I've been looking around the boards and most people seem to suggest selling a NA and getting a 951, however, I want to stick with the car I have for another 5 or more years. In the (distant) future when I save up some more money I might think about some more serious performance upgrades. My car was chipped and had some head work already done by the PO, but I doubt thats getting all that much over stock. What are some safe, reliable, and relatively cost effective ways of getting more power? Whats everyone's opinion on turbocharging an NA, stroker kits, etc. etc.

 

There are more beneficial performance upgrades than increasing power -- suspension upgrade, make the vehicle lighter or make the driver better.

But if you're set on power and you're set on keeping the car, I'd suggest an engine swap. Personally, I'm quite happy with the 968 engine under my hodd. You might not consider it to be relatively cost effective -- but then that's all relative.

 

The only way you are going to see significant gains on an N/A is to either tear down the engine and bore it out to 3 litres, do some crank work, aggressive head work, cam work, and rev quite high. Other than that the only option is to turn the N/A into a forced induction car via turbocharging or supercharging the engine. Costs are relativly the same for both. ie 5000 to 7000 $.

Christian

 

Thanks. Susp is not a worry for me. Thats been taken care of by the PO. The car has 951 sway bars and Bilstein cup shocks and it rides nice, low and flat as is. The only thing is the left balljoint is just starting to be a tad loose. Replacing that won't really be considered an upgrade though.

I was leaning towards forced air induction, but how safe would that be on a nearly 20 year old car? I guess just a modest boost wouldn't be that risky.

 

If your compression numbers are still good, and you have done a leakdown test, and it's not bad, you should be safe running a few pounds of boost, on a N/A car, due to the high compression ratio, I wouldn't run more than 5lbs of boost on a higher mileage car, I may be a little conservative there, but you shouldn't risk damaging your engine for quite some time. If you have some cash to burn, rebuild the engine, I believe I saw a stroker kit to bring it up to 2.8L, but it may not be the best way to go. If you are worried about the condition of the engine, you could only go 3lbs boost? Would give you a decent performance gain, with minimal risk.