4 Best Porsche Powertrains and Their Applications
Porsche has been in the business of developing and perfecting performance vehicles for a long time. Over the course of all those decades, they have produced some of the crème de la crème in powertrains.
Engineering Excellence
Porsche is known for being one of the most innovative automotive companies in motorsport over the course of its lifetime. Over the years Porsche has paved the way for performance and technology with some of the most over the top machines. There's a reason some of the cars on the list are highly sought after and have a massive appreciation. Here's my list of some of the best Porsche powertrains and their applications.
Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0
Porsche was really pushing the envelope of the flat six with this powertrain. The GT3RS 4.0 has an insane 500 horsepower engine that revs all the way past 8200 RPM. Not only does the GT3RS 4.0 have the largest engine ever put in a street legal 911, but it’s also one of the most powerful naturally aspirated six-cylinder engines. While there are plenty of quicker 911 variants than the GT3 RS 4.0, few can match the amazing sound that the naturally aspirated 4.0 liter delivers.
Porsche Carrera GT
The Carrera GT is a personal favorite of mine. A not so commonly known fact is that Porsche is a longtime F1 engine manufacturer, they were behind the great turbocharged V6 engines that powered McLaren's F1 cars in the mid-80's. In 90's Porsche was regaining a bit of its footwork with motorsports when their program got canned due to the financial struggles of the company. Instead, that money was funneled into the Cayenne SUV which turned to be a huge financial success and suddenly gave Porsche enough money to herald an expensive project. The V10 that was in development by the motorsports team came off the shelf and had its displacement set at 5.7-liters cranking out 605 horsepower and 435 lb-ft of torque. In race car fashion it was bolted straight onto a carbon fiber chassis, all 472 pounds of it. The result was essentially an F1 car for the streets and one of the greatest sounding cars of all time at that.
Porsche 959
The Porsche 959 was by far one of the most advanced cars of its time. It featured such technology such as an all-wheel-drive system with driver adjustable torque split, adjustable ride height, and a tire pressure monitoring system. The powerplant was not newly developed for the 959 and was rather developed from an existing engine. The engine followed then Porsche tradition by being air-cooled but still used water-cooled cylinder heads. In essence, the 959’s motor was more similar to the 962 Le Mans racer than to the then 911 Turbo. The twin-turbocharged 2.85-liter flat-6 made around 444 horsepower and propelled the car to 60 miles per hour in an earth-shattering 3.6 seconds.
Porsche 918
The Porsche 918 was one of the most revolutionary sports cars of our time. Unlike the previous halo cars that predeceased the 918, the 918 employed the use of electric motors mounted on each axle in addition to the 4.6-liter V8 engine. The application of electric motors has many practical benefits such as increased efficiency and lower emissions however from a performance standpoint, electric motor makes all of their torque available instantly which allows for far quicker acceleration. This revolutionary plug-in hybrid technology made the 918 one of the quickest cars on the road and set the benchmark for several lap times.
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