Reviews of Performance
Parts
In this particular page I will discuss and test
modifications and parts that I have purchased. This page is here for you the
reader to get an idea of the quality of the part ,ordering
experience from the vendor, ease of installation, any performance benefits
gained from the part, and my final thought on this particular part. I hope this
page will help potential buyers on where to purchase performance parts from and what
performance parts to purchase to help their particular goal in mind. Below is a
list of vendors I have dealt with and a summary of my experiences I had with
them. I have divided the vendors up into 2 categories: OEM Parts Suppliers and
Tuners with the actual reviews of the parts at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!
OEM Parts Suppliers Vendors
Paragon-Products aka www.paragon-products.com
Probably the only place I shop for my OEM Porsche parts. Jason and Chuck
have been so helpful to me over the years in getting the parts I need in a fast
manner. Sometimes I would email Jason with lots of little parts I need then
email him again with a few more lists of parts I would need, and every time
Jason would be on top of what I had sent him!! Paragon is the ultimate Porsche
parts supplier in my book, you can't beat there quality service, faster than a
Porsche turbo in delivery time, and awesome prices.
Tuners
Speed Force Racing is a fairly new company started by a avid 944 Turbo enthusiast Tim Richards. Tim aka "TurboTim" has been
modifying 944 Turbo's for many years, and has made
many accomplishments that only other 944 tuners dream of. I have made quite a
few purchases from Tim and I have been very pleased with the service as well as
the products! Tim is a straight up guy and will tell you exactly what you need
in order to make sure whatever modification you add will be safe on your car, which
is different from other tuners who are more interested in just completing the
sale and getting you to purchase items you don't need. Tim is also probably one
of the only tuners you can talk to for advice on parts that aren’t even his, as
he is willing to diagnose with you as well as helping out the 944 community.
Another plus I like about Tim’s shop is that every time I call his shop he
picks up the phone and immediately helps you. I remember on several occasions
after I purchased my Huntley Mass Air Flow system, Derrick was always out or
wasn’t available and I had to leave my name and number in order for him to call
me back. This made me very frustrated as I was excited about getting my new
parts going but I was unable too. On a scale of 1 to 10 for service and support
I would rate Tim’s shop a 10. On that same scale for shipping I would rate it a
10. The reason I rate it a 10 is because Tim gives a HONEST ETA on shipping.
For instance I ordered up a SFR exhaust from him and he told me it would be a
few days before he could get it out, as he had to make another batch of them,
no problem I said. Sure enough in a few days I had a tracking number for my new
exhaust. I guess my point here is I wish other part tuners were more honest
with there shipping dates (example Huntley)!! Overall if you want a quality
product at a unbeatable price as well as excellence
service and support I recommend Speed Force Racing for all your modification
needs.
As far as I know Huntley Racing was the first 944 Turbo tuner around back in the day. Huntley Racing brought us the
first fully adjustable Mass Air Flow kit and turbo upgrades that made them very
popular. Derrick the owner of Huntley Racing is a pretty knowledgeable person
when it comes to the 944 Turbo engine, and has provided me with some good
advice here and there. However over the years Huntley Racing has become
increasingly slower on the orders being shipped, as well as becoming harder to
get a hold of to ask questions (especially Derrick). My last order I placed
with Huntley Racing was a testpipe, which took almost
30 days to arrive to my door. Apparently my testpipe
got shipped to the wrong address as Derrick claims, hence the slow shipping.
Also when I ordered my Mass Air Flow kit from Derrick it took over 3 weeks for
that to arrive as well. Seeing a pattern? What really made me mad is that
Derrick said it would ship out the next day, when in fact it didn’t ship out
for 2 1/2 weeks after the order was placed. I really wouldn’t have had a
problem with the slow shipping if Derrick would have let me known of the delay
ahead of time! When my HR MAF kit did arrive I immediately installed it,
however along the steps I followed, I had a few questions so I called during
business hours and was told to leave my name and number and Derrick would get
back with me. About an hour later I did receive a call from Derrick and he did
apologize for not being available sooner, and he did help me solve my
installation problem. However after the second order taking so long and trouble
getting a hold of Derrick for questions the damage had already been done, which
really turned me away from buying another product from him. Derrick needs to
work on being more honest on ETA for shipping, as well as hire more help in
order to help him with the everyday tasks in the shop, to keep him free to deal
with customers. On a scale of 1 to 10 for customer service and support I rate
Huntley Racing a 6. The only reason I rate them a 6 is because Derrick is so
hard to get a hold of, however once you get a hold of him he is very
knowledgeable and more than likely will help you complete the task at hand. On
that same scale for shipping I would rate Huntley Racing a 4. The reason I rate
Huntley Racing a 4 on shipping is because time after time when ever I placed an
order from Derrick he would tell me it will ship out “tomorrow” or in a “few
days” when in fact it was 2 weeks plus before it shipped out. Overall Huntley
Racing makes some good products, however their average customer support/service
and below average shipping department really brings down the overall rating for
them.
New parts Review
SFR Cat-Back
Exhaust System
Below is a picture of the
complete SFR Cat-Back exhaust system you will receive from Tim when you place
an order. As you can see from the picture you get everything you need to do the
installation. This exhaust is made out of 3” 304 stainless steel tubing and utilizes
a bullet type muffler. What’s nice about this exhaust is that it also has a 4”
factory look alike polished tip, which makes it look
very original to the car. I liked the factory tip so I was very happy to see
this factory polished tip on my new cat-back, your tastes may be different and
I know Tim has a few options when it comes to tips. All the pieces from this
exhaust are mandrel bent which means around all the bending’s of the pipe the
still retain there 3” diameter instead of being pinched when piping it bent. I would not be surprised if this cat-back
lasted 200k miles as the chemical properties of stainless steel make it very
hard to break down. Even the factory exhaust system was made out of stainless
steel and my original exhaust was in near perfect shape before the swap so I
knew I wanted another exhaust made of stainless. Overall the fit and finish is
outstanding, you can’t help but notice the “bling-bling” factor from the polished
steel as it’s such an eye catcher. Look
at the picture below to get an idea of how much this Bullet muffler will flow,
as you can tell by the picture below it sure has no restriction on getting
those exhaust gases out the back quickly. :)
From a performance stand point I notice very slight gains
in turbo spool up and in top end power which is always good. What I really
wanted out of this exhaust was that mean throaty exhaust tone, and I don’t mean
those sounds coming out of those fart cans either. This exhaust just completely
blew me and my friends away by the rumble this thing produces. Absolutely
amazing!! People though I had a v8 under the hood when I pulled up idling at a
red light. If you can I would definitely recommend listening to one of these
exhaust systems I’m sure it will blow you away.
Overall the installation from
this exhaust was fairly straight forward and pretty easy to do. Anybody with
some basic mechanic skills can for sure install this exhaust. I do recommend
soaking all the bolts with WD-40 the night before the installation to make
things go a little more smoothly. Also on all 87+ cars one of the exhaust
hangers will have to be taken off and switched around so it will fit on the new
cat-back otherwise it was a smooth install.
Overall I thought this was a
worth wild upgrade as it got rid of my tired looking exhaust, added a nice
rumble that I can’t get enough of, and made the outside appearance of the car
look a little better with the polished piping and all. :)
SFR
Intercooler Pipes
COMING SOON!
SFR Tial 35mm Wastegate and Adapters
COMING SOON!
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