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RE: On the Rollers

Tuesday 4th November 2003

On the Rollers

Podie visits Austec Racing with his TVR S3C – There’s life in the old girl yet!

TVR S Series

Just under a year ago I bought my first TVR, an S3C. Generally the car was in good mechanical health and the chassis was sound, so I parted with my cash. Since then David Batty has cared for the “old girl”, given her a service and more recently “neutered” her (removed the cats!) and fitted a decent stainless steel exhaust system. Prior to that, the car had been a bit on the quiet side, and had a bit of a tendency to get “bogged down” at low revs – something I put down to the cats having the best part of twelve years worth of rubbish in them.

The transformation was amazing, she sounded better and went better, but I still wasn’t 100% happy - she’d still get bogged down. Overall the car seemed to be running a bit lean, but at high revs it ran a bit rich which could lead to flames on overrun. So I went looking for someone to give the old girl a tune-up. Living in “Ford country” I thought it would be easy – but although there are plenty of Ford engine tuners, none of them wanted to touch the S, simply because it was a TVR. Having seen the advert on PH, I enquired with Austec Racing if they thought they could do anything, and following a few e-mails I ended up calling them and speaking to Paul.

Paul reckoned he could make power and torque improvements to the car, by using a piggy-back chip, and “live mapping” the car on the rolling road. I thought about it for about ten minutes, phoned him back and booked the car in.

The Big Day

I got up, looked out of the window and realised it was raining. Damn. Got onto the M25 and sat in traffic. Damn. I started praying it wasn’t going to be “one of those days”. By 09:00 I was in the Gatwick area, but had got hopelessly lost, having left the map at home, but luckily I stumbled across the garage within a few minutes. I was greeted by Mike who offered me a cup of tea before I’d even had chance to say hello, and then introduced to Paul who was going to be tinkering with my pride and joy.

Within ten minutes Paul was pulling out the ECU and looking around under the bonnet – looking for the codes to help identify the correct ECU diagram. Ford, in their infinite wisdom, have used many ECU’s in their cars, and TVR … well, we all know what TVR are like - if it’s in the parts bin and it fits…

An hour later Paul was looking through diagrams, and then started testing the pin outs on the 60-pin Ford ECU to check he had the right diagram. It seems that my engine is a typical Cologne V6 from a Granada (145bhp) and the ECU is from a Ford Falcon (a South African car).

The Technical Stuff

At this point Paul started to explain what he was about to do to my car. Basically a new ECU is attached to the existing one, and sits over it, and over-rides certain signals… hence the term “piggy-back ECU”. So Paul started to wire in the new ECU and even tidied up TVR’s wiring as part of the process. Basically the ECU is a Ford copy of a Bosch one and in the words of the man with his head in my footwell “not a particularly good one either.”

TVR S Series

Once the ECU was attached, Paul would then use an air/fuel meter in the exhaust pipe to check how the car is running, and adjust the fuel and timing to give better performance. This would be done whilst the car was being driven on the rollers and constitutes the “live mapping” process. This is then stored on the new ECU and I go home with a car with more grunt – well, that’s the theory at least.

Paul then checked that the car was capable of full throttle, so I depressed the pedal to the floor, while he checked the adjustment. All was well, but he did comment that most cars that come in can’t open the throttle fully, and was a common issue. He then checked the oil, was happy with that, and then took out a few spark plugs. Looked like the S had been running lean - very lean, the plugs looked like they had just come out of the packet and they’re around 4000 miles old.

With another 30 minutes tinkering Paul had fitted the new ECU and fitted the car with enough electronics to kit out a small PC World.

Fire her up!

With the car sitting on the rollers, the restraining strap in place, chocks in the front wheels, sensors in the exhaust pipe and the fan on (to push air through the intake), Paul turned the key. I felt nervous all of a sudden. Armed with a laptop and a few other boxes of tricks I began to realise what can be done. With the turn of a dial the fuelling was changed, the engine note changes, then the timing dial was turned and the engine note changed again. Paul gave a wry smile and explained that he will have to do this throughout the entire rev range. I get the feeling I could be here a while.

Paul then began the run on the rollers. The noise was simply deafening and it was also the first time I had ever heard my car from the outside. Mike appeared with a beaming smile as Paul slowly brought the car up through the gears.

Power Claims

Whilst some of TVR's power claims have been a little ambitious in the past, the claimed output of 170bhp for an S was pretty close. Not for my car though. The results were disappointing - 150bhp at the flywheel, 111bhp at the wheels and 168 lb ft of torque. Well, at least the torque figure seemed reasonable.

Paul didn't seem surprised, and started quizzing me about how the S feels on the road, as he’d noted that the car seemed hesitant on the rollers. I agreed that it was easy to get “bogged down” but once again Paul had a wry smile. He was confident that he could improve things and showed me the graphs on the screen. I challenged him for a figure, but he wouldn't commit to anything, simply saying that if I wasn't happy at the end of the day, he'd take the ECU off and give me my money back. I couldn't argue with that!

We let the car cool down a bit, and then I find Paul advancing the timing on the distributor, as he works “backwards” with the chip. Mike has appeared again, and I finally get round to saying that I was a bit nervous about my pride and joy being on the rollers… to which he laughs and says the next bit is worse!

Programming the new ECU

Somewhere between my third and fourth cup of tea, Paul announced that he’s now going to start the mapping. Sometimes this can take two hours, sometime up to four, sometimes even longer. Aside from the mapping whilst the car is moving, there is also an idle map, and a full throttle map – the latter of which is designed to give a bit more of a kick when you want it.

The clock on the wall read 11:30 and I'd now got a banging headache so decide to go upstairs to read a few magazines. All I could hear is my car running at low revs for what seemed like an eternity. I popped downstairs, but Paul was in a world of his own concentrating on a screen of numbers on the laptop. A bit later on he explained that he was adjusting the timing and fuelling and then storing the data on the ECU. To me it looked like an old mainframe session! As Paul continued to “play” (you can see his hobby is his job) I head back upstairs for the relative peace and quiet.

I was mid way through a conversation with Mike, when the engine note suddenly changed. I don’t mean that revs changing, but the actual sound of the exhaust was completely different. The next thing I heard was the the car go quiet, followed by Paul bounding up the stairs. My heart sank. “Come and look at this! ” said Paul before disappearing down the stairs again.

My heart sank a littel more but before I got to the bottom of the stairs Paul was explaining that the car was running very lean and that by changing the fuelling he has already “found” 14bhp!

Good News, Bad News

I knew it was going to be one of those days. Paul discovered a small crack in one of the manifolds, which was letting a bit of air in. It wasn't huge, but it was enough to cause problems as it was occasionally sending the equipment off the scale. In English, this meant I was going to be a bit down on power, and a few quid lighter in the pocket.

Paul continued work on the laptop as he worked his way up the rev range. The exhaust note then completely changed again. This was probably a combination of Paul tinkering and the fact that my new exhaust is properly bedded in thanks to the immense heat generated. My car rumbled away at low revs and when taken to the red line sounded like the offspring of a Messerschmitt and a giant mechanical wasp!

Job done

Having let the engine cool down for a good time, Paul chocked the car again (it started to rise on the rollers before) before giving the car a final run to see what we got. I’d become accustomed to hearing the car on the rollers now, and was actually enjoying listening to the old girl screaming away. We watched the dials on the wall...

As the heat rose from the tailpipes I stood looking at the power curves on the screen in front of me. I could see that the power had jumped up to 171bhp at the flywheel and torque has lept to a heady 194 lb ft. It takes a while to sink in, but those are huge gains. Paul gave me another wry smile. He now wanted to take the car for a spin to see what it’s like in the “real world” – so we tidied up and he disappeared in my car.

It was 2pm and I'd been there for five hours but it didn't seem like it. I heard Paul drive off and five minutes later he was back and he wanted me to take it for a spin. I asked if he was happy with i and I it was blatantly obvious that he was!

As I got into the car, the first thing I noticed was the idle. It used to be lumpy - now it’s as smooth as the proverbial infant's arse. I selected first and headed out of the Austec garage, give the throttle a bit of a jab, and already the car felt very different. It was smoother, but also sharper and more direct. I pulled out onto the main road quite quickly to avoid getting caught behind a lorry, and gave the throttle some stick in second. The pickup was amazing - the car surged forward and just kept on pulling.

I lifted off quickly upon realising I’m in a 30mph zone and going a bit too fast. Thankfully I found a bit of dual carriageway and much to the annoyance of the man in the Mondeo behind me, I slowed right down before feeding the power in, going from 20 to 60mph in second gear. To say I was amazed by the throttle response is an understatement, the car now pulls strongly throughout the rev range, and does not hesitate – it just GOES!

I returned to Austec with what must have been a stunned look on my face - still amazed at the difference six hours had made to my car. We decided that we call a halt to work there until the manifold had been sorted and Paul would do an hours worth of “tidying up” for me.

The Numbers

The numbers below show the before and after of the new ECU and remapping, and the figures under “corrected” are those from the “after” column once the ambient temperature and barometric pressure were altered to the correct values (Paul leaves the values set on the PC most of the time).

	Before	After	Corrected
Max power speed	5588 rpm	5219rpm	5219rpm
Power (Flywheel)	149.8 bhp	171.4 bhp	176.6 bhp
Power (Wheels)	111.2 bhp	138.9 bhp	144.1 bhp
Power loss (transmission etc)	38.6 bhp	32.5 bhp	32.5 bhp

Max torque speed	2767 rpm	4085 rpm	4085 rpm
Max torque	167.9 lb ft	194.4 lb ft	200.3 lb ft

Max road speed reached in test	108.5 mph	109.5 mph	109.5 mph
Max engine speed reached in test	5720 rpm	5772 rpm	5772 rpm

Ambient Temp	20ºC	20ºC	14ºC
Barometric pressure	1013 mb	1013 mb	986 mb

The graphs show the power and torque curves both before and after.

Torque

Power

So the car has realised gains of 26.8bhp and 32.4 lb ft torque, not to mention the fact that peak power is now lower in the rev range, and peak torque at a more useable range for real world driving. On the road this has translated to what feels like a quicker car, and one that certainly pulls a lot harder in any gear, at any speed. It is also more manageable at low revs around town and in heavy traffic. Whereas before I used to coast the car, I can now leave it in second, without labouring the engine.

Overall

So the big question. Was it worth it? Well, in my opinion, yes it was. The car is quicker, smoother, pulls so much harder, generally runs better, and even sounds better than it did. It's happier in town, easier sit in heavy traffic, but more importantly I no longer feel that I'm driving round the cars faults. It simply pulls in any gear, at any speed and it does it strongly and progressively, unless of course you open the throttle fully and the full throttle map comes into play. It caught me unawares the first time and as I planted my foot to the floor, the rears gave a bit of a slip as the back end slid on the greasy road.

Granted, at £564.00 (inc VAT) it’s not the cheapest option out there, but pound for pound I think I got my money’s worth and I’m very happy with the results, and I wont be taking Paul’s money back offer!

The added bonus of the chip is that if at any time, you tinker with something else on the car, it should only be an hours work to make any changes. Normally you might expect to see some fuel economy improvements too, but given that my car was running so lean, I’m not counting on it – although it didn’t appear to use much more fuel on the journey home.

All that is left to do is say a big thanks to Mike, Paul and the lads at Austec Racing for making me feel so welcome, answering all my questions and doing a cracking job, not to mention the fact they make a cracking cup of tea.. I know a lot of people have expressed an interest in what sort of results we would find, but if I were you, I’d stop being interested and get it booked in - it’s worth every penny.

Podie

Link : www.austec.co.uk

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