rijowysock

many know that when all these vehicles became turbo.. it opened up a quick and easy way for new power with a chip...

the latest 335 BMW got the ability to have more horsepower than an M3 with just a chip, but then the M3 gained 100hp and 100tq with a chip as well. (these vehicles clearly being safely tuned at factory)

recently a friend got an S7 and RS7 and one bumped up 90hp and the other 150hp with chips.


Curious to see what companies will make chips (APR?) for the 991.2, would be nice to see that base 370hp go to 450, and the S 420hp go to 500...

i think it's surely a possibility.. what are your guys thoughts?

it could very well make buying a base "cool again"

Fishey

Yes, they will be around 450whp with a tune.. maybe more/less depending on what turbochargers are fitted.

They will do their best to keep it so we can't crack the code. When the ECU is cracked it will be as common as tunes on a current turbo.

The real interesting thing will be if the block/rods/pistons are built strong enough to be easily upgraded similar to a 996TT.. If so in 15 years it will be my next daily

drcollie

Chip away! Just be sure you are OK with kissing your engine and drivetrain warranty goodbye on a new $ 100K car. And save some money for blown head gaskets, melted pistons, burnt valves, bricked ECU's, etc. Hey, its not cheap or easy being on the cutting edge and an early adopter...ya know?

Joec500

Yes, someone will have a piggyback unit as it will take time to crack the ECU. As mentioned earlier, as soon as people (Cobb, GIAC etc etc) crack the ecu encryption, you will be able to ECU tune these turbo motors. But also, kiss that warranty goodbye, but hey, pay to play right?

rijowysock

rarely happens... when was the last time u saw any of those from an APR/Renntech tune? in all other countries tuners are required to repair any problems they cause, Renntech actually says if the manufacturer denies the claim they will cover it themselves.

i do love people to afraid to take a leap however, it allows the rest of us to have more fun..

i had a macan 15 minutes before i put wheels and lowering links on it... (not one problem).. had a 997.1 TT pushing 670hp at the crank without any internal modifications and it hit 50k miles and is still going now above 60k..

if it blows up... fix it.. thats not too difficult.

drcollie

I do love a good-ole fashioned cavalier attitude. And you know, I used to be like that too. Then a tuner who did my Saab Turbo grenaded the engine due to over-boost as well as destroyed the front U-joints that could not take the extra power. That cost me $ 7K to repair. I've done things like put lightweight flywheels in cars, and chips in them back when they were chips and not flashes. I've done full suspensions and roll cages and cars set up with so much camber for autocross they are virtually un-driveable on the street. Know what I found out in modifying cars? There is always a trade off.

And you know what I don't get? Why is it that places like Porsche - where they have teams of highly trained engineers working for years to produce a highly reliable and powerful engine can get say... 400 HP out of it....then a guy working with a laptop in a garage can get another 200 HP out of it just by entering a programming code and a few bits and pieces - like it was nearly free horsepower. How did those professional engineers miss that 200 HP when all they had to do was bolt on this and tweak that? Either they are not very good at their jobs or they know that extra 200 HP is not good, clean, reliable horsepower that is matched to the drivetrain.

Ever bought a new 911 Porsche short block? I have. It was $ 14,000. And that was thirteen years ago. That was just for the short block, not the accessories or the labor to remove the trashed one and stick the new one in.

I've been driving and owning Porsches for 40 years now. and done most all the mods at one time or another. It's not my first rodeo....

Petevb

The latest Siemens ECU is locked up awefully tight, so "chipping" the car well is going to be difficult. The reason is clear- Porsche differentiates their models today largely by using software, meaning there are tens of thousands of dollars riding on the strength of the encryption.

There is already ample incentive to break the latest factory encryption, yet so far it has proved almost impenetrable. The Macan Turbo uses an identical engine to the Cayenne GTS, but it makes 40 fewer hp. The Boxster S uses the same 3.4l as the Cayman GTS or Carrera, but makes 25 and 35 fewer hp, respectively. Yet with the newest 981s there is no Boxster S "chip" available to unlock the missing power that's clearly, reliably on the table. Nor is there a good Macan chip I'm aware of- the encryption is that good.

The fallback are piggybacks- faking the engine into running more boost by intercepting and adjusting sensor signals. This almost always leads to less than good drivability as well as durability concerns. Even if the ECU is cracked, virtually no tuners are able to fully duplicate factory drivability on today's most complex engines- they simply don't have the tools or understanding of the systems. With E throttle, for example, the software is looking at lateral and longitudinal accelerometers, shock sensors, etc to decide how much of the requested throttle to actually give you. Hence the best current tunes borrow heavily from factory code, because they simply can't do as good a job.

There will be good headroom built into the new Carrera, though not nearly as much as the turbo Mezgers. The headroom will be there due to component sharing- base Boxsters through 991 Turbo Ss share critical components from main bearings through alternators to save costs. This with software and a couple hardware changes I suspect you'll be able to re-create a factory X51 engine, so likely ~450 hp without overspending the turbos and effecting longevity. Beyond that it's nearly certain the turbos will start to run out of breath- fine if you don't push the car, not great long term if you do. BMW sold tuned N54s from the factory at ~350 hp, but at higher power levels durability (turbo life, etc) does fall off. Meanwhile othed internals (pistons) are unlikely to be good to serious power levels, simply because there's no incentive.

Any serious tuning still hinges on cracking the ECU, which is not at all certain. Four years after the Siemens ECU appeared there are finally reports that someone has propperly cracked it in one application. We'll see how those reports pan out, but with the amount of money at stake for Porsche (they charge $18k for a 30 hp power kit) it seems likely that they'll put similar effort into protecting their investment, and I would expect the ECU encryption has been upgraded for the 991.2. Hence to chip it well I suspect you'll be waiting quite a while, as others have said. This is not an N55...

O5C4R

Cobb tune on my 1M is awesome Petevb, you done yours?

if they can crack the ecu and get some good numbers I could be tempted to update the 991.1, tuning is a lot of fun, its something I miss about the 991.1

how much to bribe a Porsche mechanic to flash a C2 tune to a C2S tune perhaps

Petevb

I left mine stock. I feel it's got enough power for the chassis as it is (I drive TC off), so I kept the warranty.

The newest flash is keyed to the VIN and looks at CAN bus components to verify that the ECU is in the correct car. The software is no longer local at Porsche dealers, it's pushed directly from the factory real time. Not trivial...

Arcoril

The part that you're not getting is that highly trained marketing and sales teams who've also been working for years to optimize profits exist alongside those engineers. Artificially crippling products in order to segment the market happens all the time and this is no different.

Why waste the overhead in maintaining supply chains and warehouses for separate de-tuned blocks, heads, pistons, etc. when software can achieve the same effect at a lower cost? I wouldn't be surprised if there really is another 100+ "safe" HP in the new engine. The engineers didn't miss a thing; you're just going to have to pay for that performance in the form of a new X51 package or GTS trim level with a similar if not identical engine that has different tuning.

In the aftermarket world the real expertise isn't in figuring out an optimal tune, it's in defeating the ECU. Modern ECUs are locked down tighter than Fort Knox and in many cases it's cost prohibitive to crack them.

O5C4R

[QUOTE=Petevb;12576192]I left mine stock. I feel it's got enough power for the chassis as it is (I drive TC off), so I kept the warranty.

so do i, tis a slippery beast

O5C4R

totally agree this reeks of VW marketing treating porsche customers like VW morons giving them the same engine with 2 different tunes, puts me right off porsche altogether when i think about it

GSIRM3

+1

chows4us

Except for the 800lb gorilla in the house which could make it a zero possibility unless the US Copyright Office decides next month on ruling on the exclusion for tampering with auto software, class 21 and class 22. These are the second round of comments. Expecting a ruling in a few months.

http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/reply-comments-050115/

If the exclusion is not granted, tampering with the software would become a DMCA violation, a felony.

STG

Very interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

With cars relying on electronics to operate every aspect of a car, I can see this passing no problem related to safety concerns at a minimum. Also protecting intellectual property.

The "100HP Magic Chip - As Seen on TV" dream may be even more unrealistic now than it already was.