Praise to the 996 NA

Hey guys! Decided to write this post after testdriving a 997.1 turbo manual straight after driving a 996.2 C4 cabrio manual. It's going to be a long post so hope you bear with it. The turbo was an excellent example and had PCCB. I was extremely eager to test it and was convinced I would buy it on the spot so I even took my checkbook to the dealer. To calibrate myself, I drove a friend's 996.2 C4 cabrio (fully stock) and was amazed by how the car sounded and accelerated! It felt angry connected to the road and constantly asking you to downshift and redline it! The power delivery was also addictive since the closer you get to the redline the bigger the push and the noise! Reminded me of a sports bike! When I entered the turbo I thought: well this is going to be epic! It will be the C4 with 160bhp more! At slow speeds, the car was really good and more comfortable than the 996. The gear box was much stiffer though even when hot. First time I slammed the throttle in 4th gear at around 3500-3700rpm felt a HUGE kick in the back as the car accelerated. I backed off and waited for the road to clear so that I could redline it in 2 and 3rd gear. When the road cleared, downshift to 2nd and floored it at 3500 rpm. Slight turbolag (would be unnoticeable if I hadn't tried the 996 before) followed by huge kick in the back! This push kept increasing until ~5800rpm and remained constant until 6500rpm. The most shocking part was that there was no crescendo feeling, no engine/exhaust noise... I could only ear tyre and wind/turbo noises... slammed it to 3rd gear and again same thing happened... repeated it in 4th gear and nothing changed... I started thinking that the car seemed slower than the 996 until I looked at the speedometer... the turbo is indeed SO MUCH FASTER! It is in an entirely different league of speed! I finished the testdrive driving the car in 3rd and 4th and concluded that you really don't need to downshift in this car, it's just super fast in all the gears but, and it is a big but, there is no drama... the car gains speed at a ridiculous rate but it does not encourage you to rev it up all the way to the redline, it is very quiet and it doesn't seem it wants to kill you... This for me greatly reduced the sense of occasion and adrenaline that the NA power increase gives you when reving all the way to the redline combined with the engine/exhaust noise give on the 996. I asked my friend to have another ride on his 996 after the turbo and indeed it felt the same... the 996 was so much louder and eager to rev that it made you feel more alive while also feeling more life threatening! Basically there is a lot of drama and I really love it! After this, I concluded that 997.1 turbo's lack of noise and different power delivery (not rewarding to redline it) can't beat the way the NA 996 makes me feel: more special and having more fun (at much lower speeds) was !

And therein lies the problem with the direction cars are headed... if 997 Turbo acceleration felt like that imagine what a 992 Turbo S feels like. Then you add in a load more grip from the suspension and ever wider tyres and you get further away from being able to approach the limits of the car on the road unless you're doing speeds that will see you jailed if caught, or dead if you get it wrong. For me, the 996 is an absolute sweet spot for a road use. It's fast enough to make very good progress and overtake slower moving stuff when necessary, but it's not so fast that you can't use a lot of its performance a lot of the time.

996C4 v 996T Thanks for sharing your views. It really does sum up the difference between driving a Carrera and a Turbo. For some the normally aspirated flat-6 noise and/or UK road limitations mean that a Turbo just isn't for them. Others prefer the stealth mode and vast reserves of grunt that the Turbo gives. Just as a comparison the following is something I wrote 400 miles and a couple of weeks after I bought a 996 Turbo to replace the 996C4 that I had owned for over 3 years. NB: Both cars were Tiptronic Coupes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Posted May 2013. The 74 miles that I drove this morning took in all of my local fun routes (50/50 A and B roads, no dual carriageways) and allowed me to make a direct comparison between my old 996C4 and my 'new' toy. These are the most relevant. 1. The 'balance' that's achieved by keeping the NA car at 4,000 rpm+ can be done in the Turbo at 2,800 ie. just when 0.1 bar is starting to show. 2. The 'kick' that a NA car gives between 4,500 and 6,000 rpm is matched between 2,800 and 4,000. It's what happens then that really brings home the difference between the two cars. At 4000 rpm most of the additional 100 bhp is just 'there' .......... instantly. The final 10% takes a little bit longer to come but by that time it's normally time to back off anyway. 3. The other major difference is noticed when slowing down. iirc the Turbo weighs in at 100kg heavier than the C4 (not the C4S). Under most circumstances the extra weight is not noticeable but under braking it most definitely is! The combination of the extra weight, lack of engine braking - and the fact that you're going quicker between the corners - brings home to me why these things are renowned for eating pads (and discs ). 4. Handling wise there's probably very little between the two, as both are 4wd, but the Turbo seems to absorb the bumps better. It feels 'softer' but this may just be because my 'T' is 2 years newer than the C4 was and it's also done a few miles less. :dont know: . In summary I am already starting to see why the Turbo is held in such high regard by so many people, including those far more experienced in driving fast cars than me. It's not just the rate that these monsters can cover cross-country distances, it's the ease with which they do it. The reason for starting this thread was my concern that the fantastic 'driveability' of the C4 would not be matched if I changed to a Turbo and that the 'cost to change' may not offer the same 's per £. After only 19 days I'm pleased to report ....it does ....... :cloud9: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And, after seven years of turbo power, I'm still :cloud9: As you found the 997T is another level again and I suspect that the 991T and 992T are unbelievable.

I had a loan of a turbo for 3 months before picking up my C4. I enjoyed the old school laggy feeling. Thought it sounded very disappointing and point 3 above really resonated with me. I'm not sure if the brakes on the one I had were shot or that's how they are. Either way they were awful. I was a bit worried 3 months of turbo time would really take the shine off getting the C4 but to my surprise it didn't. The sound from the NA engine adds a lot to the experience along with the way it delivers it's limited naturally asthmatic horses. I understand the attraction with the turbo but as I often find myself even having to hold back in a C4 due to road conditions and traffic I've come to realise that more power doesn't necessarily mean more of anything else, including fun.

Was it a 996T or a 997T? Either way if you experienced 'lag' you were in the wrong gear. In 'D' both cars can sometimes be in a gear too high but a rock of the '-' button eliminates that. 996T brakes can feel a bit wooden but work well when the pedal is pressed hard. The bigger brakes on the 997T are superb.

Sounds like a similar sensation I am having in the 996 c2 that I bought nearly two weeks ago to replace my v8 m3. I love the 996 even though its a fair bit slower feeling and less powerful than the m3 but it just feels so alive. I had the M3 for 18 weeks and wanted to sell it for about 14 of those. The 996 will be a keeper till it breaks me financially

It was a 996 and it was a manual. I did wonder if the tiptronic would actually suit the engine better as it struck me as more of a continent crusher than something I wanted to take snuffling about the b roads endlessly stirring the box. I did drive it for 3 months so I did "learn the car". Yes, I could drop a cog or 2 and spool it up but I still found it laggy compared to the last 2 turbo cars I owned. An m135i and a mk7 golf R. Understandably turbo technology has moved on in the 10+ years between the 996t and those cars but if anything I much preferred the delivery of the 996t due to the fact it felt like an old school turbo. Saying it had lag is not a criticism. Many modern twin turbos from the likes of BMW, Audi etc have a very diesel like delivery with peak torque far too low in the rev range. Personally, I hate that which is why I've turned my back on modern cars and reverted to an older car. The brakes were definitely shagged on the one I had.