Yea I dunno if I made much of a thread yet. Like I said, I’ll get around to making a build thread, b/c I’ve done a fair bit so far, but mostly little things or maintenance (997 GT3 shifter; wrapped 75% of wood in alcantra; replaced stock nav with ipad mini 4g, speakers, and amp; catless fabspeed 2.75" exhaust, spark plugs, boost hoses, new DV’s).
Yea the aftermarket scene is weird. Most of it is pretty pathetic, but then there are also some ridiculous builds. the 996’s have been doing 60-130 in mid 4’s for about 5 or 6 years now though. I’m not a fan of the 60-130 test, but fuck that is moving!
It’s a lot of the same issues the B5 had in the tuning world. It’s a very easy motor to get quick gains out of, so a lot of cookie cutter tunes and exhuasts, but not a lot of GOOD products out there. But everyone will sell you a tune, and make good money off ya. Search youtube for “protomotive porsche” and you’ll see what type work they do. Most of their stuff is $50+k builds going for 1xxx-2xxxhp. So they obviously know their shit, but I’ve been impressed how nice Todd has treated me even though I told him my max goals were in the 600/600 realm and over the course of a couple of years.
Anyhow, most the porsche is just overpriced junk. It’s amazing, it’s almost a bragging right to say you spent the most lol. The most comical is the straight back catless test pipes. I.e. 2 pipes, 2 flanges, and tips going straight from the turbos to the bumper (~2.5ft). You can’t find them for under a grand new, sometimes closer to $2k. . . like wtf??? Then you can find some "catback exhausts for close to $10k new. . . like literally 5ft of piping per side max and some mufflers. . . But as the cars are becoming more affordable, and guys from M5’s/S4’s/etc move into them, more “stage” builds are starting to happen and real numbers being questions. A lot of 996 guys take their car to the track too (well both tracks) so it’s good to validate the data that way. It used to be more of, I shipped my car to xyz, which is what the 997 market is right now. When you can afford $150k sticker as a toy car, you probably don’t care much about doing things in $1500 increments when you could just do it all at once.
But the motor that is in the 996 turbo is actually one of the best motors porsche ever made. It basically was used from the late 80’s to almost 2000 in their GT1 race car. Irony was, Porsche was almost broke, so instead of developing a cheaper motor, it seemed easier to use that motor as it was proven and they already had it. Win for the customer down the road, b/c 600whp is nothing for it. Ya gotta be a bit more careful with the torque unless you do rods, but there are some guys even at 700whp on stock motor.
Anyhow, the mod scene is coming around for it, but never will compare to BMW or Audi etc. That’s why I would have loved JHM to get in on it since it is a VAG car. Tune, exhaust, and billets or bolt on upgraded turbos, and the car will respond very very well.
Also, I’m torn on the wheels. I really like the classic look of the porsche twist wheels, but I have the non-“hollow” wheels, and apparently the rears weigh in at ~30lbs per wheel lol. It’d be nice to shave some rotational mass there for sure.
