Testing Vektor Performance Headers for the 991.2 Porsche 911 Carrera!
The World Motorsports Wind Tunnel dyno uses this 1,000 hp fan to provide the main airflow for the car’s heat exchangers.

One needs to see the huge power supply for this sucker to believe it, it is huge! When the fan kicks on all the lights in Torrance and Gardena dim. This fan can create wind speeds of over 140 mph and is linked to the dyno to duplicate the road speed of the dyno’s rollers.

There are many other fans that also provide air exchange in the dyno room and keep a strong breeze around the main airflow. This keeps the air constitution of the dyno room consistent and also helps control the overall temperature.

In addition to the main dyno fans, we also put these smaller fans in place to provide airflow over the factory intercoolers. This helped us keep the intake air temperatures consistent from run to run.
To help with our dyno testing repeatability so we could start each pull at the exact same coolant and intake air temperatures, we used an AEM CD-5 Logging Dash with a CAN OBDII adaptor so we could monitor and record many different engine parameters.

We used the AEM Electronics CD-5 to monitor the engine’s AFR and self-learning parameters to make sure the ECU was jiving with the headers so the engine could be run hard without leaning out or anything dangerous like that. The logging dash will also be used to log and view in real-time important engine info coming through the CAN stream such as fluid temps, ignition timing, intake air temp, throttle position and manifold pressure.

We ran our car with 8 consecutive power pulls to collect our baseline data. With the World Motorsports Dyno’s killer airflow and temperature control it was easy to get the car’s power to stabilize after only two pulls and the car ran very consistently after that. Our average baseline power was 368 whp and 346 lb-ft of torque.

With our baseline power and torque recorded, it was time to install the Vektor Performance headers.

 

6 comments

  1. After admiring Porsche’s from afar for years and pretty much driving every Porsche made from the 60-90’s my thought has always been work harder and save up for the Turbo model. But since every model is now turbo like you point out and with the aftermarket coming to the rescue like these Vecktor headers it doesn’t seem that thought it really as valid anymore. Porsche’s in particular are known to be one of those cars that aftermarket parts often make less hp than stock so it’s great to see the opposite.

    1. The 991.2 turbo is in another world compared to the 991.2 carrera.
      You’re going to spend a ton of money to get the 3.0L to the 3.8L level.

      I’ve heard from monstaka (french tuner) that catless pipes made a huge difference on their 510hp 991.2 S.

      1. The base Carrera does start $70k below the base Turbo. Suppose you start with the Carrera GTS which has the biggest turbos and is $40k cheaper than a base Turbo. A tune alone on 93 octane bumps up the power 19%, or just short of the Turbo.

        The biggest exhaust restrictions on the 911s are the headers and cats. On the stock tune, there’s not much to be gained with an exhaust, but they may be different with a tune. Add in headers to the tune on a GTS and it should be right at Turbo power. So basically for about $5k. Granted, your warranty is probably gone. The GTS does weigh about 200lbs less than the Turbo. Add some high flow cats and intercoolers for even more power. I’d guesstimate another 30whp or so.

  2. I agree, Porsche aftermarket parts, as well as other exotic and semi-exotic cars, often have poorly engineered and validated performance parts that are both expensive and not performance enhancing. Sometimes they are poorly made as well. I have been surprised that the parts for Japanese cars for instance from reputable manufacturers are often made better and perform better. These Vektor Performance headers are impressive however in construction quality, engineering, and performance increase. I would really like to add a cat back and an access port to these. A few tweaks and you could probably get a Carrera to easily give the high buck Turbos and GT3’s the business.

  3. With pure bolt-ons (exhaust, headers, ICs, hybrid turbos), E85, and COBB AccessPort, it’ll do over 600whp. Figure you buy a base model off lease for ~$70k, you can have a 600whp Turbo beating car for under $90k.

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