rockrdude

Hey guys,

just discussing here, no right answers of course, it's very personal.

Was just driving around this weekend and realized I LOOVE this car but also, the car is already scary at current power level for me in urban or country road settings. I really find hard to justify tuning this thing, especially for a S or a GTS. Anyone else feels this way? sometimes by reading posts on the forum I feel like most people are dying for more power and need to tune the car. I'm already not a fan of tuning for warranty purposes, especially on a car so expensive, but I really feel like the car has enough power and borderline too much power lol.

discuss...

sdsc

991.2 GTS—want more top end and a bit more consistency in power delivery.

Jack F

sounds like you should not tune your car since at its current output levels you are happy.

LargePuppy

As you stated, tuning, and vehicles are a personal decision - I enjoy tuning vehicles as a hobby... it's fun to see thing materialize in a tangible manner. There are certain risks associated with it, but generally users are made aware and then choose to accept or not, prior to any further steps.

For my 73 yr old father, a simple three series suffices. His preference has gone from performance to now just having a comfortable cruiser to run the occasional errand around town or pick up his grand kids. To each their own, we all get enjoyment in our own ways

PS, your GTS is very pretty - tuned or not

Wujohn

No tune yet for me. I would like one because the base turbos run out of oomph quickly - you can literally feel it choke. That said, I am concerned that if I tune that I will have an uncontrollable beast on track in the corners because I lack some of the features of the S and GTS models. I also have to consider how I am going to slow down; not sure my base brakes would be good enough. I am sure I could learn how to use the power but that thought gnaws at me a bit. If I had an S with PTV and a rear diff it would be a much easier decision to do it...also brakes...

Jim M.

"A car is only fast enough when you stand in front of it in the morning and are afraid to unlock the door." Walter Rohrl

PJ Cayenne

I'm on the fence with my base .2. The tremendous improvements the tunes offer are so tempting. Reality is I live in a crowded area not far from NYC. Even during some epic rides during this pandemic, the speeds the "lowly" base is capable of scare the c**p out of me. In my case, my acceleration rates are more dependent on how well I shift my manual transmission. Unless someone can tune me...not sure I will ever be as good as my car. So for now, I will sit on the side line and listen to how great the tunes are.

ChrisF

If you're not sure if you should tune or not, you shouldn't.

For me, I have tuned cars in the past for a wide variety of reasons but generally for more power. When you're used to 500hp+, tuning a CS/GTS looks very attractive especially when you can yield big results. These cars are wonderful in that they come massively over engineered from the factory. I can't think of too many cars that from the factory can handle an E85 tune without supporting mods (injectors, pump, etc.). That's pretty wild and the power yielded from an E85 tune for the dollars is staggering. Definitely on my short list with high flow cats and intercoolers in the next year or so.

Potentially throwing away your warranty is definitely a risk though. I hear people who mod often quote Moss-Magnussen thinking that it will protect them if something breaks. Good luck with that. I'm pretty sure PCNA has an army of lawyers ready to challenge your claim if/when your motor pops. If you mod, understand you're likely going to be footing the bill. If you're ok with that then have a ball. Luckily, this generation of motor / trans is pretty robust. Odds are it will do just fine.

Bob Z.

When I pass someone on a 2 lane road I want to do so as quickly as I can, and the Cobb tune makes my wife scream a little more so I am happy.

Carlo_Carrera

That is it for me. I want/need a car that scares me a little.

BSO

Winding my stock S out in second gear puts me over speed limits of any road in the state.

As it is, the car is faster than almost very single car I see when I drive, plenty for me.

X51

Bob Z - I don't recall, did you do Stage 1 or Stage 2?

garfunkle

So - My experience is in the NA world but maybe some overlap in what I believe... Its not so much how much power it makes as much as it is HOW it makes the power. Tinkering will also change the characteristics of the car. For a boosted car of course there is a significant gain as well. For an NA car it's about pumping the mid range and leveling out the power dip when the car comes on cam. Playing with the exhaust and headers makes a placebo effect > actual gains because of the sound but that's okay because nobody is paying me for lap times and I'm simply chasing emotion anyways.

Bob Z.

Stage 1, and I did not see the need to even try Stage 2 albeit I am curious and have been encouraged to do so.

enzotcat

7MT Carrera S with RWS, SPASM, sport chrono, PDCC, standard brakes. On the road the car is fantastic, and I probably don’t need more power, but I want it. On the track, I definitely want more power - coming out of corners it would be nice to have a little more oomph on tap. The problem with that, though, is that I think I’d start overwhelming the suspension a little, and the driver definitely needs more training. Even so, I think it would be fun. Mitigating against that is warranty fear - I still have a year left on the warranty - and thereafter the fear of perhaps having to replace expensive bits if things go wrong.

Right now I’m adopting a wait-and-see attitude to see what the longer term effect is on those early adopters (thanks everyone for getting a tune ). The problem with this is it’s anecdotal - nobody publishes their sales figures, and we have no way of knowing the true failure rate. So, for example, if a tuner only sells a total of 50 tunes, say, and of those 50 tunes there are 8 catastrophic failures, that’s a little problematic. However, if there are 1,000 tunes out there and there are 4 failures, well that’s quite different a risk profile. I’m totally fine with the 2nd scenario, less so with the first scenario. The 2nd part of that equation is that things will almost certainly break in general, but it’s the mean time to failure that is concerning - if things break after 10,000 miles that’s problematic. If they break after 100,000 miles, that’s a lot less problematic.