For reference, I only purchased my own 996TT a few weeks ago and definitely agree with your current assessment about not limiting your options. Before I found my own car locally, I was giving a priority to X50 equipped cars, but when the right color combination and mod set (wheels, GT2 front bumper, reflash, etc.) turned up locally at the price point I wanted to spend, it was an absolute no-brainer to buy it. In fact I made the decision to buy the car on the same day I went to see it...I felt that strongly about it.

Happy shopping to you!

 

Without sounding like a complete idiot, I just bought a 01 911 turbo for under 25k. It was part of a smart but malicious move by a husband going through a divorce to liquidate assets before the wife could get ahold of them. It is in the shop getting a thorough going over at the moment and I want to find out if what the husband told me was true. He said it had the X50 option. I ran the carfax, it came back clean, can I run the VIN and find out for sure if it really does have the X50 option?

 

There was no X50 for 01 turbos...

 

I guess you get what you pay for, it is BS, but that is all that $24k gets you these days...thanks.

 

are you sure it's a turbo?

 

Yes. I ran the carfax on it, I even called the Porsche dealer this morning. It is positively a tt. I talked to the husband this morning about it and he says he mentioned the x50 option and that he "wished" he would have waited the few months until the option was available. I might have been in shock at the time I was looking at it and in disbelief over the price. The bank made a smartalec comment about him being a columbian drug lord hiding assets...I cut the guy some slack as he was doing this out of spite for a trophy wife gone bad. He took great care of the car, and I was being a smartalec about the price. I will post some pics when I get it back later this week. thanks.

 

Nice thread...I also wondered about what exactly is in the X50 package and what parts specifically are upgraded or different. I think the transmission as others have mentioned may be the same, I dunno about that that...also the muffflers, exhaust and exhast tips I don't think are part of the upgrade...

I think the only way to make sure it's an X50 is to looks at the orignal window sticker and optional upgrade list. If it says "Optional Engine Upgrade" - $17,700 then that I believe refers to the X50 upgrade - which (correct me if I'm wrong) upgrades ONLY turbo chargers, intercoolers, and engine map. One can also check the options code under the trunk lid in the front of the car for a list of the option codes to the vehicle, is that correct? There are ussually a bunch of letters and numbers there so it can be confusing as to what is what but I'm guessing that some of those refer to optional equipment and upgrades?

From what I'[ve been able to dig up online...The X50 is simply a 450 hp variant compared to the TT at 420, but the only changes are K24 turbos and GT2 intercoolers and ECU map, the tune on the Turbo S was said to make it have 489 hp although the engine was the exact same as the X50. So incidentally X50/GT2/Turbo S all have the same engine with the GT2 having a slightly different transmission with cooler and the X50/TT/Turbo S having the same transmission setup and no differenct in the exhaust system - headers, mufflers, piping, and tips)....

am I on the right track here or am I missing something?

 

I did a fair ammount of research on this before I started shopping and I found that the intercoolers were not enough of an upgrade to pay the premium for. Even if you got intercoolers for free and were to install them, the labor for install would outweigh the improvement. As for the turbos, I am not a fan of the way they spool. You can improve this with the 18G mod though. The PCCBs are really nice, but really $$ to maintain. One significant improvement that is rarely mentioned though is the increased resolution on some of the maps on the stock X50 ECU. This is supposed to be to cope with the increased boost and is a safety, but I am not 100% on that. If you can get a good deal on an X50, it will hold value better than a non X50. But if you are just going to modify the car with hybrid turbos anyways, go with a K16. My .02.

 

So besides the original window sticker, how would one confirm that a car one is about to buy is actually an X50? Would that best be done with the PPI with someone who could note the differences between a K24 and K16?

 

Yup. You have to tell them what you want inspected during a PPI, otherwise you get what you get. Tell them when they do the PPI, to verify what turbos are on the car. You can look at intercoolers too.

 

Check the sticker on the trunk lid and see what codes are there and you will see what the original options were. It should list them all. That is the only sure way to tell. K24s are easy enough to install, but find out what it came with from the factory. It looks like:

 

Thanks!

 

Not much to add to this old thread that has not been already said, except what we used to say back in the early days of the 996TT model run was, "if your plans are to mod it then buy a K16 car. If your plan was to keep it stock is was worth it to pay extra (about 4K in 2003, used) for the X50". The availability of a multitude of wheels for both turbos as well as further depreciation for the cost difference of the two choices has made it a little more complicated. The differences in the ICs are not significant enough to affect a buying decision, imo. If there are tranny differences that might be significant... Does anyone know if X50s experiance second gear pop out as often?

With the current mod options available I think the X50 is now the car to buy whether you plan to mod or not.

Consider if you flash and exhaust both cars the X50 is better.

If you put 16g wheels on the K16 the X50 can answer with 18g wheels.

If you put billet wheels on the K16 (good to better than 600whp with injectors) the K24s can answer with 20g wheels to ring up 700 whp with similar suppporting mods.

The only penalty for the K24 mods vs. the K16 mods that I can see is some additional lag.

The only senario that the K16 might be a better purchase was if you planned from the start to go to GT30s or GT35s, you would probably save a little on buying the car.

 

MBailey you broke it down nicely...Seems like a the X50 merely gives you a higher platform to start with if you plan to mod the existing turbos or just plan to get tune, exhaust, intake, and diverter valves and keep the car fairly close to stock...

As for the 2nd gear pop out...I've heard the X50 have steel synchros and no issues with tranny or pop-out in 2nd. Then again I've heard that the tranny for he X50 and non-X50 996TT are identical...so I dunno on this one ....I mean aside from tearing down trannys and rebuilding them...I don't know how one can figure out this age old question ...maybe someone with much more knowledge can chyme in?

 

What would be a reasonable price to pay for 2004 996TT X-50? or 2005 Turbo S? I understand the S already has the X-50 and Ceramic Brake package. Will the S be worth more money in the long run do to production limitations. Or do you find 996TT X-50 with ceramic package same car? or would you continue the search for clean Turbo S your thoughts?