vANiLLaNovA

maybe i am magazine racing but is the porsche 996 sandbagging or is it just considered a slow car for its specs?

2920lbs and 320hp does 0-60 in 5 seconds and 1/4 in 13.5?

now a 335i with 700lbs more and 20hp less can do the exact same thing...

is there some sort of explanation for this?

LVDell

If you are looking at 0-60 times for a car like a Porsche to compare it to a car like a 335i then you are missing the point. The 335i is a straight line car while the Porsche shines when you actually turn the wheel left and right.

FYI, the 335 is more like 500 pounds difference and has a a butt load of torque (remember it's a turbocharged inline 6) and does it in 5.4 while the 996 does it in 4.9 so I'm not sure I would say that a 7 old car like the 996 320hp version is slow.

ivangene

perhaps another video showing a motorcycle beating a porsche from a dead stop on a straight road is required?

or

maybe like Dell suggests, we can do the same test with some turns both left handed and right handed and see that motorcycle in the rear view mirror with the rider thinking,.,,,, "my bike is FAST... why am I loosing my @ss"

That said, I am 100% sure there are faster cars out there than the 996... who cares...

Porsche is what it is and wasnt designed to drag race (though some have been very successful at doing so)

himself

I'll bite on this troll thread, lol.

It took BMW over 5 years and 2 turbochargers for it's 335 to hold a candle to a naturally asprirated Porsche. Even my old MKI 996 (300 HP) could pull a 5 second 0-60. It's taken other manufacturers much longer to even get close.

And despite it's age, the 996 can still hang with the vast majority of cars out there - at a fraction of the cost. A 996 can be had for around 1/2 the price of a new 335. Bump to the same price range as a 335 and you are talking a MKII GT3 - which is WAY faster than a 335.

And as another point of useless information - everything you said about the 335 equally applies to BMWs own E46 M3.

-td

Patrick E

While I think the 996's straight line performance is still relatively impressive, as others have said the 996 is more than straight line speed. Drive a 996 and a 335 back-to-back on a proper road course and you'll see there is no comparison. As Dell points out, evaluating the 996 (or any P-car for that matter) solely on the basis on straight line speed is most definitely missing the point.

vANiLLaNovA

didnt mean to troll but i was just commenting on if the factory is sandbagging the 996 as it has 2900lbs and 320hp doing 0-60 in 5 flat and 13.5 quarter .. because it should be faster than that...

Dennis C

Car and Driver tested the 2003 C4S at 4.6 zero to sixty.

When you're talking about tenths of a second, there are lots of things that come into play that can affect performance.

Even if my car was 4.0, or 5.2, or whatever... what would that mean to me? Nothing.

soverystout

I think it may be the 273 ft lbs of torque that you are missing.

Do you have some calculation that allows you to dump in HP and weight and it spits out 0-60 and 1/4 mile times? If so, you should throw it away.

They could not be more different. The only constant between these 2 cars are the # of variables that make them different.
Front engine versus rear engine.
inline six with 2 turbos as opposed to a flat six without turbos.
Direct injection for the BMW and port injection for the Porsche.
4 years worth of innovation (2004 for the last 996 and the 330I came about in 2008 I believe)
Oh and that 273ft lbs doesn't come in until 4250rpm.
the 335I is churning out far more tq far earlier.

AaronSweat

Why should it be faster than that? It is what it is, and those times are not slow. If you want something fast in a straight line go buy a blown muscle car.

RallyJon

911 variants have always been fast if the Porsche driver gets to pick the road/track. They're even reasonably quick in a straight line if the Porsche driver has time to drop two gears before accelerating.

Otherwise, modern turbo cars--from my wife's S4 to the 335--just plain drive away from Porsches in a real-world roll-on. Any turbo that goes Porsche baiting is likely chipped and running 350+ lb-ft of torque.

SH || NC

No place on the track to do roll-ons. Take 'em in the twisties.

Tippy

This is a very easy question to answer........torque! The 996 does not make the torque the 335 makes down low.

Torque makes the quickest short burst acceleration. HP is for top speed.

The other thing is there is no 2920 lb / 325 hp 996. 2920/296 is more like it.

LJpete

The 335 has more than it's stated 300hp. With that being said, I've run against my buddie's stock to stock and the cars from 10mph and around 30mph are about the same from down low, he'll get an initial jump then we go even and I start to pull away at the topside of things. They have a lot of torque but if in the right gear it's about the same until we get up to near triple digits where I can start to get some ground on him. It's an impressive car but it's heavy as a boat.

Drive one and compare and it's willingness to turn is not as nice as the 996. Also the driver involvement/feedback is no where near as good. Granted the car is really just a fast GT car it is what it is. Then add the fact that the car does not have an LSD and anytime you come out of a tight corner that car is a one wheel tire fire really adds to the buzz kill. As a driver's sports car it really can't compare but that's not what it's design parameter is. As for it's acceleration times, it's not that difficult to gear a car for 60 and the quarter but it like many other cars starts to run out of steam at triple digits (According to the owner).

New BMWs are really heavy but fast on the highway cars now a days (some would also debate this applies to the M cars as well).

And by the way, my buddy sold the car after 2 years and picked up an E90 M3. A better car by comparison to the 335 by every stretch but still no where near as rewarding to drive as the 996. I got a chance to drive his new M3 at an autocross and it's impressive but at ~3600 wet, it's a heavy car to toss around. It's got gobs of power and it's pretty sure footed but you can't deny physics of that weight transitioning.

Considering my car is 10 years old at this point, I can't complain about the performance. It holds it's own. Is it the fastest thing out there? Not by a long shot. There are plenty of other cars that are quicker (C5 Z06's, Lotus Elise are just a few that come to mind). Is it one of the most fun to drive that you can drive everyday with very few comprimises? Yep. You bet.

Meister Fahrer

Magazine test results vary quite a bit.....

fwiw.....
I remember Mazda launched a new Miata a few years ago saying it had 20 more hp or something.
But the testers were not getting any quicker 0-60 speeds.
Turns out the car only had like ~ 5hp more and Mazda looked pretty silly and had to correct its product literature, etc.

Or sometimes "pre-production" models have different tuning (or boost levels), that happened with the WRX as other magazines could never match the initial test results.

-- The bottom line is 300hp from an n/a 3.4L is still very respectable 10 years later....

vANiLLaNovA

so the 2002+ models have significantly more weight than the MK1s?

I am in the market for a MK2 C4S and that is why i am asking...

Have owned sportscars like bmw m's and such but a porsche is a porsche

another reason i asked was because sure I know i am not going to track the car (like the majority of porsche owners - i just want a nice quality made car thats reasonably fast and has the features and prestige), and i am mainly driving it highway or on the street on occasional basis.