OVER FOUR THOUSAND HORSEPOWER IN ONE DRIVEWAY Hosting a dozen or more high-horsepower exotic cars is nothing rare here at Switzer Performance, but even here - having 4 metallic-silver cars ready to go home on the same day is pretty rare!
AT SPEED | NELSON LEDGES Porsche's 2011 GT2 RS is the fastest roadgoing car in the company's history, but it's not quite fast enough to suit Tym Switzer's demanding clients. Tym's company, Ohio-based tuning firm Switzer Performance, announced their new Switzer GT2 R911S this morning - a super-997 GT2 with over nine hundred horsepower and racetrack-oriented revisions to ensure that even the mighty GT2 RS will disappear in its rearview mirrors.
SWITZER R911S DELIVERS OVER 850 WHP ON C16 The Switzer GT2 R911S takes the firm's well-proven P800 GT2 package and pushes it further. Using race fuel, the R911 delivers well over eight hundred horsepower at the rear wheels, equating to roughly 50% more power than Porsche's GT2 RS, with a pair of Switzer MONSTER intercoolers ensuring consistent engine performance lap after lap.
POLISHED ALUMINUM UPPER PIPE w/ BILLET BOVs With a (conservative) 911 hp on tap, virtually nothing in the world can pass Switzer's R911S GT2 in a straight line. To maintain that advantage in the corners, Switzer's R911S features a Switzer-specific titanium inverted-front-strut, remote-reservoir suspension engineered by the track experts at JRZ. This isn't "racing-style" suspension; the hardware is a true JRZ racing setup that has been torture-tested in the Patron GT3 Cup and Grand-Am Rolex GT series – barely tamed for the street with a few easy knob-twists. Each one of Switzer's R911S cars will be feature hand-selected spring and damping rates, specifically catering to each client's track experience and level of aggression.
JRZ PORSCHE CUP SUSPENSION Switzer's R911S already offers a power-to-weight ratio which simply eviscerates Porsche's newest factory flagship - but for the customer who has to cut every last ounce of extra mass from the car, Switzer offers the R911S Carbon - an exclusive suite of lightweight carbon-fiber body panels that sheds weight from the R911S and lowers the car's center of gravity for maximum performance in advanced-level trackday and time-attack sessions. Developed by the low-mass experts at Seibon Carbon, the lightweight panels are the final nail in the coffin for Porsche's factory GT2 RS.
While Porsche GT2 RS customers are lining up to beg their local dealer for a spot in line, Switzer Performance can offer the silver GT2 R911S pictured here for immediate delivery. Pricing for the standard vehicle starts at $199,900, while the R911S Carbon is priced at $239,900, contact Switzer Performance for more. More high-resolution photos available on Flickr.
SWITZER P800 PORSCHE 997s AT YAS MARINA Top Performance is the MidEast's leading automotive magazine, and they have just released images of next month's cover cars ... a pair of Switzer-tuned 997 Porsches at Yas Marina circuit!
Look at this photo - that track is GORGEOUS! SWITZER R911 GT2 / P700 997 TT CAB We couldn't be more excited, and want to thank everyone involved for their help in making it happen. Visiting the Middle East last month was a humbling experience, and we met a lot of amazing and talented people.
Thanks, to everyone who made this happen. We hope to see you again soon.
SWITZER P700/R750 VTG KIT | MOSCOW The latest Porsche 911 's variable-vane turbochargers (VTG) are marvels of modern performance engineering that allow the 911's relatively small 6-cylinder “boxer” engine to deliver incredible horsepower, and help keep Porsche's flagship competitive with supercars boasting 10, 12, or even 16 cylinder engines. Even with nearly 500 hp from the factory, however, Porsche turbo owners still want more – more power, more speed, more everything. These performance enthusiasts demand superior performance, and have lofty expectations.
In order to meet those clients' lofty horsepower goals, it is necessary to increase the flow of air into the Porsche's engine – and since the primary function of any turbocharger is precisely to force air into an engine, upgrading the factory-provided VTG turbochargers is a logical step in the process of building additional power ... but Porsche clients don't want to sacrifice reliability to have more power.
This is the real problem faced by the modern tuner: clients want more performance, without more trips to the garage.
In order to provide a thrilling experience that is reliable enough to thrill time and time again, day or night, Monday through Sunday, we here at Switzer Performance have to deliver a package that is simply better than what the factory offers. We need an exhaust that flows more air. Intercoolers that remove more heat. We need turbos that are more efficient – that compress more air, and make less heat than the stock Porsche turbos.
How did we do it? By working closely with some of the industry's leading engineering firms and OE suppliers.
Switzer Performance' close relationships with our development partners allow us to produce larger-than-stock compressor wheels with unique aero profiles specifically designed to achieve the airflow rates required for our P650/R680 and P700/R750 Porsche tuning packages. The new wheels are 11% larger than stock, and allow the Switzer turbos to move more air than the factory Porsche turbos, while generating less heat. MORE AIR + LESS HEAT = MORE POWER + LESS MAINTENANCE The Switzer VTGs have other competitive advantages, as well – all due to Switzer's unique ability to specify exactly the component characteristics required to meet our needs, as determined by our clients.
All of this is made possible through the incredible advances in engineering and design software, and lessons learned from decades of aggressive aftermarket turbocharger development. These are lessons that have taught us to build both power and reliability into a given system, and given us the ability to deliver cutting-edge performance upgrades that meet or exceed OEM-levels of component fit, finish, and quality.
“Quality” is a word we take very seriously. On that note, I'd like to point out that every VTG turbocharger Switzer upgrades is built to be as solidly reliable as the OEM component it replaces.
When we upgrade these turbochargers, every component is cleaned, refinished, and checked for proper tolerances. Every backing plate and compressor housing is CNC-machined for precise matching to our compressor wheels. We use only brand-new seals and bearings in our cartridges. We individually balance all shaft and wheel assemblies during assembly, then verify the final product with a high-precision cartridge balance, ensuring that there is no self-destructive behavior once the turbos are put into service. These are rebuilt cores, for sure, but they are so thoroughly reconditioned that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to call them “new”. SWITZER TUNED VTG PORSCHE TURBO Sadly, however, there are number of companies that are trying to sell simple wheel swaps with little or no regard to additional machining and quality-control procedures. They are telling their clients that these steps aren't necessary, swapping in some billet wheel, and calling it a day ... and there are a lot of billet wheel options on the market, being produced with reasonably-priced and readily-available alloys.
That's simply not the case here, as every compressor wheel we use is built with aerospace quality alloys specifically formulated for use in high-performance turbines. 5052 or 6061 aluminum simply will not perform consistently in the brutal, ultra-high temperature world inside a high-performance turbo housing, and even laymen can spot the cheaper wheels after a few heavy duty cycles. Combine objectively inferior alloys with anything less than best-practice machining and assembly programs, and it becomes easy to see why the resulting products tend to self-destruct over time.
Our client's cars are just not something we at Switzer are willing to take a chance on.
We demand and use only the best material technologiess and manufacturing practices; and we work diligently to deliver products that perform better than anything else available anywhere. These VTGs certainly aren't the cheapest turbo upgrades available to Porsche enthusiasts, but they represent the best value for dollar argument in the aftermarket today: the best of everything, at a fair price.
Switzer VTG turbo upgrades are available as direct replacements for the factory VTGs, or as part of our comprehensive tuning solutions for Porsche's 997 TT and GT2. Contact Switzer Performance for more.
A few weeks ago, we took writer Jack Baruth and photographer Dustin Woods out to Nelson Ledges with a pair of 800 hp pump-gas track terrors: our P800 GTR Nissan and P800 GT2 Porsche.
On our Dyno-Jet dyno, these cars consistently put out within 5 whp of each other, and both are VERY quick, but these two cars couldn't be more different in execution. This is digital v. analog at its finest ... with Jack weighing in on Speed:Sport:Life already, we can't wait to read Dustin's review next month! Special thanks to David and JR, and - of course! - the Lanes down at Nelson Ledges.
2009 has been a busy year for us here at Switzer Performance. In January, our thousand-horsepower, 9-second SLEDGEHAMMER project car introduced the world to Tym's Oberlin, Ohio-based tuning house, and we followed up that debut act in February when a number of our customer cars ran 10 second 1/4 miles in 700 hp fully-automatic 997 turbo Porsches. March saw the introduction of our Nissan R35 GTR performance upgrades, good for up to 800 hp on 93 octane pump gas.
This week, Tym Switzer is introducing his latest customer-ready performance packages for Porsche's outstanding 997 GT2. The new GT2 packages range from a simple software revision to Switzer's comprehensive flagship offering: the $39,000, 800 hp GT2 PKG shown (installed) in these pictures. "This 800 horsepower pump-gas package has evolved from those first SLEDGEHAMMER builds," explains Tym, "but unlike the SLEDGEHAMMER, which used a stand-alone system, we've been able to keep the factory DME, making this a true bolt-on package. Everything else that went into the SLEDGEHAMMER builds is in this package, running on pump 93." Switzer's 800 hp GT2 package makes use of custom Garret GT30R-based turbochargers with custom billet compressor wheels on ball-bearing center sections in lightweight stainless turbine housings. Switzer's upgraded turbos compress massive amounts of air, while generating heat than the stock units - heat which is channeled to the engine through Switzer's own MONSTER intercoolers. The engine itself is fed air and fuel through larger injectors and a custom intake plenum with an oversized throttle-body. All this hardware is managed by the stock ECU, running Switzer-specific DME software calibrations. Perhaps the most controversial part of Switzer's package, however, is the exhaust system. Switzer's GT2 exhales through a GT2-specific version of the company's existing 997 TT exhaust. "As much as we would have liked to stick with the GT2's titanium canister, there was just no way to hit our power goal on pump gas with the stock system. It was just too restrictive and not designed to handle this much airflow."
Switzer's stated goal for the GT2 project was 800 crank horsepower on 93 octane pump gas with an efficient, linear power curve that efficiently put power to the ground and didn't punish the driver with sudden spikes in torque and power. One look at the final dyno results (see video, above - about a minute in) reveals those goals have been met. "We were very happy to hit our target numbers, of course, but the best part is that the car is still so manageable on the street, at this power level. It is an everyday hyper-performing exotic, and I can't wait to get it out on the track and see how it performs in the hands of a really talented driver."
