porsche mania

Hopefully I'm looking at a 2002 boxster s later today, the car has a 3.4 996 engine that has been fully rebuilt to 3.7 and fitted with cams and headers. Autofarm, who fitted the engine and did the rebuild, claim around 370bhp from this type of build. The car belongs to a friend of a friend and I haven't seen it for a while, I remember it has some gt3 carbon bucket seats but not sure what else. I'm so excited to go for a test drive that I though I'd try and satisfy the cravings by asking you guys if you have anything similar and what your impressions are of it. If the test drive goes well I'll be straight back with pictures, after running the tank dry on all the back roads around my house of course. Jim.

Macster

Sounds interesting. My 2002 Boxster has the 2.7l engine it left the factory with. It has been a great car and surprisingly even with "just" a 2.7l engine runs pretty darn good. Can't imagine what it would feel like with a hotrodded 3.7l engine. (Well, with my 2nd car a 2003 996 Turbo with just over 400hp I have an idea of what it might feel like...)

Remember the car is just a used car so be sure you give it a thorough used car check out.

You plan to road test the car which is important. Be sure it handles the city roads with the stop and go stuff and the the highways as well as the back roads.

Afterwards get a PPI. This will get the car in the air so checks can be made for any leaks.

GTorTT

A few years ago I saw a Cayman at Coffee & Cars that had a 911 engine and a GT3 front end. Basically a re-skin on the whole car. Don't know what the guy had invested in it, but it looked good. I think this is the car.

grrrmonster

A friend in our PCA region has one with a 911 engine, the fellow who owns one of our local Porsche dealerships put a GT3RS motor in his. The dealership- Sewickley Porsche did both of the swaps. I can tell you those are are quick and pretty reliable.

From what the dealer owner stated "To make the Gt3 RS engine fit in my car, we had to cut and fix the front firewall, in 2 places. Cut and fix the bracing between the rear shock towers, change the transmission mounting points and lower the entire assembly 2 inches to get it all to fit. For cooling we added 2 external oil coolers and a larger transmission cooler.".

Make sure it was professionally done. They had a lot of wiring harness and computer issues to work out when the swap was first done

Macster

That had to cost some money.

Byprodriver

the fellow who owns one of our local Porsche dealerships put a GT3RS motor in his. The dealership- Sewickley Porsche did both of the swaps. I can tell you those are are quick and pretty reliable.

From what the dealer owner stated "To make the Gt3 RS engine fit in my car, we had to cut and fix the front firewall, in 2 places. Cut and fix the bracing between the rear shock towers, change the transmission mounting points and lower the entire assembly 2 inches to get it all to fit. For cooling we added 2 external oil coolers and a larger transmission cooler.".

Make sure it was professionally done. They had a lot of wiring harness and computer issues to work out when the swap was first done[/QUOTE]

None of this has any relevance to swapping a M96 engine with another M96 engine. I sleeved my original Box "S" engine to 3.6L adding about 45 ft/lbs of torque. It makes a huge difference & I have no desire for additional power in my Daily driver.

mikefocke

Is it drive-able? HP is for the top end, torque for the low end. Often you sacrifice one for the other.

Schnell Gelb

This engine is an oddball.
1. It is in England,not USA.
2. It is modified by AUTOFARM.
Autofarm have an odd reputation.I suggest you ask on the U.K. Boxster and Porsche Forums for details because Autofarm do not sell in USA. Start with iron liners.

SCOTTL64

Mine has a 3.6 x51 motor. Crazy fast. Handles like a go kart. Highly recommend it.

porsche mania

Not really sure what to make of your response, obviously I know the car etc is in England? I already put in the starting post that it was modified by autofarm. I'm also fairly sure autofarm have sold many engines to the US as I've already done plenty of research on this. As for their reputation all I've seen is that they are an authority on early water-cooled 911 engines.
I simply wondered if anyone here had a boxster with a 911 engine, not specifically from autofarm!

Schnell Gelb

Sorry if the American-English confuses.Just clarification for the Colonies.You may have noted(?) we predominate here on Rennlist. To us, Lincolnshire is in Illinois btw. And fyi Autofarm is insignificant here compared to U.K. And their reputation depends on how much time you spend with Hartech.The 3.7 from Autofarm is different from the 3.4 upgrades here. It has their iron(silisleve) liners- fairly unusual here and not favored by LN ,nor Hartech.Since your respondents ,so far are all Yanks it was a way of helping filter some of their U.S.A.-centric responses for you.
We could certainly tell you about the LN/Raby 3.6 upgrde engines if that would help? But they are quite different in a myriad of details.Rennlisters with a 911 engine in a Boxster(Your question) will often use an LN or somewhat similar engine or even a straight 3.4 (996)swap. There is one near me in L.A. So most of our comments would be non-specific to both your engine and anything similar.In fact they would be for very different engines and may be quite (unintentionally) misleading. Hope this syntax works for you.
Search for "Markus" aka Smallblock - he ,as The Man In The High Castle, may be able to give a neutral zone perspective to help you.

porsche mania

I understand what you meant now, I suppose the main thing I wanted to know was how an early boxster handles that sort of power so maybe it was me that should have been clearer!
I picked the car up last night. As it turns out the motor isn't cammed it's a 3.4 996 engine rebuilt to 3.7 with an upgraded ims etc. The car drives like a factory car and absolutely everything works, well, apart from the traction control! The motor has nearly 30k on it since being rebuilt and apart from a mapping adjustment has only needed routine servicing. I didn't really need another car, a 964 and an old alfa keep me busy enough but it was so cheap that I had to buy it. I'll get some pics up later.

porschedog

FVD did a 911 engine into a Boxster swap about ten years ago. It came out nice and very drivable but it was a Huge and Long project. The car was sent to Germany at one point in the project to be de bugged.

LexVan

It's the other way around. All the 911s have a Boxster motor with just a larger bore.

Mark Dreyer

Yes, I have one. Words can not describe how much fun this car is.