Porsche Sports Exhaust

[Jim560]

New to Boxster ownership - bought a manual 2.7 last month. Have been toying with the idea since purchase of having the Porsche Sports Exhaust retrofitted. Bit the bullet and had it fitted today - WOW so impressed already, transforms the car. Early days but glad I went for it.

[A1VDY]

If you don't mind me asking, what's the damage to have PSE retro fitted?

[coffeekid]

You’ll not have a lot of change from £2.5k

[surtees]

Makes a wonderful noise when you feel that way inclined. But beware. The butterfly valve is internal and operates in a very harsh environment. It can be prone to seizing. Sometimes it can be freed up through judicious application of brute force and WD40 (or similar) on the actuating pushrods/joints, but not always. If this doesn't work there is no option but to replace the box/valve on whichever side has seized. Including labour, the bill is likely to be well into 4 figures. Only you can judge where the balance lies between the additional risk and the additional sonic amusement.

[MrVert]

Posts on Porsche Club GB indicate from time to time you can get PSE fitted for £1750 - £1800, dependent upon if a dealer has stock. So if anyone's looking, might be worth a ring around the OPC's near to you.

I was quoted just over £2k last time I enquired a while ago.

[SV_WDC]

MrVert said:

Posts on Porsche Club GB indicate from time to time you can get PSE fitted for £1750 - £1800, dependent upon if a dealer has stock. So if anyone's looking, might be worth a ring around the OPC's near to you.

I was quoted just over £2k last time I enquired a while ago.

Interesting although I wonder if that price is just factoring in the discount for being a PCGB member.

[mr pg]

I was one of those who got it for £1750 for a system already on the shelf. Don't recall if that included any PCGB discount.

[Singh911]

I looked at this back end of 2018 with my 2.7 981. I went with the GT exhaust at Gert's place Carnewal.com
Cost around 500 euros.
We went over to Bruges and made a weekend of it.
The sound was brilliant - car now sold - for me it sounded better than a mate who had a 2.7 with pse factory fitted. He agreed.

[Andyoz]

I haven't tried one but wonder do owners with it fitted actually ever run it in quiet mode - Especially owners that don't daily the car?

[mr pg]

Andyoz said:

I haven't tried one but wonder do owners with it fitted actually ever run it in quiet mode - Especially owners that don't daily the car?

Yes, use it in both modes, just depends on what sort of driving I'm doing. Doing 20 miles on the M1 to work at 6.30 in the morning there's really no need/use for it.

[Porsche911R]

surtees said:

Makes a wonderful noise when you feel that way inclined. But beware. The butterfly valve is internal and operates in a very harsh environment. It can be prone to seizing. Sometimes it can be freed up through judicious application of brute force and WD40 (or similar) on the actuating pushrods/joints, but not always. If this doesn't work there is no option but to replace the box/valve on whichever side has seized. Including labour, the bill is likely to be well into 4 figures. Only you can judge where the balance lies between the additional risk and the additional sonic amusement.

I have had loads of cars none had done this and the parts only 4 figures if you add on the .00

a valve is £70.00 !!!

[YoungFireOldFlame]

I paid just under £2k. Sounds great and keeps the two year warranty intact on my used 987.2. It's rounded out the spec PDK, PASM + DSC V1, 19inch Porsche Sport Design alloys now painted in the satin grey Porsche finish, sat-nav upgraded sound system. Next up is the Sport Design steering wheel with the paddles and the sport + sport plus button...DSC V1 is also a great addition, allow you drive in sport mode PASM.

[surtees]

Porsche911R said:

I have had loads of cars none had done this and the parts only 4 figures if you add on the .00

a valve is £70.00 !!!

Maybe you’ve been lucky. I and many others haven’t. A quick google search brought up the following links/quotations. I could have referenced many more.

It would appear that failures of the solenoids, diaphragms, butterfly valves etc. are not nearly as uncommon as you seem to think.

Yes, you can get a spare valve for reasonable money but the old one will need to be cut out and welded in. I’m sure there are good Indies willing to undertake that, but I don’t think you’d persuade an OPC to take it on. That may not be a problem unless you want to take out an OPC extended warranty at some point or trade the car back into the official OPC network. I strongly suspect that it’s one of the specific things that OPC techs are instructed to look out for!

It would be harsh to blame the failures on substandard Porsche design. As I said in my original post, the butterfly valve is operating in a very difficult high temperature environment. Many other premium sports car manufacturers seem to have similar problems.

I’m not trying to put anyone off from going for PSE. I’ve specified it on several of my own cars. But one of the main purposes of any worthwhile forum is to present the facts so that individual readers can formulate their own conclusions.


Some Links and Quotations:

http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?p=1399750
http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?p=1509618
http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?p=1232423
https://rennlist.com/forums/991-gt3-gt3rs-and-911r...
https://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum/1071935-997-...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
https://rennlist.com/forums/991/917067-sport-exhau...
https://www.planet-9.com/threads/sport-exhaust-is-...

“It is not uncommon for the valve actuator to fail in some way and this would be my suspicion given your symptoms i.e. the exhaust flap is not closing and consequently sounds louder.”
“Got the dreaded PSE actuator issue, the rod has snapped at the ball joint. Have looked online in some depth, seen quite a few threads on here about it.”
“Failed actuator. Common problem. Mine has failed 2 or 3 times in my GT3.”

[jakesmith]

I had 2 valves fail under warranty on my 6 year old 997 PSE

I had the Carnewal mod done on my 2.7 987 and it was nice

The PSE on the 997 is a completely different animal, it is much much louder and throatier sounding

I would recommend PSE on a 997 as you need to be able to mute it in the mornings etc, but on a 2.7 987 the Carnewal mod is good enough and a fraction of the price. It isn’t loud enough on the 2.7 for you to need to worry about not being able to mute it

[Junkalus]

Had this done on my 981 Cayman S that didn’t have PSE..

https://www.haywardandscott.com/porsche-boxster-98...

It basically by passes the rear silencer boxes.. Everyone that heard commented on how nice it sounded.. I average 55k miles a year and there was absolutely no drone.. Not too loud,but throaty when needed / under load.. Deeper at idle,but didn’t wake the neighbours up on a cold start on winter mornings.. Can highly recommend.. Took about 3-4hrs to do from memory.. Save yourself over £1k on having a PSE..

[Caddyshack]

I may be selling a complete 987 3.2 sports exhaust soon

[A1VDY]

Junkalus said:

Had this done on my 981 Cayman S that didn’t have PSE..

https://www.haywardandscott.com/porsche-boxster-98...

It basically by passes the rear silencer boxes.. Everyone that heard commented on how nice it sounded.. I average 55k miles a year and there was absolutely no drone.. Not too loud,but throaty when needed / under load.. Deeper at idle,but didn’t wake the neighbours up on a cold start on winter mornings.. Can highly recommend.. Took about 3-4hrs to do from memory.. Save yourself over £1k on having a PSE..

How do they do this? From the pictures it looks a std set up.
Are they modifying the internals like Carnewal?

[Mariosbt]

I have the PSE button on my 2007 Carrera 3.6 I’ve had the car for 5 years now and pressing the button makes no difference to sound. Is it likely to have a seized valve or whatever? I never thought much of it. The yellow light on the button always seems to be on.

[Junkalus]

A1VDY said:

How do they do this? From the pictures it looks a std set up.
Are they modifying the internals like Carnewal?

They weld 2 x Bypass pipes (1 for each cat) after the cats straight thru to the rear pipes bypassing the rear boxes.. Look carefully at all the photos and you can see / work out what they’ve done..

[DRH986]

Mariosbt said:

I have the PSE button on my 2007 Carrera 3.6 I’ve had the car for 5 years now and pressing the button makes no difference to sound. Is it likely to have a seized valve or whatever? I never thought much of it. The yellow light on the button always seems to be on.

The difference between PSE on and off in my friend's 2006 C2S is really noticeable even at idle so my guess is one or both of your valves or actuators is seized/broken or there is a problem with the vacuum operation of the actuators.

In my 2013 981 Cayman S, there's very little difference on or off unless you are on the gas. The biggest difference in my car is the pops and crackles on the overrun.

Mine had one of the valves seized when I bought it a couple of years ago at 26K miles. I managed to free it up and regularly check both are still free and actuating properly but there was very little sound difference in idling or normal pottering around after freeing it up.