Finally Dynoed Softronic ECU Flash on a 997 3.8L

[vividracing]

Vivid Racing recently had the opportunity to work on this 2006 Porsche 997 C4S. The car is a great machine in its stock state. The 3.8L engine pulls well but even with the Sport Button it could use some more POWA!!! So we added the Agency Power Exhaust System to the car. The exhaust is all stainless steel and TIG welded. It is designed to give maximum performance and minimal drone on cruising speeds. The exhaust is all polished to a mirror look. When installing this exhaust, you can retain the factory tips and use the stock or aftermarket headers. The exhaust system helps reduce back pressure to the point of gaining mid to top end power. You will notice right away the car pulling harder from mid RPM till the top. Now to help out the cars overall performance, we upgraded the ECU with the Softronic ECU Flash. As one of the main resellers for Softronic, we always jump on the opportunity to have a car inhouse to prove the capabilities on our Mustang All Wheel Drive dyno. The ECU flash is a very simple process that takes about 15 minutes to do the ECU read and then about 20-30 minutes to load the new file. The best part about Softronic is the ability to retain the stock map if you ever need to flash back to it. Vivid Racing has a very indepth instruction manual on how to Flash the car HERE. The baseline test of our car with the exhaust shows the Porsche 997 C4S making 280awhp and 230ft/lbs of torque. With the car in sport mode, we made 290awhp and 244ft/lbs of torque. Without sport mode the car made 293awhp and 243ft/lbs of torque. The car will always make more torque and low end horsepower as the dyno graph shows because of how the sport feature works. It gives much faster throttle response and immediate power. With outside air temperatures at around 110F degrees and the dyno room temperatures at 105F degrees average, it is hard to really get a strong run. If the air temperature was around 70F degrees, this car would pick up another 10HP guaranteed. The Mustang Dyno does read much lower then others such as a DynoJet and a DynaPak. Those generally add on 40HP more. But with a 20-25% drivetrain loss that is expected on the Mustang Dyno, these numbers are pretty good. Overall the Softronic ECU flash on the Porsche 3.8L made 13 peak all wheel horsepower and 13ft/lbs of torque. You can view the HOW TO YouTube.com Video on the ECU Flash Here - http://www.vividracing.com/forums/gallery/browseimages.php?c=354

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[NorthVan]

Not too much of a gain, 14 Hp from a chip and a set of mufflers.

[Ian_UK1]

Originally Posted by NorthVan997C2S

Not too much of a gain, 14 Hp from a chip and a set of mufflers.

Agreed - but much more believable than some of the more ridiculous claims out there. Mufflers alone give very little on these cars and a remap that's good for +10 BHP sounds feasible. All the remap does is tweak the ignition timing a little.

Full exhaust systems like AWE / Cargraphic etc. give about +20-25 BHP (wheels). Add a competently engineered remap for another +10 BHP (wheels) and you have +30-35 BHP (wheels). This equates to around +35-40 BHP at the crank. You simply aren't ever going to get more than this from bolt-on mods. But 390+ BHP is a very good result and a powerful car.

[johnsosn]

The Softronic also increases the fueling by altering the lamda target.
Mine failed the MOT on emmisions until I flashed back to standard.
Simon

[Ian_UK1]

Originally Posted by johnsosn

The Softronic also increases the fueling by altering the lamda target.
Mine failed the MOT on emmisions until I flashed back to standard.
Simon

Did you notice much of a performance gain from the Softronic firmware? I want to have a remap done on my car but can't decide between REVO and Softronic

[WOODTSTER]

Reasonable result. People on N/A cars it is hard to make significant improvements
on what Porsche has done.

[NorthVan]

Originally Posted by mdrums

The numbers posted are believable and I really apprecieate that Vivid seemed to do a real word test/dyno.

I have Fabspeed mufflers and the Softronic ECU flash in my car. The car just feels a little bit stronger in the low to mid rpm range and over all more peppy and willing to rev. This is the typical improvment I have felt over every other car I have ever owned that I can done some sort of ECU flash too.

I would still pick the Softronic if I had to do it all over again because I like the fact that you can flash back to stock your self, use the Durametric software to clear codes and read other parts of the engines ECU and from what I have learned I like the way Softronic works and goes about re-mapping the ECU compared to other company's.

Mike,

I agree, the softtonic software would be the one I pick as well, but at this point I don't see enough gains with it to make me go out and spend the money. Maybe when I run out of other mods to spend money on!

Ed

[NorthVan]

Originally Posted by WOODTSTER

Reasonable result. People on N/A cars it is hard to make significant improvements
on what Porsche has done.

It has been said too many times, but the best way to make your car faster, is to improve your driving skills! My car is getting faster everytime.

I tell people all the time that I have a fast car, but I am a slow driver!

[vividracing]

The baseline was done with the exhaust. So the 14AWHP gain was the flash. This is also an AWD car. A RWD will make more.

Softronic has the ability to add the SPORT feature to cars that do not have sport. Sport basically gives you full throttle ability instead of the restricted throttle when Sport is off.

Ian - those are written results... Like Woodster says, it is hard to gain SIGNIFICANT results on a NA car. These are very good gains and respectable. I post the truth. The reality is it is not about the PEAK numbers but the overall improvement in driveability. Nobody here drives around at 6500rpm all the time, so look at your 2500-5000 powerband gains.

mdrums is on point!

NorthVan - for $995 you gain good results. The bottomline is everything works together as a puzzle. The 3 best mods for a NA car is exhaust, intake, and flash. If you want to see Turbo Power, spend the $10K and get a supercharger that will add a real 100hp. But if you want to see your overall driveability improved, Softronic reflash.

[NorthVan]

Originally Posted by vividracing

The baseline was done with the exhaust. So the 14AWHP gain was the flash. This is also an AWD car. A RWD will make more.

Softronic has the ability to add the SPORT feature to cars that do not have sport. Sport basically gives you full throttle ability instead of the restricted throttle when Sport is off.

Ian - those are written results... Like Woodster says, it is hard to gain SIGNIFICANT results on a NA car. These are very good gains and respectable. I post the truth. The reality is it is not about the PEAK numbers but the overall improvement in driveability. Nobody here drives around at 6500rpm all the time, so look at your 2500-5000 powerband gains.

mdrums is on point!

NorthVan - for $995 you gain good results. The bottomline is everything works together as a puzzle. The 3 best mods for a NA car is exhaust, intake, and flash. If you want to see Turbo Power, spend the $10K and get a supercharger that will add a real 100hp. But if you want to see your overall driveability improved, Softronic reflash.

I don't think that a C4 is going to have less of a gain then a C2, I think you are trying to say is that the results seem lower due to the driveline? If that were the case then the C4S would slower then the C2S. Not the case.

Can you expand on this?

[vividracing]

AWD cars have more of a drivetrain loss then RWD cars. That is a fact. The point is that the car gained 14 all wheel horsepower PEAK. Mid range could be up to 20 and 30 in some parts. Again, your mid range driveability is what is important. So if you want to know what the crank horsepower is, do 14x1.25. Everyone puts there numbers at crank power which makes people feel better about themselves. Reality is... here is what Softronic did and did a great job of improving the overall performance. If you compare how the actual tuning is done on an individual map scale, it is also superior to other flashes. Lastly... again if you only look at the peak numbers, you are cheating yourself. This was run on 91 octane in 105F degree room. I can rerun this car in november and you will see a 10HP gain!

[vividracing]

Thats right MDrums!

[NorthVan]

Originally Posted by mdrums

NorthVan, keep in mind the air temps this dyno was done in. You live and track in Canada with cooler air. I know with all your mods that if you do the Softronic ECU Flash which Softronic will taylor the map to your mods you will notice a difference and bring everything together.

We don't have 110F too often, but we aren't snow covered either.

I ran my last track day with the outside temp 100-105F. I am sure that there is extra power generated, but at what cost per HP.

[NorthVan]

Originally Posted by mdrums

More HP/ per cost than any of your other mods you've done to the engine.

So far I would say your 2 best mods are:

1- getting track experience
2- GT3 seats with harness

actually, the exhaust was recycled from my first 997, and the best mods I have done is the coil overs, and the seats/harnesses. The track experience makes the mods actually worth the money I spent on them. A lot of cars with mods don't get used for anything more then DD, not for what they are intended.

[vividracing]

NorthVan - Just buy the flash and I guarantee you will be happy with the difference and improved driveability.