After having taken delivery last week and labored through 500 miles of the 2K break in I figured I would post some of my early impressions of the car. Having owned BMW's before I have to say the Porsche is a much nicer/fun car to drive. Totally impractical unless you have another car to haul things in but fun.

1. Sex appeal = This car has it. I have owned nice cars before and ridden in many but this thing just oozes sexy. Many woman have complimented the car and it gets alot of stares. I was torn between the AMG C63, M3 and this car until I test drove the Porsche. The AMG and M3 is nowhere near the Porsche in sex appeal.

2. PDK = This tranny shifts like a machine gun. If you let it do the work it is smooth as silk and fast. If you try and feather it then it isn't as smooth. A desired downshift to not break the 4K break in suggestion is done by merely thinking about it v.s. lifting off the gas to force the shift. I cannot wait to let this car loose. Let the PDK do its job and it will drvie better than you. Sport package with the PDK is a must have and I am retrofitting it into my car next week.

3. Paddle wheel = This thing rocks. It shifts a bit slow but then again I am not really able to run the car hard yet. Downshifts are quick. The PDK **** seems to shift quicker into a higher gear than the paddle.

4. Vented seats = Great option but sometimes it seems more efficient than at others. I would almost like to see what a reverse fan would do to the sensation. Instead of the air pulling thru the seat how about pushing up? I may try and toy with the idea of blocking the seat vent in the back for a minute to see if I feel the air better as an experiment.

5. Ipod = The new Y cable works well but having had experience with such designs and Ipods they tend to fail as did mine the first week I drove the car. My new cable is working perfectly. I suggest getting an extra cable and keeping it in the car. My other Y type Ipod cables only seem to last one to two years or so before they fail. Who ever manufactures them needs to really have a high quality setup or else they will fail. Porsche should go to a USB only setup and let us use our own USB cables if possible.

6. Navi and PCM = Nice and works well. XM says I can use XM weather so I activated it but I do not think the radio is setup for it. The control stalk on the paddle wheel is not ideal but it seems to work. It would be nice to select the source from there in addiditon to the PCM panel. Also volume control would be nice.

7. Interior = I like mine. Porsche can be had in any number of configurations so each is pretty individual. I don't smoke so I bought the lighter LED light and love it. Interior storage is good for what the car is and I like the door storage pockets. The cupholders are an experiment in durability so we will have to see how long they hold up. I don't drink in the car really anyway so hopefully they will not fail anytime soon. Still better than my old BMW cupholders which were a joke. Also I am 6.1 and 270 lbs and the car is not uncomfortable to sit in. In fact it fits me very well.

8. Performance = Still breaking it in but hell it is a Porsche. There is no substitute. This car has legs and wants to run. I can tell the higher rpm band is where it is gonna really feel at home but for now I am stuck at 4K. The car handles like a go cart. The big 19 inch wheels are a bit rough but they look great on the car. I have the forged turbo II wheels and they look spectacular thus increasing the sex appeal.

9. Engine = I am a bit puzzled at the CAI design from Porsche. The air inlets on the wong seem to open directly to the air box. Any shot of water from a car was or hose is going to jet water straight into the box. Is there a drain or does the water just stand there? Seems like a more remote intake with direct air exposure giving a sort of ram air induction affect would perform better and offer more protection. Does the fan on the hood blow air in or push air out? If it pushes then it would seem to work contrary to the CAI. If it pulls air in then I wonder if any performance gain could be had by improving its efficiency along with the physical design of the intakes. Not a mechanical guy but simply thinking about the principle of more air, more fuel = more power. A bigger better fan may shove more air into the system. Perhaps even dual fans directly over the intakes. I also would never put a non CAI intake on this engine. A short drive to the store and back took a long time for my engine bay to cool off. It is hot as hell in there and a non sealed, non CAI filter system just seems counterproductive.

10. Misc = The sunroof is great. Interior controls all work well and are solid as well as intuitive. Remote key locking and unlocking range is good BUT one big annoyance is no chime at lock or unlock. In the bright Florida sun I do not always see the lights flash and an audible warning would be really nice. Floor mats included on 2011 cars is a nice refreshing surprise.

 

Do you have Sports Chrono (SC)? Set Sport mode and shifting is swift.

The fan in the engine compartment is there to extract hot air, as you noticed the cavity gets hot given the tight packaging. The fan is not part of the CAI. The engine breathes cold external air. No water gets in the engine.

 

On my deck lid the CAI vents drop straight down into the factory air box. A shot of water under the vents in the spoiler and it is gonna drip straight down into the filter. I can put my hand into the intake from the engine side and see my fingers from the top of the spoiler vents. Also if I remember correctly there is no barrier between the fan inlet and the CAI inlets so as the fan is venting air out of the engine compartment it is also disrupting air coming in thru the air box intakes on the hood. As the fan vents hot air the intakes draw from the same area.

I looked at it pretty quick last night so please take what I am saying with a grain of salt. I will happily defer to someone who is far more familiar with their 997.2 than I am at least until I get home to look again.

 

I do have a 997.2S. The cold external air enters via the spoiler vents through piping sealed to the air box, when the rear lid is closed. Given the orientation of the spoiler vents (towards the rear) it is unlikely that rain water will enter. When I wash the car, I am careful not hosing those vents, obviously. On the previous generation (996) the spoiler vents are open towards the front of the car (there's actually a story behind that for another thread perhaps) and driven rain water might be able to enter, although I never heard anything about it and in my case (I owned a 996) I never had any issues.

On the 997.2 the fan attached to the rear lid extracts air to the outside, I think it only runs when the car stops - it typically runs in my garage when I park the car. There's no chance that hot engine cavity air enters the intake.

 

Thanks. This forum has been a great source of information on my new car. I wish the Porsche manual said something about water in the intake b/c I can see someone shooting a good jet of it in there at the car wash without knowing any better. I was surprised to see how open it was to the outside.

 

remoteKEY will add your sound to locking
http://www.wit-usa.com/sms/shop/inde...ode=view&id=49

 

4. Vented seats

I am in agreement with what I think you are saying. If I put the system on full (all three lights) it appears that at times it is working harder/higher than at other times. Almost like there is a two stage motor even at high.

6. Navi and PCM

If you have voice module you can select/change the source. I am getting to where it is easier to use my phone nav than the car. While I would like to use the car, the phone is far more up to date. Additonally, we have a lot of little shopping centers in various neighborhoods of our MPC. The P nav does not show stores except almost always on a standalone basis making it virutally worthless for day to day stuff. I would like to do the P update to the nav db but they cannot tell me what, if anything, is updated for my area so spending over $500 for an update that might not be meaningful is silly.

10.

I use smarttop for the cab + does the sound stuff and more.

 

The vented seats are cooler if you are wearing light clothing.

See this quote form the manual:

Seat Ventilation

The three-stage seat ventilation is ready for operation
when the engine is running and from an
ambient cabin temperature of 58 °F (15 °C).
The three stages are controlled with the buttons
on the control panel for the air conditioning.
The blue light-emitting diodes in the buttons show
which stage is currently activated.

Note

The full effect of the seat ventilation can be
achieved only if you are wearing breathable

clothing.

 

I was pretty skeptical about the seat ventilation. I was interested because of the hot GA summers, but the pull vs. push made me doubtful. When I tried it, I was fairly impressed.

 

How comfy they may be... it's another add-weight option negating fitting the car with sports seats, a far better option in a sports car. It is a shame that these cars are more and more specced with heavy gadgets that diminish their sportiness and emphasize boulevard riding, car showing functions. What a shame!

 

Well, you can't get ventilation with sport seats or sport bucket seats. So you have to make a clear choice of comfort over weight.

 

From what I've been told by a respected local tuner, on the 997, fresh air is now collected through the gap at the base of the rear window and channelled into the space immediately above the air intakes (and below the spoiler vents). This ensures a plentiful supply of fresh, cold air for the engine. Excess air is then channelled out through the spoiler vents and the venturi effect also aids in extracting hot air from the engine bay.

If you look at the airflow across the rear of the car, it's now all in one direction and flows very smoothly from front to rear whilst supplying all the air that's required. With the older 996 design, the air flowed down the rear screen over the spoiler vents and was then turned down towards the intake(s) creating drag and opposing the hot air that was trying to escape from the engine bay

All in all the 997 design is a huge improvement.

 

every time i get into my hot car in summer i regret not having it.
if i find cheap take-out seats somewhere with this option installed i will put them in. it is imho one of must-have options. 911 gets really hot inside.

 

I thought about that since it gets REALLY hot and humid here, but on the other hand the car is never in the sun for very long except when on the road, so I think I can manage.

One year, I drove a '69 Camaro all summer with no A/C and black vinyl interior. Now THAT was hot.

 

Lemme say one more thing about sex appeal. I have been driving this thing for all of 2 weeks now. I have had nice cars before but since getting this one I have had several young girls hit on me at the sight of it. I have had women exit restaurants just to come chat me up. I have been stopped at lights by women who want to talk. The car just has a mystic all its own that MB, BMW, etc. does not have.