a little anemic, I gotta admit.

So, I'm thinking of spending about 3 grand on engine tuning, cold air intake, and a Dansk exhaust ( not only HP but looks really cool).

I've gotten mixed reviews regarding whether or not these enhancements are worth it.

Questions:

1) Will all this bump me up from 217 HP to 240HP?
2) Will 240 HP bring my 0-60 down to about 6 sec?
3) What about putting on 18 inch wheels (I have 17's). Is it worth it in terms of handeling and looks? Anyone know where I can find yellow rims?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.Yellow

[edevlin]

I have found that tuning can be a mixed bag, mostly because its expensive. I have a 2000 2.7L Boxster that I felt was also running fine, but I wanted it to be a bit more resposive. The first mods I did involved installing a chip and cold air intake, I found that was, by far, the best mod for the money. Dyno results after the mod came in at about 198 hp. But more importantly, the car had a vey flat torque curve which gave the car a far more responsive feel from about 2.5K to 6.5K. Having chip and intake done should cost you anywhere from 1500.00 to 2500.00 depending on the chip and intake, which is about 100.00/hp.

I then went the next step playing with the exhaust which is still in process, that can be quite expensive and so far (ECU tuning is still ongoing) adding a performance exhaust system has provided only modest increase in HP, but it does sound great. Headers, 100-cell cats and muffler can cost over 5K, so be careful if you go this route. I dont know a lot about the whole exhaust thing, some folks have reported modest increases in HP with just a muffler. But when looking at getting more air out of the car, the stock headers and first set of cats comming off those headers seem to be a bottleneck for moving more exhaust gasses.

As wiser heads have commented on the forum, perfroming mods on these cars starts one down a slippery slope. In my particular case, I am not able to sell my car and get a newer, or "S" model, which probably would have been the way to go if that option were available to me.

But, the work I have done on my little 2.7L really has transformed the driving experience and I am loving my car now, it is light, responsive, really sings from the exhaust and is making better than 240 hp at the crank. Others that know more about this should chime in, as I know just enough about this stuff to get myself in trouble, but I am having a great time doing so.

Ed

:dance: :dance: :dance:

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Originally Posted by edevlin

I have found that tuning can be a mixed bag, mostly because its expensive. I have a 2000 2.7L Boxster that I felt was also running fine, but I wanted it to be a bit more resposive. The first mods I did involved installing a chip and cold air intake, I found that was, by far, the best mod for the money. Dyno results after the mod came in at about 198 hp. But more importantly, the car had a vey flat torque curve which gave the car a far more responsive feel from about 2.5K to 6.5K. Having chip and intake done should cost you anywhere from 1500.00 to 2500.00 depending on the chip and intake, which is about 100.00/hp.

I then went the next step playing with the exhaust which is still in process, that can be quite expensive and so far (ECU tuning is still ongoing) adding a performance exhaust system has provided only modest increase in HP, but it does sound great. Headers, 100-cell cats and muffler can cost over 5K, so be careful if you go this route. I dont know a lot about the whole exhaust thing, some folks have reported modest increases in HP with just a muffler. But when looking at getting more air out of the car, the stock headers and first set of cats comming off those headers seem to be a bottleneck for moving more exhaust gasses.

As wiser heads have commented on the forum, perfroming mods on these cars starts one down a slippery slope. In my particular case, I am not able to sell my car and get a newer, or "S" model, which probably would have been the way to go if that option were available to me.

But, the work I have done on my little 2.7L really has transformed the driving experience and I am loving my car now, it is light, responsive, really sings from the exhaust and is making better than 240 hp at the crank. Others that know more about this should chime in, as I know just enough about this stuff to get myself in trouble, but I am having a great time doing so.

Ed

:dance: :dance: :dance:

Hi Ed:

Thanks for the reply, very informative.

I paid 31K for the car at the dealer, which included 2 year warranty. The car was low mileage, about 22 K.

Last month, i lloked at going back to the same dealer and picking up a yellow 2004 Boxster S, but they wanted 40K, and would only give me 21.5K on the trade!


Hell with that. Not much difference overall in the 2 cars, except HP jump from 217 to, I think 270. So, I figure spend about 3 grand to get me up to about 240 HP which is respectable enough, and I'm alot better off than trading for a newer S.

Any other opinions?

[z12358]

Sorry, I was typing my previous response as you posted this. Cast a wider net when searching. Go to edmunds.com and figure out the difference between a base and S for the year you are looking. If I remember correctly, when equally equipped, S becomes only $5-6k more expensive than base, NEW. This difference should only shrink the older the cars get.

Z.

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Hi Ed:

Thanks for the reply, very informative.

I paid 31K for the car at the dealer, which included 2 year warranty. The car was low mileage, about 22 K.

Last month, i lloked at going back to the same dealer and picking up a yellow 2004 Boxster S, but they wanted 40K, and would only give me 21.5K on the trade!


Hell with that. Not much difference overall in the 2 cars, except HP jump from 217 to, I think 270. So, I figure spend about 3 grand to get me up to about 240 HP which is respectable enough, and I'm alot better off than trading for a newer S.

Any other opinions?

[djomlas]

man forget about all that, get some spinnerz and some TVz yo and some curb feelers and you will be rollin' chrome chrome chrome

[z12358]

YellowPorscheMan2002:
"Anyway, 217 HP is a little anemic, I gotta admit."

If it felt like that in May (and that's a big IF), the best bang/$ would have been getting an "S" then. Even now, switching your base for an S may still give you the best bang/$.

Personally, I have not been too much into mods. I may have too much respect for the designs as they come out of the factory. I'd feel pretty arrogant to question the optimality of a design that must have incorporated hundreds of engineers, designing, simulating, testing, having Monday meetings, then going back to the lab, all for the purpose of matching all the parts together and finding that sweet spot of performance and durability. So here comes Z and says: "You fools, you could have gotten 10hp more if you had programmed the chip this other way and 10hp more if you had the mufflers done this other way!" How would I ever know why they didn't design it that way themselves? Was I at the meetings? Did I hear the cons? What makes me think that some after marker guy in his garage could find performance where the original engineers couldn't?

There's a prevalent theme in the "mods" world that getting more performance is mostly a matter of how much money you are willing to spend. My take is that it's usually much more complicated than that: There are other costs involved caused by the cummulative effects of each particular "mod" through time to the car as a whole. Though the extent varies among mods, by modding, the originally designed optimal point has been shifted in the parameter space into a (for us) unknown space, and the risks/costs associated with that are usually underestimated. As usual, the collective wisdom aggregated in the market is telling us the same, as a heavily modded car is much harder to sell then its stock equal.

Just my thoughts.

Z.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by z12358

YellowPorscheMan2002:
"Anyway, 217 HP is a little anemic, I gotta admit."

If it felt like that in May (and that's a big IF), the best bang/$ would have been getting an "S" then. Even now, switching your base for an S may still give you the best bang/$.

Personally, I have not been too much into mods. I may have too much respect for the designs as they come out of the factory. I'd feel pretty arrogant to question the optimality of a design that must have incorporated hundreds of engineers, designing, simulating, testing, having Monday meetings, then going back to the lab, all for the purpose of matching all the parts together and finding that sweet spot of performance and durability. So here comes Z and says: "You fools, you could have gotten 10hp more if you had programmed the chip this other way and 10hp more if you had the mufflers done this other way!" How would I ever know why they didn't design it that way themselves? Was I at the meetings? Did I hear the cons? What makes me think that some after marker guy in his garage could find performance where the original engineers couldn't?

There's a prevalent theme in the "mods" world that getting more performance is mostly a matter of how much money you are willing to spend. My take is that it's usually much more complicated than that: There are other costs involved caused by the cummulative effects of each particular "mod" through time to the car as a whole. Though the extent varies among mods, by modding, the originally designed optimal point has been shifted in the parameter space into a (for us) unknown space, and the risks/costs associated with that are usually underestimated. As usual, the collective wisdom aggregated in the market is telling us the same, as a heavily modded car is much harder to sell then its stock equal.

Just my thoughts.

Z.

Agree, but sometimes the factory purposely holds a car back. The boxster S could've had 280 hp from the get go instead of 250hp but Porsche wanted to bump up the power of the 996 first. The car got a 30 hp bump and they didn't even need to up the displacement. That tells me some of these engines have some untapped potential.

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Interesting and varied opinions......

Check out my car!

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Interesting and varied opinions......

Check out my car!

That car is stunning. Save the money on the mods, buy a nice girl friend to sit in the other seat!

Better ROI for sure.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Interesting and varied opinions......

Check out my car!

Hi,

Nice Car. But, is your spoiler broken? It's not supposed to be extended at 0MPH...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Adam

Agree, but sometimes the factory purposely holds a car back. The boxster S could've had 280 hp from the get go instead of 250hp but Porsche wanted to bump up the power of the 996 first. The car got a 30 hp bump and they didn't even need to up the displacement. That tells me some of these engines have some untapped potential.

It may not (and probably isn't) tappable without changes to cam timing (as the later engines have with lift), port, cylinder and head design and all kinds of external engine stuff as well. Expecting the simple intake, exhaust and chipping to make anything more than a modest increase in power (at the expense of tolerance to bad gas or excessive thrashing) isn't realistic.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by blue2000s

It may not (and probably isn't) tappable without changes to cam timing (as the later engines have with lift), port, cylinder and head design and all kinds of external engine stuff as well. Expecting the simple intake, exhaust and chipping to make anything more than a modest increase in power (at the expense of tolerance to bad gas or excessive thrashing) isn't realistic.

No, I believe the engine was held back and the statistics prove it. The 2000 3.4L 996 engine has 88hp/liter while the 2000 boxster S only has 78hp/liter. These engines are based on the same technology and time period. There is no doubt advances have helped both the 911 and the boxster but there's no disputing Porsche has always sandbagged the boxster. They won't even give the car a limited slip....