P. Ortiz

Thanks everyone, for your replies. If I learned any one thing, it's that there are plenty of different approaches to take for making more power. I'm going to study how the various options work, revisit my horsepower target, and then work-out a plan before starting anything so that I get as close as possible the first time around. Cheers.

Chris White

The most important thing – be honest with yourself about what you want. If you are telling yourself that you would be happy forever with another 30hp….think about it again. That’s where most people start…thinking that they don’t need 100hp….then they start smoking the hp crack pipe and it all goes downhill from there…

Seriously – really think about what you see doing with your car in 1, 5 and 10 years….its will really make a difference in what you will do now.

toddk911

Good point. WG, injectors, 3BAR FPR and cat bypass/cat back are the base mods that really do not get changed down the road. And staying with that mindset I would just get 72# injectors and be done instead of 55 and then possibly upranding those to 72 down the road.

Although, the above mods will require a chip/tune to match.

Josh B

P. Ortiz - you should update your profile with the general location you are in - there might be some rennlisters close to you with modified cars that you could check out.

One of the first things I would recommend doing is take your car to the dyno - put the stock chips back in and lose the boost enhancer and see what your car is putting down power wise. You could do a seperate run with the chips and boost enhancer as well.

I guess what I am getting at is that sometimes I think these mods have a placebo effect - folks spend all this money and time and effort and think their car is that much faster when actually the gains are minimal.

You would probably have more fun leaving your car the way it is and getting involved in your local PCA club autocrosses and driver's eds

944Fest (aka Dan P)

Be careful over there, P., there is a slippery spot.. whoops.. There he goes!!!

carlege

Vintesse had a "cheater" setup a while ago that he was mentioning and got somewhere around 270 hp at the wheels on not extreme boost. This might be worth looking into. No price was mentioned

JohnKoaWood

That would be "Stealth" not cheater...

http://www.vitesseracing.com/html/stage_1_stealth.html

I have taken the approach of adding performance and driveability to my car... this has worked well for me... but boost is like herpies, once it has a hold on you, you will NEVER get rid of it...

it will start off with "Well maybe just 1 psi more...."
then it becomes "Well, I can pick up those bigger injectors and run a little bit MORE boost"
Then it will morph to "I wonder how much a 3L motor will cost"

Were I to do it again, I would do it the same, it has been a fun ride, and I look forward to where it will go from here...

Good Luck and GO BIG OR GO HOME!

carlege

Thanks john. People say go big or go home. i was told this when Putting a 3" lift on my explorer. Once the lift was on and all was straightend out i was very satified and felt content with the vehicle. You can always go faster but get to the point of contentment. And be reasonable with yourself. Reliability ranks high with me so that would factor into my Modification or lack of.

JohnKoaWood

Oh there you go with the reliability card...

Reliability can be had with big HP, IMHO one of the biggest factors in reliability is use... if you park the car and only drive it once a month durring nice weather, any build will break..

My cobbled together monstrosity has been dead nuts reliable for 14 months, even running 15PSI and doing HARD 5th gear pulls on the highway... but I drive it almost every day... and my motor was hurting before I got the car, so it isn;t like I haven't been waiting for it to blow up.. these days I am in the "How much can I throw at this thing" mode... and she just keeps taking it even if she tells me when she isn't happy (blows oil of the of RMS above 15 PSI, and has now started blowing THICK smoke if idling too long, or pushed hard... it is a matter of time, but I am looking for motivation to start on a new engine build

ibkevin

Lots of good points..

Take the time and $$ to start with a mechanically sound motor.

Dougs951

And this folks is how you end up riding in a Dodge van to 944fest...

JohnKoaWood

Or are you trying to motivate me... I'll start ripping her apart when I get home, and start procedings to get my hands on a hot little number to tuck in under the hood....

Dougs951

I can't say much, my car isn't running right now...But I do have a box of parts heading to the house.


But back to the topic at hand.

I would learn to drive the car to its full potential first.

JohnKoaWood

HA.. I drove mine to work today..

There is TONS of notional info out there...

Chris White is on the money when he says "rock solid motor" as a good starting point..

Be honest with yourself on an objective for the car, be honest with yourself about your persoanl abilities (I have done 100% of the work to my 951 by myself)...

And most of all, have fun with it...

fast951

One point everyone must have missed: the OP is considering track driving.
Starting with a car making lots of power for someone new to the track is not a good idea. It's difficult to learn driving a high powered car and will create many bad habits. The same goes for a car with lots of lag (even with tons of power), it will be a handful to drive and will be slower than a a car with low lag and a linear output powerband.