High Horsepower Boxsters

[Bladecutter]

Originally Posted by alloystang07

I have seen some porsche's lay down some world class power and times and was investigating if i could get that much power out of a boxster. I love working on cars. No matter what it is. And i just am looking for some information about how i could do that with the car that i am looking into buying next.

The Porsche engine's are not exactly the same as your typical internal combustion engine that you see in every car on the road. They are designed entirely differently internally, and have been built to a certain spec, and to a certain budget.

The engines require a very specialized set of tools, and require a highly skilled technician in order to assemble them properly. You can rebuild the motor in your Mustang simply by buying a box of tools at your local Sears. You can't get any of the specialized tools that you need for the Porsche engine's at Sears.

So currently, you would need to buy a built engine from one of the few sources, and then swap it into your car. To do that, you need to drop $10k on a running Boxster, then spend $20k on a hot motor, another $3k to have the engines swapped, and you might be able to get $4k for your used engine, depending on miles and size, if its in good shape. So for $29k, you will have a hot Boxster that will destroy most other vehicles out there in the twisty stuff, and power out of corners with authority.

For $29k, you can buy a whole lot of other cars that would be much easier to build bigger hp numbers from.

What I would recommend that you do first is to go to your local Porsche dealer, and test drive a Boxster, and see if you even like it. Then decide how much money you have in the till, and go from there.

I spent all day driving my '98 Boxster in the mountains today here in Colorado, so I know why you would want one, if you have great roads to drive in near you. If you don't live in an area where there are great roads, just building a high hp Boxster is going to be an extremely expensive hobby that will most likely leave you frustrated.

There's a lot to think about, and mull over.

BC.

[Banana S]

Originally Posted by alloystang07

I love the porsche design and i really want to get into a porsche because i would like to have a car that handles well, but i need some power to go with it. I know that the turbo engines are the ones makeing all the power, and that they are based off the gt1 engine. But why are the so different from the carerra engines that the boxster 3.2 engines are based off of? It would seem that all of the big power some porsches are making, some one would find a way to fit the crank and rods and such into a carerra engine/boxster engine?

To answer your question, as opposed to making yet another self-reassuring, smug reply about how "Porsche power is different than Ford power" ( ), the basic answer to your question above is that the GT1/GT2/Turbo 911 engines are mounted 180 degrees differently from the M96 in the Boxster, so it's not just a matter of swapping internals.

As for why the Boxster parts & labor cost so much more overall, it's a simple matter of development cost and volume. How many national Ford tuners are there out there, not to mention small-town shops that can build you a 400 RWHP small block Ford or Chevy for $5k or less? (Been there, done that.) Literally hundreds, because of the volume of Ford and Chevy guys that are looking to have the work done.

The Boxster was sold in much, much smaller volumes, and an even smaller percentage of Boxster owners have any interest at all in modding their cars. So the few tuners that are out there can charge a premium (and have to, really, if they want to cover their costs and stay in business... Can't begrudge them that).

Put simply, if you want big power numbers for low cost in a car that still handles at a world-class level, buy a 'Vette. (And yes, you WILL still be able to turn. ) But from everything I've read, the seats will not be as comfortable, the steering will not feel as precise, and you'll be missing out on the overall handling confidence that the Boxster provides.

Everything is a tradeoff.

Hope this helps.

[alloystang07]

Thank you very much Banana S, that is what i was looking for. I guess it now comes down to whether the 3.2 is really worth it vs the 2.7 or even 2.5, and i have seen some threads about that. I really appreciate you help guys.

Cheers, Cody

[blackadder]

As a few post have mentioned.. Quick and easy answer is

http://www.tpcracing.us/

Look on the following site for a few cars that have already had this turbo modification done

http://www.planetporsche.net/cayman-boxster-modifications/


Much bigger bang for buck than swapping to a bigger engine, or trying to put a 911 turbo engine in, which from what I understand is much much harder to do than say a carrera 3.6 or 3.8.

Or you could do what one of their customers did and put in a 3.8 and THEN turbo charge it. Best of both worlds.

[Lobo1186]

i think that if you goal is to eventually get as much power as you can out of a box then you should go with a 3.2 or a 3.4 because those blocks will give you the most potential. even though there are many ways to get power or speed (something to keep in mind losing weight is always a good sometimes very cheep start something most mustang guys overlook) but in the end there is no replacement for displacement...


but btw i have a 2.7 and i love her :dance:

[Banana S]

IMHO, go for the Boxster S. It's much more than just an engine upgrade. Brakes, suspension, gearbox, heck even the gauges are different. And you can find relatively low-mileage examples for under $20k right now if you look hard enough.

Good luck with your decision.

[coreseller]

I've read this thread with a bit of interest since I switched from a Cobra to a Boxster a couple of years back. As you've noted Alloy, they're two completely different types of vehicles. From what I can recall most mods in the Mustang world were aimed at increasing HP and getting it put down (my partner just had a roots type of supercharger put onto his newer Saleen Mustang with injectors and a tune, $6300 for 160 HP increase....wow), in cruising this website and other Porsche related ones you'll find more interest in balance / handling mods. No doubt, more HP and torque is always great but strangely enough my Boxster S seems to have just enough. I must be getting old lol.

[RandallNeighbour]

So much of this conversation has to do with where you live, or where you are forced to live due to work or family or whatever.

I live in flat, hot, humid, Houston, Texas. It's just about the worst place in the world to be located as a drop top mid engine Porsche owner.

It's too hot to enjoy the top down 8 months out of the year. The 'winters' here are wet and cool and not much fun for it either. By my calendar, I get about 14-21 days of good top down driving weather every year here.

Then there's the lack of twisty roads. Short of paying for track time 4-6 times a year with the PCA, the mid engine location in the boxster is wasted.

I love the lines of my car, but I do a lot of straight line driving and highway cruising with the top up.

For me, a 911 or a Corvette would be the sports car to own, depending on how much cash I had to spend. I'm not selling my boxster any time soon because it's paid for, but should it get totaled, I'll be buying one of these instead.

I enjoy straight line performance... mostly because I have no twisty roads to drive unless I want to make 3+ hour journey to find them. This is why I made my DD a BMW 550i.

Of course, when I retire in 15 years and coerce my wife into selling our inner city home and moving to Robbinsville...

[eightsandaces]

The only good thing about aging is my car feels faster every spring, I'd like it to have more power but the truth is it's quite a bit faster and far more capable than most of the cars it shares the road with. I will know by February whether I am getting permanent hours, then Mr. Raby and I will need to discuss among ourselves...

[Topless]

"That said, 300 RWHP in a Boxster in a well prepped car will give a GT3 a really hard time, one of my customers has already done that.. The key is not upsetting the car's balance." Quote Jake Raby

This is very true. Still more power can be made by adding displacement (LS1 motor) or adding a turbo, but then you have a car that is a lot more difficult to keep the shiny side up. The car is so well balanced that too much power becomes a problem. I spent some time this weekend in a highly modified 944 Turbo S at the track. A very fast car but difficult to drive fast. The basic rule is " When the car comes on boost, make sure the steering wheel is straight... even if you are mid-corner, make sure the wheel is straight. We turned some fast laps but it was a lot of work and we were very inconsistent. Several times I thought we were going in the weeds.

My little 2.5 Boxster is a push button sports car. Easy to drive at 10/10ths and easy to reel back in when needed. It can be driven very consistently lap after lap with no issues. By choosing more technical tracks and avoiding the super speedways the Boxster is in it's element.

[Brucelee]

That said, 300 RWHP in a Boxster in a well prepped car will give a GT3 a really hard time, one of my customers has already done that.. The key is not upsetting the car's balance.

This is really the deal, and I might add, the car that the factory should sell for the price is charges for a Box or Cayman.

[BoxsterLewis]

My 325 HP Boxster is amazing! The torque and sound are just blow your mind. I've test drove BMW's M3 and 335i 6 speed (they run low 13's?) and my boxster feels light speeds faster and thats with Boxster headers not the bigger 3.4 ones. After test driving them i realized how much i wanted to keep my Boxster even though its set me back a pretty penny (around 20K)...

[gRed04]

Originally Posted by Bladecutter

The Porsche engine's are not exactly the same as your typical internal combustion engine that you see in every car on the road. They are designed entirely differently internally, and have been built to a certain spec, and to a certain budget.

The engines require a very specialized set of tools, and require a highly skilled technician in order to assemble them properly. You can rebuild the motor in your Mustang simply by buying a box of tools at your local Sears. You can't get any of the specialized tools that you need for the Porsche engine's at Sears.

Bladecutter I love the boxster too but there is no magic in these engines. Just because the factory refuses to sell parts and give out specs really doesnt make them special.

As for requiring specialized tools that is true in some cases ( to make a job easier ) but all makers have some differences in the engine and design. Keep in mind there is no "Engines R Us" where everyone else goes to buy except Porsche that thereby keeps them simple to work on with just an adjustable wrench.

Just a opportunity for the factory to make more money on the customer base.

[Jake Raby]

I still build engines for the Boxster's predocessor, the 914.. When I build those engines I am adding at least 75HP to the stock engine's output, sometimes well over 100HP more.

When I apply this much power to these vehicles the results are generally upsetting to the car's balance. Many times it takes someone a full season of autocross with the big engine to get their times as good as they were with the stock 2 liter, because the car is smoking the tires and is less than controllable while on the hammer.

To finally counteract the upset of the car an LSD has to be used along with thousands more dollars of suspension and transaxle mods, but even after all that the car really isn't much faster than it used to be with 100 less HP. The car is a real hoot to drive as its sliding sideways, so people love it, even though their time slips don't illustrate that very well.

The Boxster has proven to be the same animal, when adding power one must take extreme precautions not to overpower the car and upset it's balance. I focus on three things with a Boxster engine:

1- More usable RPM range, make the power come on earlier and stay on longer- get rid of the peaky power band that starts to pull at 4K RPM.

2- Add torque, because torque is king with a car that weighs 1-1/2 tons. Torque is what makes people LOVE to drive the car, much more than HP. Torque is what wins races, HP is what sells engines.

3- Throttle response. Add a ton of it and make the engine as responsive to throttle position changes as possible.

Its not how much power you make, its where that power is made and the compromises that surround it as a trade off.

I try to create engines without compromise, we get more MPG, run cooler and make more power at every RPM over stock with every street combo I have created.

The "Bigger is better" crowd is always the easiest to beat. They beat themselves.

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by gRed04

Bladecutter I love the boxster too but there is no magic in these engines. Just because the factory refuses to sell parts and give out specs really doesnt make them special.

As for requiring specialized tools that is true in some cases ( to make a job easier ) but all makers have some differences in the engine and design. Keep in mind there is no "Engines R Us" where everyone else goes to buy except Porsche that thereby keeps them simple to work on with just an adjustable wrench.

Just a opportunity for the factory to make more money on the customer base.

+1 The engines aren't especially exotic compared to most. Porsche simply built them to hold together (most of the time) at the power levels that they make from the factory, there's no overdesign in margin to either save cost or weight or both.

[Paul]

My 98 3.6 Boxster is a beast, looking for a 3.8 to put in my 2001.

As Jake has stated the car's balance changes, it took a couple of spins until I learned when not to floor it.

[SStiebers]

" Hmmmm...Mustang,,,,,,,real tough car"(Outsiders 1981?). If you want horsepower and an uncontrollable rear axel buy another Mustang. I have a mint, 2000 speed yellow box "S", 6 speed manual, no tip. I have owned and worked on, all kinds of cars, fast and slow. No, it is not lightning in a bottle, but this car is plenty fast, perfectly balanced and very funnnnnn! You have no idea what this car is. Drive it, then come back and talk about it. IMO you'll get sucked in just like all the rest of us.