Who doesnt?

So far I have been focusing on getting the car in great mechanical shape. I am running out of projects. Remaining projects are brake line flush, install SS brake lines and rebuild capliers. On deck I have exhaust and cat. After that I am out of ideas. What go fast options can I add to the list? I can start shedding some weight, ditch the spare tire and all related. Ditch the heater box in the back (will I still get ok heat? I dont plan on driving it below 40 degrees or so) Stock exhaust and cat are getting replaced. Seats would be nice, stock ones are apparently made of lead and concrete.

Requirements: The car must still be comfortable for long drives since it will be used to drive to and from work sometimes (40 miles ea way) as well as driving it to and from Florida for the winter. I cant make the car too loud, I like my wife and neighbors and dont want to irritate either by driving through the neighborhood. I want the car to still be reliable. Thats about it.

 

After my experience with my Speedster conversion process and seeing the weight savings for each change, some of the easiest ones that come to mind are removing the rear seats, belts and rear bulkhead covers and associated anchor points stripping all the carpet and padding out and replacing the rear carpet and padding with the RS style system. I have found that it makes the rear area much more useable for luggage or groceries and the rear speakers can be re-installed in the side panels by a decent stereo shop to look like a factory job.
Then, if you replace the front power seats with lightweight manual seats that hinge forward to access the rear area .. it's awesome. I think you could get 60-80 pounds out doing that depending on your choices. FDM (Darin) posted in the past about lightweight racing seats they were distributing that have standard hinged backs .. very affordable, good looking and can be ordered in custom leather colors .. I'd email them and see what's up with that for sure ..

 

I love your speedster btw!

Ive removed the passenger seat a couple times (fire extinguishedr mount and stereo install) and I cannot believe how much they weigh. What was Porsche thinking?

 

Power is available, but at an absurdly high cost.

How much do you want to spend?

 

Sure, we all want more power, but the reality is that NONE of the normal power mods (cats, mufflers, intake, programming) will have ANY perceptible (to humans) impact on power and acceleration. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of ****.

Drop a couple hundred pounds, and that's a little different. But it's not exactly easy to lose that much weight and still be comfortable.

In other words, learn to love what you've got.

p.s. yes, i speak from experience. After I turbocharged my 993, I realized that power is actually a pretty small part of the overall driving experience. Maybe 20% for me. I'm currently non-turbo.

 

Im going to start with the free stuff, removing useless weight. Then move to the less expensive stuff. I figure I can get away with another 2-5k this year before I start really pushing my luck. After that I will probably have to wait until next spring when the car comes back from Florida. I looked at the TPC kit this morning. $7k is a lot but possible next year. I can do most work myself, so I can save on the labor of most things.

 

I do love what I have. I just want a bit more. Dropping weight is probably the easiest on the wallet. I dont use the backseat, dont drive when its too cold and I dont care if I have a spare tire with me. Thats got to be good for 100lbs anyway. No new parts required except for the heat box in the back and I dont think those parts are too expensive. I think the rear seat delete shelf is more useable and I can probably mold something out of FG or CF pretty easily.

 

Agreed with the other guys that shedding weight would be your only real
option without getting into huge $$$ and forced induction. Another component
to explore as a mod is super sticky tires and lightweight wheels.

 

Thanks .. she is a completely different animal to drive over the Cabriolet configuration. Part of that is weight savings for sure because the delta weight loss between the two complete cars before and after was over 220lbs. Lower center of gravity and the 9m stiffeners in the longitudinal's also appreciably changed the handling characteristics and feel of the car.

When I weighed the 4-way electric hardback sportseats against the manual RS comfort hardback sportseats that I replaced them with I got 22lbs savings each side, 44lbs total. Going from HI-FI optioned door panels to RS style was another 16lbs total .. it all adds up.

As others say .. it's not power you can feel like a kick in the butt you would get from a Super Charger or Turbo .. but on overall 'feel' of sportier lighteness, crisper acceleration and braking and ease of control. I owned a narrow body '95 coupe alongside the Widebody Cab for a few months and would drive them back to back a lot .. I could absolutely feel the sluggish affect of the wider rear stance, metal and tire/wheel weight, no question.

 

wouldn't you save some more weight by ditching the FWD system?

 

Get a Turbo! Best way to increase power and possibly the cheapest - that way you have a system designed for the power and great resell value. Jumping from a C4S to a Turbo is not that far ... AND you get a transmission that is much better geared as part of the package.

OR a few other go-faster paths than you have discussed:

- chip the car (seems to be mixed results here but generally positive)
- regear the transmission (good results but $$$)
- supercharge the engine (more for people who know how to work on these cars)
- upgrade to 3.8 (one of the most expensive $/HP costs around though)
- sell and buy a turbo

Cheers,

Mike

 

I would love a turbo. When we discussed getting a car, that is where I started. She liked the price of the narrow body cars. I like the looks and get up and go of the turbo. We compromised with a C4S. Assuming I dont drop a bunch of money getting a supercharger, I will most likely trade up in a few years. Ive always loved the kick in the pants feel of turbo cars. My wife has never been in something with a turbo. She thought my Mazda 3 was zippy and it wasnt even a speed 3!

For the short term, I think Im going to start ditching weight.

The awd-ectomy is probably not going to happen. I like the awd for now. The future is open, who knows. I think I would be better off selling the C4S and buying a C2S. Wouldnt I?

 

Pretty much. How modified is my yellow car? How much faster is it than stock? Not much. What's the effect of having a passenger ride with me on track? Not much.

So if what's effectively a 3-4 mph difference on 75-125 mph acceleration is important to you, and what works out to less than 1 sec/min of lap time also is, have at it. (Speaking to both the engine mod and weight aspects.)

 

I havent gotten to the track yet, seems like there is always something going on. I am not a top speed person, but I do like getting to driving speed quickly. Maybe a re-gear to lose some top end in order to get a quicker acceleration?

 

This.

Rough numbers, your current whip plus $20K for a similar mileage, condition, optioned, history, car.