I love my 3.8 (full Porsche 3.8, hydraulic lifters, with Steve's chip); however, as noted, it is very expensive on the bang-for-your-buck scale. Luckily I had mine done during the NASDAQ bullish insanity, so in retrospect it was a good move.

Anywho's, on the street it's not that big a deal, but on the track, particulalry getting on it coming out of slow to moderate speed turns is huge fun. It pulls away from stock 993's. I agree with the comments above that a LWF and perhaps gearing would be a better first move. I also found that adjustable sway bars were an excellent bang for the money.

As you've probably noted, this is an excellent place to come for "logical" reasons to spend money. Notice nobody said....... hell, it's a terrific car out fo the box. Leave it stock.

 

Phil, since I race that is what it is all about for me on every mod. As far as naturally aspirated the regear is the best. The specific set I gave was best for the $. And will appear to a scrut to be a g50/32 box(RSCS) on the test they run since the ratios are so close in 4 and 5.If You give me an unlimited budget, I will cut 1st gear off and make it about a 50 mph gear and add some other special gears in there from guard and PMS to drop each shift point right where I want it as far as powerband etc..I have done 4 boxes so I am fairly familiar with the cost involved but can say that the setup I listed above is cheapest and You get 90%-95% of the benefit at about half the price. As far as SC, sounds like fun, enjoy. Just a completely different animal and no comparison at all. If You want to stay NA which was EC's intent, regear is the only way to go. I put a stock TT in my car after going the regear and 3.8 and enjoy it immensely and I can still race it in C class. If I SC the car it becomes a GT1 and instantly non competitive so that is why I never looked that way. Levitas does some good work and is also a good driver fwiw.

 

Toga,

Try the link below.

FVD

The chip works very well.

 

Anyone have experience or knowledge about the 3.8 liter conversions from 9meister in Europe? www.ninemeister.com

Thier horsepower/torque numbers are quite impressive on thier custom 3.8l with 6 throttle bodies and free exhaust. Run on a Motec M48.

 

kary993
Why do you say reliability? Do you, or anyone else know of anyone who has had reliability problems with a low-boost sc setup?

 

Philip, I believe I have read every supercharger related thread on this board and I have yet to see someone report a failure. However, it is possible that no SC owners are regularly tracking their cars so reliability in that environment may be untested

 

I would say its more reliable to run a modified gearbox on the track/extended periods as opposed to boosting on the stock motor.

The blower will always create more heat and with the TPC kit being non intercooled you can only be taking away from longevity. On the other hand, the regeared box would provide fun without any such worries. Possibly even less than before since you know everything in there is new as well.

From what I've heard, the TPC setup seems to be great so far for the weekend warrior type car .

 

sorry i know this is an old post but though i'd tack this on....

i have a german c2 with x51 pack on it - its a 95/96 car.

should it have vario ram on it?

 

I would say yes. The German '96 model had varioram, and was already delivered around second half of '95.

 

I'm a little biased, but have you considered a supercharger install? From a Cost-Benefit(HP) standpoint, you are going to end up spending around $10K for 50HP from the 3.8L kit. If you spend around the same amount for a SC you can get 425HP with more torque than you will ever need.

Like I said, I'm biased.

PS: My TPC setup is intercooled, so heat is not an issue. I'm taking it to the track for the first time, next Monday.

 

I believe 9Ms 993 3.8 was the fastest car of the day at Brands Hatch Michelin speed champ event.
I have shared the track with this car and it is enormously fast.
AFAIK its been reliable.

Only thing is a similar spec engine won't be cheap.

Best to speak to Colin yourself for any info.

 

Hi Princeton

As you may have seen from other threads, 9M have built my car with 3.8 but not their own pistons - I used 3.8 Cup p&c's instead. Their own pistons are lighter than the Cup's that I used, but they are also around twice the price. The main reason that I personally went with 3.8 was that as I have a 1990 car, the cylinder design was the 'old' design which meant that I needed new p&c's anyway and rather than buy some 993 or later 964 ones, I chose the 3.8 Cups. If I didn't need new p&c's then I would have had some serious thinking to do..instead it was made easy this time. My car is very much like a Motec +1 package, but with Carillo's, 310 cams, 3.8 Cups, larger injectors, titanium valvetrain, ported heads, gas flowed case and barrel mooning. I also run factory RS LWF, a GHL full system including headers and I believe a 993 airintake currently. The problem we found was mapping the Motec as my engine was substantially different to the Motec +1 package. We think that either the GHL or the intake (or maybe both in conjunction) might be causing a problem on my car, but my point was that 9M now seem to think that the 6 individual throttlebodies are not necessary to make the kind of gains they already have...but this is under development I believe...I think 9M at least on the 964 use a standard exhaust with bypasses and a cone airfilter intake thingy.

Is a 3.8 conversion worth it? I guess again it depends on your needs, budget and also WHO is doing the work. The knowhow of the tuner is of paramount importance. So far, I am happy with the car - it had a full rebuild of course at the same time so I still haven't done more than 3.5k miles in it. The rev limit is currently set to 7300 but it would be safe to 7500, but I want to put somemore miles on it before I make further 'adjustments'. The car has only had about 6 runs on the dyno to try to map the Motec plus some driving on the road to tune the throttle response etc. no partials have even been done yet. I did something that was totally custom and am now paying the price (literally) for having to do all (or part of) the development again....when will I learn?

Anyway, Princeton I believe I remember you run Motec (and probably more mods than I have), if you wanto to take this offline I would like to hear more about your experiences...unless the good folks on here are interested and/or don't mind us taking up bandwidth....

Next: a long chat with 9M and then testing some different intake/exhaust options possibly and of course more dyno time with the Motec... and then who knows...?

Sorry for the long post.

 

p.s. - as Tony says, you can always speak to Colin at 9M. (no affiliation).

 

I did the full RS 3.8 on mine because the engine needed a rebuild any way, "as long as your in there"

The results are extremely satisying, if expensive.

 

seems as if i may have a bit of an oddity?

car is definitely a 3.8 x51 option pack. engine code m64 05-63s. has lsd and DBL. RS clutch and flywheel and a G50 21 -20 (can anyone give me any ideas how good that combo of gears are?)

but has plastic inlet manifolds - ie no varioram! the car is a SS chassis number (extra s showing the x51) being a 95 build but not registered till 96.

if anyone can shed some more light on this combination i would appreciate it... oh and is this spec combo any good (sorry new to 993s - have so many questions)

i have a photocopy of a spec sheet - detailing 'exclusive' option page one of 4 - any idea how i could get the other 3 pages?

cheers

porkapig