Silver_TT

I totally understand what you're saying and it makes a lot of sense for you. But a lot of folks are going to care about what their resale value is. You buy a car thinking "I love this thing, I'm NEVER going to get rid of it". Then you get married, fall in love with another car later, have to move somewhere that a car isn't needed, or whatever. Life changes in ways you cannot predict. What JFP was saying about voiding warranties is true and is a more recent phenomenon than your 2004. However it is true, and it will upload your VIN to Porsche's central database letting them know that you're SOL on the warranty, don't pass go, don't collect $200, and don't let the door hit you in the behind on the way out.

I've seen Kevin's posts on Rennlist. He seems competent although I have no experience with him. The flash that came on my TT had a separate device that would switch it between the stock code and the flash for this reason. However it didn't work very well and the product was shoddy. The support was worse. When I asked their support if I could have the loader .exe and flash files, they told me it was way more complicated and you needed special hardware/software which was only available at an authorized shop (closest one to me was 2 hours away and that's driving in a TT on open highway). Anyway, fast forward to me driving to their "authorized" location 2 hours outside of a major city, which was some junky repair place, and I had to show the tech how to use the program and load the files. He was like 19 years old (not experienced) and didn't know a thing about how to use a computer. So I did the work for him and saw exactly how it works. Turned out there was no special hardware at all. It was an old Dell laptop with and OBD cable and some flash files on a PC.......exactly like I thought but their tech support insisted wasn't true. Anyway, I wasted 4 hours roundtrip of driving and $100 labor for something I could have done in my garage in 3 minutes. All risking getting in trouble for not having my car emissions certified. So anyway, that's my experience with tunes. You may have gotten a good one, but there's a lot of junk floating around out there so buyer beware. The same pretty much goes for software in general across the board. There's 10x more bad software out there than good software. Your tune sounds awesome though.

Fair enough. Those same folks should just know that there are a lot of garbage tunes out there. I'm just curious, have you not had any issues passing emissions? In the state I needed to get my emissions in they are insanely anal. All "readiness" states were showing as PASS in both Durametric and at the dealer using PIWIS......but the state's software was doing something like a checksum on the flash and knew it wasn't OEM and would fail it every time. For a test being conducted by the government, I was highly impressed with their level of sophistication (granted the software was outsourced to a 3rd party vendor as I understand it). Anyway, with as "green" as Colorado/Boulder is, I have to say that I'm a little surprised that you never ran into the same issues. Also out of curiosity, who did your tune? Are you boosting with K16s or the larger K24s? I never experienced much turbo lag with the K16s. It's punch and go.

If my initial post came across as abrasive I apologize. With respect to tune I had, yes, it was garbage and I won't argue with you there. You may be right that your flash greatly increased the HP. I've read your posts and you are generally knowledgeable, so I believe you.... but I'm also generally skeptical about using software alone to get big HP gains. I know you can get plenty when you add hardware, but that's another story. Either way, I'm still not a fan of modding these cars personally (def not the Carreras but not the Turbos either). I'm sure yours is great but mine was a nightmare to get passed emissions. Could just be the state I was in but the software they use is updated weekly they told me and they are always adding new code to catch defeats. At any rate, that's just my 2 cents but I'm a "purist" now and I don't believe in molesting the hardware or software that comes on these cars from the factory. My stock TT scared the heck out of me sometimes as it is and can keep the pace with almost any car at the track -- even those that cost 5 times as much as I paid for mine -- on the days I'm driving well. To each their own. Cheers

cheers :cheers:

Unfortunately there are no easy power mods. Sorry but stuff like a K&N air filter is getting you nothing extra. If power is what you want, buy a Turbo -- they don't really cost that much more if you consider you're getting a vastly superior car. The problem with these DME flashes is two-fold. First there is no upside in HP gains. When I took the flash off the 996TT I bought I couldn't tell a difference. I had to laugh so hard when the seller told me the car was running up to 150 HP stronger with the software. Second, by flashing the DME to aftermarket, you're taking the car away from a known heavily tested configuration. JFP hit the nail on the head with emissions, which is a moving target as most states are constantly updating their software to catch "defeats". This will be a never ending nightmare. And further, I can't tell you how many posts I've read in the past where people had weird issues that ended up being because of aftermarket software. Generally, I think most aftermarket stuff with these cars doesn't offer enough upside to offset the "risks".

Just my opinion but this is going to cost you a fortune in time and/or money. If you want a 997TT, you can pick them up used with relatively low mileage starting around $60K USD. You're just going to spend way too much and then your car isn't going to be worth what a real 997TT is anyway. I would only do this if you're looking to kill a lot of hours and do it as a fun project. JFP is right, you're also going to need a ton of hardware.

Definitely agree with JFP that mileage will be a misleading indicator because it matters how the car was driven -- lots of start/stop vs highway as well as generally how hard the car was driven, etc. At 45K though it should at least be on your radar if you're looking to buy the car and need to budget for repairs. I've seen a guy on this site who said he has 300K kilometers on his TT with the original clutch. Maybe he logs a ton of highway miles, I don't know. My 996TT, which has a very similar gearbox to the 997TT manual you're referring to, needed one at 45K. Just depends........

Which was probably an Asian knock off of a now dead old Durametric system that is no longer supported. Be careful with these things, some have caused DME problems which are not easily resolved............ +1. Using the knock-off versions will cause all sorts of problems including unreliable diagnostics. I'm surprised at how many people think this is good idea.

I think the 5th gear video link is actually launch control. Beautiful car.

Don't bet the ranch on it.

Could certainly be related to the ECU since that controls the twin turbos. If you're getting 1.2 bar of boost, you must be running an aftermarket flash. Numerous issues can occur when running aftermarket flashes on these cars.

Interesting. Like Richard, I also thought v34 was the final release.

How does the licensing of the PIWIS work? I'm assuming you need more than just a copy of the software running in a VM. Is this s legit license?

Checking the filter after an oil change should be standard procedure. I would change the oil every 5K miles if your car is driven fairly regularly. Oil changes are cheap compared to a new engine. 10K or 15K miles is definitely way too long in my opinion.

Carfax is a good basic sanity check but not a guarantee by any means. To service the flywheel the transmission would need to come out, not the engine. If the IMS was replaced this would be in the service records for the vehicle that hopefully were provided to you -- it would not be in a Carfax. I wouldn't take anything for granted. While you are correct that your original OEM IMS is probably less prone to failure than the later revision, you are still at some risk and they can still fail and destroy an engine.

Congrats, looks sharp. I really like the wheels. Aero kit looks great as well.

You bet. On my 996TT I got the full service records with the car and I could see that within the first 1k miles or so when the car was brand new the original owner took the car into an OPC and complained about the rattle -- no doubt worried, thinking that something might be wrong with his precious new toy. You can see the comments from the Porsche tech in the paperwork, stating the rattle is normal on the Turbo and nothing to be worried about. At any rate, as you said, as soon as you give it any throttle the rattle disappears immediately. When I think of the car I prefer to imagine the sound of the turbos spooled at 6K RPM instead. My first Porsche, a 4S, came with PSE....which I ended up hating in the end. Sounds loud and aggressive, annoys the neighbors. I prefer the "kill them softly" of the Turbos. They don't hear you coming on the track until you fly by them at full boost. Not a feeling in this world like the pull of that car at full boost.

JFP - Everything you stated makes perfect sense and is good guidance. I was wondering if you could you say a little more about your quote above. Thanks in advance.

8 pipes for the coolant fix. I prefer the weld method over the pinning method. The Mezger does have a slight rattle at idle. Nothing to be concerned with.

It's definitely a marketing ploy if you ask me. If you read about the technology on Porsche's website they tell you "this is the exact same thing as a real dry sump! we just integrated it into the engine thereby reducing plumbing and saving space! rejoice!" Also, I believe it is "Mezger" -- no "t" :cheers:

If the cats are broken inside you can hear it very easily. Shake the cat and you should not hear anything. If you shake the cat and it's broken, you will hear the broken element pieces inside. Some folks say you can test by hitting them with a rubber mallet with the cats still on the car......however, if you have the cats off the car it will be trivial to tell. Also, when you go to a scrap yard to get $ for the old cats, I noticed they poke into the cat with a long stick........... if they can poke far into it, that means the element is totally broken up. They use this as a very rough estimate to try to figure out how much of the cat is broken up inside.

I'm not an expert on the "integrated dry sump", but I don't see how that could be true. Time will be the judge but the Mezger definitely will be a tough act to follow........

Agree that the rhodium silver TTS is a very sharp looking car and agree about the dash layout. There are a lot of things about the 991 TT that I find better......but, so far, the engine is not one of them. I will let time be the judge but I don't think the latest generation will be able to match the Mezger. Another member of this site who worked for PCNA said Porsche had consulted Toyota on production and Toyota was blown away with the cost and sophistication of the Mezger to the point where they wondered what the heck Porsche was doing. While I don't have any inside information, it certainly seems that there's a lot of truth to that from everything I have read so far. I'm sure the 991 will be an outstanding car in many ways, but a move such as going back to a wet sump (no matter what they want to call it) is definitely a step backward if you ask me. I'll get off my soapbox but this is another reason I think the Porsche owners community (buyers) really got the 996 TT wrong. The cost is too cheap and not priced correctly. $40K for a low mileage 996TT is just plain ridiculous if you consider the sheer sophistication of the engine -- it is an engineering masterpiece in many ways. Just a prediction but I don't think the 991 changes things and the Mezger still goes down as one of the best -- if not THE best -- engines Porsche ever made.......

Do a search. This cable has been covered ad nauseam. As logray said, it's very common.