GT4 power upgrades - Page 3 - Boxster/Cayman - PistonHeads UK

I took delivery of my GT4 this week and was out for a long drive early this morning. I was playing with a mate who has a 992.7 GT3. Through most of the twistes there is not alot in it between the 2 cars although the GT3 definitely has better traction out of corners, but once the road opened up i was quite suprised by kust how much quicker a GT3 is. The GT4 does feel slightly limp in the middle of the rev range and then wakes up again above 5500 rpm. I know its been detuned, so theoretically it shouldnt be too hard to get 430 to 450 bhp out of it. There seem to be some full exhust and ecu sytems for sale that give a useful 10 ish percent more power. Does anyone have first hand experience of liberating some more power out of a GT4?

Check out Ehresmann Automotive, they have done a lot of development work on the GT4. Not sure if there are any in the UK though.

I had Jens install and tune a 3.8L 991S engine in my 981 PDK Cayman S 18 months ago. Absolutely no problems, you would not know it was not a Porsche factory build. See http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ehr... I believe a UK GT4 has been tuned by Jens recently.

I had Jens install and tune a 3.8L 991S engine in my 981 PDK Cayman S 18 months ago. Absolutely no problems, you would not know it was not a Porsche factory build. See http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ehr... I believe a UK GT4 has been tuned by Jens recently.

Ravi355 said: I took delivery of my GT4 this week and was out for a long drive early this morning. I was playing with a mate who has a 992.7 GT3. Through most of the twistes there is not alot in it between the 2 cars although the GT3 definitely has better traction out of corners, but once the road opened up i was quite suprised by kust how much quicker a GT3 is. The GT4 does feel slightly limp in the middle of the rev range and then wakes up again above 5500 rpm. I know its been detuned, so theoretically it shouldnt be too hard to get 430 to 450 bhp out of it. There seem to be some full exhust and ecu sytems for sale that give a useful 10 ish percent more power. Does anyone have first hand experience of liberating some more power out of a GT4? Wait until you get owned by a 3.0 diesel estate .

Speak to http://bgbmotorsports.com they can get 430bhp + pretty economically or even more depending on budget out of a GT4. It should have really got the GT3 engine but long term may be a blessing in disguise having a stock Carrera S engine. http://rennlist.com/forums/gt4/882246-gt4-unlockin...

I spoke extensively with John Teece at BGB before using Ehresmann. John does not have the capability to support non-USA installalations and he sells Ehresmann tunes as well as the simpler Cobb AccessPort tunes. If you want to go the AccessPort route, try Litchfield Engineering. Iain showed me around their operation - it is very impressive, engineering based with one of best (Maha) dyno rooms I've seen outside Cosworth.

gtsralph said: I spoke extensively with John Teece at BGB before using Ehresmann. John does not have the capability to support non-USA installalations and he sells Ehresmann tunes as well as the simpler Cobb AccessPort tunes. If you want to go the AccessPort route, try Litchfield Engineering. Iain showed me around their operation - it is very impressive, engineering based with one of best (Maha) dyno rooms I've seen outside Cosworth. I agree re Litchfield. I was up there last week. Super impressive set up.

franki68 said: Wait until you get owned by a 3.0 diesel estate . Has this actually happened or are you joking?

jens is the best route, I can upload his 981 power pdf if you like.

v8ksn said: Has this actually happened or are you joking? in a drag race vs a 335d xdrive ,or a Audi bi turbo diesel I think the gt4 would struggle.if it did win it would be a narrow margin. I've seen a 997 c2s lose against an Audi A6 biturbo diesel in a drag race ,so these things do happen.the gt4 is just not very fast in a straight line. Makes up for it through the bends though.

anonymous said: [redacted] I would like to have seen the GT4 against the E90 335d running a 6-spd manual box and 414bhp, which was on track at Bedford recently. That put the fear of god in me...

these 3L oil burner ownners are funny, they feel fast but would get owned by a GT4 and prob even my Fiesta lol BMW 330D which seems to be a benchmark is over 14 seconds to a ton vs 9 for a GT4 ! BMW 335 Xdrive 13.6 still !!! these figures are night and day apart

Porsche911R said: these 3L oil burner ownners are funny, they feel fast but would get owned by a GT4 and prob even my Fiesta lol BMW 330D which seems to be a benchmark is over 14 seconds to a ton vs 9 for a GT4 ! BMW 335 Xdrive 13.6 still !!! these figures are night and day apart Should have gone to Specsavers... A 414bhp/420ft/lbs 335d is not a 13.6 qtr mile car... I own a GT3, which is still marginally quicker than a GT4, and yet at Bedford when we had a rolling 30-150mph I struggled to pull away from the derv... Non remapped diesels of course have no chance against a GT4, doh! Edited by Cheburator mk2 on Monday 3rd October 14:12

Cheburator mk2 said: Should have gone to Specsavers... A 414bhp/420ft/lbs 335d is not a 13.6 qtr mile car... I own a GT3, which is still marginally quicker than a GT4, and yet at Bedford when we had a rolling 30-150mph I struggled to pull away from the derv... Non remapped diesels of course have no chance against a GT4, doh! Edited by Cheburator mk2 on Monday 3rd October 14:12 I quoted 100mph times, I could say "Should have gone to Specsavers... " but that's a bit immature :-) Edited by Porsche911R on Monday 3rd October 15:06

But in reality it is is true. Who changes down 3 gears on the motorway? My old man's 991 C4S cab is the worst, slowest, fattest 911 you can buy - sometimes i've been in 2nd on the motorway in Sport Plus as it rather embarrasingly attempts to move forward at a pace. Meanwhile, the big engined diesels make no fuss and surge away. With a GT4, you'd be floundering for the right gear whilst they've already taken off. Of course it's all silly and egotistical but..let's face it, we can all be idiots sometimes. No one is doubting a GT4 would beat most cars if in the right gear, but on the motorway you are normally in top gear. Underestimate a repmobile in ebb and flow traffic at your peril!

I've wasted hours on this site A few Porsche examples vs a 335d: http://fastestlaps.com/comparisons/bzkbvai96a9z

Its fun to change down 3 gears! Sometimes, all you need at motorway speeds for a little alacrity is to change from 6th to 4th with a blip of the throttle and away you go

I own a GT4, my wife drives a 330d. I've never even thought of comparing the two. The cogs in my head are jamming! I don't get this discussion!

anonymous said: [redacted] On the money. Couldn't of said it better myself!

umm, motorway / A roads today - downshift from 7th to 2nd :-) rinse and repeat when necessary and with flappy paddles. May have been the odd tunnel en route too... I paid for all the gears, so I'm damn well gonna use them as and when the opportunity arrises !

hondansx said: But in reality it is is true. Who changes down 3 gears on the motorway? My old man's 991 C4S cab is the worst, slowest, fattest 911 you can buy - sometimes i've been in 2nd on the motorway in Sport Plus as it rather embarrasingly attempts to move forward at a pace. Meanwhile, the big engined diesels make no fuss and surge away. With a GT4, you'd be floundering for the right gear whilst they've already taken off. Of course it's all silly and egotistical but..let's face it, we can all be idiots sometimes. No one is doubting a GT4 would beat most cars if in the right gear, but on the motorway you are normally in top gear. Underestimate a repmobile in ebb and flow traffic at your peril! Really? I had a 997 C4S and even in 6th gear at motorway speeds it picked up more than adequately to overtake dawdling traffic. Otherwise change down to 4th - that's what the gearbox is for! I guess in the 991 if you are in 7th then that is very highly geared, so a drop down to 5th would be appropriate.

Porsche911R said: these 3L oil burner ownners are funny, they feel fast but would get owned by a GT4 and prob even my Fiesta lol BMW 330D which seems to be a benchmark is over 14 seconds to a ton vs 9 for a GT4 ! BMW 335 Xdrive 13.6 still !!! these figures are night and day apart And so is the "real world" driving experience. I own a 335xd and a GT4. There are no rational circumstances under which the 335xd is quicker. It weighs over 1700kg for a start. For once I agree with Demon - night and day apart.

So back on topic...... The upgrade for the GT4 seems to be a full exhaust system with race cats and an ecu upgrade. This liberates 430 bhp and the good news is that the power is all the top of the rev range. Parr will supply and fit so am going down to have a chat with them tomorrow to look at the dyno readouts and get an idea for what the engine will feel like. I can understand why porsche released the car the way they did, but its great to know that you can make a few tweaks to it to turn it in to what it really should of been out of the factory.

Ravi355 said: So back on topic...... The upgrade for the GT4 seems to be a full exhaust system with race cats and an ecu upgrade. This liberates 430 bhp and the good news is that the power is all the top of the rev range. Parr will supply and fit so am going down to have a chat with them tomorrow to look at the dyno readouts and get an idea for what the engine will feel like. I can understand why porsche released the car the way they did, but its great to know that you can make a few tweaks to it to turn it in to what it really should of been out of the factory. Excellent, keep us updated. Is it the Ehresmann stuff they're using

Ravi355 said: So back on topic...... The upgrade for the GT4 seems to be a full exhaust system with race cats and an ecu upgrade. This liberates 430 bhp and the good news is that the power is all the top of the rev range. Parr will supply and fit so am going down to have a chat with them tomorrow to look at the dyno readouts and get an idea for what the engine will feel like. I can understand why porsche released the car the way they did, but its great to know that you can make a few tweaks to it to turn it in to what it really should of been out of the factory. As you are looking at including an ECU tune, you should also think of the intake side. The engine is constrained at the top end mainly by the stock plenum and 78mm throttle body. Parr are IPD stockists so I'd suggest adding IPD plenum and 82mm throttle body together with BMC air filter. If you are doing track days, I doubt you'll get on track because of noise from race cats. Jens ran 137db drive by at Nurburgring in his M&M race exhaust system. Really interesting project you're looking at, hope you'll keep posting on progress. Edited by gtsralph on Tuesday 4th October 08:00

Ravi355 said: So back on topic...... The upgrade for the GT4 seems to be a full exhaust system with race cats and an ecu upgrade. This liberates 430 bhp and the good news is that the power is all the top of the rev range. Parr will supply and fit so am going down to have a chat with them tomorrow to look at the dyno readouts and get an idea for what the engine will feel like. I can understand why porsche released the car the way they did, but its great to know that you can make a few tweaks to it to turn it in to what it really should of been out of the factory. As you are looking at including an ECU tune, you should also think of the intake side. The engine is constrained at the top end mainly by the stock plenum and 78mm throttle body. Parr are IPD stockists so I'd suggest adding IPD plenum and 82mm throttle body together with BMC air filter.

there is no such thing as race cats on comsumer products. there are race manifolds which have no cats or manafolds with 200 cell sports cats. here is the tuning PDF from Jens, enjoy, it has all you need, I would not use any one in the UK when a trip to see Jens is easy. unless you are going to use a plug and play tune, but you may as well have the full RR tune ie stage 3. http://clubspyder.co.uk/gt4/981Powerkit.pdf

Porsche911R said: there is no such thing as race cats on comsumer products. there are race manifolds which have no cats or manafolds with 200 cell sports cats. here is the tuning PDF from Jens, enjoy, it has all you need, I would not use any one in the UK when a trip to see Jens is easy. unless you are going to use a plug and play tune, but you may as well have the full RR tune ie stage 3. http://clubspyder.co.uk/gt4/981Powerkit.pdf I agree go to the developer himself.

Porsche911R said: there is no such thing as race cats on comsumer products. there are race manifolds which have no cats or manafolds with 200 cell sports cats. here is the tuning PDF from Jens, enjoy, it has all you need, I would not use any one in the UK when a trip to see Jens is easy. unless you are going to use a plug and play tune, but you may as well have the full RR tune ie stage 3. http://clubspyder.co.uk/gt4/981Powerkit.pdf The pricing and the gains look very impressive when you compare them to Manthey (for example) for similar gains. Duesseldorf is a short-ish drive to the Ring along mostly derestricted autobahns - two birds with one stone

Ravi355 said: So back on topic...... The upgrade for the GT4 seems to be a full exhaust system with race cats and an ecu upgrade. This liberates 430 bhp and the good news is that the power is all the top of the rev range. Parr will supply and fit so am going down to have a chat with them tomorrow to look at the dyno readouts and get an idea for what the engine will feel like. I can understand why porsche released the car the way they did, but its great to know that you can make a few tweaks to it to turn it in to what it really should of been out of the factory. What did you think?

I'm in the process of doing the same thing on my GT4 and have just spoken to Lawrence from Parr who was very helpful and knowledgeable.He's going to e mail details to me and the package they use is in partnership with Cargraphic.Any insight into this would be much appreciated.

I've had an absolutely first class service from Jens Ehresmann, couldn't be more delighted. Thank you Ralph for introducing me !

Jens designed the Cargraphic package ;-) and they prob want to do an ECU swap. I would still go direct to Jens for a bespoke RR map on stage 3, it's the only route imo. you can also then have a 99ron vpower map done for you over a base 95 octain map. I have talked to Jens quite a lot, the TB removes the 5k torque dip and adds no real peak BHp so to speak. just £ to euro is the worse it's been atm so might be worth a wait.

So I spent the best part of 2 hours with Lawrence at Parr this morning. They have run my 996 RS for a while now, and I've go to say the more I talk to them the more impressed I become. As Taffy said, Parr do promote the Cargraphic system. They said they have tested 3 (specifically the 200 cell cats) and concluded Cargraphics is the best. They provide an ECU remap, headers, 200 cell cats, plenium, 82mm throttle body and BMC filters. There is an option to change the back box, but that only gives you an extra 9ish BHP and would make the car sound way too loud, and likely to fail noise tests. So I'm going to opt to keep the standard one. The car should still make just over 420 BHP with this set up. The dyno sheet is quite interesting. The gains over 5000 RPM look very good so it would feel like the car is coming on cam again over 5000 rpm, much the same way as the lump in 996 RS does, which is exactly what I am after. The only down side is the ecu needs to be sent off for the map to be installed, it not something that Parr do in house and therefore the car doesn't go on their dyno to get the best out of the install. But that said, if Jens did design the Cargraphic system as suggested on this thread, then potentially you could ask him for his map and a dyno session on the way to the 'Ring and see how the car performs, just need to check what the deal is with Cargraphic re getting their map reinstalled in the event that Jens' doesn't produce as much as theirs with hardware that's going on the car.

For info, Jens' dyno is at MTO Engineering located in the North West near Osnabruck. He licensed the package to Cargraphics to provide another distribution route for the product set. Edited by gtsralph on Tuesday 4th October 19:02

ravon said: I've had an absolutely first class service from Jens Ehresmann, couldn't be more delighted. Thank you Ralph for introducing me ! Chris F said you were happy with it... Have you thrown out the suspension's rubber bushing?

I've made quite a lot of changes to the car Ralph, some worthwhile, some not, I've met some super people during this journey, and I've met some charlatans . I've found a particular device which has like Jens mapping, has produced remarkable improvements to the car ( now having taken part in twenty-eight track days since my acquisition ). Because there are so many far smarter keyboard kings on this forum than I , who are ready to condemn anything I suggest to help, I'll PM you about it. All the Best.

Hi Ravon,any info you have to help in my quest to optimise my GT4 would be appreciated.I dont mind spending my hard earned money on worthwhile tweaks but by nature i detest wasting money through blind trial and error.PM me the info if you prefer it to remain incognito.Any experience with the COBB port tuning as i'm expecting a call back from Iain of Litchfield.

Taffy, I believe Litchfield are among the very best car improvers in the country, I'm certain they will have the best solutions.

Any updates Ravi?

ravon said: I've made quite a lot of changes to the car Ralph, some worthwhile, some not, I've met some super people during this journey, and I've met some charlatans . I've found a particular device which has like Jens mapping, has produced remarkable improvements to the car ( now having taken part in twenty-eight track days since my acquisition ). Because there are so many far smarter keyboard kings on this forum than I , who are ready to condemn anything I suggest to help, I'll PM you about it. All the Best. Very interesting Tim, would like to hear more details if you have any trackdays booked in the North any time soon I will try and meet up. If not could you PM me some details on engine mods to free up the breathing and eliminating the flat spot. Thanks

JayK12 said: Any updates Ravi? Ive opted to to install the Cargraphic headers, cats, plennium and eco and keep the standard back box. Sharkwerks also do a much lighter cutch & flywheel assembly which will really help to offset the longer gearing and give it a much more responsive throttle. I think once this is done it will be much closer to a 997.2 GT3 in terms of performance. I'm in the final stages of building a house in France so have more pressing priorities for the money at the moment, but will get this done march next year. Will post up my thoughts when I do so.

Ravi355 said: Ive opted to to install the Cargraphic headers, cats, plennium and eco and keep the standard back box. Sharkwerks also do a much lighter cutch & flywheel assembly which will really help to offset the longer gearing and give it a much more responsive throttle. I think once this is done it will be much closer to a 997.2 GT3 in terms of performance. I'm in the final stages of building a house in France so have more pressing priorities for the money at the moment, but will get this done march next year. Will post up my thoughts when I do so. Not trying to derail this thread, but I started reading about this build in France recently : http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a... It looks pretty epic, I'm not even half way through it yet though.

Bit of an old thread bump after a search... I'm potentially looking at an Agate Grey 981 Cayman GT4 which has some of these power mods fitted-and I do like a modified Porsche! Does anyone have any experience of these MTO mods? The car in question also has 200 cell cats and an M&M exhaust which I suspect may give issues at UK circuits.

Sounds like TDT’s old car?

Implus1 said: Sounds like TDT s old car? I have spoken with T today Not sure if it’s a common problem or a symptom of the modified exhaust but there’s a number of lambda sensor faults in the car’s history-are they a known weak point on the cars or anything? Could simply be something that’s failed but I can’t remember ever changing a lambda sensor let alone two in the same car.