Hello everyone!

As the title states I'm looking to buy my first Porsche. I am 22 years old and am in the financial position to buy a 996. I found one I really like I can get for a great deal but it has a tpc supercharger on it. Should I be concerned this will diminish the longevity of the vehicle? I'm buying this car to actually drive and have fun with. I currently have another vehicle as well. It will be driven in good weather. The car has 73,000 miles.

Thank you in advance for all advice

 

No.

Unless you are a mechanic or have the resources to resolve issues with loads of cash. No

 

To elaborate, it would be more prudent to purchase a 996TT if looking for a particular power level. The TPC (unless heavily discounted) will make the car more difficult to re-sell.

The engine in a 996 is already high compression since designed as a NA setup and has a bad "reputation" from IMS so some could see supercharging as higher risk.

 

i'd stay away as well. not knowing who did the work or history of vehicle is enough to make me walk away.

 

I wouldn't. You can supercharge or turbocharge any engine, however the engine was not designed or engineered for it. IMO it will decrease the longevity of the engine.

 

certainly the supercharger is going to put a lot more stress on the engine, and no doubt who ever did the mod obviously did it for more power and probably drive the car hard, how long can the engine last? A PPI involving a thorough engine check (compression/leak down) might give you an idea, but you never really know. it it was my car I would plan for an engine rebuild sooner then later.

Of course if you are looking for power, just buy a turbo!

 

I'd keep looking if I were you

 

Just be aware the TPC engine mapping/tuning is quite a bit different than VF Engineering and in an unfavorable way.

 

Curious as to what your budget is for the Porsche?

 

Since this is you're first, I would buy a bone stock 996. This way you have a baseline and if anything happens to the car then the guys here will be able to help you quickly to diagnose and fix those issues. it sounds like this car was local to you and you have the itch even worse to buy. Give it time the right car is out there. What is you're budget?

 

Buy a turbo no issues with the 3.6 mezger

 

Oh no not another I'm looking for a Porsche story. If you've done your home, you would have probably discovered this is not the Porsche ( Super Charged?) for you. Do a lot more home work, driving cars, PPI's, etc, then come back for more advice after your purchase.. Just don't get us all hyped up about looking for a car and then going out and buying a Mustang or something, lol.

Not trying to be mean but we get a weekly barrage here of people looking for a P-car. We get all involved and in the end they end up buying something else. If you really do your home work you don't have to ask. GLW the search.

 

I'm actually in the same exact situation (though the car I'm looking at has 106k miles) and would like to hear more feedback if anyone else would like to chime in.

 

Look around a lot, get a good PPI on any potential purchase, get one that is stock.

 

The "exact" situation? Meaning you are looking at a 996 with a TPC supercharger fitted?

The advice already posted applies, then.

To add to this: I'm sure the TPC setup is as good as it can be but one is dealing with the 996 NA engine. It is a very high compression engine which means boost will by necessity be limited. IIRC from my turbo/supercharging research -- this years ago admittedly -- 5 to 6 psi boost is about all a high compression engine can safely take.

I do not know how much HP the TPC supercharger adds -- the only TPC supercharger kit I could find at the TPC site is for a 964/993 911 and it adds 100hp -- but a supercharger requires some HP to spin. To produce say 100hp boost over stock it might take 45hp (or more) to drive the thing. For example to supercharge a Ford V6 3.8l engine the supercharger required 45hp at full boost, but the engine's output increased from 140hp and 292 nm of torque to 210hp and 428 nm of torque, with an increase of HP over stock of 70hp. In the case of the 996 engine then to generate 100hp over stick then engine could be having to produce 145hp or more over stock. Call it 150hp.

You do not state the MY of the car you are looking at but assuming for the sake of discussion let me assume it is a 2002 996 and this engine produces 316hp and asking this engine to produce another 150hp can only shorten the engine's service life.

To understand how "stressed" the 3.6l engine is already consider this: My '96 Mustang GT SOHC V8 4.6l engine produced around 200hp, or 43hp per liter. My 2006 GTO OHV V8 6.0l engine produced 400hp or 66.66hp per liter. The stock 996 NA 3.6l engine produces 87.7hp per liter. To produce the estimated 150hp to provide 100hp over stock the engine would have to produce 316hp + 150hp or 466hp or 129.4hp per liter. To give you some idea of what it "takes" to generate this HP reliably over a number of miles my 2003 Turbo 996 3.6l engine with its twin turbochargers produces 420hp or just 116.6hp per liter. Might add that there have been cases where this engine has covered hundreds of thousands of miles without any engine issues. (There is a 400K+ mile example, and one with around 575K miles. Even my 2003 has covered almost 139K miles with no engine issues.) But the Turbo engine, the Mezger engine, is based on a race engine platform that was asked to produce over 500hp in race trim, albeit using titanium rods and rod bolts. It is a low compression engine with approx. 9:1 CR vs. the 996 NA engine's approx. 11.3:1 CR and has a true dry sump lubrication system and a slightly lower rev limit. Might add it has two rather large intercoolers too to cool the incoming air temperature.

Of course you can do what you want. You can buy the car and enjoy it while being sure to give it the proper care it should have considering what it is being asked to do and under what conditions and if the engine gives you a long and trouble free service life, that's just great.

But you have to be prepared for the other possibility and that is the engine suffers serious problems maybe even catastrophic engine failure at some point during your time with the car.

Granted even a stock NA 996 can suffer this sad fate but adding a supercharger is just tempting fate.

If you believe you can handle this worst case scenario without forever kicking yourself for your decision then go ahead and buy the car. (But of course not before giving it a thorough used car check out to assure yourself the car is even worth owning.)