3.6 vs 3.8?
07-29-2013, 07:54 PM
#76
Burning Brakes
^^^^^ sorry Paul you keep spinning a mezger vs 9a1 debate and ignoring my comments
In any case this particular discussion that I admittedly initiated needs a new thread. Namely did Porsche put the best engine they could in the 997.2 TT or, as I propose, they compromised for cost and CAFE purposes and used the 9A1.
In any case this particular discussion that I admittedly initiated needs a new thread. Namely did Porsche put the best engine they could in the 997.2 TT or, as I propose, they compromised for cost and CAFE purposes and used the 9A1.
07-29-2013, 08:28 PM
#77
Only because Vividracing didn't come out with some fake numbers for modifications for the 3.8 it doesn't mean the 3.6 is better.... Just give it a littler of time and Vividracing and power agency will be selling a "1000 WHP" power package
07-29-2013, 09:38 PM
#78
^^^^^ sorry Paul you keep spinning a mezger vs 9a1 debate and ignoring my comments
In any case this particular discussion that I admittedly initiated needs a new thread. Namely did Porsche put the best engine they could in the 997.2 TT or, as I propose, they compromised for cost and CAFE purposes and used the 9A1.
In any case this particular discussion that I admittedly initiated needs a new thread. Namely did Porsche put the best engine they could in the 997.2 TT or, as I propose, they compromised for cost and CAFE purposes and used the 9A1.
07-29-2013, 10:09 PM
#79
Burning Brakes
^^^ I guess we'll have to disagree. I think Porsche could have developed race derived engine for the 997.2 TT but decided to save money and time and just use the run of the mill 9A1 derivative
No question that when developing the 997.1 TT Porsche reached for the best engine they could put into the car. Porsche isn't pushing the envelop by using the 9A1 for the TT and that is disappointing and driven by the dynamics I highlighted earlier. Heck just boring out the mezger to 3.8 would get you the same HP gains as the 9A1. where's the performance improvement Paul? There isn't one, just the PDK, mpg and emmission, LOL!! Pretty sad if you think about it. I expect more from Porsche.
No question that when developing the 997.1 TT Porsche reached for the best engine they could put into the car. Porsche isn't pushing the envelop by using the 9A1 for the TT and that is disappointing and driven by the dynamics I highlighted earlier. Heck just boring out the mezger to 3.8 would get you the same HP gains as the 9A1. where's the performance improvement Paul? There isn't one, just the PDK, mpg and emmission, LOL!! Pretty sad if you think about it. I expect more from Porsche.
07-29-2013, 10:40 PM
#80
Burning Brakes
Btw Paul please tell me you're not going to be singing the praises of technological advancements in the context of the 7 gear transmissions in the 991 and how 7 gears provide "real performance benefit" LOL!
07-29-2013, 11:14 PM
#81
^^^ I guess we'll have to disagree. I think Porsche could have developed race derived engine for the 997.2 TT but decided to save money and time and just use the run of the mill 9A1 derivative
No question that when developing the 997.1 TT Porsche reached for the best engine they could put into the car. Porsche isn't pushing the envelop by using the 9A1 for the TT and that is disappointing and driven by the dynamics I highlighted earlier. Heck just boring out the mezger to 3.8 would get you the same HP gains as the 9A1. where's the performance improvement Paul? There isn't one, just the PDK, mpg and emmission, LOL!! Pretty sad if you think about it. I expect more from Porsche.
No question that when developing the 997.1 TT Porsche reached for the best engine they could put into the car. Porsche isn't pushing the envelop by using the 9A1 for the TT and that is disappointing and driven by the dynamics I highlighted earlier. Heck just boring out the mezger to 3.8 would get you the same HP gains as the 9A1. where's the performance improvement Paul? There isn't one, just the PDK, mpg and emmission, LOL!! Pretty sad if you think about it. I expect more from Porsche.
Art I will again only comment using logic from whatever we have on hand to work with. From what i know so far the new 7 speed box appears to do the job as a 6 speed yet provides an opportunity for the opperator of saving fuel if he/she is so inclined. It's not compulsory to use 7th but as you know the feature is there for those that may choose to use it. It doesn't mean it is a waste of time or effort at all imo. I could say the same about 6th in my transmission. Same could be said when a 4 speed went to a 5 and the 5 to a 6 etc. I don't use 6th often but on occassions it may suit me to use it. Either way the whole 7 speed question here is moot as the new TT uses PDK only so i'm a little lost with your point beyond the obvious opportuinity of appeasing the "clique" with a bit of sarcasm/synicism thrown in my direction. Btw i'm fine it with so feel free to fire away.
07-30-2013, 12:00 AM
#82
Burning Brakes
^^^^ Paul I get what you're saying. You appreciate the power + technology + efficiency. And to you this = "better", which is fine.
But I don't know why you're dismissive of a different lens on the matter. I feel that government regs to meet stricter standards is forcing many of these engineering decisions and I don't appreciate the resulting trend which IMO is introducing many compromises into current and future sports car designs. Time, money and resources are limited so for every dollar and man hour Porsche spends on developing a, IMO, useless 7 gear trans, or higher mpg technology, it is less money and time they have for invesing in real performance R&D.
Hence I stand by my belief that while the 9A1 is a very good engine given the standards it had to meet, it is not the best engine Porsche could have developed for the TT. If not for these constraints they would have looked for a special platform with serious power and performance gains over the out going Mezger. The 9A1 has 6% greater displacement and proportional power gains, not exactly a technological marvel in terms of power gains. The advancements are definitely in efficiency.
It's fair to speculate that if Porsche didnt have to invest in meeting higher CAFE standards we'd have a more powerful engine for the TT in the post-mezger world, not the 9A1. And I would bet It'd be alot more than the 0.2 liters of displacement and proportional power gain
But I don't know why you're dismissive of a different lens on the matter. I feel that government regs to meet stricter standards is forcing many of these engineering decisions and I don't appreciate the resulting trend which IMO is introducing many compromises into current and future sports car designs. Time, money and resources are limited so for every dollar and man hour Porsche spends on developing a, IMO, useless 7 gear trans, or higher mpg technology, it is less money and time they have for invesing in real performance R&D.
Hence I stand by my belief that while the 9A1 is a very good engine given the standards it had to meet, it is not the best engine Porsche could have developed for the TT. If not for these constraints they would have looked for a special platform with serious power and performance gains over the out going Mezger. The 9A1 has 6% greater displacement and proportional power gains, not exactly a technological marvel in terms of power gains. The advancements are definitely in efficiency.
It's fair to speculate that if Porsche didnt have to invest in meeting higher CAFE standards we'd have a more powerful engine for the TT in the post-mezger world, not the 9A1. And I would bet It'd be alot more than the 0.2 liters of displacement and proportional power gain
07-30-2013, 03:01 AM
#84
Here is my take, and I think I'm primarily agreeing with Art, but you can decide.
The GT1 motor was an expensive engine to develop and build, but the engineers, including Mezger, convinced the big wigs and bean counters at Porsche to do it based on the idea of amortizing the cost over many models and years. They did that. The fact that they spread the fixed costs to lower the average cost per motor didn't change the fact that they were still costly to build. Any new competition or cyclical downturn would lead to cost-cutting pressure, not to mention the general desire to make more money.
A combination of things led to the move away from the Mezger: 1) the need to cut costs, and 2) the need to increase fuel economy using DFI. The first cost-cutting venture led to some modification of the Mezger design that resulted in the engines used in the 996's and 997.1's below the Turbo and GT cars. The IMS bearing issue was a direct result.
If you look at the history, the timeline makes sense: 1) the Mezger is introduced in production 996 high-powered 911 variants; 2) cost cutting occurs immediately with modification of the Mezger for the lower-powered variants; 3) Porsche either never tried, or was never successful in modifying/cutting costs of the Mezger for the Turbo and GTs, but perhaps it didn't make sense because they are low-volume cars, and DFI was on the horizon; 4) Porsche implements DFI for all non-GT cars with 997.2; 5) Porsche implements DFI for the GT cars with the 991. This all seems like a perfectly logical progression of cost cutting on the road to the inevitable DFI transition pursuant to fuel efficiency regulations.
I believe, for homologation reasons, Porsche will still have to produce some relatively small number of GT-somethings with a close variation of whatever racing engine they land on. How close that racing engine will be to the current 3.8 DFI variants has yet to be disclosed. Implicit and explicit speculation here and elsewhere tends to put several degrees of separation between the "consumer" 3.8 and whatever engine comes out of the racing works.
Having said that, one doesn't need a race engine in a consumer car. That came about due to fairly specific circumstances in a different era. The Mezger engine always had more potential than it was used for in stock consumer form, hence the ease of tuning to unusually high powers. It is commonly recognized that one doesn't have to bore out the 3.6, or even change internals, to get over 700 bhp. You just need bigger/modified turbos and some breathing/cooling modifications.
As all of us know, there are examples of the Mezger 3.6 out there making over 1,000 bhp on stock internals. Does that mean that the 3.6 is better than the 3.8 when they are both making 600 bhp? There is not an obvious answer to this question. The 3.8 can make 600 bhp while burning less fuel and with fewer parts and a lower cost to build. From this economic efficiency standpoint, the 3.8 is better. The 3.6 is "loafing" at 600 bhp. In some absolute potential to make power sense, the 3.6 probably prevails--it's overbuilt for the stock task it was given. How overbuilt the 3.8 is may not be fully established, but I do believe I've read where tuners are suggesting the 3.8 is not as ultimately capable of being pushed to higher and higher power levels as they have become accustomed to with the 3.6. This last fact doesn't affect many people at all, in that nearly all of us here have a TT that is not tuned beyond the capabilities of the current 3.8.
What we with 3.6's do have is a motor designed by the most famous engineer in the history of Porsche. We have an engine with its roots in GT1 racing. We have an engine that sounds like a bucket of marbles at idle so we don't forget it's there. We have the very last, most evolved, version of an engine that is responsible--in it's various levels of race tuning--for gobs of racing victories. Does any of this make me faster? No. Does it add to my enjoyment of the car nonetheless? Yes.
I've got about $100,000 in my '07 with 16K miles, and I'm at about 625-650 bhp. Can I get that in a 3.8-equipped TT?
The GT1 motor was an expensive engine to develop and build, but the engineers, including Mezger, convinced the big wigs and bean counters at Porsche to do it based on the idea of amortizing the cost over many models and years. They did that. The fact that they spread the fixed costs to lower the average cost per motor didn't change the fact that they were still costly to build. Any new competition or cyclical downturn would lead to cost-cutting pressure, not to mention the general desire to make more money.
A combination of things led to the move away from the Mezger: 1) the need to cut costs, and 2) the need to increase fuel economy using DFI. The first cost-cutting venture led to some modification of the Mezger design that resulted in the engines used in the 996's and 997.1's below the Turbo and GT cars. The IMS bearing issue was a direct result.
If you look at the history, the timeline makes sense: 1) the Mezger is introduced in production 996 high-powered 911 variants; 2) cost cutting occurs immediately with modification of the Mezger for the lower-powered variants; 3) Porsche either never tried, or was never successful in modifying/cutting costs of the Mezger for the Turbo and GTs, but perhaps it didn't make sense because they are low-volume cars, and DFI was on the horizon; 4) Porsche implements DFI for all non-GT cars with 997.2; 5) Porsche implements DFI for the GT cars with the 991. This all seems like a perfectly logical progression of cost cutting on the road to the inevitable DFI transition pursuant to fuel efficiency regulations.
I believe, for homologation reasons, Porsche will still have to produce some relatively small number of GT-somethings with a close variation of whatever racing engine they land on. How close that racing engine will be to the current 3.8 DFI variants has yet to be disclosed. Implicit and explicit speculation here and elsewhere tends to put several degrees of separation between the "consumer" 3.8 and whatever engine comes out of the racing works.
Having said that, one doesn't need a race engine in a consumer car. That came about due to fairly specific circumstances in a different era. The Mezger engine always had more potential than it was used for in stock consumer form, hence the ease of tuning to unusually high powers. It is commonly recognized that one doesn't have to bore out the 3.6, or even change internals, to get over 700 bhp. You just need bigger/modified turbos and some breathing/cooling modifications.
As all of us know, there are examples of the Mezger 3.6 out there making over 1,000 bhp on stock internals. Does that mean that the 3.6 is better than the 3.8 when they are both making 600 bhp? There is not an obvious answer to this question. The 3.8 can make 600 bhp while burning less fuel and with fewer parts and a lower cost to build. From this economic efficiency standpoint, the 3.8 is better. The 3.6 is "loafing" at 600 bhp. In some absolute potential to make power sense, the 3.6 probably prevails--it's overbuilt for the stock task it was given. How overbuilt the 3.8 is may not be fully established, but I do believe I've read where tuners are suggesting the 3.8 is not as ultimately capable of being pushed to higher and higher power levels as they have become accustomed to with the 3.6. This last fact doesn't affect many people at all, in that nearly all of us here have a TT that is not tuned beyond the capabilities of the current 3.8.
What we with 3.6's do have is a motor designed by the most famous engineer in the history of Porsche. We have an engine with its roots in GT1 racing. We have an engine that sounds like a bucket of marbles at idle so we don't forget it's there. We have the very last, most evolved, version of an engine that is responsible--in it's various levels of race tuning--for gobs of racing victories. Does any of this make me faster? No. Does it add to my enjoyment of the car nonetheless? Yes.
I've got about $100,000 in my '07 with 16K miles, and I'm at about 625-650 bhp. Can I get that in a 3.8-equipped TT?
07-30-2013, 10:26 AM
#85
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Very interesting topic/conversation. Without being biased as I'm in the market; my vote goes to DFI. Porsche owners are obviously well to do and sophisticated if there were any issues with their 3.8 the protests would begin. Give me one example of a failure; one. In terms of modification potential who would sacrifice their warranty so soon and the ones that did CMS broke 9 seconds in the quarter.
Change is hard but essential to progress...DFI is better on all levels.
Change is hard but essential to progress...DFI is better on all levels.
07-30-2013, 11:16 AM
#86
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Here is my take, and I think I'm primarily agreeing with Art, but you can decide.
The GT1 motor was an expensive engine to develop and build, but the engineers, including Mezger, convinced the big wigs and bean counters at Porsche to do it based on the idea of amortizing the cost over many models and years. They did that. The fact that they spread the fixed costs to lower the average cost per motor didn't change the fact that they were still costly to build. Any new competition or cyclical downturn would lead to cost-cutting pressure, not to mention the general desire to make more money.
A combination of things led to the move away from the Mezger: 1) the need to cut costs, and 2) the need to increase fuel economy using DFI. The first cost-cutting venture led to some modification of the Mezger design that resulted in the engines used in the 996's and 997.1's below the Turbo and GT cars. The IMS bearing issue was a direct result.
If you look at the history, the timeline makes sense: 1) the Mezger is introduced in production 996 high-powered 911 variants; 2) cost cutting occurs immediately with modification of the Mezger for the lower-powered variants; 3) Porsche either never tried, or was never successful in modifying/cutting costs of the Mezger for the Turbo and GTs, but perhaps it didn't make sense because they are low-volume cars, and DFI was on the horizon; 4) Porsche implements DFI for all non-GT cars with 997.2; 5) Porsche implements DFI for the GT cars with the 991. This all seems like a perfectly logical progression of cost cutting on the road to the inevitable DFI transition pursuant to fuel efficiency regulations.
I believe, for homologation reasons, Porsche will still have to produce some relatively small number of GT-somethings with a close variation of whatever racing engine they land on. How close that racing engine will be to the current 3.8 DFI variants has yet to be disclosed. Implicit and explicit speculation here and elsewhere tends to put several degrees of separation between the "consumer" 3.8 and whatever engine comes out of the racing works.
Having said that, one doesn't need a race engine in a consumer car. That came about due to fairly specific circumstances in a different era. The Mezger engine always had more potential than it was used for in stock consumer form, hence the ease of tuning to unusually high powers. It is commonly recognized that one doesn't have to bore out the 3.6, or even change internals, to get over 700 bhp. You just need bigger/modified turbos and some breathing/cooling modifications.
As all of us know, there are examples of the Mezger 3.6 out there making over 1,000 bhp on stock internals. Does that mean that the 3.6 is better than the 3.8 when they are both making 600 bhp? There is not an obvious answer to this question. The 3.8 can make 600 bhp while burning less fuel and with fewer parts and a lower cost to build. From this economic efficiency standpoint, the 3.8 is better. The 3.6 is "loafing" at 600 bhp. In some absolute potential to make power sense, the 3.6 probably prevails--it's overbuilt for the stock task it was given. How overbuilt the 3.8 is may not be fully established, but I do believe I've read where tuners are suggesting the 3.8 is not as ultimately capable of being pushed to higher and higher power levels as they have become accustomed to with the 3.6. This last fact doesn't affect many people at all, in that nearly all of us here have a TT that is not tuned beyond the capabilities of the current 3.8.
What we with 3.6's do have is a motor designed by the most famous engineer in the history of Porsche. We have an engine with its roots in GT1 racing. We have an engine that sounds like a bucket of marbles at idle so we don't forget it's there. We have the very last, most evolved, version of an engine that is responsible--in it's various levels of race tuning--for gobs of racing victories. Does any of this make me faster? No. Does it add to my enjoyment of the car nonetheless? Yes.
I've got about $100,000 in my '07 with 16K miles, and I'm at about 625-650 bhp. Can I get that in a 3.8-equipped TT?
The GT1 motor was an expensive engine to develop and build, but the engineers, including Mezger, convinced the big wigs and bean counters at Porsche to do it based on the idea of amortizing the cost over many models and years. They did that. The fact that they spread the fixed costs to lower the average cost per motor didn't change the fact that they were still costly to build. Any new competition or cyclical downturn would lead to cost-cutting pressure, not to mention the general desire to make more money.
A combination of things led to the move away from the Mezger: 1) the need to cut costs, and 2) the need to increase fuel economy using DFI. The first cost-cutting venture led to some modification of the Mezger design that resulted in the engines used in the 996's and 997.1's below the Turbo and GT cars. The IMS bearing issue was a direct result.
If you look at the history, the timeline makes sense: 1) the Mezger is introduced in production 996 high-powered 911 variants; 2) cost cutting occurs immediately with modification of the Mezger for the lower-powered variants; 3) Porsche either never tried, or was never successful in modifying/cutting costs of the Mezger for the Turbo and GTs, but perhaps it didn't make sense because they are low-volume cars, and DFI was on the horizon; 4) Porsche implements DFI for all non-GT cars with 997.2; 5) Porsche implements DFI for the GT cars with the 991. This all seems like a perfectly logical progression of cost cutting on the road to the inevitable DFI transition pursuant to fuel efficiency regulations.
I believe, for homologation reasons, Porsche will still have to produce some relatively small number of GT-somethings with a close variation of whatever racing engine they land on. How close that racing engine will be to the current 3.8 DFI variants has yet to be disclosed. Implicit and explicit speculation here and elsewhere tends to put several degrees of separation between the "consumer" 3.8 and whatever engine comes out of the racing works.
Having said that, one doesn't need a race engine in a consumer car. That came about due to fairly specific circumstances in a different era. The Mezger engine always had more potential than it was used for in stock consumer form, hence the ease of tuning to unusually high powers. It is commonly recognized that one doesn't have to bore out the 3.6, or even change internals, to get over 700 bhp. You just need bigger/modified turbos and some breathing/cooling modifications.
As all of us know, there are examples of the Mezger 3.6 out there making over 1,000 bhp on stock internals. Does that mean that the 3.6 is better than the 3.8 when they are both making 600 bhp? There is not an obvious answer to this question. The 3.8 can make 600 bhp while burning less fuel and with fewer parts and a lower cost to build. From this economic efficiency standpoint, the 3.8 is better. The 3.6 is "loafing" at 600 bhp. In some absolute potential to make power sense, the 3.6 probably prevails--it's overbuilt for the stock task it was given. How overbuilt the 3.8 is may not be fully established, but I do believe I've read where tuners are suggesting the 3.8 is not as ultimately capable of being pushed to higher and higher power levels as they have become accustomed to with the 3.6. This last fact doesn't affect many people at all, in that nearly all of us here have a TT that is not tuned beyond the capabilities of the current 3.8.
What we with 3.6's do have is a motor designed by the most famous engineer in the history of Porsche. We have an engine with its roots in GT1 racing. We have an engine that sounds like a bucket of marbles at idle so we don't forget it's there. We have the very last, most evolved, version of an engine that is responsible--in it's various levels of race tuning--for gobs of racing victories. Does any of this make me faster? No. Does it add to my enjoyment of the car nonetheless? Yes.
I've got about $100,000 in my '07 with 16K miles, and I'm at about 625-650 bhp. Can I get that in a 3.8-equipped TT?
09-24-2020, 07:33 PM
#87
Here is my take, and I think I'm primarily agreeing with Art, but you can decide.
The GT1 motor was an expensive engine to develop and build, but the engineers, including Mezger, convinced the big wigs and bean counters at Porsche to do it based on the idea of amortizing the cost over many models and years. They did that. The fact that they spread the fixed costs to lower the average cost per motor didn't change the fact that they were still costly to build. Any new competition or cyclical downturn would lead to cost-cutting pressure, not to mention the general desire to make more money.
A combination of things led to the move away from the Mezger: 1) the need to cut costs, and 2) the need to increase fuel economy using DFI. The first cost-cutting venture led to some modification of the Mezger design that resulted in the engines used in the 996's and 997.1's below the Turbo and GT cars. The IMS bearing issue was a direct result.
If you look at the history, the timeline makes sense: 1) the Mezger is introduced in production 996 high-powered 911 variants; 2) cost cutting occurs immediately with modification of the Mezger for the lower-powered variants; 3) Porsche either never tried, or was never successful in modifying/cutting costs of the Mezger for the Turbo and GTs, but perhaps it didn't make sense because they are low-volume cars, and DFI was on the horizon; 4) Porsche implements DFI for all non-GT cars with 997.2; 5) Porsche implements DFI for the GT cars with the 991. This all seems like a perfectly logical progression of cost cutting on the road to the inevitable DFI transition pursuant to fuel efficiency regulations.
I believe, for homologation reasons, Porsche will still have to produce some relatively small number of GT-somethings with a close variation of whatever racing engine they land on. How close that racing engine will be to the current 3.8 DFI variants has yet to be disclosed. Implicit and explicit speculation here and elsewhere tends to put several degrees of separation between the "consumer" 3.8 and whatever engine comes out of the racing works.
Having said that, one doesn't need a race engine in a consumer car. That came about due to fairly specific circumstances in a different era. The Mezger engine always had more potential than it was used for in stock consumer form, hence the ease of tuning to unusually high powers. It is commonly recognized that one doesn't have to bore out the 3.6, or even change internals, to get over 700 bhp. You just need bigger/modified turbos and some breathing/cooling modifications.
As all of us know, there are examples of the Mezger 3.6 out there making over 1,000 bhp on stock internals. Does that mean that the 3.6 is better than the 3.8 when they are both making 600 bhp? There is not an obvious answer to this question. The 3.8 can make 600 bhp while burning less fuel and with fewer parts and a lower cost to build. From this economic efficiency standpoint, the 3.8 is better. The 3.6 is "loafing" at 600 bhp. In some absolute potential to make power sense, the 3.6 probably prevails--it's overbuilt for the stock task it was given. How overbuilt the 3.8 is may not be fully established, but I do believe I've read where tuners are suggesting the 3.8 is not as ultimately capable of being pushed to higher and higher power levels as they have become accustomed to with the 3.6. This last fact doesn't affect many people at all, in that nearly all of us here have a TT that is not tuned beyond the capabilities of the current 3.8.
What we with 3.6's do have is a motor designed by the most famous engineer in the history of Porsche. We have an engine with its roots in GT1 racing. We have an engine that sounds like a bucket of marbles at idle so we don't forget it's there. We have the very last, most evolved, version of an engine that is responsible--in it's various levels of race tuning--for gobs of racing victories. Does any of this make me faster? No. Does it add to my enjoyment of the car nonetheless? Yes.
I've got about $100,000 in my '07 with 16K miles, and I'm at about 625-650 bhp. Can I get that in a 3.8-equipped TT?
The GT1 motor was an expensive engine to develop and build, but the engineers, including Mezger, convinced the big wigs and bean counters at Porsche to do it based on the idea of amortizing the cost over many models and years. They did that. The fact that they spread the fixed costs to lower the average cost per motor didn't change the fact that they were still costly to build. Any new competition or cyclical downturn would lead to cost-cutting pressure, not to mention the general desire to make more money.
A combination of things led to the move away from the Mezger: 1) the need to cut costs, and 2) the need to increase fuel economy using DFI. The first cost-cutting venture led to some modification of the Mezger design that resulted in the engines used in the 996's and 997.1's below the Turbo and GT cars. The IMS bearing issue was a direct result.
If you look at the history, the timeline makes sense: 1) the Mezger is introduced in production 996 high-powered 911 variants; 2) cost cutting occurs immediately with modification of the Mezger for the lower-powered variants; 3) Porsche either never tried, or was never successful in modifying/cutting costs of the Mezger for the Turbo and GTs, but perhaps it didn't make sense because they are low-volume cars, and DFI was on the horizon; 4) Porsche implements DFI for all non-GT cars with 997.2; 5) Porsche implements DFI for the GT cars with the 991. This all seems like a perfectly logical progression of cost cutting on the road to the inevitable DFI transition pursuant to fuel efficiency regulations.
I believe, for homologation reasons, Porsche will still have to produce some relatively small number of GT-somethings with a close variation of whatever racing engine they land on. How close that racing engine will be to the current 3.8 DFI variants has yet to be disclosed. Implicit and explicit speculation here and elsewhere tends to put several degrees of separation between the "consumer" 3.8 and whatever engine comes out of the racing works.
Having said that, one doesn't need a race engine in a consumer car. That came about due to fairly specific circumstances in a different era. The Mezger engine always had more potential than it was used for in stock consumer form, hence the ease of tuning to unusually high powers. It is commonly recognized that one doesn't have to bore out the 3.6, or even change internals, to get over 700 bhp. You just need bigger/modified turbos and some breathing/cooling modifications.
As all of us know, there are examples of the Mezger 3.6 out there making over 1,000 bhp on stock internals. Does that mean that the 3.6 is better than the 3.8 when they are both making 600 bhp? There is not an obvious answer to this question. The 3.8 can make 600 bhp while burning less fuel and with fewer parts and a lower cost to build. From this economic efficiency standpoint, the 3.8 is better. The 3.6 is "loafing" at 600 bhp. In some absolute potential to make power sense, the 3.6 probably prevails--it's overbuilt for the stock task it was given. How overbuilt the 3.8 is may not be fully established, but I do believe I've read where tuners are suggesting the 3.8 is not as ultimately capable of being pushed to higher and higher power levels as they have become accustomed to with the 3.6. This last fact doesn't affect many people at all, in that nearly all of us here have a TT that is not tuned beyond the capabilities of the current 3.8.
What we with 3.6's do have is a motor designed by the most famous engineer in the history of Porsche. We have an engine with its roots in GT1 racing. We have an engine that sounds like a bucket of marbles at idle so we don't forget it's there. We have the very last, most evolved, version of an engine that is responsible--in it's various levels of race tuning--for gobs of racing victories. Does any of this make me faster? No. Does it add to my enjoyment of the car nonetheless? Yes.
I've got about $100,000 in my '07 with 16K miles, and I'm at about 625-650 bhp. Can I get that in a 3.8-equipped TT?
09-26-2020, 09:48 AM
#88
Instructor
3.6 vs 3.8
I've had a lot of Porsches over the past 40 years starting with 356s.
My last 3 were 996TT, 997.1 TT, and
997.2 TTS. I've enjoyed all of them!
We can always discuss the merits/advantages/ disadvantages
of previous vs current models and this thread could continue forever. Bottom line - ENJOY YOUR PORSCHE - They are all great cars!
My last 3 were 996TT, 997.1 TT, and
997.2 TTS. I've enjoyed all of them!
We can always discuss the merits/advantages/ disadvantages
of previous vs current models and this thread could continue forever. Bottom line - ENJOY YOUR PORSCHE - They are all great cars!
09-26-2020, 03:39 PM
#89
Rennlist Member
Reading his old thread is interesting. Lots of talk in the earlier days about the possible weaknesses and theoretical non-robust construction of the post-Mezger motors. This seems largely to have been proven untrue. We have lots of people running the newer motors with pretty high HP with bolt ons. Indeed you need to build the motor if you are running 750-800 hp+, but the same is true for the Mezger. You'll bend the rods at this power with the Mezger motors. Overall it seems that the newer motors have been proven to be reliable, powerhouse performers!
I will continue to drive and enjoy my Mezger 997.1TT, but I certainly respect the newer motors. They are all awesome.
I will continue to drive and enjoy my Mezger 997.1TT, but I certainly respect the newer motors. They are all awesome.
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Needsdecaf (09-26-2020)
