smlporsche

Took my '03 S out this weekend on the Blue Ridge parkway for the best time I've had in a long time and decided that I would probably keep this car for a long time. I really prefer the looks of my car over the newer ones.

I've talked my wife into upgrading the suspension to the ROW M030 as a winter project (any one want to help??) and I was thinking on the way home that if I ever need to replace the engine what would my options be?

I know that I could install the 3.4 from the 996 ('00 - '02?) but I guess I'm wondering how much more current I could get with a Boxster motor? Could I swap out an 2010 motor??

I already have a Porsche race car but I would like to investigate the possibilities of some additional horsepower for my street car.

Anybody know ?

Tnx

Macster

No replacement for displacement. A bigger engine is about the easiest way to increase a car's performance.

You can recoup some of the cost of the replacement engine selling your car's existing engine.

Generally the best engine swaps are like years to like years, apples to apples kind of.

In your Boxster's case, we're talking about a 2003 911 (3.6L) to your car.

There are quite a few shops around with the know how to do this and more than a few owners have gone this route so you're not breaking new ground.

A newer engine can be tricky and a different engine like the 2010 Boxster engines are is even trickier. The engine may have different mounting hard points, different locations, clearances may be different, and then there's teh high pressure fuel system, direct injection, electronically controlled oil pump, and so on that add considerable complexity to the swap.

You have to ensure all of the new engines features work fully, and reliably, just like in the car it came from, or you're leaving hp and performance and fuel economy on the table and assuming a whole lot of headache trying to sort out all the anomalies due to the apples to oranges swap.

Not saying it can't be done but I suspect the expertise necessary to make the 2010 engine swap to a 2003 seamless and 'factory' is considerable.

Besides the 2010 engine isn't that much more powerful than the engine in your car. A lot of money/work for not much gain.

If you want to keep your car's existing engine probably the next best way to bump HP is to turbo- or super-charge the engine.

As an aside you I think have the engine breathed upon but while this delivers and engine that produces more HP I think (WAG type think) the cost would be staggering. (I've not looked into this directly but have come across a few who've gone this right and the cost of the engine re-work is IIRC well staggering. It may be worth it though. Only you can decide that.)

You can fit an aftermarket supercharger to the engine. The engine remains stock, but this limits the HP you can obtain. With the stock engine's high compression you can't safely run much boost (say under 6psi or roughly call it 0.4bar. By comparision the 996 Turbo can deliver 0.7bar boost.

Another possibility is simply selling your Boxster and taking the money and buying a faster car, a basic 911 or a 996 Turbo, GT3, or even a GT2. Expensive, but how fast you want to go?

Sincerely,

Macster.

derfo

Have your motor relined to 3.6 this takes you up to around 300hp. LN engeneering is the place. I am going to send my blocks to them, Im also giving them the IMS to upgrade. This way you havnt got the complications of fitting a motor from another car.

insite

an ln block requires building an engine. it is much more economical (and fast) to do a straight swap. i put a 3.4L in my '99. i did the LN bearing upgrade & oil pump shaft, re-timed it, replaced some seals & popped it in the car. it is awesome.

cretinx

LS1 fits - reliable, powerful, cheap.

smlporsche

Thanks for the comments so far...

I have zero interest in turbocharging or supercharging this engine. This car puts out 252HP per the factory and the newer boxsters are what?? 320 or so I believe. If I could get over 300HP with an engine swap or perhaps a rebuild that would be my first choice...

So will a 3.4 give me that much HP or do I need to look into a 3.6? And where would be some possible sources for obtaining an engine other than Zuffenhausen?

derfo

Flat 6 Inovations have engines.

insite

with your car, the 3.6 is actually the easier swap. it will get you equal power & better low end punch than the new boxsters. my car puts down around 330HP, but weights MUCH less than the new cars. with the right exhaust, intake & light flywheel, your car would be a beast.

insite

BTW, you were talking about boxster motors. i am talking about 996 motor in a boxster. an 03-04 motor would drop right in & give you some serious giggles.

Macster

You should if you go with the 3.4l engine -- but I wouldn't recommend this (more below) -- you should recoup the engine's hp/torque with the engine in your car provided the installation is done right.

But as I mentioned above, I would not go the 3.4l engine swap route. Imho, the 3.4l engine is a downgrade in that it was only in the early water-cooled 996s and obviously is smaller in size than the 3.6l engines in the later model 996 911 cars.

An 03 996 911 3.6l engine (and maybe a year before and a year after) is nearly a drop in fit on your car. My second-hand info is that the issues have been solved by others who've gone this route before you.

A rebuild to gain more HP is almost certainly going to require increased displacement, through larger cylinders and possibly even a stroked crank. A bigger engine requires (possibly) larger injectors, which in turn could render the stock fuel supply system inadequate, a bigger intake manifold, a bigger exhaust system and so on. The engine builder should have guidelines available that cover what he has found needs to be done in addition to the engine work for his engine to deliver its advertised hp/torque.

Anyhow, all of the above gets expensive and fast. The mantra goes something like this: Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?

Sources for replacement engines are: Dealer. Expensive. Requires the old engine be used to address the core charge. Pluses is the engine is new and comes with a warranty though double check on this and be sure you know just what is covered. (I came across one owner who's indy mechanic sourced a factory engine and the engine proved defective out of the box. The indy mech. was successful in showing the dealer the problem was with the engine and not his work.)

Salvage yard: Risky. Unlikely you can even crank the engine over for a in-field compression test let alone run the engine and get a sense of its condition by how it starts, cold idles, sounds/behaves as it warms up. The engine could therefore be sick or even worse, near death. It dies after installation in your car and immediately or a short time after.

You have to know beforehand the salvage yard's return policy should the engine prove sick once you can hear it run. You still have the time and trouble of multiple engine swapping to consider.

You can of course have the salvaged engine -- provided it is a good candidate for this -- sent to a indy Porsche engine builder for freshening up and even some mods to added robustness and increased performance.

Or you can search for and when you find it buy a wrecked 996 911 (circa 2003) that appears to be a suitable engine donor car and buy the car then move the engine over to your car and sell the engine-less hulk for salvage/scrap along with your car's original engine. Ideally though you should leave your car's engine in the car so a prospective buyer can start the engine and check it out some before he plunks down the money.

Sincerely,

Macster.

cretinx

.

also, M030 is a great upgrade.

logray

There are a few things desirable about the 3.4L engine over the 3.6L. For example the 3.4L has a stronger dual row IMS bearing. That being said 3.6 has a better variocam system and certainly a tad more in the HP category.

I have reliable information that the 3.4L injectors will work fine in the 3.6L (for example in a re-bore scenario), the highly adaptable DME is fully capable of adjusting the proper amount of fuel to be delivered - although if you source a 3.6L engine it will obviously already have the the 3.6L injectors. That being said, there are some who have supercharged their NA M96 engines that DO run higher flow injectors.

insite

the single fow IMS is easy to overcome during a swap. the big concern w/ the 3.4L is cylinder wall thickness. it's MUCH more prone to D-chunk failure than the 3.6L

GTgears

I'll stay out of the 3.6 versus 3.4l debate, but just add that if you start looking to the '09+ DFI engines it's not very straight forward at all. The gearbox bolt pattern is different and you'll basically want to get a complete DFI wiring harness and ECU from a wrecked car to make the swap. IMO, stick to 996 Carrera engine options for the "quick" and "easy" solution to your HP bug.

Macster

My info is the 3.4l engine is more prone to the 'D' chunk failure.

Regardless, if one is going to do a Boxster engine swap he should try to use an engine from a same year 911 996 as his Boxster.

And since an engine from a donor car of the same model year would be a 3.6l engine the cost and effort to swap in the 3.6 engine is about the same for installing a 3.4l engine so why not grab the bigger engine? After all the OP's desire is for my HP and the 3.6l has this over the 3.4l engine, obviously.

My concern about the injectors is while they may 'work' the Ecu will be using some of its fuel trim adjustment simply to allow the injectors to work (by of course increasing the amount of time the injectors are open).

While this might not be a problem right away as the engine wears or less severe changes occur (seasonal weather changes even) the engine controller may turn on the CEL because it has reached it limit of how much enrichening it can do. The injectors are too small for the engine and the engine controller is limited in how much adjustment it can do.

Now it may be possible to remap the engine controller to reset its long term trim defaults to something more in agreement with the 3.6l engine's Ecu controller so this is not a problem.

These are probably issues that have been found and addressed by a shop or someone who's gone this route before or maybe the issues have found to be well not be real issues.

My goal and one I have in mind when replying to this engine swap posts is an engine swap wants to be as 'factory' as possible.

In the past I have been exposed to cars with wildly exotic engine swaps and while the cars are impressive on the driveway, with the hood open, or on the drag strip or simply on a deserted road they are at all other times tempermental foul smelling problems on 4 wheels. I have no desire to convert an otherwise fine running Boxster to such a vehicle simply to gain (possibly) a few extra hp.

A very nice 'factory' engine swap on the other hand is a joy. I came across a Pontiac Solstice (the roadster) at a San Jose car fan gathering place a few years ago that had its hood open. I looked into the engine compartment and immediately noticed the engine had too many cylinders. Long story short the owner told me he had a LS2 V8 (IIRC 6.0l, 400hp, 400 ftlbs torque!) (same engine I believe came in my 06 GTO) installed in place of the stock engine.
This swap was done by a company in the midwest called Mallet.

I asked the owner a bunch of questions about the engine's weight compared to the stock engine, weight distribution, how the engine hooked up to the transmission and so on, and his answers satisified me that the swap was first class.

Based on what I could see, the swap *looked* first class too. The engine compartment and all the hoses, wiring, etc, were beautifully routed and well, it just looked like it came from the factory (vs from under a rather sickly shade tree) all was so well done.

As a bonus, because of Mallet's busines relationship with GM, the swap did not affect the car's warranty and the owner told me he had the car serviced at local GM dealers, but with some jaw dropping by the techs when they first started the engine or looked into the engine bay.

The downside? The swap was expensive. Over $30K. But it was a no post engine swap issue car.

Sincerely,

Macster.