996 Turbo - What's the best BHP/£ spent?

I am new to 996 Turbo ownership, and although when owning previous Porsche I noticed adverts and read write ups on 996 turbo tuning, I never really realised just how much is out there. I wondered if anybody has compiled a kind of league table for modifiations based on bhp per £ (keeping it simple). If this hasn't been done, I dont mind doing it myself if you give me your results. I know I can ring the adverts but they are salesmen and you are real world. Don't say you got a full exhaust system off your mate for a drink down the pub or quote ebay purchases and that probably wont help anybody. Just a thought. :?:

I've had mine for just under a year. I too keep thinking of mods but am unsure (a) who to trust and (b) whether some of the claims being made out there are realistic or worth the bang for the buck being quoted. Having spent a small fortune tuning an air-cooled I have no problem putting money where it needs and will be well spent (9M rock by the way) but there's soooooo mamy turbo opportunities out there, both in the UK and also in the USA that it would be helpful of some table of what item vs cost vs result was available...........any of you owners out there who've already modified able to shed light!? :dont know:

Sorry have been meaning to respond to this for a couple of days. This is my history with my current car ( lets hope the wife never see's this thread) Got the car 3 and a bit years ago, a standard 420bhp 996tt. After a year or so I decided to change the induction kit. EVOMS V Flow claimed +15 bhp cost £600 so £100 = 2.5bhp I then put a REVO map on it. Claimed + 60 bhp cost £1200 so £100 = 5 bhp I enjoyed this set up and ran it for a year. The thing which I felt the car missed was a decent exhaust system which would have invalidated the warranty (the REVO map was not detectable by OPC). Last year I decided to take the car out of OPC warranty and do some more tweaking. I didn't want just anyone touching the car and after a lot of research decided to give it to Parr. They cleared the ECU and put their RS custom map on. Alone this was around £1100 and would have added 70 bhp ish. So £100 = 6bhp. Parr also added Forge Hyperboost DV's which allow a quick and then constant boost. These were around £500 but not sure on the bhp gain, The Cargraphic exhaust was the most expensive upgrade costing over £2000 and giving probably no more then +20 bhp (£100 per 1bhp) but this was the best upgrade for pure driving pleasure. So to summarise I reckon £5000 should give you an additional 100 bhp and a very sorted car. (Bear in mind it would be advisable to stick a £2000 brake upgrade on to stop) To summarise further Remap is the quickest upgrade, exhaust the most pleasurable. Disclaimer non of these were rolling road tested but I believe mine is now circa 520 bhp with all I have had done to it.

My x50 has had some forge diverter valves fitted and a £350 remap, rolling roaded it and i got a bhp of 510 at the fly wheel and 506ft/lbs of torque! Next mod will be a carnwell exhaust!

This is not a critcism in any way, and I am genuinely curious, but I am struggling to understand why so many Turbo owners feel the need to modify their cars so much, when I would have thought it would be the lower powered N/A cars that need it most... Maybe I'm missing something (or maybe mine is already modified and I didn't know about it), but I really can't see any need for any more performance for road use... Is it about bragging rights, or is the car genuinely that much better in some way after being modified? If it was about lap times, surely you would be better off putting the extra cash towards a GT3? Maybe I'm just not a 'modder' :dont know:

Bang for buck is an off the shelf remap. No this isn't the most clever nor absolutely most effective way to get more total remap power. For that you need to get it live mapped or some other RR based map. Which will get you higher BHP, but for so much more money. Yet you can release 90% or more of those gains with an off the shelf. I have have every Turbo I have owned chipped. For the less than the price of Leather Rooflining or Aluminium PDK selector and Handbrake or Carbon Fibre door sills or Telephone Module or even 18 months road tax etc you get up to 45-60 extra BHP. At less than £10/BHP nothing else gets close. Wouldn't even think about it. Do it. Every other upgrade is so much more expensive. (and visible)

Thats an interesting point, and I can't say that I feel I need more power, I just think if its readily available at reasonable cost, then why not. I dont think it's just about an increase in power either, I read that some mods make the enigine more efficient and also deliver the power better and quicker. Perhaps someone can claify that last thought for us? Or am I just looking for excuses. Some great posts so far, thanks. Petersafc - how much were the diverter valves and who did the remap?

OK, the standard 'map' on any car will be whatever best meets the manufacturer's objectives for engine durability, refinement, performance, emissions & economy and, particularly in Porsche's case, driver enjoyment. If you change anything in that map, you will by definition changing the whole balance of attributes: It is not realistic to believe that you can improve them all (unless the manufacturer really cocked-up and completely underestimated the engine's potential - which would be most uncharacteristic of modern day Porsche). So, you pays your money and takes your choices: If you significantly increase ultimate performance, you will probably shorten the engine's life (which is the main reason I will never knowingly buy a secondhand modified car). If you improve the power delivery at lower revs (e.g. reduce turbo-lag) you will probably increase fuel consumption / emissions or maybe lose a bit of top end performance. IMO the latter would be the only mod that I would consider - i.e. more torque at low revs - which would probably not increase max. power output at all (and may even reduce it). This is generally possible because all manufacturers compromise low end performance to achieve better results from Official economy and emissions tests, for marketing reasons. However, this is probably the hardest to achieve without making hardware changes as well as software... For example, you can't make the same turbo spin faster at low revs without increasing exhaust pressure (such as fitting VGTs) or reducing the inertia of the turbo itself (smaller turbine, or redesigned blades, etc.) However, to cheaply increase top end bhp it's really really easy - you just change the point at which the wastegate opens and dumps the excess pressure! But, and this is a big BUT, this will definitely shorten the engine's life if you don't upgrade engine internals proportionately to match. Having said all of the above, if you want to improve circuit lap times more than anything else, ditch some excess weight and improve the brakes / suspension / tyres and leave the engine alone until you feel that you still have more talent than the car has performance (unlikely, if you are not a budding Jenson Button or something). The latter will usually have no impact on resale values (may even improve them), a cheap re-map would not only decrease the resale value, in many cases (i.e. mine) it would make it totally unsaleable... HTH

Isn't the standard 420bhp too much for road use? As re-mapping is probably the easiest and quickest way to get more power, the tuners all seem to market their preferred remaps with - Better fuel consumption, better driving dynamics, higher performance with no detriment to the engine life. I don't know if this is right, wrong or whatever but if 420bhp is too much for road use, then 520bhp is also. So IMO it's not about being able to drive quicker on the roads, but enjoying the increase in power in what ever the situation. A trip to the Ring certainly makes the mod worth doing and certainly cheaper than buying a new turbo.

Yeah, and that all comes with free lunches for life, right? :grin: It staggers me that people believe a tuner working out of an industrial unit somewhere in the Midlands, can do a better job than a couple of hundred of Germany's finest engineers spending 3 years developing the car in the first place at Weisach... :roll: I'm sorry, but there HAS to be a trade-off somewhere... I'd be interested to see their proof that it doesn't affect engine life :thumb: Why do you think car manufacturers don't honour warranty claims for remapped engine failures? As an aside, another 100 bhp is useless if it is all at the top end - don't know about anyone else on here, but I don't often hit 6,000 rpm in top gear! However, I do use full throttle acceleration from low speed, several times every time I drive it, so I'll take more 'torques' at 2,000 revs, over more power at 6,000 revs, any day of the week thanks. But that can't be done with a cheap re-map and, dare I say it, doesn't have as much chav-appeal as being able to say you just added 60 bhp :thumb:

I think it does, yeah. :grin: But like I say, I don't know if it's right, wrong or indifferent. You said it yourself, the manufacturer has to work to different tolerance levels, concerning economy, emissions etc. That's the point I think. There is no proof. They rely on woolly guarantees which state "if you can prove that the remap was the direct cause of an engine failure then they will replace the engine foc". :grin: Anyway, I fear we're changing the point of this thread, which wasn't my intention. So, I'm off to bed. :thumb:

The standard car is awesome, but there is so much latent potential awaiting unlocking. It's the minefield of options that experiences of other owners helps newbies like me to the 996tt get an idea of ways to go. Thanks to each of you who posted your experiences of tuning. Whilst 420bhp can be considered plenty enough power for the road, seeing as the first speeding ticket was issued in 1904 for doing 12mph I think it's fair to say that perceptions have changed and will always change as to what's enough power and what's an acceptable speed. More power certainly makes for swifter and safer overtaking, even within the speed limit. Having managed to hussle my standard car aroudn the Ring last year in 9:47 on only my second ever lap I'm intrigued to know how much quicker it'll go with more bhp, suspension and brake changes.....a slippery and expensive slope, but hey you only live once! Once again, thanks for the constructive posts and keep them coming!

If this is your main objective, I reckon you should sell your Turbo as standard (you'll get more for it) and then add the cost of all the upgrades and go and find a nice GT3... Really... Whatever you do to a Turbo is never going to match a standard GT3 around a dry race track: For starters it's about 300kg too heavy, which means the brakes have got to be 20% better than a GT3's brakes, just to achieve the same retardation (good luck with that :thumb: ) Then to get anywhere near the GT3's suspension performance you are going to have to spend another £3,000 minimium. And we haven't even started on the engine yet. Standard 996 GT3 is about 380 bhp isn't it? So with 20% more weight, you're going to need another 40-50 bhp (that's the easy bit), but you've still got the problem of a very non-linear torque curve (compared to a naturally aspirated engine) and 4WD transmission losses: To compensate for transmission losses, you probably need about another 10% of the total so far, so that's another 50bhp got to come from somewhere... By now, I reckon you've spent at least £10,000 on modifications - just to try and match the performance of a car that you can buy today for less than £40k. (But your Turbo still has inferior handling dynamics - especially steering response). Finally, that £10,000 is not going to add a cent to the resale value of your Turbo when you come to sell it, whereas a £40k GT3 will probably never be worth less than £35k unless you really do something terrible to it! Personally, I bought a Turbo because it is a much more civilised daily driver than the GT3, but to try and match the dynamics of a GT3 you will destroy everything that makes a Turbo such a brilliant car for everyday use. Do you really want to do that? Anyway, each to their own, but mine will very definitely be staying standard!

I have known of many 911's GT3/Turbos etc... That have had mods done to them and improved the power and drive of the car. Following the mods being done have put the cars back to standard to sell them on. Did the new owner know was mods where done before ? :dont know: A re-map on a 996 TT will make the engine have more power but run snoother too. I drove Dave's 911 when it was standard and again following both re-map's. And (as Dave will tell you I did not drive the car fast) the car felt some much better following the re-map. The power delivery was smoother and even the MPG was better. :thumbs:

So according to you Wattie, anyone who does any mods to their car is devaluing it? So anyone who has put on a PSE or RSR's or changed the air filter or put on non standard suspension bits or heaven forbid had it remapped has made a mistake? I know you are likely to throw back a load of info gained from your extensive motor engineering background but here is my take on it. Remap - The GT1 derived block is as strong as an ox. How many have failed after a sympathetic remap by companies such as Parr or DMS? Forge DV's = I like my car boosting quicker and holding the boost better than cars equipped with the cheaper plastic standard Porsche parts Exhaust - The biggest let down with a 996tt is the lack of noise that one would expect from such a performance car. A bit of growl with a bit more power is more than welcome. Ask yourself why so many people change the exhaust system. It's all about driving pleasure. Brakes = Upgrading to 6 pots is a real mistake isn't it, afterall they are used on Porsche cup cars so must be sh1te. So are modified cars thrashed? - No real need I think the max torque on mine is around 4500rpm (please correct me if I am wrong) so no need to redline it. Will I get my money back when I come to sell it? - No, of course I won't but has my ownership enjoyment been enhanced by the mods? Hell yeah! PS I think the way your car pulled down the back straight at Bedford last year you are probably running a chipped 996tt