Home Blog Page 19

Installing Carbon Fiber Intake Y-pipe on a Panamera Turbo

Looking at the stock Y design in front of the throttle body, we new there was improvements to be made. Panamera throttle body is the same size as the Cayenne TT throttle body we use on our 996TT and 997TT upgrade kits. The stock Y-Pipe is a 2 piece plastic Y design that is smooth on the inside with a “deflector” internally to channel air. The bad part about the stock one is it goes from a 78mm ID at the throttle body down to a approximately 51mm diameter Y split. This then connects to rubber boost hoses that expand under pressure. Both of these are a power robbers! If you retain the stock design and stock diameter hoses, YOU CANNOT GAIN power no matter if the YPipe is cast aluminum or plastic. This is why we made a complete Y-Pipe kit which retains a 3inch diameter design all the way to the factory end piece connections at the intercoolers. This carbon fiber Y-Pipe is a full replacement and includes everything you need to install in place of the original.

The dyno sheet shows the car in standard mode with the stock Y piece versus our big Y-Pipe kit. These are huge gains throughout the ENTIRE rpm band which is impressive. Dyno proven results are not something to see, but something you can feel. The more airflow you get into that throttlebody the more HP you will gain. By eliminating the rubber boost hoses, you remove the pressure fluctuation from expansion which loses power. With our Y-Pipe kit, the air flow improvement improves every aspect of driving your Panamera Turbo. As tested on our Mustang AWD Dyno, the Y-Pipe made 34awhp and 35ft/lbs of torque.

One of these Y-Pipes is provided by Vivid Racing and they are all made in the USA using carbon fiber braided sleeve and a bladder molding technique. The Y-Pipe includes necessary couplers and clamps for a true bolt on installation. All clamps should be torqued to no more then 15lbs. These are designed for the 2010 and up Porsche Panamera Turbo.

Written by VividRacing.

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

c1

First impressions of a 2015 Panamera S e-Hybrid

This review was posted by Gus Smedstad (of the the Panamera owners from the forum) who just picked up a 2015 model E-Hybrid.

 

The dealer delivered it to me with the battery completely empty. This didn’t really surprise me – I don’t think they understand the car at all. When I test drove one, they didn’t have that one charged either. I charged it before taking it anywhere.

One thing I thought was a bit weird and silly is that the car doesn’t have an analog speedometer. There’s a digital one below the central tachometer, but in the #2 place, where you’d normally see a speedometer, is a power meter. It seemed frivolous to lose a significant instrument for this.

Click the image to open in full size.

After driving the car today, I realized this is the electric power’s equivalent of the tach, and thus it is important, if you’re trying at all to maximize efficiency. In e-Power mode the car is pure electric until the power meter gets over 25%, the green zone, and then the gas engine turns on. It’s very easy to do this in ordinary driving. The EPA includes some gas usage in the PSeH’s electric-mode MPGe, and I now understand why – if you’re not keeping an eye on the power meter, you’re going to use gas.

Similarly, if you’re braking, the meter tells you how hard you can press the brakes and recapture energy. Go beyond the bottom of the “charge” zone, and you’re using the real brake pads, not the electric engine braking to generate power.

Pure electric range has been 14 miles for city driving, and nearly 17 for highway, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. In Hybrid mode, Hwy miles go up to 35mpg.

I had envisioned staying in completely electric mode for routine driving, only reserving the full engine power for times when I really wanted acceleration. I don’t think that’s going to happen. The electric is very nice for 0-5 MPH, giving real authority from a standing stop in a way that usually requires a lot of gas. It’s not so nice above about 15-20 MPH. I experimented with pegging the power meter at 25%, getting maximum acceleration from pure electric, and getting up to 35-40 MPH is definitely slower than I find acceptable. This is a heavy car (4600 lbs), and the 95 HP of the electric motor isn’t enough for my taste.

This isn’t to say the car is slow. If you’re using gas and electric, it’s seriously fast. If I’m not going for efficiency, 50 MPH arrives so effortlessly I’m not even sure how I got there. Nor it it particularly inefficient even if you’re messing about with high acceleration. Today’s city-driving trip reported 36.8 MPG according to the car, but that doesn’t include the electricity used. By my estimate, I used 0.24 gallons and 4 kWh to travel 8.7 miles, which works out to about 25 MPG. Which isn’t nearly Prius numbers, but this isn’t a Prius. My wife’s Cayman S gets maybe 14 MPG on the same trip, it’s 65% of the weight of the Panamera. The acceleration feels similar as long as they’re both in Sports or Sports+.

I’m still trying to get a feel for the car. Unlike the other Panameras, it doesn’t have PDK, because PDK can’t deal with the hybrid powertrain. Instead it has an 8-speed automatic transmission, though the controls are the same. I started out in full manual, because I’ve been driving a 6-speed stick for 16 years, and I wanted to retain that part of the sports car feel.

It didn’t work out at all. The issue is that the engine revs up to 6000 RPM insanely fast in first gear. I apply the throttle and BAM, it’s instantly time to shift. Further, shifting isn’t instant, and I found myself double-tapping the shift paddle, going from 1st to 3rd in my urgency to drop the RPMs. I so blew the “don’t rev above 4000 RPM” break-in advice, but that doesn’t worry me because I’m on the “it’s not that important” side of the break-in debate. Since full manual control seems so problematic, I’m reluctantly letting the transmission do its own thing.

I’ve read a lot of negativity about Sports+ with PDK when in auto, mainly that it revs way too high. This wasn’t my experience with the ZF 8 speed automatic at all. It’ll rev to about 4000 if I’m not flooring it, but once I start cruising, the engine often goes off entirely as the electric power takes over. I thought that was only going to be true in e-Power mode, but it apparently applies to Sports+ as well.

I’ve found the manual shifting in the car to be pretty awful. I totally gave up on it. When I drive the car, I putter around like it’s an econobox. Trying to keep the ICE off. We’ve been getting 18+ miles on the electric drive, But a few times it won’t let the range drop to zero. It fires up the engine and hovers around 4-6 miles range.  I also sprung for a Lane Change Assist, but I haven’t noticed it doing anything yet.

I’ve used Sport. It’s okay. You get a bit of thrust. The engine behaves more like a normal car. The tachometer actually shows some signs of life. But it’s not 577hp, so it feels like a bit like I’m driving a Corolla . If not for the pretty interior and the novelty of silent running, I’d probably not even bother with it.

I think you really need to be in Sports or Sports+ to feel like it’s a sports car. e-Power doesn’t do it. e-Power is fine for me in city traffic when I’m limited by the car in front of me, or if there’s a cop behind me. Even if you stick to speed limits they don’t appreciate high acceleration.

Even if it’s adequately charged, you need to put the car into Sports or Sports+ or the throttle response is kind of slow. If the battery is charged, it defaults to e-Power mode, which emphasizes the electric motor. It’s a great mode if you want to stay silent and keep the engine off, but acceleration is weak above 10 MPH if you’re not using gas, and in e-Power mode you need to put the throttle down some before the car will turn the gasoline engine.

My wife actually running the first half of the AM drive in regular hybrid mode. Less traffic, more high speed driving. Then she switches it to E Power when the traffic gets thick and slow. I think she returns 60+ mpg in that manner, rather than defaulting to E Power which returns mid 50’s for that trip.


I took another drive today, this time sticking strictly to electric. Not only is this kind of slow, it has a problem with hills. I’ve got a fairly steep grade near my house. The car was at 20 MPH when I hit the hill, and stayed there until I reached the top. Switching to gas for this would have compromised the test.

I made it 13.6 miles in city driving until the battery reached 20% and the gas engine kicked in. The indicated range with a full charge was 14 miles, so that’s entirely consistent, at least for start-stop city driving. The question is, how much energy was that, really? I’ve read that the usable capacity of the battery is 7.5 kWh. Was it 80% of 9.4 kWh, or 80% of 7.5 kWh? There was definitely some usable energy left, the car just wanted to use the gas engine as well.

I’m going to assume it’s 80% of 9.4 kWh, or 7.5 kWh. Which means I used 550 watt-hours per mile, or 62 MPGe for city driving. That’s believable, since the MPGe rating of the Tesla S is 88 MPGe City, and the cars weigh about the same. The official EPA rating is 50 MPGe, but I’m pretty sure they botched the test since the official rating includes gasoline usage. You don’t have to use gasoline while the battery’s charged, but it’s very easy to do so inadvertently.

After hitting 13.6 miles, I turned the air conditioning back on and switched into Sports+. I wanted to see the polar opposite, again in city driving. I got 20 MPG over the next 10.5 miles with the battery effectively depleted. Not completely depleted, obviously, but as low as the car really wants it to go. It’s worth noting that sometimes when I was cruising, the power meter said power was going from the gas engine to the wheels and the battery. So even though I wasn’t in e-Charge mode, coasting, or braking, it was still making an effort to charge the battery.

This is understandable. If there’s no power reserve in the battery, the car doesn’t have its full 416 HP available. The car wants a power reserve for acceleration. Ace mentions that his wife depletes the car regularly, no reserve. I’m beginning to think maybe that is anomaly.

20 MPG city is less than the EPA rating of 23, but I was driving the way I want to drive, rather than puttering along at electric-only speeds. Traffic was a limit, of course, but I still got a few chances to accelerate. Again, comparing it to my wife’s Cayman S, I’d get at most 15 MPG doing the same kind of driving, despite less weight and less total power, so the hybrid system does help once it’s reduced to recycling energy from braking instead of using power stored from the grid.

For a 24 mile trip, I used 0.53 gallons of gas and 7.5 kWh of electricity. Combining both legs, that was about 32 MPGe overall considering electricity use. If you only count gas, the way the car displays it, it was 45 MPG. Again, entirely city driving. About half driving in a relatively restrained way, about half no.

Reply With Quote

 

Window Tinting Pon a Panamera – Anti Scratch Protector

When it comes to tinting windows on a Panamera – you need to know a few things before doing that. Two main things you need to remember when tinting a Panamera windows:

  1. You must install a felt or moll skin on the inner edge of the bottom weatherstrip (Anti scratch kit)
  2. If you have Thermal/Insulated windows – your tint dry time will extend to 4-6 weeks

Well, lets first start with a fact that once you install your tint and you roll down your window first time around – YOU WILL GET SCRATCHES. You ask why? Well, Porsche wasnt too smart with a design and they decided to install a hard plastic window guide on the bottom of the window. Dirt gets trapped between a plastic and a window and it will scratch your new tint right away. Many peope on Porsche forums complaint about that. Many!felt

By having a felt liner applied to the plastic, it will drastically reduce the number of scratches on the tint. It may not eliminate it completely, but it will be a very noticeable difference compared to a Panamera without some type of felt liner. It will not interfer with the window operations. People are reporting 2+ years without scratches.

To install the felt, some say you must remove door panels. I did it on my Panamera from the top. I stretched it out and pushed it down with a screwdriver then once it was in place – I pulled the backing from the tape and peeled it off. Thats it.

 

Q: Should I tint a Thermal/insulated glass? 

A: Install was no different then any other car and should be very straight forward. Just dont spend the money on some crazy new nano technology tint because your thermal windows do VERY GOOD job in keeping your car cool.

Q: What is a tint protector?

A: Well, tint protector is a piece of felt or moll skin that you stick on like a tape on the inside edge of the bottom window track.  Best product is moll skin which you can get it Here

Q: What type of tint should I get?

A: Make sure you get a ceramic tint so that when you get your Radar Detector – it will not interfere with it. Metalic tint causes problems with certain radio frequencies or nav systems. “Formula one -pinnacle series” is ceramic and very good. So is the “Huper Optik”. Next good one would be “Prestige Spectra Photosync” or “Suntek”

 

Here are photos with the Felt Kit installed:

tint2

tint2

5 Best & Favorite Porsche Panamera cell phone holders/mounts

So I have been looking at a cell phone holder for my Panamera but I was only able to find a few out there that fit a panamera center console nicely with a good viewing angle and easy access if you need it.  Here is a list of my 5 favorite Porsche Panamera smartphone mounts:

 1 . My most favorite phone mount because its easily removable and you can relocated it easily. It fits all the one big smartphone, phablet or tablet. It fits phone from 4″ to 6.75″ in length. And you can install it on top of the dash within perfect hand reach. It can fit big phones as big Iphone 6plus, Galaxy S6 + and even Galaxy 7.0, 8.0 tablets. If you are interested in this mount, email me using the contact Us form on the menu bar of the website. I will have this phone mount in our store very soon. And it will fit other Porsche cars like Cayenne, new 911s, etc. If you can squeeze it in between your dash and the radio/vent   – it will work for you.

More INFO and purchase HERE

 

2. My 2nd favorite mount. I made this myself. If you are interested in getting one – Please email me using the Contact form on the MANU bar.

3. Most expensive option. Pro-Clip – console mount ($29 mount + $49 phone attachment 1, attachment 2 or attachment 3)

proclip1

 

4. Vent mount ($24)

You get get this one from Amazon or any other source

vent1

 

5. Macally cup holder Mount ($13)

You can get this from Amazon as well

 

 

2010 Porsche panamera Mandatory Recall

VEHICLE MAKE/MODEL: MODEL YEAR(S):

Porsche/Panamera 2010

MANUFACTURER: Porsche Cars North America, Inc.

MFR’S REPORT DATE: March 31, 2010recall4

NHTSA CAMPAIGN ID NUMBER: 10V141000

NHTSA Action Number: N/A

COMPONENT: Seat Belts: Front: Anchorage

POTENTIAL NUMBER OF UNITS AFFECTED: 3176

SUMMARY:
Porsche has notified NHTSA of a defect in certain model year 2010 Panamera S, 4S and Turbo 4-door sedans. If the front seats are adjusted towards an extreme position, resulting in unfavorable tolerance of the mating components, it is possible that the function of the locking mechanism of the seat belt mount can no longer be guaranteed. The seat belt mount could detach from the anchoring system when the seat belt is fastened or opened. CONSEQUENCE:
In the event of a crash, the seat belt may not provide adequate protection for the seat occupant, which may increase the risk of injury or death. REMEDY:
Dealers will have an additional locking element installed on the seat belt anchoring system for both front seats. This service will be performed free of charge. The manufacturer has not yet provided an owner notification schedule. Owners may contact Porsche at 1-800-545-8039. NOTES:
Porsche recall No. AA01. Owners may also contact The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or go to http://www.safercar.gov.