Cobb Tuning for the 4.0 engined cars

[Tom]

Yeah, the warranty issue is holding me back too. My PCA prez says that Cobb will be approved by Porsche. His SIL works for them so maybe he has the straight story.

If Cobb does a tune for the 992 Turbo S, and is able to get Porsche to honor the warranty despite the tune, then I'll be all over that. (SIL = son-in-law?)

[Tom]

Bill, please let us know if you learn more about Porsche supporting the Cobb tune. F Y I.....I also owned an '86 944 Turbo. After owning for 6 years it caught fire while I was driving it and burned, total loss. State Farm thinks a fuel line burst and sprayed the hot turbo charger with fuel, causing the fire. I miss that car.

The fuel lines are known to fail/leak and burn up 944's, but they leak over the headers and catch fire there. The turbo is on the other side of the engine (plumbed via a cross-over pipe), and covered by the intake. While anything is possible, the turbo itself is not usually what ignite fuel leaks on those cars. Neither here nor there for pusposes of a State Farm claim I guess, but fyi in case of of any use/interest....

[Throttlesteer]

The Cobb AP tune in the 981 was actually supposed to be good for 25-30whp. Of course, you can always play with things to make the peak hp numbers pop on the dyno. But, I think it's likely good for more than 10hp, especially in conjunction with additional breathing modifications on the exhaust side. There's nothing overly magical about the 4.0 vs. the 3.4 other than displacement. If Cobb can tune 50hp out of a 4.0, they probably realized proportionate gains from the 3.4 tune.

I definitely like their platform and have used their products with several of my cars. I don't have any experience with Softronic, but hear they are also strong. At the end of the day, the software solutions are all using the same set of parameters. Additionally, Cobb, FVD, TPC, etc..all have knowledgeable folks with lots of familiarity with Porsche. I'm not sure if you're going to see substantially better performance with one over the other....at least with an off-the-shelf map.

Turbocharged motors are a different ballgame and provide a lot more potential (and risk) for tuning. I would be scared to see what they can do with a 992 TS

[Bill in Bama]

I've recently been told the Cobb tune is the only one recognized by Porsche and that retains the Porsche warranty. This comes from someone in the industry (but not Cobb) that should know. Cobb has yet to release their 4.0 tune, awaiting EPA approval, and as such h theirs doesn't offer options like defeating auto start, etc. As stated, the varieties are all similar, and appear to bump hp for the GTS by @40. Since the GTS and GT4 engines are mechanically identical this is reasonable, and comments by some of the tuners indicate they were pleasantly surprised by the increase in power available with a tune. I'm anxious to see what Cobb offers when theirs comes out.

[Tom]

I've recently been told the Cobb tune is the only one recognized by Porsche and that retains the Porsche warranty. This comes from someone in the industry (but not Cobb) that should know. Cobb has yet to release their 4.0 tune, awaiting EPA approval, and as such h theirs doesn't offer options like defeating auto start, etc. As stated, the varieties are all similar, and appear to bump hp for the GTS by @40. Since the GTS and GT4 engines are mechanically identical this is reasonable, and comments by some of the tuners indicate they were pleasantly surprised by the increase in power available with a tune. I'm anxious to see what Cobb offers when theirs comes out.

If Porsche confirms that it would honor the factory warranty with a Cobb tune, I'd do it to my 992TTS for sure. Has Porsche confirmed this anywhere? My dealer told me that any and all tunes would create warranty issue for the whole drive line...

[Throttlesteer]

I don't think a tune will automatically void your warranty, regardless of the manufacturer. It's a slipper slope though. If your motor blows up, it's hard to prove/disprove the tune was the cause. It wouldn't be worth getting caught between lawyers and Porsche NA. Cobb off-the-shelf maps are generally very safe and don't come close to pushing the limits, NA or turbo. But there's always some risk. Cobb also allows for quickly flashing back to the stock map whenever you bring your car in for service. PIWIS can still detect the changes, but it takes someone actively looking. However, this would be the case with a warranty claim.

The additional gains would be nice, but probably not worth the warranty risk unless Porsche officially backs it.

[Tom]

I don't think a tune will automatically void your warranty, regardless of the manufacturer. It's a slipper slope though. If your motor blows up, it's hard to prove/disprove the tune was the cause. It wouldn't be worth getting caught between lawyers and Porsche NA. Cobb off-the-shelf maps are generally very safe and don't come close to pushing the limits, NA or turbo. But there's always some risk. Cobb also allows for quickly flashing back to the stock map whenever you bring your car in for service. PIWIS can still detect the changes, but it takes someone actively looking. However, this would be the case with a warranty claim.

The additional gains would be nice, but probably not worth the warranty risk unless Porsche officially backs it.

Agreed on all counts. The guys at Fremont service dept are always so great to deal with, they'd never play games and say my cupholder broke because of the tune. But... if something in the driveline failed, I think it could be super hard for anyone to prove that it was or was not related to the tune, and I couldn't look them in the eye and say there was no tune if there was. Would love to see Porsche back the Cobb tunes, but until they do that officially, I'll probably wait. I said the same thing about my 991 though, and by the time my warranty was about to expire Porsche came out with the 992, which included an extra 80hp, so that was that...

[Bill in Bama]

I keep getting discount emails from Cobb, but still no tune available for the 4.0. EPA is a big roadblock.

[Bill in Bama]

The more I think about this, the more sense it makes for Porsche to approve or "certify" such a mod. For the GTS at least. The engine is basically the same as the GT4, software tweaks are the only difference, so if the car certify one turner's software (and get a %of the sale of course), then what's the downside? Maybe I'm too naive but it seems a win-win for everyone. Since, at least according to my sources, Porsche will approve of Cobb's tune, once EPA approved, this will be a very desirable mod. Cobb seems to be erring on the side of caution and legality, which would be Porsche's approach as well, so it makes sense to me.

[Larry C]

The more I think about this, the more sense it makes for Porsche to approve or "certify" such a mod. For the GTS at least. The engine is basically the same as the GT4, software tweaks are the only difference, so if the car certify one turner's software (and get a %of the sale of course), then what's the downside? Maybe I'm too naive but it seems a win-win for everyone. Since, at least according to my sources, Porsche will approve of Cobb's tune, once EPA approved, this will be a very desirable mod. Cobb seems to be erring on the side of caution and legality, which would be Porsche's approach as well, so it makes sense to me.

@Bill in Bama
I hope you are right. It would be very cool to have a legal “GT4 Touring.” I hope Porsche is more tuner friendly than Audi or VW (my last two cars were a VW Golf R and an Audi RS3). When you brought the cars to the dealership, even for routine service, they would run a scan and send it to Germany. If a software tune was detected, the car would get flagged TD1. The scan could even tell if you previously had a tune but had reverted back to stock. Depending on the dealership, they would invalidate your car’s warranty. Of course, technically they would have to prove that the tune caused the failure but good luck fighting the dealer if they took this stance. I hope the Cobb - Porsche situation is different.

It would be an added bonus if Cobb raised the redline to 8,000 but, since are tachometers are analog, they would still show a 7800 redline. That would kind of bug me. On the Audi, I had an APR tune with its own warranty that matched the manufacturer’s warranty. The tune raised the redline and it was reflected on the digital tach.

BMW used to sell their own tune backed by warranty. I don’t think Audi, VW, nor Porsche has ever done this.
Larry