Here's the story with my times... When I first got the car I Gtech'd it on a cool crisp March day.... It ran 7.6 0-60 and 15.9 in the quartermile (2 fat people in the car) . I got the chip in the summer and ran pre chip on a hot and humid day was running more of an 8.1 and 16.5 not to surprising the engine doesn't make quite as much power under those conditions. I reran it about an hour later and ran a 7.3 and a 15.6. Again 2 people in the car. So I'm thinking it would be under a 7 on a cool day but I haven't done it yet. The chip was essentially an Autothority.

 

Those sound like fair numbers. I was thinking she should run somewhere around 15.0-15.5 at about 92-94 mph with a few basic upgrades and the right conditions.

I've seen 15.66 @ 89.7 with a ~2.4 sec 60-foot; get that 60 down to 2.2 secs and a 15.4 should be within reach under perfect conditions. The intake/exhaust/chip and some good luck may see it to a low 15, I guess time will tell. That also matches a just-under-7 second 0-60 sprint.

Not that I'm going to be drag racing the car, but to say that no one is concerned with acceleration is silly.

 

Car and Driver tested it at 6.8 0-60 and 15.2 @ 90 mph.
Road and Track was 7.5 and 15.8 @ 89 mph.

I would figure with slightly better gearing through low profile tires, a bit extra power, and lower weight that a decent driver shouldn't have much trouble getting a 7 sec time.

 

There really isn't any power to be gained with this motor. It is already a pretty high-strung motor that has too many reliability issues. I'd leave the motor stock and just do light mods to the suspension to tighten it up a little, and call it a day. To think on this car that chips, air filters, exhaust, or cams are going to make the car faster is pure naivete. Maybe you might get a few extra peak hp (right before the engine blows itself into a million little pieces), but to actually get enough additional area under the curve to make the car faster is prohibitively expensive (you might as well go out and buy a Turbo, S2 or 968 and you'd be saving yourself a lot of money and headache). If you want a faster 944, you'll need to buy a different model.

As for my experiences, I did eventually get my 944S to be considerably faster, and it involved only one modification...S2 motor.

 

I agree to a point...but not entirely. I mean, Porsche may have been a few steps up on the competition - but it's still a passenger car with a passenger car motor, built to please the EPA, not the race car driver. The car had to be made to run on crappy gas, and pass smog in California...so I do think I will be able to get just a *little* more out of it.

Not to mention...I have now seen 200whp from the *8v* motors when built to the hilt (N/A 8v 2.8's). It just depends on how much money you want to spend really. The same amount of work into a 16V would naturally produce more power.

And besides, the S2 is only rated at what, 208hp (ignoring the TQ, it has a huge displacement advantage)? Well...that's only a 20hp difference.

I'm willing to bet that you could reach 208 crank HP relatively easily in the S. Between the chip (4 or 5?), intake (1 or 2?), exhaust and test pipe (6 or 7?), there is certainly 10hp or more to be had. Add cams and/or headwork (10 to 20?), and it should easily best the S2 in HP, and then some. My motor is apart right now, so headwork or cams is no extra work at this point. Just not sure what I want to do.

TQ, again, is another story...I know that....but this isn't a race motor in stock form, and I don't think you need to rev to 8-9 grand to get a small bump in power out of it. As it is, the stock redline is a relatively lofty 6850, isn't it? I doubt the peak power will go past 6900, even w/ cams and headwork.

It just seems this is one of those motors where everyone has an opinion, but nobody has a dyno. I intend to dyno ASAP...gimme a month or two!

 

Sean,
I'd definitely be interested in what you find. I am autocrossing my 87 S right now but in the next year or two plan on getting into drivers ed or even some club racing, and have been debating whether I should dump the S and buy a turbo (again) or beef up the S and learn to drive it well before buying a faster car.
hmmmm..........

 

Well, in defense of the Turbo...the engine itself would be easier to work on and less to worry about having only 1 cam and 8 valves.

And I do *not* plan on building up this motor...I only want to spice it up a little up from the stock ratings. I am coming from a VW that leaves 951's in the dust, so it just seems weird to move to a Porsche that is slower than my Volkswagen was...lol.

Like I said...I'll do the chip, create an intake, and probably a 3" exhaust and a test pipe. I'll see what results I get, and go from there. I don't think I'll opt for the headwork right now, but I am still up in the air about the cams.

I'm waiting to hear back from Milledge on the cams (though he says the dyno shows roughly 12 to 24hp over stock depending on the cams...it's just that ~15hp for 1600 bucks is a hard fact to take, knowing a Turbo can get 125hp for the same money...lol).

But even without the cams...I can see 15hp being a reasonable gain with the other stuff on a healthy motor and good tires to roll on the dyno. So that would be about ~203hp or so.

At any rate, we'll see...and I will certainly keep you posted!

 

Put a supercharger on it. It is what I plan to do with my 1988 S this fall. Don't let people tell you the compression is too high either, i put a turbo running almost 10 psi on a 10.5:1 saab motor--all stock interals and the headgasket is runnin strong! Of course, you ARE going to have reliablity issues, but again the turbo is more complicated and is known to have more techincal problems. And run really high octane gas, unless you like parts places to take your money.

You may end up spewing the S tranny, probably would want to invest in a turbo one....what ill most likely do. Besides, if you put a supercharger on it whats the point of messing up the weight balance and weight in general of the car with a V-8. Plus, it will only get touger to work on with everythign stuffed in there. You'll get enough power to put a massive grin on anyones face.

Performance and reliability tend to have an inverse relationship.

 

If you look closely...the 944s gets its max horsepower at a higher rpm than the s2. Its like taking a s2000...sure the numbers make it look fast, but when youre shifting at 3k...the car hardly moves. I doubt youll get it to be faster than an s2 with light modifications as the torque numbers on the s2 are vastly higher.

Anyways, good luck!

 

Sean, the GURU chip for 944NAs get +5hp, so I'm sure I can squeeze out a little more from a 944S. I'm working with another guy on some mods, send me an email and I'll discuss it further with you.

 

According to what I've read the S has the same Trans as the turbo except for a short 5th gear and different Final drive ratio.

 

Not quite: someone posted this a while back and I find this rather handy:
944 Transmissions

 

The 944S doesn't have the hardend 1st and 2nd gears of the 951.

Is that graph showing top speed based on the gear ratio or real life? I know for a fact the 944S is geared for more than 131mph. Even if my speedo is off a little bit on the higher end, 30mph difference is a lot considering I know my car is accurate at 90mph.

 

Danno - You have a PM!

As for the gearing...ALL of these cars are geared for more than 131mph! I just calculated the gear ratios, and if I didn't royally screw it up, here's what I came up with...

'86 951
.93 5th
3.38 RP
225/50/16
164.69mph @ 7000 rpm

'88-S
.778 5th
3.775 RP
215/60/15
168.83mph @ 6800 rpm

'91 S2
.78 5th
3.88 RP (are these the same as the S, just rounded up?)
225/50/16
166.60mph @ 7000 rpm

Regardless of whether or not those speeds are off...if the gear ratios are correct, it shows the 16V N/A's are geared significantly higher than the Turbos, which would slow down acceleration but increase the (theoretical) top speed.

A Turbo tranny in an S should pick up quicker 0-100 accel it looks like!

Can anyone confirm these ratios I posted? I know with the VW's, there were multiple transmission codes used in the same model of car, all having slightly different ratios. Is this the same case here, or are ALL of the trannys the same?

 

I am not sure where these came from but they differ from those I have:
5th @ .83 & FD @ 3.89 for the 944S. I think this is the same gear ratios (1st-5th) as the 86 951 but the latter has a 3.38 FD. I think that .78 5th gear is from the 944S2 (can't find my links now though ). For the gear sets, you can look at the SCCA ITCS as it will have the gear ratios (or multiples if that's the case). Don't have an '04 here so I can't verify the 944S but could have sworn I compared my numbers to it in Fastrack and they were as specified:

1st @ 3.50
2nd @ 2.06
3rd @ 1.40
4th @ 1.03
5th @ .83