Retuned Porsche 918 Spyder lifts acceleration

The Porsche 918 Spyder is about to start rolling out to its first owners, but Porsche hasn't stopped tinkering with it in the lead-up to the deliveries.

They've completed final tuning of the the hybrid supercar and with the weight-optimised Weissach package fitted, the result is faster acceleration -- shaving 0.2 seconds from the 0-100km/h time to post 2.6 seconds, 0.5 seconds from 0-200km/h to hit that mark in 7.2 seconds, and a hefty 2.1 seconds off the 0-300km/h sprint to now make it 19.9 seconds.

The Weissach pack slices 40kg from the 918's kerb weight -- helping the effort of its 447kW 4.6-litre V8 petrol engine and two electric motors which work in concert to deliver a total 653kW -- and was instrumental in the 918 setting the current Nurburgring road car lap record at 6:57 in September.

The new tweaks could see it break that time, and Porsche will be keen to build barriers to prevent the record being broken by other supercars, because there's some hot competition keen to do it, not least the LaFerrari and McLaren's P1, both of which are also powered by hybrid drivetrains.

Porsche says the tuning also benefits the electric-only performance, logging a 0-100kmh time of 6.2 seconds using just the electric motors on the front and rear axles -- an improvement of 0.7 seconds -- and 6.1 seconds with the Weissach pack.

Meanwhile, it's also more efficient, reducing combined fuel consumption to 3L/100km (a drop of 0.1L). Not that fuel economy is going to be foremost in anybody's mind when driving the 918 Spyder. 

This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott