Cobb vs GIAC vs VR Tuned

We have been apart of the Porsche tuning community since 2005 and have definitely had our fair share of fun with cars. Many dyno test, installation articles, opinion notes, photos, have been done on the likes of our Porsche 996TT, 997TT, 997.2TTs, 997GT3RS, and now our 991 Turbo. When we got our 2014 Porsche 991 Turbo in December 2013, we went right to work with modifying it. Developing headers, an exotic sounding exhaust, high flow y-pipe, and intakes for it were just the start. But it was not until August 2014 that we had a tuning solution to really maximize the performance of our 991. Because the ECU could not be read out due to tuning encryption, the only option was the VR Tuned Tuning Box kit which is a plug and play solution. Tapping into the cars sensors, the tuning box gave the 520 horsepower 911 about 60whp and 80ft/lbs gain over stock. Combined with our Agency Power products, we added almost 100 horsepower to the crank. With these proven results, many customers picked up on our parts and had a go for themselves.

Having sold our 991 Turbo in April 2015, it circled back to us for some product development. Already equipped with the AP Y-Pipe, Intakes, Headers, Exhaust, and VR Tuned box, the new owner chatted his buddy up to come to Vivid Racing for similar mods on his 991 Turbo S. Porsche’s S version came equipped with 580 horsepower, which already gave it a 60hp advantage over our 991 Turbo. The car already had a GIAC ECU Tune, Sharkwerks muffler bypass pipes and high flow cats. So to improve the cars low end torque and throttle response, we added our Agency Power intakes, Y-Pipe, and headers to the car. After installation and some test driving, we decided to do some dyno runs of the car. We ran the car with our first run on a cool car in standard, then ran a sport run, and finally a standard run. Each run the car would lose more performance because of the increasing temperatures. Our first run in Standard Mode was our best with a peak torque of 482 ft/lbs at about 3500rpm and 474 awhp at redline. Running the Turbo S on our Mustang AWD Dyno with 91octane and a temperature of 100F, we typically see a 20-25% drivetrain loss. This would mean the car is making about 615hp to the crank up 35 from the stock 580hp. Expecting more power, I told the customer, “wait let me dyno my old 991 one right now to see where it is at.” Since the car was here, it was a perfect opportunity. Now to reiterate, both these cars had the same Agency Power add-ons except the Turbo S had straight pipes and highflow cats with a GIAC tune.

Strapping our old Project 991 Turbo down, we would get a good Apples to Apples comparison. Both being run in Standard Mode, both with 91 octane, both with the same dyno settings and calibration. We ran the same sequence of 3 runs and like the Turbo S, the first was the best. Our 991 Turbo made 525ft/lbs of torque and 493 awhp. When looking at the graph, the 991 Turbo made 43 more ft/lbs of torque and held a solid torque gain all the way to redline. Horsepower increased from 3500rpm with a gain of about 40awhp holding an increase to about 6000rpm where it tapered off. Both of the cars tapered at the same point which leads me to believe they were restricted from lack of airflow. So you are probably thinking this is a shameless VR plug… Nope these are the actual results we got that I am sharing. The runs were done within 40 minutes of each other (strapping and unstrapping the cars). How could a 991 Turbo with stock cats, aftermarket muffler, air intake, y-pipe, headers, and a plug and play Tuning box with 520hp stock, be stronger than this 991 Turbo S with a “ECU Flash”, high flow cats, muffler delete, and the same AP parts? Well it was and the customer wanted more power. With that being said, the only option would be to upgrade the turbos or maybe do a IPD plenum. But to gain real power, the VTG turbos could be modified just like we do with the 997 Turbos here.

99% of the time, when a car comes to us with Part A, Part B, and Part C, unless it is absolutely the wrong direction, we figure a way to make these parts work best for the customer. Recommending the Turbo change to the customer, he opted to not go that route, but asked, “why can’t we put that tuning box on my car”. You can’t put a tuning box on top of a tune. At the same time, since the customer had high flow cats, we did not want to have a check engine light since the Tuning Box cannot disable the O2 sensors. Then we thought, “what about the new Cobb Accessport for the 991 Turbo!“. This would be a perfect chance to have a 3 way product comparison and show off Cobb’s new product.

Famous for it’s history in the Subaru STI and Mitsubishi EVO market, Cobb quickly took over the Nissan GT-R tuning market. Also having dabbled with the Nissan 350z, Mazda 3, Ford Focus ST, and BMW N54 cars, Cobb put a hard focus on the Porsche world. Their 996 Turbo, 997 Turbo, and 997 GT3 Accessports were slow to the community since many tuning solutions were available. But the 991 Turbo was new, untapped, and this could be fun. The Accessport is like the iPhone for tuning cars. It comes preloaded with stage maps for 91 and 93 octane. For those wanting to put the hurt on, there is a 100 octane map too. These can be easily written to your cars ECU through the OBDII port. If you are thinking, “who wants an off the shelf map, its not custom”, keep reading to see results, but also Cobb Pro-Tuners can tune this platform for you. The device does not lock to 1 vendor, so no matter where you take your car, Cobb can be used. In addition to the ability to load files and return to FULL stock mapping, the Cobb Accessport for the 991 Turbo has data logging capabilities, view and clear trouble codes, live view of digital gauges, and can be connected to Cobb’s website to get the latest firmware needed.

Our first concern with the Cobb Accessport was can it overwrite the GIAC tune on the car. Typically having another tune means trouble for doing proper calibration. Its always better to start with stock firmware. Even though we have a Porsche Piwis tool here, the 991 cannot just use “programming codes” to flash it back, you have to dial into Porsche, hence the encryption issue. Cobb said this was no problem and we could flash over it. Connecting to the car was as simple as it gets. We selected the Stage 2 91 octane file to match the modifications and flashed away. The process took less than 10 minutes to write. Just for fun, I tested the factory map reset to flash back to stock and that was equally fast. Once the Cobb was on the car, it was time to test it again on the dyno. All the same variables, same dyno settings, same weather, now the difference was the tune. So how would the Cobb Accessport do compared to the VR Tuned Tuning Box and the GIAC ECU Flash? The Cobb was really strong, linear in its torque climb, and held a solid 15psi in standard mode to redline. The torque actually came on quicker than both and just edged out the VR Tuned at 536 ft/lb of torque. Its horsepower curve and midrange gains were identical to the VR Tuned with a gain of almost 50awhp at 3900 rpm holding gains to 5700 where it tapered off like the GIAC tune. The VR Tuned had slightly more top end power from 5400rpm to redline with a peak gain over both around 5900 rpm of about 15 awhp.

So with all this dyno fun and product testing, what are the final thoughts? Cobb has done it again with another hot market, this time Porsche. For $2295, you get an all in one tool that is easy to install, provides great gains, has good features, requires no shop or downtime. With few choices at the time of writing this article, it gives a good insight to what works in our tests scenario, what could be changed, and the benefits of tuning your 991 Turbo or Turbo S. Of course we like our VR Tuned Tuning Box for its simplicity and “warranty safe” plug and play feature. The Cobb Accessport is an amazing device for 991 Turbo owners looking to get that extra edge in performance.

Porsche ECU Testing Results

991 Turbo S – GIAC, Sharkwerks Muffler Delete and High Flow Cats, AP Y-Pipe, AP Intakes, AP Headers
474 awhp and 482 ft/lbs of torque (400 awhp at 4750 rpm)

991 Turbo – VR Tuned, AP Titanium Exhaust, Stock Cats, AP Y-Pipe, AP Intakes, AP Headers
493 awhp 525 ft/lbs of torque (440 awhp at 4750 rpm)

Shop all 991 Turbo ECU Tuning Here

Shop all 991 Turbo Performance Products Here






























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Great comparison! Would like to see a custom tune done for the additional modifications but overall well done!

Thanks guys!

-Mitch

 

This is an oddly self-serving thread. Let's hype the two products we sell, and bash the one we don't. Come on Vivid...even you guys are better then this. Sell your product on it's own merits...don't make lame attempts to bash others.

Also filled with inaccuracies. GIAC has been OBDII port-tuning the 991 Turbo since the day it hit our streets. And up until a few weeks ago, they were the only company able to do it. Now Cobb also has that ability.

Your dyno results with the GIAC software are totally inconsistent with any other dyno results from the software, and certainly inconsistent with real-world results demonstrated by GIAC tuned cars all over the world.

 

The neverending story lol

 

Why can't Vivid ever seem to get this right? They have been printing this nonsense since 2014 and then when someone calls them out they make up some lame excuse about copying and pasting from an old thread or that it's some new guy that wrote that. Just awful, AWFUL marketing.

- Patrick

 

Tom (eternal Vivid hater) There is nothing bashing Champion or GIAC in this thread. We ran 3 tests, told a story, and shared results. Saying that these numbers are inconsistent means what? This is exactly what our dyno produced. Looking at the dyno you have its on a DynoJet with 93 octane (here). You of anyone should know it does not matter if the number says 400 or 800, its the delta that matters. A DynoJet is like having 2 circus bears spin barrels. That dyno hardly gives real world results and reads very high. If you want to show a high number, I guess I can change the multiplier on the Mustang Dyno we use to 2.0 instead of the 1.0 it should be at. Second if you actually read and werent so defensive all the time, we clearly state that we ran on our Mustang Dyno with 91octane and its 100F in the room. So the test is correct and if you factor in the drivetrain loss, it gives you exact numbers.

I would love to see a Video of the GIAC flashing process such like we have or proof that you are not just loading a Region file on these cars. In actuality, I dont care Tom, because you will find words and kronies, to do what you always do. Proof is in the tests. At the end of the day who cares about VR, Cobb crushed GIAC on this one.

Forever Yours,

Dan

 

Happy Friday!

 

I love Friday! I actually have some Skid Row playing and looking forward hooning around this weekend

 

Not a hater...just find the way you handle yourself on the forums pretty tasteless and unprofessional, and I'm sure I'm not alone on that assessment.

I'm very well aware of what a delta is. And that is the exact reason why we stress that exact information ANY TIME we post dyno results. I'm not defensive...I've just never used another companies product to promote our own, not matter how terrible their results were. And believe me, I've had plenty of chances. That's because we operate our company with respect for our competitors...you obviously do not. If you did, you wouldn't copy so many competitors parts. Yeah, I went there. A quick google search can back me up on that.

Region files? LOL...now you're reaching. GIAC pioneered OBDII flashing for the 991 models and you damn well know it. They also have the highest HP and best performing 997.2 and 991 Turbo cars out there to date. So let's not get into who's crushing who. Now you're claiming that GIAC doesn't actually tune cars...what will you think of next? LOL Personally I have a lot of respect for Cobb...it's just a shame that they aligned themselves with you.

 

You still have not read... Its ok. Time for you to punch out and use your lunch break.

 

Just had my lunch, thanks. It was delicious.

Oh, and btw....the Turbo S does not come stock with 580 HP. Just sayin'

 

Cobb was unaware this test was taking place, but we applaud Vivid for taking the initiative. We invite any 3rd party to do the same tests and form their own conclusions based on data. Whether the results favor Cobb, FVD, GIAC, etc... the industry as a whole will only benefit from the data.

At the end of the day data trumps all, which is why we often emphasize our ability to datalog and how easy it is to do with the Accessport. We want to pull down the curtain and let you see with your own eyes what your car is doing! All without the need for additional expensive logging tools or taking a biased opinion from your calibrator. We have the ability to log parameters at a Porsche development level that not even the PIWIS can see at an industry leading sample rate. You will never see a Cobb Accessport released for any platform without the ability for us, and you, to use our own cutting edge tools to datalog it. Performance is great, but safety and reliability come first.

Cobb as a company highly respects what our competition does. Business rivalries drive innovation. It forces us to constantly evolve our products to stay ahead of the curve. We openly share datalogs in hopes that anyone and everyone will look them over, take that data, then find ways to improve on it.

We will leave it at that, but thank you Vivid and any future 3rd party testers for supplying the data you have collected. Even if the outcome favors a different companies tuning solution we are still deeply appreciative of your time and money spent to collect and supply the community with the data.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your weekend everyone!

-Jon

 

I have no problem with Cobb whatsoever. In fact, I find the recent developments that both Cobb and GIAC have made in the 991 Turbo world exciting and the competition healthy. After all, I'm an enthusiast myself. I have, in fact, even referred customers to some of your pro-tuners on several occasions when your product was a better fit, as both Sam and Dzenno can attest.

The problem I have is when someone posts inaccurate information that intentionally casts a negative light on our product. I think it's unprofessional, devious, and disrespectful, as I'm sure you'll agree.

 

Tom, I just notice that most all the time that someone post something negative about GIAC you are the only one doing "the talking" and it's great that you back it up with great info, but where are the guys of GIAC? I mean is not that they start a "keyboard fight" but just a little chime in will be fare.

 

Austin, unnecessary hit below the belt. 10 yard penalty repeat the down