H.H.Chinn

I was at a Barnes & Noble store last night where I bought the February issue of Excellence magazine with the annual Bruce Anderson installment of values for our cars. I haven't read it yet but I picked up the UK publication total 911, and it had an article about Varioram, what year cars had it and why some had "Varioram" cast into the housing and some didn't, due to early and late model production. I found rather amusing is that their findings table showed no difference in performance. I haven't ridden in or driven a 993 without to be able to compare. What are your findings? Was this just a marketing ploy and an means of dressing up the engine compartment with cast ductwork?

logan2z

(finally an excuse to use this smiley)

shamrock

I've driven both , and they feel quite different , not least because of the closer ratio gearing on the pre-varios (I presume this is the same for the US cars??) . There's also a definite mid range boost to torque on the varios.

I read that article , and felt that there waas more 'championing' of the pre-vario because the author was sick of buyers saying 'only vario will do'.
To be fair he has a point , there's not that much difference in them , the one to go for is the best kept/ maintained , every time.

flatspin

Actually, I think all the US cars had the taller gearing. I could be wrong.

alex973

I slapped a varioram with a harness
into a 95 engine, difference is bigger tourque in mid range around 4K
thanks

Stealth 993

LOL, didn't find a difference?

I'm also mad that you picked up, the Feb issue, & I subscribe, it's not here yet.

Back to Varioram....
BIG DIFFERANCE!!!
95 C4
Greater low end torque 2000-3000, boring midrange, pulls like a banshie to redline 5000+
97 C4S
less low end 2000-3000 much better throttle response, engine revs faster & smoother, awesome midrange, doesn't have the high RPM kick, just smooth till redline.

The 95 feels more raw & powerful, but is seriously lacking the midrange. It's just more peaky.
The 97 will hit redline much faster, & smoother, it's kind of hard to tell your past 4000 except for the exhaust noise.

Varioram is a BIG improvement!! You can feel it every where, but the very low end.

My other thing, I believe the gears are slightly different between my 2 993's.
95 C5 70mph 6th gear 2700 rpm's
97 C4S 70mph 6th gear 2850 rpm's
I've noticed this in some of the other gears, but have not committed the gear/RPM differences. My thought is the C4S has the turbo trans in it?

H.H.Chinn

February Excellence cover Ruff's Electric 997!!

So did I get the Turbo tranny in my car???

cmoss

some guy around here polished the varioram script on the manifold. Came out real purty! That alone was prolly worth 12 hp.

jimhsu

Stealth: I got my Feb 09 Excellence a couple of weeks ago. You may want to check the bottom of your mailbin again....

Speedraser

I own a non-Varioram, but I've driven Varioram cars. The difference is in the mid-range torque, where the Varioram is noticeably stronger. Probably for that reason, the non-Varioram feels more exciting to me -- it really takes off with that coming-on-the-cam feeling at about 4K and screams to redline.

Interestingly, based on the original magazine road tests, there was no advantage for Varioram in acceleration through the gears, which makes sense since this is done at high revs. In fact, the quickest acceleration times I've seen were for non-Varioram cars. Of course, in-gear times are quicker for Varioram cars.

Also, US 993 Carreras had slightly taller gearing than (most) Euro cars (although I think Swiss cars had the taller gearing for drive-by noise reasons). However, IIRC, for MY 97 all Carreras got the taller gearing.

IMO, Varioram vs non-Varioram should not be a factor in buying a car (aside from SAI issues). Find the best car regardless of Varioram-or-not.

face-ache

It was actually 12.3 hp ha ha....

JM993

I wish. All the US cars have terrible gaps between the gears. For some reason, Porsche thought everyone should suffer and standardized the US/Swiss gearing on the later ROW cars.

As someone who owns a 95 and added VRAM, I can unequivocally say that it is a distinct improvement for a street car. The reason acceleration tests are similar between VRAM and Non-VRAM is because the VRAM intake paths resemble those in the Non-VRAM manifold at large throttle openings and/or high rpm (approx 5K). That's why there's not much distinction between the two for track cars. On the other hand, at part throttle and lower rpms, the intake paths with VRAM are much longer to improve cylinder filling. (If you look at the VRAM manifold you can see it is much taller than the earlier plastic manifold). As a result, VRAM makes for a notably more responsive engine on the street.