Successful 996 chips / induction modifications

Has anyone done a successful chip or induction modification resulting in real world HP? I was reading the latest 911 and Porsche World an saw an ad for something called the CDA, Carbon Dynamic Airbox that looked pretty interesting. Do you guys know anything about it? What about chips? Is there anything to gain in a 996 that has GHL exhausts? TIA JM

I installed Fabspeed headers, exhaust, and TRG Unichip on a 99 996 several years ago. Had the car dyno'ed before, during, and after. The exhaust showed a max HP improvement of around 8 HP, most of which was in the high rpms. No real improvement below 4K. The Unichip added another 10 HP, again at peak rpm. So I got a gain of about 18 HP at peak. The difference on the track was minimal. I ran against other stock 996's and I didn't exactly pull them on the straights. IMHO, the gain you may be able to get out of these bolt-on parts is probably less than the typical differences in engine power due to manufacturing variances. Not to mention that any changes to DME or induction can affect your emissions warranty. Karl

We gain 30-40 HP at the wheels with our airbox upgrade, exhaust system, and EFI box. Total cost of the kit is around $2K.

I got 35 hp from ghl exhaust and headers, cold air box, engine remapping and a noticeable difference on the track.

derrek, which company are you talking about? I want to check out your products. Thanks

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by slodrivingmike: <strong>I got 35 hp from ghl exhaust and headers, cold air box, engine remapping and a noticeable difference on the track.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I have a GHL exhaust. What is a cold air box? What remapping did you do? What is "noticeable"? THX JM

I am with Huntley Racing. The website is here: <a href="http://www.huntleyracing.com/" target="_blank">http://www.huntleyracing.com/</a> We are building a package price for the above items for release in the next few days. I will post a dyno chart here to for all to see.

Jean-Marc, I have a cold air intake. The remapping involved the rest of world program, which improves the torque curve. It can be reprogrammed in 5 minutes back to stock and then back to ROW again in 5 minutes. Noticeable is subjective, but I could feel the power increase in the seat of my pants. I believe I have the quickest normally aspirated 996 in south and central Florida driver education events. The only people who pass me these days are driving turbos, GT2's and dedicated race cars which probably weigh 7 or 800 pounds less than my 996. This may also be due in part to my improving as a driver. However, I notice that on straights, where driver ability is somewhat equalized, I can gain ground on most normally aspirated cars. I hope this answers your questions. Regards, slodrivingmike

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by slodrivingmike: <strong>Jean-Marc, I have a cold air intake. The remapping involved the rest of world program, which improves the torque curve. It can be reprogrammed in 5 minutes back to stock and then back to ROW again in 5 minutes. Noticeable is subjective, but I could feel the power increase in the seat of my pants. I believe I have the quickest normally aspirated 996 in south and central Florida driver education events. The only people who pass me these days are driving turbos, GT2's and dedicated race cars which probably weigh 7 or 800 pounds less than my 996. This may also be due in part to my improving as a driver. However, I notice that on straights, where driver ability is somewhat equalized, I can gain ground on most normally aspirated cars. I hope this answers your questions. Regards, slodrivingmike</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Thanks. Are you driving a 2002 or later or a '98-2001? What is the cold air intake that you have? Where did you get it? Who programmed your chip? TIA JM

It's a 2001 and a 3.4 liter. I got everything from Foreign Affairs Motorsports. Talk to Bob or Bobby at (954)746-0488. I have no affiliation to them, but I do appreciate the great work they have done in building a wild ride! Enjoy, Mike

the chip does wonders...before I thought my chip wasn't making that big of an improvement so I sold it along with most of the parts on my 996. To give an example, I used to be able to eat Camaro SS's from 125-150MPH, now they walk me out like a dog on a chain with my car in stock, except for cold air intake. I had a TRG chip with approx 340hp at the crank, including headers, fabspeed exhaust, BMC filter. Although I realized those mods did help plenty, I'm still seeking more power and waiting for a forced induction kit that will put me close to a 996 turbo.

I will vouch for Derrek's comments on 30 to 40hp at the wheels. I had fabspeed exhaust, airbox, and unichip put on my '99 996 C2 by Huntley Racing and I am very satisfied with it. I can feel the power gain and have seen the dyno charts. The car also sounds really nice.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Dima: <strong>I will vouch for Derrek's comments on 30 to 40hp at the wheels. I had fabspeed exhaust, airbox, and unichip put on my '99 996 C2 by Huntley Racing and I am very satisfied with it. I can feel the power gain and have seen the dyno charts. The car also sounds really nice.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">30 to 40hp??? What have you guys done? Porsche want 12K for an X51 kit and you found twice what they did for a 3rd of that!!! Have you guys checked dyno sheets or is this seat of the pants? TIA JM

The way I understand it that means 30-40HP at the wheel is gonna yeild about 50-60HP at the crank of the engine. That adds up to 370 to 380 HP at the engine which is the same power as a new GT3? Even the Porsche X51 Kit gives 25HP at the crank not the wheel. I have never performed any engine mods to my cars and never used a dyno so there are people here who know a lot more but these numbers just seem a little unrealistic.

There is no way you are getting 30-40hp at the wheel. I think you are wishfull thinking, since you have spent all that money, I think it is more like you "hope", or "wish" you have 30-40hp at the real wheel. Dyno the car, and post the results. I think you will be suprised on how small the HP improvement is, if you did get one. And don't just take the manufactureres word for it. Just b/c TRG or whoever says you will be making 20-40 hp doesnt mean you will. A lot of the times they will just do work on one car and dyno that one, and then tell u that you should expect the same results. Tell them to guarantee, and I guarantee they will back off. The reason I am saying all this, is b/c I know, I have experienced it. I had a chip installed in my car, headers, cats and exhaust all done in separate stages. In my experience the free flowing cats, and the straight thru exhaust gives you the biggest yield, but Im not talking 40 hp, maybe 5- 10, maybe. Oh yeah the guys that did my car were also saying I was making 380hp at the rear wheel as well, but they are salesman, they want to tell the customer what he wants to hear. After spending the money it gives you a sense of value, and you really didnt get anything, except for more of a lively sound. All I am saying is dont get caught up in the BS of believing someone else BS. Believe it when you see the car dynoed, be savvy.

Those claims are crazy. 30-40 hp is over a 10% increase in output with bolt on parts. Get real. I have both a 996 racecar and a dyno. I have tried exhaust systems, induction systems, chips, and everything else. Not one item made even a 1 hp gain on the dyno. Most items caused power to drop. Don't waste your money. There is power in the heads. The stock heads have a pretty crappy 2 angle valve job which is easy to improve. This is one part of the X51 kit. The rest of the kit is cams, valves, manifolds and all the other normal hot-rod parts.

I have to admit that I didn't dyno the car before I made the modifications. The peak bhp on the new dyno chart shows about 270 between 6500 and 7000 rpm. At 20% drop between fwhp and bhp this is a fwhp of 337 on a car that is listed at 296. I am getting about 250bhp at 6000 to 6500 which is about 319fwhp. I have the dyno chart on front of me but don't have the dyno chart on line and I don't have a scanner. Derrek from Huntley may be able to supply it.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Chris Cervelli: <strong>Those claims are crazy. 30-40 hp is over a 10% increase in output with bolt on parts. Get real. I have both a 996 racecar and a dyno. I have tried exhaust systems, induction systems, chips, and everything else. Not one item made even a 1 hp gain on the dyno. Most items caused power to drop. Don't waste your money. There is power in the heads. The stock heads have a pretty crappy 2 angle valve job which is easy to improve. This is one part of the X51 kit. The rest of the kit is cams, valves, manifolds and all the other normal hot-rod parts.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">WOW Chris that is a pretty stong paragraph! NOT EVEN 1HP???!!!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Those claims are crazy. 30-40 hp is over a 10% increase in output with bolt on parts. Get real. I have both a 996 racecar and a dyno. I have tried exhaust systems, induction systems, chips, and everything else. Not one item made even a 1 hp gain on the dyno. Most items caused power to drop. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I had a dyno proven test that I did have 340hp's at the crank of my 2000 996. The dyno was proven as we tested other cars on this dyno which these cars were tested on other dynos. My car was able to pull 996's very obviously. However, I was between a 996 turbo and stock 996's so I took it off as my goal now is to get faster than stock 996's. I'm ordering a turbo when the warranty ends within a year.

Ruey, Good to know that I am not the only one validating this. One small annoyance with my car is that the power isn't delivered as smoothly as before when playing with the throttle. Do you see this with your car. What "chip" are you using. Dima

I took off my engine mods when I listed my car for sale back when I was trying to upgrade for a 996TT. The resale value I paid $88.5k out the door for my car new in 2000, I tried again in 2002 to sell it for $70 and it was so hard to sell. I refused to lose more than 20k on the car it only had 15k miles. Anyway, I had a piggy back Racers group Unichip on my car at that time. And it was working 100%

ruey220, Was your rear wheel horsepower around 272? How was the drivetrain loss calculated? Was a coast down run performed to measure actual drivetrain loss? What speed was this performed at?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Dima: <strong>I have to admit that I didn't dyno the car before I made the modifications. The peak bhp on the new dyno chart shows about 270 between 6500 and 7000 rpm. At 20% drop between fwhp and bhp this is a fwhp of 337 on a car that is listed at 296. I am getting about 250bhp at 6000 to 6500 which is about 319fwhp. I have the dyno chart on front of me but don't have the dyno chart on line and I don't have a scanner. Derrek from Huntley may be able to supply it.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">20% drivetrain loss? Is it really that high on the 996's? I've seen 10-15% as typical for most Porsche's... So. using the high 15% figure that gives 320fwhp, which is still a good improvement. However, in order to really show the improvement a before/after dyno is needed...

Jason, They tested at 3rd gear up to 100 MPH from 3500RPM to 7100RPM. I can remember this because he kept it in 3rd gear the whole time and it was constantly hitting the fuel cuttoff. If I recall correctly, it was at 192BHP when we brought it in and came out around 226BHP when we were completed around 6800 rpm peak. He said average stock horses calculated on his dyno was around 186BHP, but I already was running a 96 octane fuel with headers, intake and exhaust. At some rpm points my hp was weaker, but at peak it was higher. I myself was surprised that the rear wheel hp's was so low in comparison to stock hp's at 296hp, but in the end we were comparing peaches to peaches, meaning the end result had approx 30+ more horses than when it came in.

In reference to my post above, I meant before the chip some rpm's the hp's were weaker and some were higher...This was due to incorrect mapping for all the bolt on mods that was on the car. After the piggyback was installed, it was all corrected.

Some claims and dyno runs (real and imagined) are clearly on 100 octane race gas, something to take into account particularly in comparison to the X-51 gain which is not.

Dima has before and after dyno results on his car. I will try to post them up when I get a chance.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Some claims and dyno runs (real and imagined) are clearly on 100 octane race gas, something to take into account particularly in comparison to the X-51 gain which is not. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I think you are correct about this...I happened to have a can of NOS octane boost in the tank when they did my chip, so it would be tuned for the highest possible performance. I dunno if that octane booster even really works though.

I agree, I know every detail of what Porsche did in the X51 and have built numerous race motors from 1.5l Honda's to 540ci big blocks. There is not 40 wheel hp in a new 996 motor. A 944 turbo sure, but not a 996. 10 hp I'll give you, but without chaning cams and injectors and doing head work, its going to be hard to get that much more out.