which cars gain the most when remapped?

[Scuffers]

AW111 said:

Scuffers said:

As for autos, they usually work out more efficient these days, the days of old style torque converters are long gone.

Better tell honda : http://articles.sae.org/13432/.

There are still a lot more torque converters on the road than DCT's.

which part of that is related to my comment about 'old style' toque converters?

you're going to tell me that the Honda one does not have a lock-up clutch in it?

for a car forum, it's pretty sad just how little knowledge of automotive engineering there is shown here,

[300bhp/ton]

Scuffers said:

last paragraph:

rototest said:

At Rototest we do a lot of testing ourselves. This means we can produce some interesting statistics. This figure shows a comparison of what the manufacturers claim in the engine specification and what we measured on the wheels. The average difference turned out to be about 7-9%, which can be said to be a good estimate of a normal transmission loss. However we have seen cars producing quite a lot more on the wheels than the engine spec says. At the other end there are examples of -25% difference too. If this were to be the losses then the oil would boil in the transmission.

But equally it could all be bks. Lets not forget Rototest build and sell dyno's, so their prime marketing intent is to promote their own product.

Now look at this with a rational mind. There are two ways to interpret such figures. For example, to keep the maths simple.

Car claimed by car maker to have exactly 200bhp.

Rototest records 186 wheel HP. And thusly does a quick sum that 200 - 7% = 186hp.

Therefore in their wisdom, transmission losses must be 7%.

However, it is also perfectly plausible that their Rototest simply measures HP in a different way, because dyno's are NOT all equal. And their wheel HP figure is actually higher than it might be, to directly compared to the manufactures claimed figures.


This means Rototest must either:

• claim a car is "underpowered" by the maker
• claim lower than realistic transmission losses
• admit that their machine isn't quite as good as their marketing team would like you to believe it is.

And I'm willing to bet the 404 cars they claim to have tested are not all new ones. Which sort of nullifies the claims that only newer transmissions are this efficient.

[Howard-]

My car (Ford Ecoboost 2.0 turbo) went from 200 to 240bhp (and 265 lb-ft torque) (rolling road verified) with a Bluefin remap. Could certainly feel the extra grunt through the old butt dyno after remapping it! It's also changed the power delivery to be a bit peakier and less dieselly with a fraction more 'old school' lag at lower RPMs which is quite good fun .

Basic ("stage 1" or whatever you want to call them) remaps are well worth the money, IMHO, as long as the drivetrain is known to handle it. In my case, the facelift Mondeo contains the exact same engine (and ancilliaries and gearbox) but tuned to produce 240bhp, so it was a safe bet for me. I've had the remap for over a year without an issue.

[300bhp/ton]

Scuffers said:

which part of that is related to my comment about 'old style' toque converters?

you're going to tell me that the Honda one does not have a lock-up clutch in it?

for a car forum, it's pretty sad just how little knowledge of automotive engineering there is shown here,

It is. And you do realise lock up torque converters aren't exactly new. So your point stands rather well.

[blindswelledrat]

98elise said:

blindswelledrat said:

nottyash said:

Prick

The sentiment is correct though. if you could genuinely get 25% more fuel efficiency and more power/torque from a remap then the person creating the that would be head of engine development for one of the big companies.

VW would certainly be on the phone to take a look at there current diesel issue. You could save them a few billion and the destruction of their brand.

I cant comment on what or why as I know nothing about engines. But what is fact is that many engines DO get 25% more torque and power from a remap. THere's nothing unique in my car in that and I don't think many people will disagree that most turbo engine cars benefit by huge amounts with power and torque so I don't really know what your point is.
What is unusual is the extent of my fuel savings. I am not alone in this and if you ask any Phaeton owner who has had a remap, they will give you a similar story so whatever your logic is, it is incorrect.
Either that or I am a complete fuel economy liar. Of my 20-odd thousand posts this would be a bizarre subject to decide to start lying about

[AW111]

Scuffers said:

which part of that is related to my comment about 'old style' toque converters?

you're going to tell me that the Honda one does not have a lock-up clutch in it?

for a car forum, it's pretty sad just how little knowledge of automotive engineering there is shown here,

FFS of course I know it has a bloody lock-up clutch. It's still a torque converter.

Do you have to insult everyone who disagrees with you, or are you just a knob with an inflated ego and no manners?

That was a rhetorical question, if you had any doubts

[Scuffers]

300bhp/ton said:

But equally it could all be bks. Lets not forget Rototest build and sell dyno's, so their prime marketing intent is to promote their own product.

Now look at this with a rational mind. There are two ways to interpret such figures. For example, to keep the maths simple.

Car claimed by car maker to have exactly 200bhp.

Rototest records 186 wheel HP. And thusly does a quick sum that 200 - 7% = 186hp.

Therefore in their wisdom, transmission losses must be 7%.

However, it is also perfectly plausible that their Rototest simply measures HP in a different way, because dyno's are NOT all equal. And their wheel HP figure is actually higher than it might be, to directly compared to the manufactures claimed figures.


This means Rototest must either:

• claim a car is "underpowered" by the maker
• claim lower than realistic transmission losses
• admit that their machine isn't quite as good as their marketing team would like you to believe it is.

And I'm willing to bet the 404 cars they claim to have tested are not all new ones. Which sort of nullifies the claims that only newer transmissions are this efficient.

so, where are you claiming all this 'lost power' goes then?

magic fairies carrying it away?

just do the numbers, how hot would a gearbox get...

for an example, I have put a car on a rototest, it showed some 611Hp (din).

If, as you suggest, the gearbox (and it was a transverse gearbox so no external diff etc) was sapping say 15%, then the engine would have been making 718hp, and the gearbox 'consuming' some 117Hp, that's some 88Kw.

just how many seconds do you think it would take before the oil would simply boil off with this kind of energy being dissipated within it? (and just imagine the size of the oil cooler required to dump that kind of heat load.)

Suffice to say, the gearbox did not boil it's oil and it's actual looses worked out to be in the order of 5-6% (varies from gear to gear).

[J4CKO]

Our Fiesta Ecoboost has allegedly gained 40 bhp and a lump of torque, its gone from acceptable performance to actually pretty quick, ford sell pretty much the same engine with 140 bhp and less torque so Superchips have got a bit more from it as they arent so concerned with Fords powertrain warranty claims, consequently the car feels more agressive than the Ford offering with the same headline power output.

I have gone for another NA car which I said I wouldn't do to allow more tuning scope but it has 388 bhp and 391 lb/ft, should be plenty, never thought I would have a car with more power than a Lotus Carlton, albeit a bit heavier.

[Scuffers]

300bhp/ton said:

Scuffers said:

which part of that is related to my comment about 'old style' toque converters?

you're going to tell me that the Honda one does not have a lock-up clutch in it?

for a car forum, it's pretty sad just how little knowledge of automotive engineering there is shown here,

It is. And you do realise lock up torque converters aren't exactly new. So your point stands rather well.

do I really have to point you at what I said in the first place?

Scuffers said:

As for autos, they usually work out more efficient these days, the days of old style torque converters are long gone.

then read the context of what that was referring to?

FFS do you not read before posting?

[Scuffers]

AW111 said:

FFS of course I know it has a bloody lock-up clutch. It's still a torque converter.

Do you have to insult everyone who disagrees with you, or are you just a knob with an inflated ego and no manners?

That was a rhetorical question, if you had any doubts

the only insults here I can see are ones you are making?

[otolith]

Max_Torque said:

So you are telling me the VW got 25% too much fuel in the original cal? Pull the other one. if you are actually doing 25% more miles per gallon, it's because you are driving it slower or in a more economical way........

Is it feasible that a car being short-shifted because it makes more torque than it used to might use less fuel for the same performance it previously had when being revved out?

[300bhp/ton]

Scuffers said:

so, where are you claiming all this 'lost power' goes then?

magic fairies carrying it away?

just do the numbers, how hot would a gearbox get...

for an example, I have put a car on a rototest, it showed some 611Hp (din).

If, as you suggest, the gearbox (and it was a transverse gearbox so no external diff etc) was sapping say 15%, then the engine would have been making 718hp, and the gearbox 'consuming' some 117Hp, that's some 88Kw.

just how many seconds do you think it would take before the oil would simply boil off with this kind of energy being dissipated within it? (and just imagine the size of the oil cooler required to dump that kind of heat load.)

Suffice to say, the gearbox did not boil it's oil and it's actual looses worked out to be in the order of 5-6% (varies from gear to gear).

If you've read my posts on here, you'd know I'm not a subscriber of a fixed percentage loss.

And if you look at the data on the link provided earlier, you can HP levels vary massively between steady state and acceleration dyno pulls. Where exactly do you think that 'extra' HP has gone? It was there, then wasn't.

All that Rototest article proves is their are comparing their OWN figures, to those of manufactures, which we all know is unrealistic and massively error prone.


Using their logic a test like this:


Would result in one of the cars making HP gains through the transmission.

[anonymous-user]

a lot of MPG increases after remaps shown on the car, are the down to the way it works out fuel consumption and mpg on the car computer.

[300bhp/ton]

Scuffers said:

300bhp/ton said:

Scuffers said:

which part of that is related to my comment about 'old style' toque converters?

you're going to tell me that the Honda one does not have a lock-up clutch in it?

for a car forum, it's pretty sad just how little knowledge of automotive engineering there is shown here,

It is. And you do realise lock up torque converters aren't exactly new. So your point stands rather well.

do I really have to point you at what I said in the first place?

Scuffers said:

As for autos, they usually work out more efficient these days, the days of old style torque converters are long gone.

then read the context of what that was referring to?

FFS do you not read before posting?

But lock up converters are "old style" as they have been around for flippin ages. However they are no more efficient these days than they used to be. Regardless of bogus claims by some dyno makers.

[Scuffers]

300bhp/ton said:

If you've read my posts on here, you'd know I'm not a subscriber of a fixed percentage loss.

And if you look at the data on the link provided earlier, you can HP levels vary massively between steady state and acceleration dyno pulls. Where exactly do you think that 'extra' HP has gone? It was there, then wasn't.

All that Rototest article proves is their are comparing their OWN figures, to those of manufactures, which we all know is unrealistic and massively error prone.

sorry, but that's more tosh.

forget what's done in the US, they have a long history of questionable figures both from OEM's and the aftermarket, here in Euroland, there are very rigid standards for how this stuff is tested and published, if Ford/Honda/etc say an engine makes XYZ HP, then I would be pretty confident it does make XYZ to a very close tolerance, the days of 'good' and 'bad' engines are long gone, production engines these days are incredibly consistent.

As for your point on steady state vs. power runs, yes that's obviously applicable if I was taking the data from a rapid power-run sweep - I wasn't (when I do use power-sweeps, I use a very low ramp rate for that very reason, typically I use ~250Rpm/sec ramp rate with a 10 second lead in, so for this one, that's some 38 second 'run' time.)

[300bhp/ton]

Scuffers said:

sorry, but that's more tosh.

forget what's done in the US, they have a long history of questionable figures

Yet it was we Brits who have a long history of simply making up HP. There is even a recognised RAC HP scale, which is exactly that dating from the 1920's. But Jaguar and Aston Martin were the masters of made up HP claims.

Scuffers said:

both from OEM's and the aftermarket, here in Euroland, there are very rigid standards for how this stuff is tested and published, if Ford/Honda/etc say an engine makes XYZ HP,

You do release FORD is an American motor company, i.e. the company you bashed in the sentence before.

The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903

Scuffers said:

then I would be pretty confident it does make XYZ to a very close tolerance, the days of 'good' and 'bad' engines are long gone, production engines these days are incredibly consistent.

Yet only a handful+ of years ago Mazda got sued and lost in the USA for false HP claims of the RX-8 and had to lower the claimed figure.

Land Rover did too a number of years earlier.

But I digress, you are making sweeping unsubstantiated and wrong statements. We'll leave it at that shall we.

[Scuffers]

which part of IN the USA did you not get?

Euroland rules are very specific on how this stuff is both measured and presented.

Please TRY and understand...

[AW111]

Scuffers said:

sorry, but that's more tosh.

forget what's done in the US, they have a long history of questionable figures both from OEM's and the aftermarket, here in Euroland, there are very rigid standards for how this stuff is tested and published, if Ford/Honda/etc say an engine makes XYZ HP, then I would be pretty confident it does make XYZ to a very close tolerance, the days of 'good' and 'bad' engines are long gone, production engines these days are incredibly consistent.

As for your point on steady state vs. power runs, yes that's obviously applicable if I was taking the data from a rapid power-run sweep - I wasn't (when I do use power-sweeps, I use a very low ramp rate for that very reason, typically I use ~250Rpm/sec ramp rate with a 10 second lead in, so for this one, that's some 38 second 'run' time.)

note : this reply is not aimed specificall at scuffers, 'coz he probably knows this stuff already.

For an insight into how the manufacturers' figures are obtained, look at SAE J1995, if you have access to an engineering library.
Things are a lot different to the old days.

While I agree with scuffers on ramp rates, unfortunately for some reason owners of "tuned" cars (especially turbos) seem to think that their car will explode and catch on fire if ramped too slow, let alone held at constant speed
I assume they never drive uphill....

The primary cause of error on fast sweep/ramps is that the faster the ramp, the more power goes into spinning up all the rotating mass in the driveline and dyno. Unless you have some means of measuring this inertia and correcting for it, the figures will be wrong. For tuning purposes, as long as the same ramp rate is used, the effect is less of an issue, but for producing "magic" power numbers, it is pretty critical.

At a "fast" ramp rate, just accelerating the wheels and tyres can absorb 10 kW or more at 90 mph.



back (vaguely) on topic, changing the throttle map makes a car feel more powerful, as does making it louder, and making the boost come in more savagely.

A mate swapped the SU carbs on his historic rally car for Webers (old-skool remapping ), and swore that it was much more powerful. Unfortunately, I ran the car before and after...he had gained a lovely induction noise, and a bit of power at the top end, but nowhere near as much as he thought, which really surprised him.
Now if I had sold him the remap carbies, and had a financial interest in keeping him happy, there would be a huge temptation to give him a dyno chart showing the improvement he felt that he had.

I am not accusing any remapper of fudging the figures, but the temptation is clearly there.

[300bhp/ton]

Scuffers said:

which part of IN the USA did you not get?

Euroland rules are very specific on how this stuff is both measured and presented.

Please TRY and understand...

I understand you are dodging replies and haven't yet backed up anything you've claimed.

You do realise that Ford, GM and many other non-US makers build and sell cars in and outside the US of A and retail them there and in other parts of the World such as Europe.

So instead of your racial sterotypes, slurs and insults. Do you actually have anything you can back up your claims with?

Edited by 300bhp/ton on Tuesday 24th November 14:29

[stevesingo]

300bhp/ton said:

We'll leave it at that shall we.

Why, if Rototest are trying to sell their product, would they produce a set of statistics which have no relevance to the product they are selling and then use the statistics to try to sell their product.

In regard to your LS1 test data, I would suggest that they are making more power than stock, and it is as simple as that. Incidentally, the single roller dynos suffer the least tyre losses, but what is really interesting is that if you use a lower gear you get even lower losses. On my car the difference between using 3rd and 4th on a Dynojet is 18RWHP. It really is that easy to get an 18hp gain, just drop it a gear!

I will explain why; tyre losses are proportional to wheel speed. Higher gear=higher wheel speed=higher losses.

So there RWHP figures, are they accurate?

FWIW, using a Dynojet and testing in 3rd and 4th I get 18RWHP difference at 237 vs 255RWHP. Calculated flywheel HP after coast down losses are measured the difference is 4hp.

Same engine, same drivetrain, same tyres same hour of the same day, different gear 18RWHP difference. All allowed for in the coastdown losses.

Of course, you don’t have to worry about tyre losses with a hub dyno. Which in the case of Rototest measures torque reaction generated at the hubs against a hydraulically applied load via a reaction arm with a load cell attached and rpm of the hubs. Couldn’t be simpler.

Of course I have just wasted 15mins typing this ste because you already think it is ste without even reading it. There is a word for that type of behaviour.