ENGINES & PERFORMANCE
If you're the kind of Porsche owner who likes to get their hands dirty, and if you're new to 991s but have previously owned an earlier 911, the first thing you'll notice come spanner time is... there appears to be no engine. That's right — flip the engine lid and you're presented with a plastic shroud housing two Spal fans contributing to presentation more in keeping with the interior of a PC tower than a sport car's engine bay. Granted, there are oil and coolant filler caps to twist, but that's about it. Porsche doesn't want you fiddling. The 991, therefore, may not be the best 911 for you if driveway mechanics and tuning are something you're looking forward to. To put this into perspective, replacing an air filter (a simple task on an earlier 911) requires a 991's bumper and rear lights to be removed in order to achieve the required access. Very frustrating. Ultimately, you taking care of your 911's servicing isn't profitable for Porsche, so don't expect the job to be made easy.
With the 991 Gen II'S arrival in 2016, naturally aspirated Carreras were consigned to the history books. Instead, a three-litre, higher output, twinturbocharged flat-six was rolled out across the range. Turbo no longer meant turbocharged
— the nameplate recognised as Porsche's evergreen flagship (well, until the arrival of the 911 Turbo S, but that's another story) was now a trim identifier, a move which reached its zenith with the introduction of the Taycan Turbo. You know, the all-electric Porsche with no combustion engine and no, er, turbocharger.
In contrast, GT3 aside, pretty much all facelift 991s are turbocharged, regardless of whether they carry a Turbo badge. Despite the lower capacity of the standard flat-six, this equates to blistering straight-line acceleration, but if you yearn for a naturally aspirated engine (many enthusiasts consider this is truer to the original 911 concept), then delve into the choice of early 991s at your disposal. The 345bhp 3.4litre Carrera (with direct fuel injection) develops 288lb-ft torque, while the beefier Carrera S produces near 400bhp and 325lb-ft from its 3.8-litre boxer. In 2014, the GTS offered a hike to almost 430bhp. Readers in North America may want to hunt down a runout model produced at the end of first-gen GTS production in 2016: the Us-only GTS Club Coupe, as featured in our pictures. Power was unchanged from the standard GTS, but styling evoking the 1973 Carrera RS 2.7 aesthetic was introduced to mark Porsche Club America's sixtieth anniversary. Only sixty units were built.
The fan-favourite 991 Carrera T (see page 52) is a stripped back Carrera offering near 370bhp, but there will always be those who hanker for a full-fat 911 Turbo. The 991 doesn't disappoint: first-gen Turbos (513bhp) close in on 200mph with the nought to 62mph sprint despatched in 3.6 seconds, dropping to 2.9 seconds for the Turbo S (552bhp). The second-phase 991 Turbo (533bhp, PDK only) takes three seconds dead to complete the same benchmark speed test, though the Turbo S (now 572bhp) time remains unchanged. The 991 Turbo S Exclusive disrupts proceedings with 205mph and almost 600bhp, while the GT2 RS, GT2 RS Clubsport and the 935 develop almost 700bhp, 553lb-ft torque and a whopping 211mph.
The 991's 3.4-litre flat-six was shorter in stroke than the 3.6-litre base engine in the 997 Carrera, resulting in a quicker-revving unit, but many of the same problems remain: intermittent misfires under load can be caused by busted coilpacks unable to cope with heat cycles in the engine bay, hot-start issues can be traced to a failing crank sensor (as demonstrated in last month's issue of 911 & Porsche World, a compromised alternator/ignition harness generates the same fault on the 997), while changeover solenoids are a known problem area — if one gives up the ghost by getting stuck, they all stop working, throwing up all manner of fault codes. Fortunately, many cars had the fault fixed under warranty and the likelihood is only one valve will need replacing (depending on model, there are up to eight).