Jus sayin

 

9% claim, that’s a lot

 

Cobb has very optimistic marketing.

FVD is the tune I have on my Porsches. I also have their headers, plenum and a larger throttle body on the 3,4 which helps a lot. This is pretty much the optimal recipe for maxing out bolt on power in these cars. It's perfect IMO!

 

Cost for that setup?

 

How much gains with that set up?

 

Headers: 4,000
Tune: 1,200
Plenum: 1,000
Throttle Body: 500
Filters: 300

HP on my 987.2S went from approximately 315 to 380 and on my 991.1S went from 400 to 455. The main difference isn't just the peak but the smoothing out od the lower/mid range, especially the dip when the car comes on cam.

 

Nothing to scoff at with an NA motor. How did that affect the drivability and NVH? Not big on making these cars dramatically louder or harsher than they already are.

 

Drivability is improved and smoothed; again - especially at ~4K when the cam transitions. I have an aftermarket valved exhaust so with the valve closed its about the same as factory with no drone. Open... its much louder and higher pitched. I even have an FF1 transmission mount bushing on my 991 and the NVH in the car is unnoticeable.

It's the ideal state of these engines for me but still laughable at the effort and $ vs what just a tune will do on a boosted engine. You have to be committed to the 991.1 to justify >10K (with labor) costs!

 

I am not sure I am reading something negative here or not, but Cobb has been around for a long time for a reason, and they tune numerous makes/models. And one can try them out without risk and if not happy send it back; however gains on a .1 NA are a lot different than a .2 turbo!

 

Not negative necessarily, my testimony is just that the marketed gains from Cobb are optimistic and that I like FVD better. FVD also has Bosch and Porsche factory trained people writing the tunes. They've also been around a lot longer than Cobb and just do Porsche. These same people help tune the RSR and factory cars. Cobb is fine and their soft loader is by far the best. There are many popular "go to" products and brands on here that are far from ideal.... some have price as a concession and others don't. I've used Cobb - I like the FVD better. YMMV.

The gains on the .1 NA have a lot less to do with tpo HP gains. If you look at ant .1 NA dyne you have see where the power dip manifests itself between 3500&4000 RPM. This dip can be felt when driving WOT. This dip is almost gone with FVD, with Cobb its improved but still there. This low/mid gain is worth it and again its not so much the increase in power so much as how it gets there. To your point - there is much more to gain in a .2tt

 

What about the other brands for below. 455 hp in a .1 without mucking about with the power kit engine internals is fantastic. Did you measure this on a dyno and can we see the graph ?

 

Its a culmination of adding the gains and doing the math iteratively - but it is inline with what FVD states. It may actually be a little more BHP but chasing numbers wasn't the goal. I don't post dyne charts on the internet because inevitably there's a wise guy that educates everyone on what's wrong with it or how weak it is....

Other Brands... This is simply my opinion. It's not Gospel although I do have experience playing with most of these. With regards to power, there are 4 components and then you're pretty much done short of pulling the engine for a stroker or something wild. Each of these claim ~30hp independently... It's about 50-60 with all together and keep in mind that the gains are compounded with each. For example.... a car with a tune AND headers will show more of a gain than just adding the 2 independently. In reality, the marketing for most everyone is overstated. If we went by just the marketing claimed gains then I should be at 525bhp

Tuning: I recommend FVD [obviously]. FVD support is ridiculously amazing and the tune is superior IMO. Cobb is my secondary choice. Cobb has a way better soft loader. Evoms and SpeedArt also have products that look promising but I have not tried.

Headers: FVD - headers are engineered and build by M&M. M&M makes the components for RSR and factory race cars. Cargraphic and GMG are also very good. Dundon looks promising although I don't have first hand experience with them. Headers matter. They take a LOT of heat and the design matters for power. Many of the brands touted will actually lose power - regardless of marketed propoganda. It is expensive to engineer this component well. Simply increasing the diameter and making something look nice on social media isn't enough. For a street car that never gets pushed, a lower end header may sound neat and never have an issue... but there is a reason the ones I recommend are also the most expensive. Every company has a pitch why theirs' have superior engineering and gains and xyzzy.....they are there to sell their products and earn a living. Nothing wrong with that but 99/100 don't have the skillset or resources to actually engineer, test and develop a mature product that does what they claim. If they did then professional endurance cars and factory cars would use them.

Intake: BMC is pretty much the only game in town. K&N makes one that I haven't played with since BMC is OEM and there's no oiling reindeer games given the hassle of getting to the filters and risk.

Plenum: IPD is the only game in town. Fabspeed used to market one but it didn't work(their words). On a base this will have even more gains if you get the competition version with a larger throttle body. Lots of debate about this mod. I'm not here to defend it on the internet and am simply testifying that I like it enough and see the gains enough to have it on each of my Porsche cars.

Catback: Go for sound as it doesn't make enough difference to matter and a preferable sound will bring more joy than .23hp gain. This is also an area where build quality isn't as critical as headers and it may be okay for you to go with a value oriented product if you like the sound.

 

Also - I still believe a powerkitted car will outperform the aftermarket at >120mph. If that's what your after though.... the Dundon intake runners looks very interesting. My car is noticeably faster than an X51 car below 100mph though.

 

+1 to Garfunkle's comments. Cobb and FVD are the two best off the shelf tunes available for our cars. FVD makes great bolt on components as well. They do indeed work on Porsche factory race cars. Cobb's Accessport is about $1695, FVD's a couple hundred higher. Both have great customer service. FVD will work with you on customizing an OTS tune; Cobb will direct you to a local shop authorized to do custom tunes on their software. Cobb downloading of an off the shelf tune is the easiest out there, and you get their Accessport which lets you monitor up to 6 measurements at once (temps, rev limits, etc.), and you can use it as an OBD II diagnostic device.

 

I did dyno runs for headers, COBB & plenum. I was not focused so much on the numbers as the delta for MY car, on the SAME dyno, SAME tank of gas, SAME time of year (for the ambient temperature variation). What I found, in my actual dyno testing, is that numbers are NOT cumulative - all the reputable shops will tell you that (25+45+10 does NOT equal 80). There’s nuance to how these components all work together, you MIGHT be lucky to get 25 out of the numbers listed above. I had the best results with high flow cats & stage one COBB tune. Upgraded plenum did nothing to move the needle, even with the upgraded throttle body (but boy was I convinced it had when I first put it on & re-calibrated the TB). Dynos can be notoriously all over the place with their readings, don’t focus on the absolute # but, if you can control the variables listed above, that’s a reasonable way to measure the percentage gain. Best I saw was about 7% peak gain and in the mid teens max gain. That’s consistent with what others have gotten out of NA motors. Consider that Porsche themselves (with the 3.8 Powerkit which includes a revised, ACTIVE plenum, new HEADS, CAMS, and a revised tune) only mustered a 7.5 % increase to 430. I’ll believe 15% when I see SOME kind of empirical data to back it up (aside from arithmetic with the marketing material).