Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

although I have had a few issues with my 8v n/a car I am overall really impressed. I love the way it drives, its very practical but a bit quirky and having dismantled quite a lot of it now to fix various wear (not much) and age related issues (seals and rubber bits) I am really impressed with how well made they are. So probably in the new year I may swap in mine but I can't decide between an S or an S2. Which is the better car or how different are they in reality?

Having driven all but a turbo. I still like my 8v square dash the best. If I had to chose between an S and an S2, 100% go for the S2.

This is obviously dependent on whether you prefer the look of the front end of the S2 over the S. The S2 has more power (noticeable power) than the S. And I couldn't tell much difference between the power of the 8v compared to the S, if anything the S felt a bit less responsive.

I'm sure you'll get lots of varying opinions over the best engine. One thing to remember is all of these cars are getting old and the engine from one compareable model to another will probably feel quite different, due to owner care, wear and age of componants.

I always quite liked my S as it had a nice step in the power as the engine revved, although this could be tiresome as you needed to work the gears to make good progress.

I found my S2 to have much more bottom end grunt than the S and it was faster in all areas but I wouldn't say that the way the car performs is particularly satisfying though.I remember it as almost being a bit bland.

Personally I always liked the 2.7 and I remember them as being particularly pleasant to drive.

I couldn't get on with either of my turbo's.Too much lag for my liking but fast enough when you get things spun up.

Just a few thoughts having owned/driven all of the 944 variants.

Don't look at headline power figures, look at the way the power is developed. The S2 has a good slug of low and mid-range grunt. The S is all about the top end.

If you spend your life driving in town then the S will be hard work, but it's a more rewarding car on the open road, where you get the opportunity to drive it quite hard. Once you get into the upper rev ranges then you realise what the engine is about. The S2 will be faster overall, but that's not the whole story by some margin.


Oli.

I used to love my S2. If I am honest I would happily buy an S2 again over a 2.5 etc. if the condition was the same for both cars. I cannot comment on an S since I have never driven one but only been a passenger. Maybe someone is willing to change my viewpoint on them. The dyno figures suggest that they are not much quicker than an 8V and that they do not make the power Porsche claimed. But the 16V engines (2.5 or 3.0) can be sensitive to cam timing.

After driving a Turbo 250 I would personally go with that again (runs and hides!); That turbo shove is simply great and can surprise a number of modern cars. In all honesty they are a bit of a wet lettuce below 3k. Not entirely gutless but you will not move as quick as you want. Heading for the horizon quickly at 3krpm + however is a different matter.

The Turbo however had a bigger variance in fuel economy! I used to see around 21-30MPG out of the 951. The S2 was more around 25MPG figure.