06 Turbo or Gen2 C4S

[johners]

Hi All.
I'm hoping to short cut a lot of research with some well placed advice from the forum.
I'm looking for a daily driver and do about 6k miles a year. so it's either an older turbo or a genII C4S from the research I've already done.

Now really looking for advice from the forum members running these cars to make up my mind (and I've done all the reading in to common problems that have been discussed on the forum)

Really useful if anyone had run Both!

Thanks

 

[Lancerlot]

Hi,
I personally would choose between a Turbo and a C2S. []
Regards,
Clive.

 

[okellyt]

ORIGINAL: Lancerlot

Hi,
I personally would choose between a Turbo and a C2S. []
Regards,
Clive.

Agree with Clive

 

[flat6]

Have a look at this thread to get a general flavour of the responses you might get with regards to older turbo vs newer 'S'.

http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=851399

It really comes down to newer vs older tech and how you like your performance to be delivered i.e personal preference plus all the basics like if you want PDK or not.

Hence you might find you get little response here because no-one can get inside your mind and the differences basically come down to the two categories above which you can sort with a test drive. Also it's been discussed recently on that thread. Some saying the turbo is barely any quicker and others saying the performance difference is huge (which it is[]).

If you give reasons why both are on your shortlist, you might get input into those topics, rather than one car vs the other which doesn't do the merits of either car any good.

 

[johners]

Thanks Flat6

I feared of a resection of an old thread... And no one has managed to get into my mind before (not even the musses!) but I will give it a go.

I read the link with interest and most was discussion around 997.2 tt and 991. I'm a generation back so looking at it the case for 997.1 turbo maybe more compelling?

So everyday performance is probably at the top of the list. And what I mean by that is that I am no wanna be racing driver, so accessible road use performance, B road, where I am unlikely to reach the limit of the car. Hence why the four wheel drive models are probably in focus. It will be an everyday car, so whilst running cost is not top of the list, I would be nieve not to look at it in comparison to the performance difference.

For example the interesting thing I found and the thread in the link, was down to torque of the turbo, power available no matter what rpm!

My mind on C4S, I'm in the north of England, it's wet 50% of the time! I would go for PDK (gave up with a clutch pedal a long time ago currently in a jag xk)

 

[Gordon Attar]

Two big differences for me on choosing a Turbo over a C4S is firstly you get a lot more smiles for your money basically every time you accelerate, it's the same car with 25% more power.

Running costs excluding petrol are similar, the std repair items are very similar except a few like discs and pads are a bit more expensive. But you don't have to worry about the IMS and bore scoring issues with the engine. I would also suggest depreciation is lower with Turbos, the manuals have been for the last year holding there values and if you can stretch to mid £45 ish you could get into an 08 or even an 1.5 gen 09. Adaptive seats and sports chrono should be on your list of extras.

 

[tscaptain]

ORIGINAL: Gordon Attar



you don't have to worry about the IMS and bore scoring issues with the engine.

You don't with the Gen 2 engine either...

From previous posts it would appear a Gen 1 turbo manual is off the shopping list? If so I would go for Gen2 C2/4S pdk rather than the turbo tip.

 

[Lancerlot]

I think turbo is a difficult car to get the best out of as it demands a different driving technique and, if you are not familiar with 911's, it would be better to go for normally aspirated for your first Porsche IMHO.

I recommended C2 as opposed to C4 as it is lighter, nimbler, more economic, less prone to understeer and there are fewer mechanicals to go wrong.

Once you find you are wringing the neck out of a C2S (which might take some time []), you could look to graduate to a Turbo. I consider in the right hands there is very little that can stay with a C2S on UK roads.

With predominantly rearward biasing, there's not much grip advantage with 4WD and in the snow you should look to take the Land Rover! []

Regards,

Cllve.

 

[flat6]

ORIGINAL: Lancerlot

I think turbo is a difficult car to get the best out of as it demands a different driving technique...

Hi Clive

What do you mean by that.

 

[johners]

Cheers guys, it's good to see there is no consensus and that my dilemma is justified!
Good news that you all seem to be telling me is that C2S and not 4. (There are a gazillion to choose from)

Turbo 1.5 and genII deliberately to avoid IMS and done that research. Thanks for the info on migrating from C2 to turbo. My mate went from and M3 to a 997.2 TT and said it scared the shit out of him.

as you can all tell it's first time shopping, so any must have spec of what will appear to be my GenII C2S! (PDK as already mentioned is a must)

Thanks all for being so informative for a new "guest" with basic questions. I'll join the club as soon as I (or the bank) writes the cheque!

 

[dpoynton]

ORIGINAL: johners

I'll join the club as soon as I (or the bank) writes the cheque!

Not sure about a bank writing a cheque, but pay by D/D and you'll receive a discount on renewal.

D

 

[Gordon Attar]

ORIGINAL: tscaptain

ORIGINAL: Gordon Attar

you don't have to worry about the IMS and bore scoring issues with the engine.

You don't with the Gen 2 engine either...

From previous posts it would appear a Gen 1 turbo manual is off the shopping list? If so I would go for Gen2 C2/4S pdk rather than the turbo tip.

You definateliy have to worry about in Gen 2 cars as well, just look back on this forum(4 weeks into ownership...30/4/2014) , IMS incidents have been greatly reduced.

The 997 manual reference was regarding depreciation, you can quite easily find sub £40k tiptronic cars.

 

[Gordon Attar]

ORIGINAL: Lancerlot

I think turbo is a difficult car to get the best out of as it demands a different driving technique...

Hi Clive

What.!?!?!? The 997 TT drives like a std car unless you go for full bore acceleration.

 

[tscaptain]

ORIGINAL: Gordon Attar

IMS incidents have been greatly reduced.

Indeed they have as there is no intermediate shaft on the DFI engine![]

 

[johners]

With regards to reliability then, 06/07 Turbo (excuse ignorance a 1.5) is better than GenII? Or is this opening up another can of worms I can find in a previous thread..... Cheers Paul

 

[tscaptain]

I would say there is nothing to choose between them from the reliability point of view.

 

[flat6]

What do mean by 1.5? The turbo engine is not an intermediate evolution of the gen1 if that's what you mean. The gen1 turbo uses a completely different engine to the rest of the gen1 range (along with GT3 and GT2). The block is over 20 years old, used in many race cars and so is race proven and pretty much bullet proof. Conversly to the cheaper engine used in the other models, it was too expensive to continue to mass produce (if you want to maximise profit) plus they needed to introduce efficiencies such as direct fuel injection, hence the DFI engine was introduced in gen2 cars. I believe the Mezger engine lives on in the 991 GT3 race cars until they develop a robust replacement.

http://switzerperformanceinnovation.com/web_en/2009/10/30/431/

 

[tscaptain]

The so called 1.5 is the pre Gen 2 turbo (2009 I think) which has a few of the Gen 2 features ,such as touch screen sat nav (PCM3), but has exactly the same engine as the Gen 1 car. i.e 3.6 Mezger derivative.

 

[okellyt]

ORIGINAL: flat6

What do mean by 1.5? The turbo engine is not an intermediate evolution of the gen1 if that's what you mean. The gen1 turbo uses a completely different engine to the rest of the gen1 range (along with GT3 and GT2). The block is over 20 years old, used in many race cars and so is race proven and pretty much bullet proof. Conversly to the cheaper engine used in the other models, it was too expensive to continue to mass produce (if you want to maximise profit) plus they needed to introduce efficiencies such as direct fuel injection, hence the DFI engine was introduced in gen2 cars. I believe the Mezger engine lives on in the 991 GT3 race cars until they develop a robust replacement.

http://switzerperformanceinnovation.com/web_en/2009/10/30/431/

The Gen 1 Turbo stuff I got indicated that the Turbo engine was "inspired" by the Metzger racing engine. Talking to the engineers truth be told only the base of the engine block was used in the end (same design rather than actual block). Modernisation, emissions etc - a stroke of marketing genius to keep the association so firm in us fans heads we'd insist it was still anything like a proper metzger engine. The world move on a lot in what would now be nearly 30 years. Emissions and future regulations killed the engine, it was an old expensive design that reached end of life sorry to pop the bubble. Yup the new one is not race car derived but only one small bit of the outgoing engine was the rest was marketing........

 

[flat6]

If that's the case that's interesting to know Tom, the actual association with the race engine. Though I didn't expect it was lifted straight from the race car with no changes!

Still, the design on which it's based is proving hard for Porsche to replace in racing and the marketing has gone out of the window now that the 991 GT3 road car's engine has no association with the cup car, or its transmission.

And the discussion by Switzer Performance is about the stock internals of the road car's engine, which is the main point I was making about the robustness of the engine:

]"What Switzer saw in the 997"²s engine was the result a no-holds-barred engineering program that culminated in Porsche's 964/GT1 racecar "" a turbocharged monster that developed staggering horsepower with enough ruggedness and reliability built in to stand up to the punishing abuse of 24-hour endurance racing. As such, the 997 Turbo engine ships from the factory with many of the components necessary for making big horsepower already in place. "It's like they took a checklist from the page of every tuner out there that was rebuilding these engines, and decided to just put all that stuff in at the factory. Forged connecting rods? Check. Reinforced crankshaft? Check. Dry-sump oil system? Check. It's all there. In fact, just about every component in the 997 was over-built. Inside, it looks more like one of the cutting edge import race engines we were building in the 90"²s than it did any kind of street engine."