NJ-GT

Karl S:

Did TPC tuned your ECU for your specific car, or did they load a generic GT3 map?

Where did you have that done?

I'm interested on tunning my ECU with my mods, rather than going with fixed maps from GIAC or Powerchip.

The Manthey Motor Power Kit is at least 2 years away in my priority list (EU 9,800) .

Karl S

TPC can do it either way. They can sell you a generic map that was developed from my car which is bone stock or you can bring the car down and have them modify the mapping on their dyno. Of course, the latter approach will cost more than the former.

Karl

Philip in AL

For those who care.
TPC developed the program , using Karl's car, in the summer of 2003. They have since sold it to Powerchip. They send you a prereturn box containing the instructions on removing the ECU, which is overnighted to them. You get the ECU back two days later.

According to them, in standard form, the Porsche 996 911 GT3 3.6 produces 380 hp, however the addition of a PowerchipGold 93 will increase the power to 391 hp. In addition to the extra power, the torque is also increased. The 996 911 GT3 3.6 produces 285 lb.-ft standard, and this is increased to 296 lb.-ft.

The reason that they are able to "improve" the mapping is due to the fact that Porsche had to consider the lower octane fuel that would be available to cars on the West Coast (makes sense to me).

The cost is $1,495

Here is the link to the rather cheesy sales presentation, but it does show the test results for the 91 and 93 octane versions.
http://www.powerchipgroup.com/Datasheets/2/Por0056.pdf

To each his own, but I'm going to try it!

rockitman

What a racket!!! Software written once and charged for through the nose just to load it on a chip...

Philip in AL

I agree, but how much do we pay for exhaust systems that deliver about the same results.

NJ-GT

I think Microsoft is doing the same. Software written once a charged for each copy.

BrianPA

Same thing with CPU's. They cost nothing to manufacturer once the initial R&D is done but that costs billions.

Karl S

There is the development time and dyno costs that go into the original development but even after that is recouped, there is labor involved to reprogram the DME. They have to open it up, unsolder the chip, solder in a socket, load the new software, then reverse the whole process. You need someone who knows what they are doing so that there are no telltale signs left on the circuit board that anything was done, otherwise you can run into warranty issues with your dealer.

Anyway, who ever said that there was any relationship between cost and price in the tuning world. How much cost do you really think is in those $5000 exhaust systems?

Karl

rockitman

Very good point!!!

FSAEracer03

Phil, you might look into getting a custom chip burned in the future instead of this product. Aftermarket chips for aspirated cars only move the power around (usually making the powerband more peaky to increase numbers) but never really change the area under the curve. A custom chip will not only cost you a third of that cost, but also provide you with dyno charts as well as the top performance from your engine, no matter what mods added.

Whatever it's worth, I'd recommend waiting on a chip until a few mods (maybe intake, exhaust and a further mod like cam or head porting) then spend the ~$500 on dyno time at a shop to have it specially tuned.

Steve in FL

FSAERacer: Good luck finding a shop that is capable of modifying the GT3 ECU programming and having them spend an afternoon of dyno time to do it for $500. As posted earlier TPC is the only shop that's known to have done this and before they sold off the programming to Powerchip I believe someone reported they quoted $3K to repeat the work.

Philip in AL

I am very fortunate to have one of the finest tuners around, in my back yard. He has built a variety of cars for me over the past 25 years and has both, manufactured custom performance parts for the major auto companies and done special work for others such as Paul Newman. I do intend to call him tomorrow to discuss what he thinks we should do. He also has a special relationship with Porsche (I'm assuming that relationship has been established since, and due to the proximity of the Barber Track and the PDE).

GTGTGT

I had my GT3 dynoed today. The only change to the car is a B&M air filter. Here are the results.

This is the uncorrected number with a smoothing of 5. I am not sure what this means exactly. This was done on a dynojet and they guys at the shop could not figure out where to hook up the sensor on the spark plug or coil wire - so no torque figures.

I downloaded the dynojet software and there are several correcting forumlas: SAE, DIN, Standard, EEC, and JIS. The interesting part, aside from each showing different numbers, is that each run comes out very different based on the correcting factors. The highest rwhp is 360 with DIN, and the lowest is 349 with SAE. I am not sure what the 'Smooting' does, but it lowest at the highest setting.

Any insights?

MatroxMGA

"The reason that they are able to "improve" the mapping is due to the fact that Porsche had to consider the lower octane fuel that would be available to cars on the West Coast"

Does this mean that the software doesn´t function as well on European cars since we have higher octane levels here, up to 100 octane petrol. One thing to remember is that Porsche spend huge amounts of money to develop softwares for their cars and I think they put even more effort into a GT. Why would a small tuner company be able to increase hp just with reprogramming??

BrianPA

I would imagine that it would work just as well and could be optimized further for the higher octanes available in Europe. It's worth noting that 100 octane European is probably closer to 95 octane here the rating standards are different. In Europe I believe it is RON and I can't recall teh standard here.