So the story begins with the purchase of my 2009 Basalt Black M/T TT coupe back in 2015. I have always wanted a 997 turbo as it accomplishes almost everything I need out of a sports car, fast, comfortable ish, good handling and tunable. The latter being the most important as I seem to get bored with any car within a few weeks without a little tinkering.

For the first 6 months I kept the car mostly stock as I am in the car business and I planned on turning it for a profit after a little summer fun. I daily drove the car for the most part during this time as well. Around the 6 month mark I decided to purchase a GMG exhaust, springs, sway bars and ofcourse a tune. I used a well known tuning company to flash my ECU remotely. Shortly after I needed to replace the clutch so I opted for the Sachs stage 2.5 with GT2 slave cyl. I absolutely love the clutch set up and it's a big part of why I have kept the car this long as drivability is very important being that I live in Houston with plenty of stop and go traffic.

Another 6-8 months later I decided to add EVOMS intercoolers, inlet pipes and ducting which bought me another 6-8 months of fun before I got the itch again.

I contacted Sam By Design Auto mostly because of the feedback I have seen on this forum. I now know that the feedback is 100% accurate, Sam is the best. I feel bad every time I send him a log at 10pm because the man always responds. I'm not sure he ever sleeps. My initial contact with Sam was because I was having a hesitation/loss of power with my current set up. We thought it might be a boost leak so naturally I decided to not check for a boost leak and start exploring larger turbos.

With Sam's advice based on my needs (I track my car occasionally and want very good response/drivability) we decided to go with his 65mm VTG's along with his headers, larger throttle body and ipd plenum... Oh, and a Cobb access port which I seem to always have in my hand now... (I also ordered cat deletes from GMG to pair with my exhaust)

I had a friend of mine install the parts from Sam and began data logging on 93, its amazing how much of a difference good tuning makes. After a bit of tweaking to the 93 file the car was running great(Pretty sure the hesitation I initially contacted Sam about was a tuning issue at this point) tons of power, almost like stock response from the 65MM VTG's and enough power for a few days... I then turned it up a bit mixing 93 with 8 gallons of VP C10 which we use for our Ferrari Challenge cars (100 octane) and loaded a new map to see how the car liked the octane increase. Naturally because I am a child when it comes to turning up the boost I drained that tank with my right foot as soon as possible and switched to full VP C10, swapped to the 100 octane map that Sam made for me and let her rip. The car is absolutely phenomenal now and my interest is again captured by this awesome platform. A few weeks and I'll be switching injectors and going E85. The only thing stopping me now is the seemingly non existent E85 in Houston(Input on this would be greatly appreciated)

In conclusion, the car is awesome, Sam is even better, and I have bought myself another 6 months.

Immediate plan of action is to remove the boat anchors in favor of a lightweight set of wheels (Which I have already ordered... )

PS. no I have not dyno'ed the car yet or recorded a 60-130 time, it will happen soon enough I am sure.

 

I guess I'll have to use a different name for my similar thread when I start it.

Congrats OP

 

In for numbers. Congrats on the upgrades!

 

Glad to hear. I just did a bunch of suspension, so soon i'll be ready for more power upgrades. What's your impression on turbo lag with the 65mm's? Same as stock, quicker spooling, or a little more lag?

 

Congrats! What's the hesitation you were initially observing?

 

Cheers Craig! It’s been a pleasure working with you bud and I made yet another new friend. Not to mention your badass Italian tech haha! Can’t wait to see the new wheels.

Thanks everyone.

H, our VTG’s start making boost right away. With the turbine clip the hit gets very softened and then with a good hardware recipe and tuning we get an awesome power band. The 68mm move even more air but you do lose a few hundred rpm there. Both can make 700+ all wheel. It’s all in the recipe!

 

I'll need to do some pulls, but sometimes it seems like it starts to build boost, then there is a slight "hesitation" and then it starts again. Don't know how to explain it but I'm wondering if that is the same hesitation he was having.

 

You need to log it. It could be a few different things. 997’s are pretty sensitive and picky especially with knock sometimes. However, once you go through everything and make sure it’s all tI’ll top up and then custom tune they are rock solid.

 

Sounds similar to the issue I had. it's 100% now thanks to Sam. Now the only time it hesitates is when I forget to turn traction control off

 

I wanted something as close to stock response as I could get while making enough power to be allowed into the late night parking lot parties in Houston. the 65's accomplish exactly what I wanted, although I was coming from stock exhaust manifolds so not sure how the turbos/headers impacted response individually.

 

While Sam continues to add more power on VP C10 and I delay taking her to a dyno, here's a little update on the latest addition. Advan GT

 

Looks awesome my dude! That’s gonna be like another 20 or 30 hp right there!

 

Beauty, black on black never gets old.

 

UPDATE: About a month ago we installed ID1300's and swapped the EVOMS intercoolers for Sams Bydesign IC's. I ordered up a safe 93 map for emergency purposes and to ease my fuel anxiety. Had a little trouble along the way with regards to the fuel level sensor calibration which ended up leaving me stranded on a very busy Houston Highway during morning rush hour... (Ran out of fuel while the gauge showed 1/4 tank remaining) A quick recalibration of the sensor and I was good to go. After this exciting moment we switched over to E85. My experience from here has been great besides a leak at the y-pipe/throttle body connection which I eventually remedied by switching to the IPD y-pipe. Constant fine tuning from Sam has helped make what feels like HUGE numbers from E85.

Sam has been playing around with a virtual dyno which has proven to be fairly accurate in recent times(YES I KNOW IT IS NOT A REAL DYNO, BUT IT IS A GOOD COMPARISON WHILE I WAIT). Numbers on this virtual dyno certainly match my butt as this thing is FAST now. TX2K was last week and I of course had to take a quick trip to Mexico to join the festivities... lets just say that it takes some big time power to take down a corn powered beetle... I am attaching my virtual dyno from today with hopes to have some real life dyno results in the next two weeks when I can sneak away to get on the rollers. These are FBO 65m VTG's and E85 we did not test on 93/C10, I am excited to see how accurate this chart is. My experience is an 11/10 still with regards to Sam and his customer service. If you are reading this and still debating taking the leap, you should stop and take it.

 

do a 60-130 for some real #s