Facelift Tuning box fitted

[Ed_rx7]

Tuning box now fitted on my mates FL

First impression.... it’s bonkers.... loads for low and mid range grunt...... not near enough road to test top end

Will be getting dyno figures soon as possible hopefully some time next week

Company I work for are distributor for these so will be able to offer them at good prices once figures are confirmed as HP figures I was given seem abit optimistic.... but we shall see!!!!

 

[AudiNutta]

Risky move your mate has made there I hope he hasn’t posted it online himself Just as I was about to come on here and say don’t advertise you’ve fitted a box as you will be amazed who is on here.. glad to see it’s a friend

Interested to see what the results are.

 

[DW81]

‘He who dares’ as they say, fair play to him

 

[Ed_rx7]

He is a modding addict to be fair so will see how it goes. He asked me to get him one as soon a s he had the car. He got his before me. I had to talk him out of a MRC map as I know they can be tracked even though MRC say they can revert it back to stock.

He is already looking at widening the rear track on the rs3 and flaring the arches... lol


That’s one thing that I was actually disappointed with on the RS3.... the fact that there is as no rear flare.... would have looked awesome if there was...so we agree on that the part!!

 

[Ed_rx7]

Risky move your mate has made there I hope he hasn’t posted it online himself Just as I was about to come on here and say don’t advertise you’ve fitted a box as you will be amazed who is on here.. glad to see it’s a friend

Interested to see what the results are.

Lol wouldn’t be doing it on my car...... mine is my daily and is plenty fast enough....... when I wanna go mad I bring the beast out to play.... and that obliterates almost anything on the road

 

[Dodgygtr]

I’ll prob be fitting a box to mine as I don’t want to keep mine more than 2 years. Spent years modding GTR’s and still have a R34 GTR that will be over 700bhp next year. So this is just a Ikle play toy to go to the shops in.

What make box is it?

 

[D0C]

I briefly tried out a tuning box. Had one on my previous car (Golf R) and it was pretty decent. Disappointed with the RS3, though. Really couldn't feel any difference and it was screwing around with the boost gauge, presumably as it doing just that, fooling the ECU into calling for more boost.

 

[Beebee-one]

I briefly tried out a tuning box. Had one on my previous car (Golf R) and it was pretty decent. Disappointed with the RS3, though. Really couldn't feel any difference and it was screwing around with the boost gauge, presumably as it doing just that, fooling the ECU into calling for more boost.

Had some friends have the same experience with tuning boxes. They seem to work ok on Golf R's and Merc A45AMG etc but the sophisticated ECU on the RS3 seems to put up more of a fight. Seen cars with AFR's (Air Fuel Ratio) doing some erratic things (running too close to lean) when running tuning boxes on a dyno session.

 

[Ed_rx7]

That’s why I’m not gonna say anything until it’s put on a dyno and checked for definate....

My mate doesn’t care... but for me, if we are offering these out to people who, like us, have spent a lot on their cars we wanna be sure they work first.

But initial thoughts when I drove it were very very good!!!!!

 

[T-800]

Had some friends have the same experience with tuning boxes. They seem to work ok on Golf R's and Merc A45AMG etc but the sophisticated ECU on the RS3 seems to put up more of a fight. Seen cars with AFR's (Air Fuel Ratio) doing some erratic things (running too close to lean) when running tuning boxes on a dyno session.

Agreed, I know 3 PFL RS3 owners that had terrible experiences with a certain brand of tuning box, all the same too, fine at first, but then further down the line trouble and all 3 took them off and the car returned to normal straight away.

A friend also had one of the lesser known tuning boxes on his car and when he had it on the dyno there were hardly any gains........

Also know of someone who had the MTM box fitted and even that wasn't giving the numbers they suggest and it ain't cheap either.....

The only box that seems well thought out is the JB4 and they are only for certain 1.8 / 2.0 vag engines and the BMW applications, which is where it started for Burger Motorsport.
The JB4 connects to a lot more including the OBD port and the Lambda wire.

As Beebee-one says above you've no idea with most tuning boxes after fitting them what the AFR's are doing.......

At least with the JB4 all engine data can be viewed and logged 'live' so you know whats going on.

 

[Deleted member 117185]

Tuning box now fitted on my mates FL

First impression.... it’s bonkers.... loads for low and mid range grunt...... not near enough road to test top end

Will be getting dyno figures soon as possible hopefully some time next week

Company I work for are distributor for these so will be able to offer them at good prices once figures are confirmed as HP figures I was given seem abit optimistic.... but we shall see!!!!View attachment 142484

Has this been fitted on a facelift or prefacelift? Following this thread for results!

 

[AudiNutta]

Has this been fitted on a facelift or prefacelift? Following this thread for results!

Facelift

 

[Ed_rx7]

Sorry forgot to update this... my mate hasn’t been able to get on a dyno yet... but I’ve got a copy of the dyno from the company..... they are just gonna verify the figures again next week when the demo car comes in again

 

[FBF01]

Sorry forgot to update this... my mate hasn’t been able to get on a dyno yet... but I’ve got a copy of the dyno from the company..... they are just gonna verify the figures again next week when the demo car comes in again

Keen to see the figures!

 

[Ed_rx7]

[photo=Large]9023[/photo]

 

[Ed_rx7]

[photo=Large]9022[/photo]

 

[3SR]

nice!

 

[bond1313]

[photo=Large]9022[/photo]

I know you mentioned you wanted to wait before saying whose it was etc are you willing to say yet?

 

[Leo-RS]

I run a DTUK box on an S3 a few years ago and it worked well, produced good figures and good times at the drag strip. No complaints.

However, it did run very lean when logged with VCDS. I only had the car 6 months or so as it was only ever a short term plan. Had I been keeping the car longer, I don’t think I would have been too keen to keep abusing the car with a tuning box regardless of how well it performed. Take the pis* for too long and it will come back and bite you, lean means hot, very hot. Put enough excessive heat cycles through the turbo and it’s going to bite you at some point. Safer with a proper tune especially if you are going to drive your car hot, track, dragstrip or at high speed. I think they are good for short term use but only for that. Wouldn’t use one in a £50k+ car that I was keeping for a while though.

They do have a lot of good selling points though and are okay for light use although they don’t really respond to Stage 2 hardware, nor do they remove speed limiters in place. Probably worth it on £30k Golf R’s and S3’s though but I suspect the majority of Audi RS owners want that extra safety margin with a property calibrated car so really can’t see them selling much of these boxes regardless of the power they claim to make.

Stage 2 calibrated cars are now hitting 525ps+, can’t see the tuning boxes managing that.

 

[Ed_rx7]

Thing is Leo it’s all about warranty retention... that’s where they come into their own I think.... yeahbyou might not get as much hp but your warranty is still in tact... and for the sake of 20-25 bhp it’s a risk not worth taking in my eyes but that’s just my opinion....... if a custom map was undetectable then I would be all over one..... as would most I feel.

 

[Ed_rx7]

I know you mentioned you wanted to wait before saying whose it was etc are you willing to say yet?

Let me just get confirmation on the check first next week then no problem.

 

[Beebee-one]

Thing is Leo it’s all about warranty retention... that’s where they come into their own I think.... yeahbyou might not get as much hp but your warranty is still in tact... and for the sake of 20-25 bhp it’s a risk not worth taking in my eyes but that’s just my opinion....... if a custom map was undetectable then I would be all over one..... as would most I feel.

Ironically, I would say that a tuning box is more likely to cause a warranty issue than a properly sorted custom tune (the issues that Leo mentions in his post above). Its only the convenience of being able to whip it off and supposedly be undetectable that attracts people to consider fitting them. However, if you are unlucky enough to have a catastrophic failure (a turbo for example), Audi will hook your car up to their 'mothership' in Germany and have a deep dive into the other ECU's on the car and see if there are any over torque values and higher boost pressures logged.

 

[savo]

on my previous car (merc A45) I ran a tuning box only for a few months and took it of for the same reason as leo-rs and bee-bee mentioned.

 

[Ed_rx7]

Ironically, I would say that a tuning box is more likely to cause a warranty issue than a properly sorted custom tune (the issues that Leo mentions in his post above). Its only the convenience of being able to whip it off and supposedly be undetectable that attracts people to consider fitting them. However, if you are unlucky enough to have a catastrophic failure (a turbo for example), Audi will hook your car up to their 'mothership' in Germany and have a deep dive into the other ECU's on the car and see if there are any over torque values and higher boost pressures logged.

But the ownus is on audi to prove it..... as with tuning box they could not, however with a map they could very easily.

That’s the difference

I’m no advocate for either truth be told but from my experience for a car within warranty a good tuning box is a no brainier... especially if you check the afr’s On a dyno... which I always do on cars that I’ve had tuning boxes on

Thing is, if you have a custom tune and you have a engine failure for some reason ( anything is possible)... component failure within engine etc you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on once they plug it in..... however with a tuning box you could plead ignorance and provongbit would be very tricky...... ok so ecu records some high readings on occasion....... ( I dunno mate I just drive the thing ) nothing more can really be proven... other than some sensors read high values on occasion...... however once that Td1 marker is highlighted..... it’s over .... whether it was the maps fault or not..........that’s all i’m saying

 

[Phil3]

What’s your saying is totally right, but only for the first 6 months of the car being new...

...after 6 months, it’s down to the owner to prove the manufacturer wrong. This was a much discussed subject on another forum with my previous car due to them having plenty of engine failure problems from new

 

[Leo-RS]

MRC say they can wipe a TD1 and revert the ECU back to the way it was when it left the factory.

If they take an image of the ECU prior to changing it, you have to ask yourself why it would be so hard reloading that image after making changes? I’m no software geek but in this day and age, I can’t see it being such an enormous task to do.

Who knows, you could potentially buy a 2nd ECU and swapover to the stock ecu should there be any issues. Mileage isn’t stored on the ECU’s so that’s not a problem.

Guess it’s just the risk you take. Chances are Stage 1 software is very unlikely to cause you much grief.

I do see the benefit of the tuning boxes for this reason though even if under forensic type analysis you probably can trace it.

 

[Ed_rx7]

MRC say they can wipe a TD1 and revert the ECU back to the way it was when it left the factory.

If they take an image of the ECU prior to changing it, you have to ask yourself why it would be so hard reloading that image after making changes? I’m no software geek but in this day and age, I can’t see it being such an enormous task to do.

Who knows, you could potentially buy a 2nd ECU and swapover to the stock ecu should there be any issues. Mileage isn’t stored on the ECU’s so that’s not a problem.

Guess it’s just the risk you take. Chances are Stage 1 software is very unlikely to cause you much grief.

I do see the benefit of the tuning boxes for this reason though even if under forensic type analysis you probably can trace it.

Interesting... Leo.......i wonder if the TD1 wipe can be wiped... im dubious about that one however.... if there were concrete proof of this id be getting an MRC map tomorrow!!!!

I also thought about the ECU swap...I have been told the however by a Vag Specialist that the mileage is recorder in three different places.... VC, engine ECU and Gearbox....

 

[Leo-RS]

You would have to ask MRC directly but both the above have not been the case in my MY16 RS6.

I had an original Stage 1 tune where I drove the car to MRC to be tuned. (800 mile journey)
Some months later, I then fitted Stage 2 hardware and MRC sent me up one of their own replacement ECU's with a Stage 2 file on it for testing. This ECU had a copy of my original file that they took when first performing the Stage 1 tune (VIN Coded) They had tweaked this file with a Stage 2 file.
I fitted this ECU, logged my car and sent back my own ECU whilst running about with their replacement ECU.
They tweaked my ECU based on the logs that I had sent them back, they sent me back my own ECU, I sent them back theirs and all was good. This saved on the 800 mile round robin trip all for the sake of a few special delivery postal charges.
I specifically asked about the mileage in the same belief that it was stored by both Engine and Gearbox ECU's only to be told that this wasn't the case and it's only stored in the instrument cluster (VCDS reads from instrument cluster). The replacement ECU would not have worked if this were the case (as all mileages in my car would have been different) so it proves this to be true.

Can't say too much about the other one but they have loaded back my stock file map on an occasion where it needed to go back into Audi and no issues at all with a TD1 flag (Which they should have picked up in a scan if it was flagged) - MRC tell me that they can revert back to a completely unaltered TD1 free as it left the factory file. I've no reason to disbelieve them.

Not sure about the VC cars though and whether mileage is stored within different ECU's on these, you would have to ask MRC.

 

[TYb]

I really don’t get that people would spend £50k plus on a car then chance a few hundred quid bolt on to get a bit more performance when the side effects are not really that well known.

 

[D0C]

This makes me more and more likely to get mine mapped by MRC...

 

[Ed_rx7]

I know you mentioned you wanted to wait before saying whose it was etc are you willing to say yet?

Sorry missed this it’s a TMC one

 

[teslaboy]

I really don’t get that people would spend £50k plus on a car then chance a few hundred quid bolt on to get a bit more performance when the side effects are not really that well known.

Yeah agreed - is 400 horses not enough !!

 

[Beebee-one]

You would have to ask MRC directly but both the above have not been the case in my MY16 RS6.

I had an original Stage 1 tune where I drove the car to MRC to be tuned. (800 mile journey)
Some months later, I then fitted Stage 2 hardware and MRC sent me up one of their own replacement ECU's with a Stage 2 file on it for testing. This ECU had a copy of my original file that they took when first performing the Stage 1 tune (VIN Coded) They had tweaked this file with a Stage 2 file.
I fitted this ECU, logged my car and sent back my own ECU whilst running about with their replacement ECU.
They tweaked my ECU based on the logs that I had sent them back, they sent me back my own ECU, I sent them back theirs and all was good. This saved on the 800 mile round robin trip all for the sake of a few special delivery postal charges.
I specifically asked about the mileage in the same belief that it was stored by both Engine and Gearbox ECU's only to be told that this wasn't the case and it's only stored in the instrument cluster (VCDS reads from instrument cluster). The replacement ECU would not have worked if this were the case (as all mileages in my car would have been different) so it proves this to be true.

Can't say too much about the other one but they have loaded back my stock file map on an occasion where it needed to go back into Audi and no issues at all with a TD1 flag (Which they should have picked up in a scan if it was flagged) - MRC tell me that they can revert back to a completely unaltered TD1 free as it left the factory file. I've no reason to disbelieve them.

Not sure about the VC cars though and whether mileage is stored within different ECU's on these, you would have to ask MRC.

My last three performance Audi's have all been mapped by MRC and I can confirm that my dealer cannot see any TD1 flags. My dealer had my previous S4 Avant for over two weeks to do some suspension repairs under warranty (repairs worth about £2.5K) and there were no issues despite it being hooked up to their computers to check out dynamic suspension controls and settings.

 

[Beebee-one]

This makes me more and more likely to get mine mapped by MRC...

My car will having it's annual 'health check' early in the New Year. I think you mentioned that you are close to Banbury so you're welcome to have a go in it if you are around at a similarly convenient time.
Be warned.........it's addictive, Power corrupts!

 

[Ed_rx7]

My last three performance Audi's have all been mapped by MRC and I can confirm that my dealer cannot see any TD1 flags. My dealer had my previous S4 Avant for over two weeks to do some suspension repairs under warranty (repairs worth about £2.5K) and there were no issues despite it being hooked up to their computers to check out dynamic suspension controls and settings.

i think youll probably find thats because you didnt have an engine failure.... if you did they would probably go looking for it in the initial instance..

Would be good to hear from someone who had a map... went back to get it set back to stock and audi didnt see it when it went in for an engine fault.

i would love to believe this was the case.......as i would get one tomorrow....

i just dont wanna find out the hard way.... hence the tuning box appeal.

 

[Ed_rx7]

Be warned.........it's addictive, Power corrupts! ABSOLUTELY

fixed that for ya!!....hehe

 

[Beebee-one]

i think youll probably find thats because you didnt have an engine failure.... if you did they would probably go looking for it in the initial instance..

Would be good to hear from someone who had a map... went back to get it set back to stock and audi didnt see it when it went in for an engine fault.

i would love to believe this was the case.......as i would get one tomorrow....

i just dont wanna find out the hard way.... hence the tuning box appeal.

I did have a major suspension failure on my S4. It had completely dropped on one side and was definately hooked up to Germany for diagnostics during the two weeks it took Audi to fix it. It didn't TD1 flag though.

 

[D0C]

My car will having it's annual 'health check' early in the New Year. I think you mentioned that you are close to Banbury so you're welcome to have a go in it if you are around at a similarly convenient time.
Be warned.........it's addictive, Power corrupts!

I am very close to Banbury...Stratford upon Avon way. Don't tempt me!

 

[teslaboy]

There's a great write up on Pistonheads website of the new 507bhp package offered by Litchfield.
Sounds pretty awesome !

 

[Ed_rx7]

thought i would mention but if anyone wants a TMC tuning box i can get them at good prices