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To make a point here: For your 16K you got the box and hood mod, plenum/throttle body, polished heads, headers and sport exhaust. You got exclusivity and 26 horsepower. Reviewers said the car did have a little more on the top end in the upper gears.
I guess Porsche did not know the peculiar virtues of the Hot Air Intake. Could have saved their customers $15,700
I agree with this. The X-51 package I believe also ported the heads and the cam profiles were also modified.
Look at what a simple Harley Road King style air cleaner housing does to a stock M96
While searching for intakes in the forums, I can across the same comment, which is basically makes the engine louder. I guess I can do the "cap" mod and it will sound and perform the same?
Not so sure on the cam reprofile. That was a rumor but it was generally held to not be the case. Suncoast had the whole kit on sale at one point, heads and all, and it instructed to reinstall the original cams.
The X51 headers look to be only slightly better than the stock ones and don't look to be designed as well as all the higher-end aftermarket options (Fabspeed, FVD, Tubi, etc) which have equal length tubes that merge into a better designed collector. I find it humorous when people say that if there was a better way to do this or that, Porsche would have surely done it - that may be the case on their factory race cars, but certainly isn't on their mass produced, profit preserving, street cars.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about on the headers compared to the X51 versions. Look at how the X51s are slightly better than stock (not pictured) with longer tubes and slightly better angles into the collector, but then compare the collector on the GT3 version to the X51 and notice how the aftermarket tuners are using a merging collector much like that of the GT3. Porsche knows how to make power and increase performance, they just choose not to on some models so they can charge big $s for the buyer to want to upgrade to the next level by purchasing a higher-end model.
To make a point here: For your 16K you got the box and hood mod, plenum/throttle body, polished heads, headers and sport exhaust. You got exclusivity and 26 horsepower. Reviewers said the car did have a little more on the top end in the upper gears.
I guess Porsche did not know the peculiar virtues of the Hot Air Intake. Could have saved their customers $15,700
This little sarcastic argument from authority is worthless. Porsche is capable of making mistakes; they don't spend infinite am'ts of money in all R&D areas, and they themselves find ways to increase power year over year. SO...
If they're Porsche, and they know what they're doing, they should get it right in year one for any engine. Yet, they don't.
Give up the tired "Well, I would think Porsche knows best."
LESSON IN LIFE: NO, the collective, with the advantage of only minor work to do, can come together to solve problems the organization (Porsche) cannot.
Hey... NASA knew best several time, but when astronauts died, outsiders, one with no knowledge of the space program technology, solved problems they didn't.
The X51 headers look to be only slightly better than the stock ones and don't look to be designed as well as all the higher-end aftermarket options (Fabspeed, FVD, Tubi, etc) which have equal length tubes that merge into a better designed collector. I find it humorous when people say that if there was a better way to do this or that, Porsche would have surely done it - that may be the case on their factory race cars, but certainly isn't on their mass produced, profit preserving, street cars.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about on the headers compared to the X51 versions. Look at how the X51s are slightly better than stock (not pictured) with longer tubes and slightly better angles into the collector, but then compare the collector on the GT3 version to the X51 and notice how the aftermarket tuners are using a merging collector much like that of the GT3. Porsche knows how to make power and increase performance, they just choose not to on some models so they can charge big $s for the buyer to want to upgrade to the next level by purchasing a higher-end model.
Porsche OEM S and X51 Headers
OEM GT3 Headers
FABSPEED HEADERS
I appreciate those pictures. Fabspeed attempted (maybe was able to get there) to go with the equal length runner and then collector way, which is nice, and been around for ever.
The 997 OEM versus X-51 are drastically different though. The OEM remind me of the exhaust manifolds on my 283 small block chevy (literally), while the X-51 headers look like the same thing (smaller scale) that Ford used in their 406 and 427 big blocks in the '60 (and the cast iron headers in the 289 K code). Not equal length but low restriction.
The lesson is that high-end aftermarket parts often represent time and expense the original manufacturer opted not to invest.
Thus, many aftermarket parts can exceed the performance of stock --- not because Porsche isn't the brightest in some cases, but because they have budgets, deadlines and margins.
The lesson is that high-end aftermarket parts often represent time and expense the original manufacturer opted not to invest.
Thus, many aftermarket parts can exceed the performance of stock --- not because Porsche isn't the brightest in some cases, but because they have budgets, deadlines and margins.
.
"Many CAN", but most don't.
Let's see some independent dynos on this product!! Not one, but a few or several, they should be out there
I'd love to see what sort of gains you get out of different air intakes but I figure you won't see much unless it involves changing the TB size and plenum as well then probably tuning for the enhanced air flow (even though the ecu should learn).
I'll offer an example of the aftermarket whooping Porsche's *** up and down the street:
Shift kits and short shift kits.
How can the aftermarket improve on the manual driving experience? Porsche is run by the gods of the engaging automotive experience, so Porsche's stock shifter components must be best. /sarcasm
If you look to things such as intakes, you need to understand how companies use suppliers and parts flow to understand why they tend to use certain parts and components in their broader models (pretty generic air filter in there stock intake, too, aside from cheaper materials). So, the overall intake is nice, and the filter is nice, but it's using supplies, suppliers and designs that don't need to be re-qualified, retested or sourced from new suppliers, risking current inventories, creating ridiculous costs and to be handled by people that are 100% utilized on other endeavours, etc.
It's more complicated, but the gist is that it's very likely Porsche knows there are numerous improvements to be had, but they can't explore all of them practically. They get 80% of the results with 20% of the time/money/risk investment. To squeeze out the last 20% of any effort results in exponential cost increases.
If every labor resource it utilized, who is doing very specific intake work to get that next 8 HP and vetting out all the data, supplies, etc?
But we can just simplify and say, "Porsche knows best!" -- They very well might, but they aren't positioned to extract the best everywhere.
I'm still attempting to understand what the heck this statement means?! While my c4s may be a dog compared to a gt3 (or 991s;-) all that I need to properly wake it up is a bit of this:
I'm still attempting to understand what the heck this statement means?!
While my c4s may be a dog compared to a gt3 (or 991s;-) all that I need to properly wake it up is a bit of this:
The intake improves throttle response so that normal mode feels like stock Sport mode. Pressing the sport button with the intake attached adds an even higher level of throttle response. It makes for more exciting driving.
While searching for intakes in the forums, I can across the same comment, which is basically makes the engine louder. I guess I can do the "cap" mod and it will sound and perform the same?
You'll definitely get the sound. Pretty sure the mod is essentially for the roar at higher RPM. It is glorious.
Since a (Helmholtz) resonator might restrict something in some way, I'd not venture so far to say it doesn't nothing for performance, because some hyperactive tool might show up to talk about some huge 2 HP increase that happens at 6800-6900 RPM, just to make sure they prove me wrong.
05-03-2016, 09:32 AM
