Engine chip/remap - advice needed

[leesweeney]

I have decided to gently tweak the performance of my varioram 993 C2S. (partly prompted by this year's drive down to Le Mans following a mate in a spanking DB9 - my 3.6 litre 285hp very nearly kept up with his 6.0 litre V12 450hp, but not quite!) I like to keep my cars as standard as possible and have already succumbed to RSR's (sound great but look standard) and the porsche sound enhancing airbox (OK not standard but at least it's genuine porsche).

I therefore would like to upgrade the performance without changing the exhaust any further, messing about with performance cams or the like or doing anything else that is externally visible.

Kenny has suggested Ninemeister who do a live reprogramming of the engine map which visually affects nothing but releases a few more of Stuttgart's finest. At about £500 this seems a very good option. Keny has used them before with some impressive results (312bhp out of an otherwise completely standard 993 varioram).

Before I take the leap, does anyone else have any experience of this re-mapping by Ninemeister, either good or bad? Or indeed would anyone suggest some other modification as a better option remembering that originality and reliability are the watchwords.

Many thanks in anticipation of your usual flood of responses.

PS Have also posted this thread onthe Yorkshire region.

 

[Richard_Hamilton]

Personally, I'm with Maurice on this one. Because the gains are so small, Porsche have obviously made a good job of mapping in the first place. IMHO all you are doing is taking out a safety factor that has been built in. Different story for turbo engines, of course........

 

[968er]

9M remapped my last 993 and found an extra 30 bhp.

Contrary to popular belief Porsche did not eek out every possible ounce of power from the engine as it has a middle of the road setup. Rather than listen to tittle tattle on web forums from ill informed people speak to Colin Belton at 9M who knows his way around a 993 engine.

 

[Guest]

William, was your last 993 Vario on non? And anyone, is there more scope from extracting more power from a non-Vario engine with its mere 272 horses?

I have considered a chip or a remap to improve the lower-end torque.

 

[burrow01]

Hi,

My Non varioram recently Dyno'ed at 287 at Weltmeister, not sure if it has ever been remapped, but there are definitely some more horses in there somewhere []

Pete

 

[968er]

Peter,

It was a NV.

 

[kennyboy]

Contrary to popular belief Porsche did not eek out every possible ounce of power from the engine as it has a middle of the road setup. Rather than listen to tittle tattle on web forums from ill informed people speak to Colin Belton at 9M who knows his way around a 993 engine.

Couldn't put it better myself William.

Go for it Lee (of course I know already you are), I've had 2 993's done by these guys - absolutely no problem at all... didn't suggest K&N either.

Yes they are optimised to high octane fuel though when I ran on lower there were no detonation problems, just less power.

 

[burrow01]

Hi Mo

Agree with your comments about being less room for manouvore given that you should already be running on 98 Octane, but some people are always willing to push the boundries [] I think you need to ask questions of the person carrying out the remap as to the safety margins that remains - what happens in high ambient temps such as we have now, at altitude etc

Regarding my dyno reading, I was a bit suspicious of the dyno, as I am not aware of any work that has been carried out on the car, but all I can say is that the other unmodified cars tested that day - 924,s 944's and both flavours of 944 Turbo, came out pretty much on the factory numbers, or slightly lower, as you would expect

Is there any way that the Engine Management can be interogated to find out if a remap has been undertaken?

cheers

 

[kennyboy]

Fair points Maurice - and I agree anyone considering a remap should be aware of the trade-offs.

Though given the influence your technical comments have on this forum (rightly so) I do feel obliged to challenge your final quote:

.. do you value 15-20 horsepower more than a highly reliable engine ..

To my knowledge there is no evidence to suggest these particular remaps do anything to the reliability of the engine. Does an increase in power always means a decrease in reliability - IMO no.

The guys here aren't dialling out safety margins in the engine, they are dialling out inefficiencies which are still there, even in a Porsche engine.

I agree caution is recommended for any tuning but for these specific remaps my experience has only been positive and I'm confident the reliability of the engine has not been compromised.

 

[968er]

The only caveat I got from Colin before the remap was that I should ensure that I would not be making any changes to the engine afterwards as it would be a waste of money eg sports exhaust. Other than that it was a case of turning up with a tank full of Optimax as the remap is based on 98RON fuel and leave it for the day.

The car then pulled through all gears and rev range, not once it hit 4000 revs and was much more useable.

9M are a Porsche specialist tuner, as I previously said, phone them up and speak directly to them. Colin is a no nonsense guy who will not BS.

 

[burrow01]

ORIGINAL: kennyboy

Fair points Maurice - and I agree anyone considering a remap should be aware of the trade-offs.

Though given the influence your technical comments have on this forum (rightly so) I do feel obliged to challenge your final quote:

To my knowledge there is no evidence to suggest these particular remaps do anything to the reliability of the engine. Does an increase in power always means a decrease in reliability - IMO no.

The guys here aren't dialling out safety margins in the engine, they are dialling out inefficiencies which are still there, even in a Porsche engine.

Hi

Any extra power output surely increases stress on the engine? not to a great degree at the levels we are discussing here - adding Varioram to my engine would bring the same level of increase, so I am happy that it would be safe

Can you explain "dialing out inefficiencies" ? Yes, presumably you are making the engine more efficient by producing more power at the same revs, but if this is by putting more fuel into the engine then that is not necessarily making it more efficient? If the "inefficiencies" are there to provide additional cylinder cooling via adding more fuel than is strictly necessary, the "inefficiencies" could also be described as a "safety margin"

Given that the valve timing is fixed by the camshafts, and assuming no modifications to inlets and exhausts, you presumably have the same amount of air flowing at a given revs. So the only parameters available to you for modicification are injector and ignition timing?

As I understand it, there is a "perfect" air/fuel ratio, which gives the maximum power output and by igniting this mixuture at the maximum compression, you will again produce maximum power. The down side of achieving this "perfect" situation is that you have no margin for error - if the fuel is slightly under the expected Octane rating, there are carbon deposits within the cylinder head that are retaining heat and potentially igniting the fuel / air ratio earlier than expected, the air is not as dense as expected due to heat or altitude, or the engine gets hotter than expected, or your dual distributor belt fails and only one spark plug ignites, then you can have uncontrolled explosions, misfires etc and potential damage to the engine.

Due to this, the manufacturers err on the side of caution, and do not aim to achieve the perfect burn, but set the timings on the more cautious side. As I understand it, and I am no expert in this area, to achieve more power at the same revs, with no inlet / outlet mods, you need to erode some of this safety margin?

The other item addressed by remapping is the elimination of the deliberate flat spots that manufacturers programme in to assist with passing noise regs - particualarly around the 2500/3000 rpm range where testing is carried out - I'm not sure if this applies to 993's? This would not, however, increase peak power, only "driveability"

If any of the above is rubbish, then someone please correct - as I say, I'm no expert in the area. I'm also not suggesting that acknowleded experts such as Colin are doing something which will damage your engine. I do, however, believe that you do not get something for nothing, so something has to give when you are re-mapping a standard engine

my 2p []

Pete

 

[leesweeney]

Wow! What a response. I didn't expect such a heated debate.

Maurice, I always appreciate your advice, indeed I took it before buying the C2S and was glad for it. I also appreciate the comments of everyone else so thanks all for your contributions.

On balance I think I will go for the live re-map. I will not be changing the filter to a K&N, partly taking on board Maurice's comments but partly because I want to make as few modifications as possible (though still have some improvement).

I always worry about reliablity but, and please tell me if you think I am wrong Maurice/others, having always run the car on Optimax which I will continue to do, with only a re-map and no other changes and given the overall build standards of the 993 engine, am I really risking much by adding another 15bhp and a little more torque? I thought this engine was very understressed and could handle some rediculous horsepower? It doesn't get raced around tracks and I don't have the ability (unfortunately) to drive like a nutter.

But I do want reliability.

Thanks

 

[oliverjamesthomas]

Oh, it appears mapping is now as emotive a subject as tyres..........[]

Without wishing to pin my colours to a particular tuner's flag, I think we can sometimes miss the point of what 9M in particular seek to achieve. For years there have been companies such as superchips that claim to give a 20bhp increase for example. The car wouldn't be tested on a dyno and we had to take their word for the claims. Then we saw the advent of live re-mapping and now we're seeing live re-mapping with changes to mechanical components.

Having met Colin and spoken to him at great length, (no-one ever has a short conversation with Colin when he's speaking about engines....[]), I would consider him to be slightly different from the rest of the tuning bunch we find in the UK. Whilst I don't wish to decry Weltmeister / AMD / others, it does seem there has been a great deal of mis-information bounded around. The purpose is a matter of personal opinion but from my point of view, if you talk to Colin you are talking to an ENGINEER first and a tuner second.

The 9M approach is quite simple, re-map it to find power and get a slight increase in useable power. Change cams and a couple of other bits and get more. Go the head route and get even more. The beauty is that he has an understanding of how an engine works. Yes, we all know the pistons connect to the crank via the conrods, etc, but he lives in a world of stress, strain, fluid mechanics and gas flow, to name a few bits. From this world, he's developed the head package that has removed the inefficiencies of the Porsche design. No-one is saying they did a bad job, he's just invested a small fortune in R&D and has achieved a result that is directly attributable to his background knowledge. Let's take the analogy of the great RS500 Cosworth. Why didn't Ford build the engine in the first place? Why did Cosworth get involved? There are probably several answers, but the most likely is they stuck to the mainstream production stuff and left the high power development to a smaller specialist company. No-one is saying Ford couldn't have designed and built the Cosworth engine - it probably just suited them not to.

So what's the point of my analogy and rant? Basically, all this talk of stressing an engine is true in some circumstances and false in others. If you go to Colin with money to burn, he could most probably map an engine and turn the wick up to a point that it'll last about ten miles down the road. Many others could too. However, what if he didn't? What if he said that he could map your standard engine to 350bhp, (a ludicrous example I know....[]), but he wont do it because he knows it won't last. What if he says that he can give a safe, reliable, driveable 305BHP that is well within the design tolerance of the metal bits? Where does this knowledge come from? Research, development and expertise that has told him how much power standard parts can take, where they are efficient and inefficient and which need changing to achieve more.

I know the type of tuner I'd prefer to go to................

Regards

 

[burrow01]

Hi Lee

What is the milage on your car at the moment?

As I said above, I'm not of the opinion that a live remap giving a relatively small power increase will turn your engine into some racing grenade - the same basic engine is good for 400+ Bhp when turbocharged. It's a bit like the great oil debate (now there is a heated discussion.) you are talking about levels of reliability - as an example it could mean the difference between having an engine rebuild at 190,000 miles or 170,000 miles (just an example...) - both high levels of reliabilitly compared to other cars. If your engine is in a good state at the moment, and the work is done by someone who really knows what they are doing, and you understand what is happening and accept it, then there should be Ok

Just FYI, my Non varioram engine is producing 287BHp ( at Weltmeister) and is showing some signs of little end wear according to my local Indy....

Pete

 

[leesweeney]

Thanks Pete,

The engine has only covered a palfry 25000 miles and as far as I know is in perfect health.

ORIGINAL: burrow01

Hi Lee

What is the milage on your car at the moment?

As I said above, I'm not of the opinion that a live remap giving a relatively small power increase will turn your engine into some racing grenade - the same basic engine is good for 400+ Bhp when turbocharged. It's a bit like the great oil debate (now there is a heated discussion.) you are talking about levels of reliability - as an example it could mean the difference between having an engine rebuild at 190,000 miles or 170,000 miles (just an example...) - both high levels of reliabilitly compared to other cars. If your engine is in a good state at the moment, and the work is done by someone who really knows what they are doing, and you understand what is happening and accept it, then there should be Ok

Just FYI, my Non varioram engine is producing 287BHp ( at Weltmeister) and is showing some signs of little end wear according to my local Indy....

Pete

 

[jmspear]

Lee, tenpennyworth from me:

1) The danger in remapping comes from the ignition timing being overadvanced, the car then running on lower octane fuel and detonation occurring this is like having spark erosion on your barrells, heads and pistons. Yes the engine is overengineered but when it has detonation it WILL melt pistons and damage barrells and then other things happen like rings let go and then big ends get damaged - I know :-(

2) If the car has the right fuel in it and the mapper knows what they are doing like Wayne who maps for 9M then you are in safe hands, it is especially beneficial if you have other mods like heads, cams and exhaust system (100 cell cats) as it will optimise these mods

3) Dyno readings I too worry about these and although they make you feel good / bad, I would be careful +/- 10 - 15 HP. Best to go by before and after on the same dyno in the same conditions

4) All of that said, with the work I have had done on my engine:

- 9M heads
- Full cargraphic NGT system including 100 cel cats (luckily bought cheap on ebay)
- 9M cams
- 9M remap to exploit above

The performance figures say it all:






Elvington 31.5.06

Steve

John




Std 993 C2

Mod 993


0-40

4.02

2.89


0-60

6.29

4.87


0-100

15.01

11.58


40-90 (3rd gear)

8.44

7.12


Vmax

152.24

160.48

All figures recorded on race logic data recorder set up by Total 911 magazine.

So forget the dyno readings the acceleration figures are what you feel on the road and track.

Oh and by the way I am running a std airfilter in the motorsound box, and have had no recommendation to change, even though my car is obviously flowing some serious air through it - so my advice is to forget the air filter change.

Finally reliability; well I have had an engine meltdown due to incorrect mapping (see top) but the tuner repaired it all Free of Charge and quickly and so I am very happy and will not name them.

Since having the 9M conversion finished I have been to:

Silverstone, Castle Combe, Donnington all in the last couple of months (blood hot too at Silverstone and CC) on Club track days and it has run like a steam train and I am at Goodwood, Bedford, Brands on forthcoming track days this season so it is getting a good test!

Happy to chat and take for rides if you see me at one of the events - midnight blue 993 running on 996 lightweight five spoke rims with big red capliers.,

 

[Yoda]

Interesting debate as it is something I have been thinking about recently. I talked to people who had work done and there was mixed feedback generally and on specific companies. Someone recently had signifiacnt work done to their 964 RS and found that power and torque had been increased to a scarcely believable number, demonstarted by several runs on the dyno before and after. The owner then queried this and after some adjustments to the dyno (there are lots of parameters that can be tweaked) the dyno showed numbers that the owner was expecting. Everyone happy ........ not exactly. Who do you believe? This was a very well known and reputable Porsche Specialist and while there were definite improvements in performance, it is hard to have confidence in the dyno numbers. People can be creative with dyno's to produce the readings they want.

I decided to leave alone for the time being but each to their own. I think I will get more driver tuition, at least that way I know where the extra performance is coming from (if it ever arrives[])

 

[jmspear]

Sorry the table did not come out in the post, it is in Total 911 this month or for each reading the first figure is std non varioram 993 and the second is for my car.

e.g. for 0-60, std 993 non varioram 6.29 seconds, mine 4.87. Same driver

0-60

6.29

4.87

 

[kennyboy]

It's great to see this sort of debate, I for one get to learn a lot!

Pete and Maurice - thanks for the replies I have to admit you have me thinking, from my limited knowledge you make a lot of sense.... and so does Oliver in the last post.

With the more informed comments on this thread now I don't want to hang myself and get technical [8|] but I have had actual experience of these remaps and I can feel in everyday driving, part throttle, full throttle, low rpm, high rpm - noticeable gains. These are backed up by the dyno results, which even if are inaccurate should least be good for showing the relative gains as you get a before and after.

Could it be there is something else going on here that the collective knowledge of this forum doesn't quite understand - come on Colin, where are you!?

As for K&N I can't understand that either - not for me.

 

[Richard_Hamilton]

Good grief, there is some real emotion here! Purely out of interest exactly how much do 9M charge for a remap?

edit: "exactly"