Same gearbox they just locked out 7th LOL

 

I own a 6-sp C6 Corvette also. It does NOT have cylinder deactivation (that's on the C7) yet I get close to 30mpg on the hwy vs barely 24 in the Porsche despite the P car having 2 less cylinders and 100 fewer horses. 6th in the Chevy is a deep overdrive, in fact below 70 it feels luggy. OTOH in my 997 at 70 in 6th I find myself at 3K rpm and wanting to upshift. The 7-sp in the C7 Vette is pure overkill, and with the narrow gate short-throw lever is very easy to get in the wrong slot. But tbh I wouldn't mind a 7 sp in the Porsche.

 

this way in my 1970 914-6 and it is great! Just said to my wife this morning about my old Mercedes, "sometimes newer isn't better"

 

trying to delete duplicated post

 

For sure - I know that pattern because of my 914 !

Totally agree on the Vette 6-speed. I have the c5 Z06 vette transmission in my supercharged 928 and it's ratios are much better, unlike the stock 5-speed that was in the car when I bought it, but it's not Porsches fault - once you add 100+ HP to the original design, of course the ratios could be longer to be better suited to the car. With the Vette transmission and the low end torque of the 928 motor, I can cruise around all day long at 1,800 -2,200 RPM and have plenty of go, which means I only ever use 6th gear at 70 MPH or higher, otherwise the RPMs are just too low and will lug the engine. With the 928 & Vette trans, the car is running 2,000 RPM at 80 MPH.

I have the same problem in my 914 where the stock trans limits my top speed and I can rev to redline even in 5th gear. Having longer ratios would make the car a little nicer as you could hold gears longer.

With the 150 HP boost my 997 has, I'd love to be able to have a similar gear ratio setup to the 928 with a lower RPM highway gear when the cruise is set to 85 MPH or so. Might have to look into the different models of Porsche 997 cars to see if the ratios are different and if I could make, say a trans from a GT2, mate up to my supercharged M97 motor.

 

Used to own an E30 M3, which I now regrettably sold it, with limited power compared to the current generation, but it more than made up with the 5 speed gearbox. The car was light, agile and the sifter was so pure that mis-shifts rarely happens. Now with my 997, due to the close ratio gearbox, I sometimes second guess myself during downshift whether to shift sequentially or just skip a gear to the next one to stay in the power range. For example I sometimes avoid the 5th and shift from 6th to 4th right away. However, perhaps its a mental thing being afraid of risking inadvertently throwing it into 2nd instead, thus at best produced a recorded over-rev, or at worse messing up the engine.

 

The seventh speed is for fuel economy. With the higher displacement engines of modern Porsches you have so much low RPM torque that frequent shifting is unnecessary.