Well after waiting a few weeks I collected my newly Promaxed car from Andy and Roger on Tuesday.
It’s had quite a lot done but first impressions are excellent.
I started from a stock 944 turbo SE – boost enhancer and Bailey DV excepted. This drove and went well enough but I felt, as others had said before me, that a few mods would bring out the best. Now as some of you may know my car has been to the moon and back (238K) and this was itself a cause for concern but it has a fantastic service history, a new CHG and top end rebuild and used very little oil.
I had tried to sell the car at the end of last year but frankly the mileage put everyone off it seems. I wanted (and probably still do) a 996T and had a generous offer to aid selling mine but it still left the possibility that I’d end up with both cars which whilst nice, I can’t drive two and I don’t have covered storage for them both. Nor do I want two lots of running costs. So as an outright sale wasn’t happening I decided to keep mine.
A leakdown and compression test in the summer was encouraging but the first thing was to do it again. Fortunately the results were a better still and it was deemed ok to move forward.
So what to do?
Well I had collected a box of goodies from various sources over the last year or so and I presented Andy with a Lindsey DPW, a set of JM chips, a set of 55lb injectors, a 3 bar FR and a Lindsey Quad M MAF kit. The latter we decided not to use for now as it would require more setting up than either Promax have the kit for or than was necessary at this stage.
In addition Andy had one Wortec exhaust left and after not much decision time a set of KW3s were ordered too. Add a set of 968 castor mounts, new engine mounts and couple of other bits and that’s all!
So forward wind these few weeks and look forward to the trip home.
Exhaust – set to quiet but still makes a nice noise on the throttle yet you can’t hear it on the move. Yes the electronic switch mechanism would have been nice but a little unnecessary for the money.
Suspension – I had been running a stock set of SE shocks which I thought were ok but the difference is immense. I wanted a modern car ride and that’s what I have – I used our Impreza as a benchmark and having driven them both now they are very similar. B road bumps don’t phase it and the ride on smooth surfaces is very poised. Best bit is the turn in – very positive and direct, more akin to my Caterham than its old self.
For those interested the rear heights are kept at the limit of the adjustment (I didn’t want it slammed) and the front adjusted to give a 5 degree nose down stance. It looks flat without the driver. Low but not speed bump rippingly so. No reindexing - I had no interest in this. It won’t see a track and I didn’t want or need any more drop available.
So does it go – hell yes. It gains speed at a phenomenal rate and is now noticeably quicker than the Impreza whereas it wasn’t before. I shall have to be careful as you reach 3 figures (allegedly!) very very easily. At this stage (and I know I’ll get used to it) I can’t see how you could use more speed without decimating the speed limit by some margin everytime you drive. There may be an element of rose tinted spectacles but having driven a couple of 996T I can’t see it would be very far behind in a straight line and in the real world the difference at anything other than silly speeds can’t be much.
I didn’t dyno before and after but I’d hope for 300+ by now.
Costs – well not cheap but in comparison with what? I saved a fair bit by collecting the parts not buying new but the exhaust and KWs aren’t pennies but to get this sort of ride and performance another way would have to cost more. I could have done some myself but I don’t have the time and there is a lot to be said for having it done properly and getting back the finished article not a work in progress.
So I can heartily recommend these sorts of changes if you have this type of car and would have to recommend Promax for a cracking job – I genuinely believe that they made sure the car did what it is supposed to do before I got the call to fetch it. I haven’t had the bill but I’d reckon on a good few hours fettling that don’t make the bill.
I’ll try and sort some pics for the weekend.
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) To get my adrenalin flowing during those 5 summer Months the car was at JMG I splashed out some Tesco vouchers for Everyman Racing and tried out :-
