ICNU

Tunes on their own cant do much on these NA engines if stock otherwise. You need aftermarket headers/high flow cats along with a custom tune to really get the full benefit. Just like the tune, the headers alone wont be a huge change either until its combined with the tune. The headers also help to flatten the 3500RPM torque dip a good bit. The 3.4 will make 365-370 crank HP with headers and a good pro tune with no other mods and improve the power and torque down in the drivable range like you wish. As you have found out already, the $ per HP is quite expensive on these cars considering the headers will set you back 3K + along with the tune cost. Only you can decide if that cost is worth it to you or not

Diamond Dave

So I have read through all these...Im learning where Im looking for power in the 2000 to 4000 RPM range, Im not going to achieve that with a tune from anyone even with Fabspeed performance exhaust. True ?

josbmw

You are correct, but the Boxster GTS has 330 HP (10 less then the Cayman). After the dyno run, it looks like my car already has 344 HP stock instead of the claimed 330.

And no, you don't notice the difference of 10 HP with a GTS.
Maybe a little bit in the upper RPM, but that's hard to tell on the street.

josbmw

I would not spend the money on it, unless you want to upgrade at least the headers also I think (what results in more exhaust note, and that's something I absolutely did not want).
There is no difference at all in the 2000 - 4000 RPM range, no matter what tune. The dip in the torque curve is very hard to get rid of with this engine, unless you spent a lot of money.

And if you want to test a tune, make sure you have a money back warranty in case you are not satisfied. I also recommend to dyno the car without and with tune.
I sometimes have the impression a tune has some psychological impact.
Without objective measurements (I'm an engineer) which obviously cost money, difference is hard to tell. At least with my car. Maybe results might vary.

I also wonder why most tuners don't give exact dyno charts. FVD doesn't at least. I asked them for dyno's before buying the tune, but they could not provide them. Strange for a Porsche only tuner.
Softronic doesn't deliver them either.
The maps on the Cobb site are vague, they only talk about %. But you notice clearly the dip issue remains with their tune.

If you want power (leaving out the sound discussion), buy a 2.5 4-pot turbo.
I was so stupid to let a 2019 Boxter GTS pass with only 5000 km on the odo, due to six cylinder sentiment. The car had all the options I wanted (including ceramic brakes). Price new was around 120000 EUR.
That car would only have cost me 5000 EUR with trade-in of my GTS.

One drawback: it was racing yellow, and my wife really didn't want yellow. My current GTS is red, and the previous 981 S was silver. She prefers "low profile" colors .
Currently, the price I get offered for my GTS is way higher then I expected.
After my tuning experiment, I would buy a 2.5 turbo immediately.

The 4.0 GTS is an option, but is currently almost impossible to get as alternative. And I never buy new cars, always young used ones.
Which in my case means a cars with the specs I want only appears once or twice per year in the used German marked, or even less.

So I'll keep driving the 3.4 GTS until something pops up. Without tune...

Thacker

I feel the need to repeat myself; A friend's 981 felt no different after the FVD Brombacher upgrade to the electronics.

That being said, I would think about doing it just because Porsche was STUPID enough to downrate the 9A1 engine in the 981 by deliberately closing the throttle at high RPM to keep output at only 325 hp.

Frankly, I think that the engineers at Porsche should be dragged out and flogged publicly for this offense. Beancounters were definitely definitely involved, the engineers should have resigned.

Thank you.

josbmw

That's something I already invested money in a few years ago, up to the point my instructor (a former race driver) told me he couldn't learn me anything anymore on the street. We did this in Scotland, where still is place on many lovely roads without traffic and no speed camera's.

As already mentioned in this thread, I think the difference will be more noticeable in the S version then the GTS.

I just swapped the rear sway bar with the X73 version (my GTS has PASM). This has, at least for me, a positive impact in how the car turns in. The price of this mod is peanuts compared to a tune and very noticeable.

txbdan

Purely anecdotal: The jump from the Cobb canned Stage 2 tune to the BGB Pro Tune felt like at least as big a jump as from the stock car to the catted headers plus Cobb Stage 2. It feels way torquier down low. I did a track day with the tune yesterday and the car ripped. Again, no data to support this, but that's like, how I feel, ok?

krispe

Interesting to read the above reviews. I have a Cayman GTS PDK PTV and have just installed M&M 200cel headers with BMC filters and then an FVD Tune. There is a noticeable amount of extra torque from 4krpm, (not night and day, but definitely feels stronger). However interestingly it only feels stronger when I select Sports Plus (which now redlines at 7900rpm). Normal and Sport do not feel that much different than before the remap, (there was a slight improvement in performance when the headers were originally fitted in all modes before the map was installed), but Sports Plus with the FVD tune definitely now pulls hardest. Obviously the car is now louder than before with the 200cel headers (something I didn't really want but except to get a bit more midrange performance). My exhaust map was the same as stock but the POPs and bangs were even louder and more of them, especially every time I lift off the throttle; far too much for my liking, but I have just contacted FVD and they have sent me a new map without the excessive pops and bangs on overrun/lift. I'll install it and update my view on here. It's very hard to get extra performance out of these motors, I think the 200 cell headers and remap do make a difference, but it's not night and day like a remap on a turbo 718, and a sizeable amount of cost for just a slight extra pull, but still enough for me to enjoy my car even more despite the increase in exhaust volume. I think the best option would be a pro-tune from someone like BGB or Ehresmann to get the maximum gains but even then it's still not going to give a real night and day increase, particularly on a GTS. For a standard Cayman/Boxster S then I think the remaps are definitely worth it, for us GTS owners unless you are also changing headers then its not.

Chrismalberts

I'm going to throw in a semi-relevant data point. Semi-relevant because it's related to a tune (Softronic) on the 2.7 mot.or, not the 3.4. I'm almost a year on from the tune and have no other mods than Soul Performance tips (ie mostly cosmetic) and the tune still delights me every time I drive. One of the benefits of tunes is improved driveability - so the weird flat spot at very low rpm and the dip at 3000-4500 is gone. There's a better thread on this where someone measured actual throttle opening vs. throttle signal and at full throttle (from a pedal point of view) the motor was only opening it's throttle plates like 78% (apologies if I'm misremembering the exact numbers). This kind of thing is what tunes fix - throttle maps that mfrs implement to avoid cars competing with more expensive models in their range or to help with emissions or sound testing/regulations. Yes, there's also more top end, but the mid-range is so much less stunted that the tune has changed my driving style in 2 ways:
1 - I used to ALWAYS drive in sport mode (I don't have sport +/ chrono, and my car is stick so I don't want/need it). Now I drive well over half the time in "normal" mode and usually switch to sport to cool the car down, perhaps misguidedly.
2 - I have never been shy to run a car up to max rpm and I love cars that just scream from 5k to 7.5k, but I find I'm shifting at 4500-5500 rpm and much less commonly getting to 7600 since the tune.

One of the best things about the tune is the removal of that "flat spot" when trying to take off fast that drove me nuts. The tune also has more top end of course, and both my regular passengers noticed it and when my son drove the car for the first time post-tune he was somewhat freaked out by the increased urgency and aggressiveness which I attribute more to the mid-range improvement in throttle opening.

So in summary, I have found it's usually worth the money to tune an NA car, even if you aren't ever going to be able to get the HP gains that you see on turbo car tunes, but the benefits are more subtle. Does my tune make me faster almost all the time on regular roads - yes! Has it increased the enjoyment of my vehicle - definitely!

stephensaurus

quick question for the 3.4l pdk softronic folks: has anyone noticed any decrease in overall smoothness with the tune?

the only other experience i've had with aftermarket tunes is apr's stage 2 "ultracharger" tune on a 6mt b8.5 audi s4. compared to stock, the accessibility and increase in power is addicting, but i also noticed that lifting off the throttle in lower gears introduced a distinct jerkiness on deceleration even when rev matched to a manageable rpm. it's something i've ended up compensating for by intentionally shifting to higher gears prior to lifting at the cost of weaker engine braking on the street, but i don't recall the abruptness being present prior to the tune.

i'm interested in flashing the softronic tune later this year, but don't want to compromise the smoothness of the stock profile. any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated!

Nip are

Anyone know what happens to your DME file when your tune increases the redline? Does it show over revs or no?

DonJuan

What is difference pro tune vs Softronics or FVD?

Kernel Klink

Agreed. John and the team at BGB really know what they are about, and having sorted out allowing the TB to open to 100% have one of, if not the best, tunes available. Very happy with mine.

Noah Fect

But there are still no comparative dyno plots showing the effect of the 100% throttle opening, correct?

Or the removal of the 2K-4K flat spot?

Nip are

Anyone have any experience with OpenFlash? They are popular on other platforms like MX-5, BRZ, and Ferrari. https://www.openflashtablet.com/shop...xster-gt4-981/

The question above about throttle opening made me think of them. On my MX-5 I can record data logs then download and view them. I can also look at parameters real time like timing advance, knock retard and AFR. Getting 100% throttle opening on the gen 4 MX-5 when it was new was a challenge for the tuners. It took a while for them to crack the code. I remember sending logs to openflash showing less than 100% in the early days. Eventually the problem was solved.