Engine Note

Jonathan Meadows · 24 Apr 2005

I've test driven quite a few 996 C2's and have noticed that they seem to have a different engine notes. Some seem to have a relatively smooth sound to them at low revs others seems to sputter slightly and sound a little rough. Am I imagining this or does this point to issues with the particular car?

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Robertb · 25 Apr 2005

The 3.4s and the 3.6s (facelift cars) sound very different, and some are fitted with sports exhausts (the switchable sports exhausts are especially cool).

I can't think of any reasons for big differences in engine note apart from that?

Robert.

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Jonathan Meadows · 28 Apr 2005

Thanks Robert, All of the cars were 3.6 facelift cars without sports exhausts. Must have been imagining it, guess the huge grin on my face momentarily disabled my hearing!

Either way, hopefully picking up my first Porsche on Friday. 996 lapis blue, 28k miles jaw dropping...

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Robertb · 28 Apr 2005

Enjoy! Lapis blue is a lovely colour too.

BTW, if yours is a facelift car, you can get the switchable sports exhaust retrofitted (if you are in to that sort of thing). The beauty of it is that you can select the rortyness of the exhaust depending on your mood/conditions which is a real boon if you've any experience of a droning sports exhaust on crawl down a wet motorway, but like the sound on a sunny day with the windows down... Fitted for under £2k if memory serves.

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Porsche · 28 Apr 2005

also switching between normal unleaded and super Optimax unleaded can effect the sound of the exhaust !

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Ian W · 28 Apr 2005

Sundeep

Agree with you entirely about different fuels making the exhaust note different. On my '02 C2 with unswitched PSEs, this effect is particularly noticeable when changing between BP Ultimate and Shell Optimax.

OK you all think I'm nuts but yes, a difference of 1 in the RON number makes a HUGE difference to the sound of the car and a very boticeable difference in how it performs too. On Optimax the exhausts are VERY loud but sound incredibly sweet. On Ultimate they are toned down a little and sound more gruff. As for performance, Optimax loses mid range but is better at the top end ofthe rev range than Ultimate.

No, I didn't believe these differences could be happening either but they are totally repeatable. I keep on switching between fuels to check it out again and again because it doesn't make any logical sense to me but it is quite real. Amazed!

Anyone any idea why this should be?

Ian W

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Robertb · 28 Apr 2005

Perhaps something to do with the way the cars' DME adjusts the engine tuning to take account of the different fuels, rather than the fuels themselves, if that makes any sense...

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