We have a 2021 Cayman we’re using for a swap and I’m curious what everyone is doing to wake these things up a bit? It’s not an S, it’s not a GT4, and we’re not looking to go crazy. But some punchier exhaust and a little more get up and go would be nice.

 

A tune and exhaust will do. Softronic, Cobb, APR and many other tunes available. Soul leads the exhaust parade, but there are also Kline, Akrapovic, Fabspeed and others. Many, many threads here. The search function will yield you many more details.

 

APR tune here, it's great. 2018 Boxster S.

 

I’ll check em out!

 

I’ve used Cobb before, I’ve heard of APR, I’ll probably try one of them.

 

Col thing about APR is they now have a cable that you buy to do the tune yourself but it can be used to tune as many cars as they have tunes for. Using the same cable for my 992.

 

As others have said, there are reputable aftermarket tuners that will uncork some power. There are also a dozen exhaust manufacturers that will make your car louder.

But if your goal is to be faster and more capable on all road conditions, these are the wisest places to spend your money:
1) Professional driving instruction including track time
2) Better tires
3) repeat often (join a driving club)

You will find that on the road, a competent driver in a stock 718 with top quality tires will almost always handily keep up with or outperform a tuned 718 with a less experienced pilot .. and the exhaust noise the slow driver hears is from the car in front.

 

I know you probably meant well when commenting this, and I do agree with all of it, tires matter and track time w/ an instructor do improve skills a lot, but when you make a comment like this it comes off extremely derogatory and makes you sound like a bit of an A**, I think you and I both know what OP was asking and it was not " how do I become a better drive". I've seen this response a bunch on various forums and it is just a pointless comment to make to someone asking about how to get more power out of their car.


Moving on- OP, you have already been told the basics and they are correct, exhaust and tune even on the base 2.0 wake it up a lot, and if it is a PDK tune, the PDK tune will help even more.

 

Mr Berk: Exactly what do you think your post makes you sound like? You agree with everything I wrote but you took the time out of your busy day to lash out at me personally. You and I know that the OP can spend vast amounts of money trying to make a base 2.0 engine something it was never intended to be, and it is ALWAYS good advice to steer them in the direction that would provide superior results for much less expense. That is precisely why you have seen this response on other forums. Our conversation is now over.

 

Base 2.0 responds great to mods actually, a simple tune and exhaust takes it to power levels close to the 4.0, and above the 4.0 in TQ. I took the time out of my day to respond to OP's question, you seem to have taken the time out of your day to give OP a lecture about what he should do with his money and his car, and I proceeded to take that same time to remind you that its not great decorum to try and lecture people about getting driving instructors vs modding THEIR cars. ( And since you really want to try and prove a point, there is no set of tires/ track day With insurance, or even day long driver instructor coupled with the track day that is cheaper than a tune for the 2.0)

 

Why do you assume the owner is not proficient track day driver?

 

you know what they say about assuming!

 

i think it's safe to say 95%, and probably a lot more, would not improve their street driving simply by changing from a high performance all season or summer tire, like the cars come with from the factory, to a different set of high performance all season or summer tire.

 

X2

 

Not to prolong the quibbling here, but if the original poster was a "proficient track day driver", perhaps:

1. He would have said so
2. He would have been familiar with all the performance options that any experienced track driver would know
3. He would have a profile listing his experience
4. He would not have purchased the base model
5. He would have posed a clear question citing that track performance would be the actual goal of the tuning, instead of just generally hoping for more pep.

Roule is correct. I would also recommend that "peppiness" starts with driver training. The Cayman has always been a light handling-focused car, not a ¼ mile sprint car. This car is the one to choose when you want a vehicle that responds to perfectly executed cornering, braking, transitions, and so forth. If instead the intent is to race stoplight to stoplight, well then most modern pony cars can dust a Cayman with ease, no matter how much tuning cash you want to burn.

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To the OP: APR, Cobb, Flat6, Burger, Equilibrium Tuning, Weistec, Techart, and others have been around long enough to know that they're doing. Turbo cars respond well to tuning to add a bit of both power and torque. Emissions, noise, drivability, fuel economy, fuel choice, and so forth are for you to trade off as you see fit. Cost will start at $1000-1500 but if you want real power, you're going to be in for more mods than just an ECU flash, and you'll need 93+ octane fuel.

For those who don't drive at 10/10ths on the street, Pedal Commander is a cheap way to crank up the gain on the throttle so the car feels peppier off the line, with fewer other powertrain tradeoffs.

You are not going to get >375 horsepower out of a either the 2.0 or 2.5 liter turbo engines without serious investment and many more tradeoffs. The 4.0 engine will give you about 440 horses. If you want a kickass car with usable power everywhere, then I highly recommend looking at Corvettes. (Seriously). A base Corvette is less expensive and will give you 495 horses out of the box or 1064 horses with the ZR-1 model, if power is the most important thing. They are bigger and less nimble than the Caymans, but they do not lack for power.