To the OP and SW's, How long dose the conversion take to complete? With SW full exhaust system and ECU tune what is the expected HP TQ gains? Where do you feel the larger displacement the most, low/mid or high rpm's or all? I like how you discribed the feeling of being able to grab the right gear exiting a corner, but can you give some other descriptions of how this conversion feels and drives?

Welcome to Teamspeed, feels funny welcoming someone when i am so new here too, but I am sure you will like it here as much as I do.

 

Hi Buzzed,

As stated in my first post, I’m not a journalist, but I will give you some more insight. As I mentioned before 90% of my driving is done on back roads here in northern California and southern Oregon, with very little freeway or city driving. However since receiving my car back from SW I have twice now been back to the bay area and on one of those occasions I managed to time it just right to experience “commute traffic” between San Rafael and Fremont. A lovely drive which I am told would normally take less then an hour took me the better part of 2!! I came home feeling very grateful I live where I do, no disrespect intended for you Bay area residence! The amazing thing about this drive was that the car didn’t miss a beat or stutter once during the stop and go drive. The tuning is so precise I can honestly state that it easier to drive in traffic then my stock 3.6 was. Keep in mind that I had Sharkwerks chance out my pressure plate for a GT2 unit while they did the conversion, just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have to go back in later on with all the added HP & torque. Something I would suggest to anyone considering the conversion. Easy starts, easy shift no issues in traffic at all. No issues with the slightly heavier clutch either.

I know the owner of the other conversion drives his car everyday in the bay area so maybe he can chime in on his feeling about this??

I believe Alex has posted the dyno results either on this thread or the one close by describing the conversion. I’m sure he will post them here as well along with their time line for completion.

I’ll report back after the holidays as I am sure we will have some nice driving weather between now and then. Still loving the Pirelli’s!!

Merry Christmas everyone

 

Welcome to the Team! I was very glad to find your post, I've always wanted to hear more about the SW 3.9 conversion. Thanks for the excellent descriptions! Would love to see some pictures of your custom homes at some point also.

 

Thanks for the welcome. I don't think I want to bore people with house pix!! But if any of you are ever in the area I will gladly show you some roads and give you a house tour.

 

A quick update on the SW3.9. I now have 2554 miles on the new motor and am still very pleased with it! It just seems to get stronger every outing. We have been experiencing a lot of rain this winter here on the northern Ca. coast, so I haven’t been racking up the miles I normally do this time of the year. However yesterday was a very mild day with temperatures in the high 60’s low 70’s. So I took the opportunity to take a nice 270 mile drive on the “secret test loop” and came away with the following observation:

The 3.9 appears to get stronger as the miles are added and continues to put a smile on my face on every outing. I may have spoken to soon regarding the Pirellis as I started noticing towards the end of yesterdays drive that things were starting to get a little greasy. The last segment of the drive is over 60 miles of very twisty second and third gear back roads with an enormous amount of elevation change. On the home stretch, about 20 miles from the house, I came up out of the river and into a tight right-hander which I can honestly say I have taken hundreds of time previous at faster speeds when suddenly the rear end stepped out quit un-expectantly. It suddenly got very busy in the drivers seat but I did manage to get things reeled back in and on my way with no damage, although it was a close one. After getting home and replaying things in my head the only explanation I came up with was that I must have applied power too early on exit and with the added Trq & HP of the 3.9, especially at the 5200 RPM range in second gear were the cams start working, I just lost traction.
After arriving home and an inspection of the rear tires I noticed that they are worn through the wear bars on the first two inside treads!! Only 1707 miles on this set!! I may have to take back the statement I said earlier about the Pirellis being “my new favorite tires” For the first 1500 miles they were very good, especially on wet or damp pavement, far superior to the MPSC’s! However I am now questioning if they are truly worth the almost $400.00 more a set then the MPSC’s. Also, I managed to average just over 3000 miles for a set of rears with the Michelins, but there is no way I will get close to that on this set of Corsa’s!! I may get another 500-600 miles out of them if I curb my aggressive driving style but I don’t know if I am capable of that at my age. I guess if I was driving up and down 101 I could, the problem is getting the 60 miles from here to there!!

 

If the wear is only on the inside treads, how is your camber? That might be worth looking into, especially if the rest of the tread is still quite good.

 

Nuke, the alignment is spot on, thanks. It's not the pattern of wear that disapoints me with the Corsa's, which is typical for theses cars, but rather the low mileage, 1700, and the lack of grip at this point. As stated; I have averaged over 3K with the MPSC's over the first 37,000 miles! Only had a grip problem when I corded a set!!

 

And I thought I drove my Z06 hard when I had it. I went through a few sets on it in 30K miles. If I get 10-12K miles out of tires on a sports car I am happy. But I daily drove mine on some 315-40-18 BFG Drag Radials and still got 6K miles out of them. And the rubber is so soft on them you could push your fingernail into the rubber.


Sounds like you only drive the car sideways! Mich. oughta be sending you a free set by now! Congrats on the motor and driving the car the way it was designed. You need a CGT my friend.


And welcome to the team! Its the best place on the net

 

Thanks Quick, I wish they would send me a new set of MPSC's, my tire bill is almost as much as much as most peoples house payment!!

 

Okay everyone, my little experiment with the Pirelli Corsa system was pretty much a bust! I loved the tires for the first 1500 miles and they were great in the wet. But after that they went away very quickly!! The weekend before last I took one of my favorite 247 loop drives from my house. The drive has some great turns the first 100 miles and the last 60 miles; some real twisty second and third gear stuff that requires some real concentration and is just a blast. The last 60 miles on the way to my house is one of my all time favorite roads in all of Northern Ca. and I have driven it many hundreds of time over the last 40+ years, maybe into the thousands. Needless to say I know every turn and all the dangers of the route. This time I did notice that it appeared a little slippery then normal from the very start. When I was on the last 20 mile stretch, which is my favorite, I went through a turn which I had taken much faster many times before and found myself totally sideways looking at the bank on the right side of the road which was about 2’ behind a drainage ditch! Instinct took over and all came out good, but I was very surprised to say the least. When I got home I inspected the tires and noticed the rears were worn through the wear bars! The amazing thing was that they only had 1,743 miles on them. That’s about half of what I have been getting out of the MPSC’s and they are $400 a set more!! Needless to say no more Pirellis for me. Summer is nearly here and I will be making the trip to Ashland and back probably 5-6 times, a 900 mile round trip, so I have decided to try a set of PS2’s, something I have avoided doing just out of fear as I have come so accustom to relying on the superior grip of the MPSC’s.

I just had the PS2’s mounted yesterday and have only driven them a short distance. I am familiar with them as I have them on the 997S, however I don’t punish that car as much as I do the GT3. Plus I now have the 3.9, so I will have to find the limits with this combo!! I will report back with the results.