Alfa Romeo - Remap Fiasco Advice Needed

[mattkidd]

Hi There,

I am in need of some advice from someone who knows what they're talking about.

I am the owner of an Alfa Romeo MiTo 1.4 (T-Jet Engine) 155BHP - 2010 - (56000 miles). Whilst I know this is not the quickest car around I have set myself on tuning and modifying the car. To date I have: new suspension, uprated brakes, LSD, full stainless steel exhaust with sports CAT etc.... The engine is all stock with the only exception being a K&N Air Filter.



My aspirations are to hit 180BHP without making any engine modifications (which is apparently possible and has been achieved by owners of the same car). If I want anything further the turbo needs to be swapped out and then we'd be looking at 230+.

Now the issue I am having concerns remappers and dynos...... In short transparency, honesty and integrity. In truth, I am very confused....

The story in-short:

1.
In Feb 2015 I visited company (X) for a remap and dyno run of my car, an independent remap garage with a rolling road. The deal was £260 for a remap and before and after dyno run; pretty good I thought.

Firstly the car was dynoned to see how the stock map was performing. Surprinslgy it showed 163BHP at peak (Above the manufacturers spec) at this point the only modification on the car was the K&N Air filter (the exhaust was stock).

A remap was then applied to the car which increased boost, RPM limiter etc. It was held back a little due to the stock CAT getting too hot. This was then also dynoed on the rolling road, producing a healthy 176BHP, a nice increase to get started on which was noticeably better when driving.




2.
In June 2015 I visited a leading garage for Alfa Romeo's with the concern of a misfire, Company Y. The misfire couldn't be found but I was recommended to restore the car back to stock map to see if this would solve the issue.

After some persuasion company Y applied their own remap to the car to replace the existing map by company X.

Company Y has a negative perception of Company X and accuses them of potential foul play with artificially tampering rolling road results. Company Y also has a negative perception on rolling roads as a whole, considering them inaccurate and dependent on many variables.

The map applied by Company Y feels 'Ok' not majorly noticeable improvements over the map by Company X. It was supposedly more aggressive as I had recently removed the stock exhaust and replaced it.

3.

Once the new remap was applied by Company Y, I decided I would run the car on the same rolling road company X used originally to compare the results. To my surprise the new map only achieved 153BHP, which is less than the factory spec and lesser than my first original run on the same rolling road months before.

Back to ask company Y to fix this.




4.
Company Y once again believes some foul play may be taking place by company X and the rolling road, those results do not look accurate. Instead company Y organises some time at a Hub Dyno, which would be more accurate.

Today I visited the HubDyno with the car and was immediately told the figures would be lower as it's a hub dyno, I should expect 120HP. The whole flywheel/wheel difference was explained to me here. Roughly 20% lost due to transmission etc etc...

Three maps were run on the hub dyno. Firstly the OEM, secondly company X's and finally company Y's. There's an evident gap between the maps so improvements have been made with company Y's map.

Yet the figures do not seem to match or make sense. It would suggest that even with 20% loss taken into account my horsepower isn't exceeding the manfuactuer spec by much if any.

So what's the problem? I'm confused.

- I don't know what my car is actually achieving as the rolling road is in BHP (Which most go by) the hub dyno is in wheel power, so what is my car actually achieving according to these results?

- Who to trust (Is this a case of competitiveness and dishonesty)

- Is something wrong with the car (mechanically speaking, is this being overlooked)

- Am I expecting too much and realistically is everyone being mislead with the cars potential?

Would greatly appreciate some advice and educating where necessary!

Cheers!
Matt

Edited by mattkidd on Tuesday 11th August 00:22

[mattkidd]

Hi All,

Thanks for the comments, appreciated. Some good sound advice.

I am already a member of Alfa Owner and have already caused quite a stir over there with my car (See post here: http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-mito/826633-mi...

In-fact I have been modifying the car for sometime now currently with the following key changes:

- Full Stainless steel Ragazzon exhaust with Sports Cat
- New suspension (shocks/springs) all around
- New front suspension arms to combat torque steer and understeer
- Limited Slip Differential
- Front and Rear racing Tarox Brakes with Brembo Calipers
- Cold Air Induction
- P0's all around

List goes on....

Essentially I have been preparing the car for the next bigger phase of the plan to achieve 240BHP reliably. (This is coming next month) This will entail: new injectors, intercooler, turbo (TD04) and other supporting modifications (potentially at some stage new pistons and cams). All of this has been tried and tested in Italy now for a number of years. As with the other T-jet cars in the family Abarth Punto, Abarth 500's.

The Multair engines is another ball game, I probably wouldn't even attempt at getting one of them running anything much higher than stock. (Multiair failure)

Of course there's still going to be niggles with these mods, specifically speaking the M32 gearbox which will fail soon... (But I shall face that when it happens)

Anyhow! Back to the point of this topic. I wanted to really understand what the car is currently achieving and if it's not achieving what expected (with a two different remaps) and two different dynos why is this?

Essentially I want to be sure its mechanically sound and working at its optimum before I spend another shed load on further modifications.

Edited by mattkidd on Thursday 20th August 10:36