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Discussion
Just for a bit of balance.
My old 4.5 that I'd always considered pretty stellar was beginning to feel a bit slow compared with the other Cerbera in the house. Only one thing for it: a trip to Chesterfield.
It was a bog standard '98 4.5 when it went in complete with standard exhaust and cats (making 345bhp). Just short induction pipes, remap and linked decats to be added by Track Car Solutions.
I was over the moon to hear Joolz had massaged 404bhp out of it yesterday ...then nearly fell of my chair when I got a call to say a bit more fettling had realised 413bhp today. I don't pick it up for another day!
Joolz:
My old 4.5 that I'd always considered pretty stellar was beginning to feel a bit slow compared with the other Cerbera in the house. Only one thing for it: a trip to Chesterfield.
It was a bog standard '98 4.5 when it went in complete with standard exhaust and cats (making 345bhp). Just short induction pipes, remap and linked decats to be added by Track Car Solutions.
I was over the moon to hear Joolz had massaged 404bhp out of it yesterday ...then nearly fell of my chair when I got a call to say a bit more fettling had realised 413bhp today. I don't pick it up for another day!
Joolz:
Edited by BossCerbera on Wednesday 28th June 15:11
Okay, I got a question for you and trackcar. Are there any predictive factors for the end BHP of a Cerb. Only talking about 4.5's here.
Is a syncro airflow test a good predictor all the cylinders equal and above 5, or a compression check, or simply looking at the adaptives being near zero.
Is there anything that Austec/Trackcar can use to predict before their mods what the likely effect will be or is it simply a case of suck and see?
Is a syncro airflow test a good predictor all the cylinders equal and above 5, or a compression check, or simply looking at the adaptives being near zero.
Is there anything that Austec/Trackcar can use to predict before their mods what the likely effect will be or is it simply a case of suck and see?
Yep, I keep gently rubbishing the needing to go any faster thing as the car is absurdly fast already.
Problem is that the chip upgrade for all its faults.
Ignoring lambdas.
MOT emission impossible.
And highlighting any engine weaknesses short or longterm.
Is becoming the new headlight upgrade/spiderwheels defacto upgrade. Noones had a problem with it. It seems to be a fairly sure route to get very near the 400 mark. (I take it no-ones been dissapointed yet)
And I'm starting to think the resale value of the car would suffer for not having it just like the headlight/wheel thing.
Or maybe thats me convincing myself
Problem is that the chip upgrade for all its faults.
Ignoring lambdas.
MOT emission impossible.
And highlighting any engine weaknesses short or longterm.
Is becoming the new headlight upgrade/spiderwheels defacto upgrade. Noones had a problem with it. It seems to be a fairly sure route to get very near the 400 mark. (I take it no-ones been dissapointed yet)
And I'm starting to think the resale value of the car would suffer for not having it just like the headlight/wheel thing.
Or maybe thats me convincing myself
If you're concerned about emissions/MOT, stick with the MBE, but get a remap done on it. Much of the banter on this forum is about peak figures, but that misses the point a little. A good remap will give better response, a smoother drive more and mid range torque too.
Steve.
Steve.
Edited by Steve_T on Wednesday 28th June 17:14
cossiemetro said:
i think i might have a remap done but they are quite expensive considering a cossie you can get 150bhp for £350 (I KNOW ITS A TURBO) IF ITS JUST A CHIP CHANGE WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE????????
Somebodies got to make a living. Not many TVR customers compared to Ford owners...
The live mapping is what makes it expensive. If someone bungs you a standard chip there's effort involved in working out the standard map that should go on the chip, but after that the cost is just the cost of duplication, the rest is profit. The Emerald and MBE remaps are done live with the car running against load on the dyno and as such are a custom fit for your car, but involve more time. This naturally increases the cost.
Steve.
Steve.
Steve_T said:
If you're concerned about emissions/MOT, stick with the MBE, but get a remap done on it. Much of the banter on this forum is about peak figures, but that misses the point a little. A good remap will give better response, a smoother drive more and mid range torque too.
Steve.
Steve.
Edited by Steve_T on Wednesday 28th June 17:14
Hmmm did you see cyclones graph, pretty much perfect mid range
Julian64 said:
Steve_T said:
If you're concerned about emissions/MOT, stick with the MBE, but get a remap done on it. Much of the banter on this forum is about peak figures, but that misses the point a little. A good remap will give better response, a smoother drive more and mid range torque too.
Steve.
Steve.
Edited by Steve_T on Wednesday 28th June 17:14
Hmmm did you see cyclones graph, pretty much perfect mid range
That was my point, the peak figure was discussed, but the real feature was the actually strength of the mid range.
Steve_T said:
Julian64 said:
Steve_T said:
If you're concerned about emissions/MOT, stick with the MBE, but get a remap done on it. Much of the banter on this forum is about peak figures, but that misses the point a little. A good remap will give better response, a smoother drive more and mid range torque too.
Steve.
Steve.
Edited by Steve_T on Wednesday 28th June 17:14
Hmmm did you see cyclones graph, pretty much perfect mid range
That was my point, the peak figure was discussed, but the real feature was the actually strength of the mid range.
I'd agree with that.

The beauty of ECUs is that you can get the best from each part of the map.
The beauty about tuning the hardware of the engine is that you can bias the curve where you want it.
More midrange: remap and std inlets.
More top end? Remap and short induction. Compromises midrange compared to std length pipes, but gains everywhere compared to a std unmapped car .. so in reality it's gains everywhere just with more top end bias.
I have always argued (and will always continue to argue) that it isn't the area under the curve that's important but the area under the part of the curve the owner uses most of the time! The first scenario completely misses the wishes of the performance orientated driver.
If the owner wants max performance screaming the engine to the red line each time then what's the point of loads of graph at low rpm? answer= none as this usually means you have to sacrifice the top end to achieve it. This is one of the trade offs of NA tuning, in that unless you increase CCs you pretty much have to sacrifice one end of the rpm range for the other. It's a generalisation yes, but tends to hold true.
A good tuner will listen to what the customer is going to use his car for, and give him the package that best suits his needs.
I will argue that if you're after tree-uprooting power at 2k rpm you're in the wrong gear! But if that's what the customer wants and is how he/she drivers then that is what you have to give them.
If you're after top performance you're going to be working the upper rpm range .. so get that right first!
We've never been too bothered about sub 4k rpm power on Cyclone's car, but it's always nice to find mods that boost the hp in the rev range he needs it (4k to 8k) which also boost hp below 4k too. That's having cake and eating it, but isn't necesarily what we set out to do, just a happy side effect of some of the mods.
Just my take on tuning.
The beauty about tuning the hardware of the engine is that you can bias the curve where you want it.
More midrange: remap and std inlets.
More top end? Remap and short induction. Compromises midrange compared to std length pipes, but gains everywhere compared to a std unmapped car .. so in reality it's gains everywhere just with more top end bias.
I have always argued (and will always continue to argue) that it isn't the area under the curve that's important but the area under the part of the curve the owner uses most of the time! The first scenario completely misses the wishes of the performance orientated driver.
If the owner wants max performance screaming the engine to the red line each time then what's the point of loads of graph at low rpm? answer= none as this usually means you have to sacrifice the top end to achieve it. This is one of the trade offs of NA tuning, in that unless you increase CCs you pretty much have to sacrifice one end of the rpm range for the other. It's a generalisation yes, but tends to hold true.
A good tuner will listen to what the customer is going to use his car for, and give him the package that best suits his needs.
I will argue that if you're after tree-uprooting power at 2k rpm you're in the wrong gear! But if that's what the customer wants and is how he/she drivers then that is what you have to give them.
If you're after top performance you're going to be working the upper rpm range .. so get that right first!
We've never been too bothered about sub 4k rpm power on Cyclone's car, but it's always nice to find mods that boost the hp in the rev range he needs it (4k to 8k) which also boost hp below 4k too. That's having cake and eating it, but isn't necesarily what we set out to do, just a happy side effect of some of the mods.
Just my take on tuning.
Edited by trackcar on Wednesday 28th June 17:46
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Blimey!
I'll know where to go. 
