PORSCHE POWERKITS

Total 9 investigates the inner workings of the coveted X50 and X51 Powerkits

- Kyle Fortune

From the very beginning at Porsche, its customers have been asking about the possibility of enhancing its production F cars from the stock specification. Porsche has been happy to oblige, with the early Sports Purpose catalogues outlining what was officially available, albeit quietly, for those customers intent on racing.

Within those pages were a myriad of possibilities for either track or rallying, including different capacity and engine output options. While the Sports Purpose catalogue explicitly stated that these were competition-only engines, it's inevitable that some customers would use Sports Purpose-equipped cars as faster road cars.

Stealthy revisions have always been available, whether it be it through the Sonderwunsch (special wishes), Motorsport, Exclusive or Tequipment routes.

However, the possibility to do so would remain a well-kept secret until the turn of the Millennium.

Only then would Porsche reveal the availability of enhanced power with its 996 Anniversary 40 Jahre' special edition. This was Porsche's first series production Carrera to be officially equipped with what would be referred to as a Powerkit.

Such is the clandestine nature of the possibilities, there's very little official or unofficial reference to what the 996 Powerkit - which bears the X51 option code - included. While changes to the Turbo cars, right back from the 930, are relatively well documented (see page 32), the X51's existence prior to the 996 is mired in intrigue and rumour, with plenty of differing opinions as to what it offered. Few of the authoritative Porsche books even mention it, while our request with Porsche's own archivists at the Museum in Stuttgart came back with just three documents relating to X51, with all these referring to post-997 911s. If details are light on the 996-onwards era X51 equipped cars, then there's absolutely no mention of the possibility of power gains with the earlier air-cooled cars.