I have a 3.4 991 coupe. This car lives above 5k. When you have it WOT and you shift between 2nd and 3rd at the redline, you will have a smile on your face. I always do anyways. Withhold judgement until you are ready to use this motor as intended.

I was really confused until you said your dd is a cts v wagon. Torque is addicting. I have had torque monsters in the past and I know the around town power is great. Touch the pedal and boom you are in position to pass anyone. But the 991 is a special car that sings while I am passing people! I love being in the high rpms for a change!

Furthermore I appreciate the 991's ability to be docile when I need it to be. Mine is pdk and the second I want to go from smile to **** eating grin, I just tap sport + and boom! Whole new car.

 

ChuckJ

 

For what it's worth, I have a 997.1 4S and for the longest time I kept asking myself "Where's the beef?".

I subsequently put in a IPD plenum, racing headers and 200 cell cats. The car became spirited, alive and considerably more fun to drive.

Maybe a few mods like this will have the same effect on your 991.

 

It definitely takes more effort, thought, and planning to keep the 991 in its power band with the manual tranny as opposed to the PDK, especially during a typical commute, so perhaps the rev happy nature of the engine is more accessible more often via PDK.

The extended break in period that lasts months certainly doesn't help anyone to adapt their driving style to this engine.

 

would echo what others have said. when i first took it (a carrera S) on a test drive i was completely underwhelmed. then had another lap on my own and hit the sport+ button and put in my order when i got back to the dealer.

 

You are going to have to rev it high to get the most performance from the 3.4 L. It also helps if you have the Sport Plus button for more spirited settings. Some people like the challenge of extracting all the performance from a slower car vs loafing it in a faster car. Personally there is no replacement for displacement. Modern turbos are also very good performance enhancements with the cost being a muted exhaust. There is a reason it's called the base model, it has baseline performance. Also remember if you and the minivan were at the track, you'd be crushing it after the first corner.

 

Troll alert. ***** We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread on what type of wax works best, "I'm a track rat" bragging, and where do we get discounted Porsches.



Seriously? A base 911 with no PASM not keeping up with minivans? Hahahahahaha! Crack is a powerful drug I guess.

 

I had the same experience, but being an old guy that had driven many high-rev 911s it didn't bother me. In the early ones I used to shift at 5000 under normal driving conditions and didn't think anything about it. We would cruise at 3000 RPM minimum. I don't use that technique now, but it is nice to have the PDK with 7 gears instead of the 4 or 5 we used to have.

ChuckJ
PS I think the C2S has a similar characteristic. This is not impotence, it it character.

 

I've been reading this while my base was at the shop and I was itching to "refamiliarlize" myself with the car. So I'm on I 95 in Delaware and I figured it was about the best place to try out WOT and high revs and PDK....ok, what am i missing? WOT in second gear manual shift sport mode and i'm doing 65 at 6500 rpm in like no time at all....redline....and I'm doing 74...am I doing something wrong here? Should I be shifting at 5000 instead? Yeah, if i was taking it to say 130, i can see it, but, i'm not....

Oh, btw, there is nothing disappointing about the performance of this fully broken in engine...it revs freely, car accelerates like a rocket, shifts are quicks....

 

Last evening I fell off the wagon at 980 miles. I launched the car (manual gearbox) after being harassed by a local muscle car, which I know has at least eighty more HP than my C2S.

He was still fishtailing in second gear and I was already at the next light. The P-car shocked me, especially when all I saw was most of my hood for the first thirty feet. These things are killers; now I understand how they're cracking the eleven-second bracket on street tires.

 

We have a somewhat shorter highway entrance ramp nearby after a tight right spiral. Coming out of that spiral and nailing it in 2nd gear, howling at 5, 6000 rpm through the nearby underpass and near 7000 shifting into 3rd and merging.. the screaming banshee wail is just glorious. People on the highway nearby hear every bit, and some surely understand something very special just happened.

I get to do this every day. Thank you, Porsche.

(via 6SpeedOnline iOS)

 

This thread was in regards to the 3.4 base model. Few here are disputing the 'S' trim not being sporty enough. I speculated earlier that the 'S' engine should be consistent as a baseline, having one power output, leaving the 'S' trims to support more track oriented functions.
Agreed. Base model Porsches leave a little to be desired - but ONLY if you haven't tried something else (Turbo, 'S', C63, CTS-V, Z06, etc...). If you haven't experienced faster (torquey) cars, this is likely never noticed.
... :
Agreed. One single engine would set a standard for performance (I'm tired of hearing about this 'x' trans or 'y' combination did 'z' performance - just one power plant, and they all go 'z' a la Porsche 911 997 Turbo S).

For those that don't care about performance (probably wouldn't buy a Porsche), leave on a quiet exhaust, no BBK, etc... For those that want performance, add louder exhaust, LSD, etc...

Many ways to collect from the consumer.
This thread is regards to the 3.4 base engine, though.
This post may assume that up until the first corner, the minivan is right there with it. Not exactly where I'd want to place a $100k sports car.
It is all about perspective, and priorities (of the driver/owner). As Americans, normally we place focus (almost to a fault) on straight line performance - where the Mustang 5-point-Oh wins everywhere.
Bless you for this post. This is what the 911 experience meant to me in the past, and this is how I remember it. It is fun. You can have fun in any car - why not make it a 911?

Why not make the 3.8 the base model?

Obviously, I don't make the decisions for Porsche. Maybe that's a good thing.

 

I can't help but think some of you are just angry that 3.6 turned into 3.4 instead of say 3.8! I have driven both cars and while the s has more low end, they both live in the high revs....period! The difference is in the s, when you look down you are going 15% faster. On the track this is great! On the highway...well this is troublesome.

To the gentleman, rnl, whom did not notice anything special going on between 2nd and 3rd WOT. Yes sir, this special moment typically happens when I am not concerned with pushing it over 100, usually to around 110-130 (on the track of course otherwise this would be illegal ) I can understand your frustration if you are enjoying this machine but maintaining under 75 mph at all times. In that case you really are better off with a torque monster.

Please stop the nonsense about minivans and regular traffic beating you at stoplights etc. This car is faster than 99% of cars on the road to 60 mph. I have no idea where you all get the idea that regular cars are faster. News flash: It is your light foot grandpa!

 

I notice that every one of people disappointed with the 3.4l has a MT car. I have PDK + Sport Chrono in my base and just today went from 20mph to 60mph in the blink of an eye merging into freeway traffic; it was great.

But even in an MT base with sharper throttle response in Sport and especially Sport Plus, things should be wonderful.

The way I see it, you bought a NA Porsche for the glorious feeling at high revs. The base provides you with greater opportunities to live in those revs. In an MT base:
1st gear @ 7800rpm: 47mph
2nd gear @ 7800rpm: 79mph
3rd gear @ 7800rpm: 117mph
You can spend most of your time in gears 1 and 2 and go to 3 occasionally. This has got to be just fine for the US (not on autobahns), right?

 

+1
I had the same thoughts. Those complaining about the base 3.4 mostly on manuals. But then again, didn't Tiff Neddle drive a base 3.4 manual against the jaguar f-type? Maybe if he had a base pdk with sports chrono, it would be 6 seconds faster than the jag.