Discussion
I know this forum doesn't have the best history with diesel tuning threads 
but...
If I'd wanted more power I'd have gone for a petrol, but there's companies out there claming they can increase fuel economy with a small gain in power and torque thrown in too. Has anyone had this done, specifically on a VAG 2.0 CR engine (Octavia VRS in my case) and does it really give much of an improvement?
but...If I'd wanted more power I'd have gone for a petrol, but there's companies out there claming they can increase fuel economy with a small gain in power and torque thrown in too. Has anyone had this done, specifically on a VAG 2.0 CR engine (Octavia VRS in my case) and does it really give much of an improvement?
I had to go to the dark side and buy a diesel to replace my Renaultsport Megane R26 a couple of years ago. I went for a 320d (177 engine) and have modified it with a remap, pipercross filter, Quaife lsd, hartge exhaust and a forge uprated intercooler - now dyon'd at 224hp and 321 lbs torque. Its made it reasonably quick and fun whilst retaining 50 mpg so yes I would say you can certainly modify it, my only word of caution is do not skimp in servicing and maintenence - do your weekly checks and keep it in the best condition because modified cars will put more strain on every part
I assume the intercooler is a fair bit of that power increase, and a fair chunk of the cost?
I'm thinking something a bit more gentle than that. Race-tune claim they can get to 188bhp (170 standard) and 405NM (350 standard) with a 15% improvement in fuel economy, which is £300/year or so less fuel at current prices.
I'm thinking something a bit more gentle than that. Race-tune claim they can get to 188bhp (170 standard) and 405NM (350 standard) with a 15% improvement in fuel economy, which is £300/year or so less fuel at current prices.
andyp74199 said:
I had to go to the dark side and buy a diesel to replace my Renaultsport Megane R26 a couple of years ago. I went for a 320d (177 engine) and have modified it with a remap, pipercross filter, Quaife lsd, hartge exhaust and a forge uprated intercooler - now dyon'd at 224hp and 321 lbs torque. Its made it reasonably quick and fun whilst retaining 50 mpg so yes I would say you can certainly modify it, my only word of caution is do not skimp in servicing and maintenence - do your weekly checks and keep it in the best condition because modified cars will put more strain on every part
Best that cost a few quid! Why wouldn't you just get a 330d or even the infamous 335d and remap them? You'd be looking at 260-280bhp from the 330d and whilst it wouldn't do 50mpg, neither will yours with any significant amount of those 224 horses being used, plus the engine would be hugely less stressed. Just seems like buying a Focus ST170 and spending 3 grand making it quicker when an RS or ST2/3 would do the job better. I assume the 330d would also have a stronger gearbox/brakes etc than the 320d too?Andyuk911 said:
Interesting, that quotes the exact same numbers as Race-tune.Good point on the insurance, not sure how much difference it would make but I guess an insurance company see "remaped" and doesn't really case if it's for ecomony or power.
geeteeaye said:
Best that cost a few quid! Why wouldn't you just get a 330d or even the infamous 335d and remap them? You'd be looking at 260-280bhp from the 330d and whilst it wouldn't do 50mpg, neither will yours with any significant amount of those 224 horses being used, plus the engine would be hugely less stressed. Just seems like buying a Focus ST170 and spending 3 grand making it quicker when an RS or ST2/3 would do the job better. I assume the 330d would also have a stronger gearbox/brakes etc than the 320d too?
Thats ridiculous, a bit like saying why didnt that Lotus owner buy a Ferrari, or why did the Astra VXR owner not buy a Cayman ! COST !! - both fuel and purchase price would be alot higher, and as it happens £24k for a one year old 320d was enough of an outlay for me, I didnt fancy stretching myself to £30k or £40k for a 330d/335d with added fuel bills !So by your logic no one should modify their car if there is a better one in the range ?
Edited by andyp74199 on Tuesday 26th April 15:39
Andyuk911 said:
I've read somewhere that they're the same people as 'Chipped UK'. Type 'chipped uk' into google and see what you get.andyp74199 said:
geeteeaye said:
Best that cost a few quid! Why wouldn't you just get a 330d or even the infamous 335d and remap them? You'd be looking at 260-280bhp from the 330d and whilst it wouldn't do 50mpg, neither will yours with any significant amount of those 224 horses being used, plus the engine would be hugely less stressed. Just seems like buying a Focus ST170 and spending 3 grand making it quicker when an RS or ST2/3 would do the job better. I assume the 330d would also have a stronger gearbox/brakes etc than the 320d too?
Thats ridiculous, a bit like saying why didnt that Lotus owner buy a Ferrari, or why did the Astra VXR owner not buy a Cayman ! COST !! - both fuel and purchase price would be alot higher, and as it happens £24k for a one year old 320d was enough of an outlay for me, I didnt fancy stretching myself to £30k or £40k for a 330d/335d with added fuel bills !So by your logic no one should modify their car if there is a better one in the range ?
The advantages? (Much) better resale value, much less stressed engine, probably better gearbox/brakes (etc), more torque, the fact it's a V6, possibly cheaper insurance, better performance (with a remap), a lot of people won't buy a 'souped-up' 320d as worried about it being driven hard/reliability suffering.
The disadvantages? Possibly worse fuel economy, although I am dubious about this as hiking the power (remap apart) will hike the fuel consumption accordingly, higher road tax.
Horses for courses of course and fair play for doing your own thing and having a one-off motor, just that if the 320d had been £20k or so I could understand the decision more.
My advice would be avoid plug and play boxes.
My dad has had 1 on his VRS and had alot of problems (2 injectors gone so far, a common fault on that engine apparantly), he had one on his old SEAT too and he had problems with that too...
I had a proper professional remap done on my car and mine has been faultless. Cost wise my remap cost almost the same as a tuning box too so definately worth it.
My dad has had 1 on his VRS and had alot of problems (2 injectors gone so far, a common fault on that engine apparantly), he had one on his old SEAT too and he had problems with that too...
I had a proper professional remap done on my car and mine has been faultless. Cost wise my remap cost almost the same as a tuning box too so definately worth it.
I went to performance torque in wolverhampton yes its a rolling road map, before and after and the guy who runs it (Will) is a top bloke, he tests the car out before and after and makes sure your happy with it and more importantly that the car is running ok for the map.
A plug and play map is assuming all cars are the same and they never are, alot of people seem to have issues with them from what people at work tell me, the only benefit of them is you can take the map off when you want, some of the proper tuning companies offer ways of doing that yourself with a custom map too.
A plug and play map is assuming all cars are the same and they never are, alot of people seem to have issues with them from what people at work tell me, the only benefit of them is you can take the map off when you want, some of the proper tuning companies offer ways of doing that yourself with a custom map too.
I used to work for a tuning company that did quite a bit of work on diesels, though it was a little while ago, so my memory may be a little hazy in places. I think the below is right though...
Modern turbodiesels are really good candidates for ecu tuning, due to a couple of factors:
- It's easy to up the boost on the turbo, giving good gains
- Theoretically, you can just keep increasing the ratio of fuel in the mixture to increase horsepower. I say theoretically, because the more you do this, the hotter things get - causing a reduction in engine life (sometimes to a very short amount of time indeed!)
For this reason, plug and play chips/remaps aren't necessarily a bad idea, as long as they're fairly conservative in their mapping and your engine has so far been well maintained. However, you'll always get a better result if it's done on a rolling road, and one which has the ability to monitor engine temperatures so that you can get the maximum SAFE power out of the engine.
Not all chips are created equal either - while some are carefully mapped to preserve (or even improve) economy at part throttle and increase power at full throttle, some just hike up the boost and fuelling across the rev range, which gives you the power but hurts your mpg. This is another bonus of getting it properly mapped on a rolling road - you can say how you want it mapped.
Oh - and don't take the chipper's performance claims as gospel - even if they do show you dyno graphs. It's incredibly easy to massage these, so ask to be present for the before and after dyno runs.
Let me know if you want any more...
Modern turbodiesels are really good candidates for ecu tuning, due to a couple of factors:
- It's easy to up the boost on the turbo, giving good gains
- Theoretically, you can just keep increasing the ratio of fuel in the mixture to increase horsepower. I say theoretically, because the more you do this, the hotter things get - causing a reduction in engine life (sometimes to a very short amount of time indeed!)
For this reason, plug and play chips/remaps aren't necessarily a bad idea, as long as they're fairly conservative in their mapping and your engine has so far been well maintained. However, you'll always get a better result if it's done on a rolling road, and one which has the ability to monitor engine temperatures so that you can get the maximum SAFE power out of the engine.
Not all chips are created equal either - while some are carefully mapped to preserve (or even improve) economy at part throttle and increase power at full throttle, some just hike up the boost and fuelling across the rev range, which gives you the power but hurts your mpg. This is another bonus of getting it properly mapped on a rolling road - you can say how you want it mapped.
Oh - and don't take the chipper's performance claims as gospel - even if they do show you dyno graphs. It's incredibly easy to massage these, so ask to be present for the before and after dyno runs.
Let me know if you want any more...
I used www.angeltuning.co.uk for my fabia VRS and they did a fantastic job.
However i nearly bought a brand new Octavia VRS CR last year and when i rang Angel tuning about a remap for it they said the latest Diesel Octavia has anti mapping software on and at the time they were not able to get around it.
He said the 06-09 models achieve well over 200BHP.
Economy on my motorway journeys improved 2mpg, and around town it dropped 2mpg. Well worth doing
However i nearly bought a brand new Octavia VRS CR last year and when i rang Angel tuning about a remap for it they said the latest Diesel Octavia has anti mapping software on and at the time they were not able to get around it.
He said the 06-09 models achieve well over 200BHP.
Economy on my motorway journeys improved 2mpg, and around town it dropped 2mpg. Well worth doing
geeteeaye said:
Nothing against modifying, but seems that you spent £24k on the 1yr old 320d, plus £3-4k(?) on mods. Quite possibly you paid more on insurance than a 330d due to the mods too. Ignoring that, given a budget of £27-28k there are many 330d's a year old with <10k miles less than £28k available. Hardly a Lotus/Ferrari or Vauxhall/Porsche type gap!
The advantages? (Much) better resale value, much less stressed engine, probably better gearbox/brakes (etc), more torque, the fact it's a V6, possibly cheaper insurance, better performance (with a remap), a lot of people won't buy a 'souped-up' 320d as worried about it being driven hard/reliability suffering.
The disadvantages? Possibly worse fuel economy, although I am dubious about this as hiking the power (remap apart) will hike the fuel consumption accordingly, higher road tax.
Horses for courses of course and fair play for doing your own thing and having a one-off motor, just that if the 320d had been £20k or so I could understand the decision more.
You've hijacked the op's thread and missed the point that it's very possible to modify a diesel, but since you're so interested i'll explain my purchase decision to you in more detail : - I paid £24k two and half yrs ago, then £3k on mods 6 months ago (the I.c was foc btw). Factor in Cheap tax, amazing mpg (even better after mods), with 30k miles per yr, a significant weight saving over the straight six diesel bmws and the fact that the cheapest 330d was over £30k when I bought mine and at the time I couldn't afford it. To finish I'm very happy with it now and intend to run it for years so I am not looking to sell anytime soon so resale is not relevant. Hope you can understand even if you'd done things differently.The advantages? (Much) better resale value, much less stressed engine, probably better gearbox/brakes (etc), more torque, the fact it's a V6, possibly cheaper insurance, better performance (with a remap), a lot of people won't buy a 'souped-up' 320d as worried about it being driven hard/reliability suffering.
The disadvantages? Possibly worse fuel economy, although I am dubious about this as hiking the power (remap apart) will hike the fuel consumption accordingly, higher road tax.
Horses for courses of course and fair play for doing your own thing and having a one-off motor, just that if the 320d had been £20k or so I could understand the decision more.
Damn way too much text to type on a phone, apologies in advance for any mistakes ! Andy
Edited by andyp74199 on Tuesday 26th April 23:02
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