ROW 4?

Has anyone heard or have experience with tuning the DME to ROW4 spec. Apparently this can be done easily and is completely reversable without the dealer ever knowing. It is claimed to add about 25 HP to the stock 996 and is a Porsche factory tune which is already in the DME. What I was told is that US has heavier restrictions on emissions that causes the "detuning" and the rest of world gets the more powerful tune. Any input?

Yes, ROW4 is called the 997S. The DME modification includes an entire new body style and suspension as well and only costs $25k plus trade-in.

Ok, this is what I learned. In the ECU when attached to the PST2, you can choose to upload differing ECU setting into the car. The choices are (as much as I can remember) US manual US tip EU manual 2 EU tip 2 EU manual 3 EU tip 3 (there are another pair of EU but I forget the numbers) Japan manual Japan tip X-51 manual x-51 tip Anyone know what the differences are between these tunings?

That is interesting indeed. I would be very curious to know what the difference is between US manual, and EU Manual 2 & 3. I wonder if it is more than an emissions control scenario or rev-limiter.

Sorry guys I just got off the phone with a Porsche Tech ( very good Friend and a fellow 996er) This DM4 is not possible this side of the Pond,It has been working on this since MY 2000. He thinks it is possible and might have a fix soon, but nothing yet. Paul

Hey Paul, Would it worthwhile to use any of the other Euro settings?

This is an interesting thread. Excuse my ignorance but what do you need to access the settings in the DME? And if the DME can't be reset, could someone just buy a european DME and get the extra 25 hp? Anyone know what the hp specs were for 996s in Europe?

Ok , I asked him about those Euro settings , The car will not take the program . Fishman to get into the DME you need a tool that Porsche has called the PET.Now this is not all bad news, he thinks he has a work around but as I said he has been working on it for a while. He thinks it will be done around spring. He is heading out to Germany for Training and part of that training is the Advance DME language. We should keep this post alive so we can check back on the prosess.

Thanks Paul. Mind you, I guess the real question is whether it's worth the hassle. Hopefully your friend will find out exactly what these Euro settings are supposed to offer relative to the US spec. If the RoW suspension is any indication, then perhaps the DME mod to Euro spec would be worthwhile. Interestingly, some years ago when I was really into motorcycles, I was surprised to learn that the UK mandated horsepower ceilings of 100bhp. So, bikes from the states were the hot commodities. This wasn't such a big deal back then since not too many bikes made more than 100bhp, but these days, you'd be giving up about 33% in power since many of these bikes are like full-borne jets.

Well he does know of the Euro settings and he does free up some HP, he thinks 15-20, but we wont know until he thinks of some way to get it to take the program

I don't know what the mechanic is talking about since I saw in person, my mechanic go into the DME and reprogram it easily. It takes the program with no problem. They did have to call someone at Porsche and fax a copy of my registration to get an "unlock" code to enter the programming mode but it went in. As for my impression, it didn't do a thing. I am putting it back to US spec until I get an answer

^ This is why he is working on it, you thought the car accepted the new settings, it didn't, It may show that it did, but it didn't.This guy is a tech for Porsche and I am sure he knows .I will leave it up to him until he has it working. I will keep all who wants it done the right way up to date.Again this depends on Model and MY, so I can only assume the that mitch236 is talking about a 996 like what we have been discussing.