Got myself a BiTurbo! :)

[jojo]

I wonder how it knows the engine temperature ? . Quite often the MAP sensor also contains the air intake temperature sensor so it may have access to that but that doesn't really tell it how hot the engine is, If there is a sensor built into the actual module measuring underbonnet temps then the location of the tuning module would have a great effect on it's operation. Or is it that it doesn't do anything for the first 5 minutes ? .

Your guess is as good as mine Karl. I'm not to drive it at anything like full throttle when it's cold anyways, it's just one of the features. I doubt I'm using maximum torque for much of the time neither, maybe fore a second or two at most each time lets be honest. But if it does what it says on the tin, and gives me 2-4mpg more, then it's job done!

Believe it or not, the tuning box has just arrived mid typing this! Lol. I've done around 250 miles since acquiring the car, so not much data to work on or compare it with, there's half a tank of derv left. I won't fit this until this tank of fuel is done, as I like to use brim to brim figures.

 

[desertstorm]

That's the only way to work out consumption. The problem with tuning boxes is they mess with the rail pressure and trick the ECU into increasing the pressure. But the ECU calculates fuel used based on the duration the injector is open and the rail pressure.
Thus when you put a tuning box on you will always see better fuel economy on the DIS. The only way to accurately measure it is how you do it brim to brim. Unfortunately with limited running it's hard to tell.
When I bought my car it had a tuning box on and I ran it on various settings over several weeks and saw no noticeable difference in mpg. I had the car 4-5 months before I got it mapped and that didn't really make much difference to the economy either. In my experience over the years with remaps it seems that in real world brim /brim figures you never seem to gain much but you can get a good deal more performance.
Can you easily get to the MAP sensor on your car ?

 

[jojo]

That's the only way to work out consumption. The problem with tuning boxes is they mess with the rail pressure and trick the ECU into increasing the pressure. But the ECU calculates fuel used based on the duration the injector is open and the rail pressure.
Thus when you put a tuning box on you will always see better fuel economy on the DIS. The only way to accurately measure it is how you do it brim to brim. Unfortunately with limited running it's hard to tell.
When I bought my car it had a tuning box on and I ran it on various settings over several weeks and saw no noticeable difference in mpg. I had the car 4-5 months before I got it mapped and that didn't really make much difference to the economy either. In my experience over the years with remaps it seems that in real world brim /brim figures you never seem to gain much but you can get a good deal more performance.
Can you easily get to the MAP sensor on your car ?

Yes, totally agree with the misleading DIS figures, as the car doesn't know it has a tuning box fitted. I don't think it effects the rail pressure though, just the injector duration.
The tuning box comes with specific fitting instructions for my car, and the MAP sensor seems easily accessible, though I haven't had a peek on the car itself. It has 7 maps/settings, it's set midway/optimal as standard, and I can adjust it one way for power, or the other way for Eco, which is what I'm after.

 

[desertstorm]

The sensors you are connecting to are the rail pressure sensor and the MAP sensor. The tuning box processes the signals from these two sensors and modifies them based on the map that is selected.
Most rail pressure sensors are very straightforward. With no pressure input they produce a 0.5v output, if this is too high or low when the ignition is turned on the ECU will throw a fault code as the sensor is likely to be duff.
At the rated max pressure they will typically produce a 4v signal.The rail pressure isn't constant, at idle it's likely to be something like 300 bar, normal driving maybe 800-1200 bar and when you are on it upto the normal maximum system pressure in your case I believe that is 2000 bar. My car has a 1600 bar system but that runs at 1800 bar with the remap and would have been close to that with the tuning box.
I would suspect that the pressure in your car may be hitting something like 2200 bar which is over 32,000 PSI .
The tuning box takes the reading from the rail pressure sensor and depending on the map setting and the value that is presented passes a slightly lower value to the ECU. The ECU controls the pump to produce the pressure in the rail so basically the ECU is tricked into thinking the rail pressure is lower than it actually is and it puts more pressure in the rail. Hence when the injector opens it flows more fuel which results in more power.There is no increase in injector duration this is determined by the ECU.
The MAP sensor connection does a similar thing for boost and tricks the ECU into allowing more boost to be produced.
With newer cars they are having a few problems with tuning boxes as the sensors no longer use simple analogue output voltages but communicate using the SENT protocol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SENT_(protocol)
This makes life a lot more difficult as you have to convert the sensor output into a data reading , and then code the new data to send to the ECU.
some diesel tuning boxes ATM are just a PIC chip with a voltage regulator a few OP amps and some discrete components, Quite simple to design and build, Tuning boxes for newer cars will present more of a challenge.

 

[jojo]

Learn something everyday hey.

 

[jojo]

So this is what +50bhp looks like!

Going to burn some fuel in a bit, though even that's a bit pointless. I've been hooning it around with a few friends and family, so the mpg is hardly realistic for the long term! haha

 

[BahnStormer77]

Good to know about the gearbox also, so it's a strong unit then!

When remapping the BiTDI, don't get over-confident about the strength of the BiTDI's gearbox just because it is shared with the RS6.... it is torque that breaks clutches / gearboxes and although RS6 might generate nearly double the bhp, but it does that at nearly double the rpm, with nearly the same torque: TDI remaps* are normally about increasing low-end toque (usually mapped out to protect the clutch and gearbox) and also about shifting the whole of the torque curve up: if you remap the BiTDI for an 8% gain, it will most likley have more torque than a stock RS6 and at lower RPM.

* as opposed to petrol remaps that are normally about holding boost pressure to higher RPM's, thus more bhp at the same peak torque levels.

 

[jojo]

When remapping the BiTDI, don't get over-confident about the strength of the BiTDI's gearbox just because it is shared with the RS6.... it is torque that breaks clutches / gearboxes and although RS6 might generate nearly double the bhp, but it does that at nearly double the rpm, with nearly the same torque: TDI remaps* are normally about increasing low-end toque (usually mapped out to protect the clutch and gearbox) and also about shifting the whole of the torque curve up: if you remap the BiTDI for an 8% gain, it will most likley have more torque than a stock RS6 and at lower RPM.

* as opposed to petrol remaps that are normally about holding boost pressure to higher RPM's, thus more bhp at the same peak torque levels.

Yes, I know this, hence going for the tuning box option, which doesn't offer the same gains as a remap. Like I've said previously, I'm not really after a power boost, it's plenty quick enough as standard for a family car, but I want the benefits of the improved mpg in the long term, as I plan to keep this car for at least 5years!

 

[jojo]

And my RS6 Grill has arrived!

Just need to figure out how to fit it! lol

My car will be going back to Audi for an oil and filter service tomorrow, I can do it all myself, but with the value of the car still in the 20k+ bracket, I'm going to maintain the FAudiSH, but I will change all the other filters myself. Apparently, the oil alone was going to cost me £213 or something? But as my car is over 3 years old, they can do it for a fixed price of £199 allin. lol 199 quid for an oil change!... I'll live!

I'll fit the grill and the tuning box afterwards.

Now to hunt for some 20" alloys.

 

[desertstorm]

£213 for oil. It can't be more than 8L, that's over £26 a litre. If you plan on keeping the car for several years that could work out expensive trying to keep up the FASH.

 

[Scottk]

My first oil service at 10k was £193 at the dealers. Sure it is 6.5 l plus the filter is about £8. Will be doing all the interim services my self once it's out of warranty. Cost price for an oil and filter change is about £40-50 and I can do it at work in about 30mins.

 

[jojo]

£213 for oil. It can't be more than 8L, that's over £26 a litre. If you plan on keeping the car for several years that could work out expensive trying to keep up the FASH.

Just the first few years, just in case I sell it? If a facelift version version came up for a reasonable price for me to upgrade for example, I'd be tempted.

 

[fingermouse]

yes jojo got the foot rest as well, imported from Germany via a ebay seller

Ive got my audi booked in for a oil change same reason as you jojo but did the twin service deal for £400 covers 1 minor and 1 major service

 

[evans1089]

Wish one of those grills would fit mine!

 

[jojo]

Wish one of those grills would fit mine!

Unlucky, I've not test fit mine yet, but according to the seller, it's just a direct swop on mine, the bumper needs to be removed to fit though, and the parking sensors location move upwards a couple of inches. I'm going to attempt fitting it in a bit... hopefully.

Just had a play around with VCDS on the A6, I activated the needle sweep on startup last week, it just makes the car feel 'premium' when I hit the start button!

Tested out the alarm chirps for lock and unlocking, not my thing, so disabled it right away! Activated the remote bootlid closure, doubt I'd ever use it, you need to keep your finger on the remote button, and it stops midway when you let go, so some safety has gone into this function, it's nice to know it's there though.

I've set the rear lights to be on permanently with the front DRLs.

Tried to activate the electronic handbrake when you stick the shifter into 'P', couldn't get that to work.

Never had a car with stop/start function. It's annoying in traffic though, so I've set it to remember it's setting on ignition off, which means it's permanently off unless I hit the button in the dash to activate it.

If anyone knows how to deactivate the main beam on the coming home lights, whilst keeping the DRLs on, please let me know, they are bright, and I finish work at stupid hours, so prefer it to be dimmer when I get home. I know I can switch the whole thing off via the MMI.

 

[Scottk]

From the vwaudi forum-look at 9 central electrics and should be byte 5 to control coming home/leaving home.

 

[jojo]

From the vwaudi forum-look at 9 central electrics and should be byte 5 to control coming home/leaving home.

Thanks, I'll give it a bash tomorrow now.

My attempt at fitting the RS6 grill ended in failure after almost 4hrs! Got the bumper off, but couldn't get the old grill off after removing 10 torx screws! Ran out of light in the end, so quickly put it all back together again.

I also tried to undo and take off the crash bar so I could spray it black, it's a PITA to get off, even with all the bolts undone!

On the plus side, I did get around to fitting the tuning box! I will road test it later this evening, when the roads are clear.

 

[desertstorm]

PITA this time of the year it starts getting dark just after 4pm. So much for a straight swap with the grill nothing ever is that easy .
I would leave the crash bar on the car and spray it in place, you just need to decide what parts can be seen.

 

[NotNormal]

@jojo possible interesting VCDS coding to try :

http://www.vcdscoding.com/#!a6/cwkm

 

[jojo]

@jojo possible interesting VCDS coding to try :

http://www.vcdscoding.com/#!a6/cwkm

That's a handy link, thanks!

I did find a whole list of VCDS elsewhere which was quite useful. Tried to activate the electronic parking brake on my car when I select 'P', I have since found out my 2012 car doesn't support this feature, only cars 2013 onwards supports it, the actual module for the EPB is a different part number!

On the plus side, I did get around to fitting the tuning box! I will road test it later this evening, when the roads are clear.

So I went out for a sneaky 15 mile drive just now to test this tuning box out, the stats are now 377bhp and 754nm of torque apparently... On the road it feels totally standard to drive, it maybe running a bit smoother actually, though that could be the placebo effect. But the magic happens when you plant the throttle! It's now a rocket ship on the move! I'm really quite surprised you could feel the power difference, I was only expecting it to be a bit quicker, but WOW, it's worth every penny!
As mentioned earlier in the thread, I know I can yield more power from a remap, but I'm more after an economy map. This tuning box took me 5 minutes to fit, and it has 7 maps on it, it's currently on the 'optimum' map. I can move this jumper to the right to increase the power, the furthest to the right is suppose to be the power map, 390bhp apparently. I will try it out for a laff one day. But in the long run, I'm going to move the jumper to the left for the Eco map. I will stick with the standard setting for this tank of fuel at least, just to get a gauge on fuel consumption.

I'm happy as it stands though.

 

[NotNormal]

I've found that when fitting tuning boxes to cars, more so on the Audi cars, that the ecu takes a good few hundred miles to fully adapt.
Yes you feel the initial difference, but if you take note, the car gets slightly stronger and more mins you do (obviously to a point)

I would also recommend resetting the auto gearbox TCU adaption values too.

Let the gearbox learn it's new power and torque to make the best of it.

Hope this helps

Tom

 

[jojo]

I've found that when fitting tuning boxes to cars, more so on the Audi cars, that the ecu takes a good few hundred miles to fully adapt.
Yes you feel the initial difference, but if you take note, the car gets slightly stronger and more mins you do (obviously to a point)

I would also recommend resetting the auto gearbox TCU adaption values too.

Let the gearbox learn it's new power and torque to make the best of it.

Hope this helps

Tom

I've switched the car to 'efficiency' mode today, it changes gear a couple of hundred revs earlier, and it's ideal with the additional torque! How does one reset the TCU adaptation?

 

[NotNormal]

I'm out n about today, with limited internet connectivity

Had a quick look but wasn't able to find the 8-speed guide, I'd imagine the 6-speed Autoboxes guide would be similar :

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/6-Speed_Automatic_Transmission_(01J/Multitronic)

Tom

 

[jojo]

So attempt number 2 of fitting the RS6 grill, since I know how to take the bumper off now, it took me less than 30 minutes to take it completely off the car!

Starting with the standard look.

With the bumper off, I had to make the crash bar black, as you can see it through the honeycomb RS6 grill. My original plan was to spray it matt black, my attempts to take the crash bar off proved a mission, and I did not want to mask over the area to spray it in situ!

Decided to use a whole roll of black insulation tape instead! lol, hope it doesn't peel off anytime soon!

The area between the intercooler and condenser seems to be a leaf trap! I don't even know how it got into there?! Hands are too big to reach down to grab it, I removed a small percentage of it and left it, maybe need to drop the undertray for better access after winter?

Removing the original Grill from the bumper is the tricky bit I got stuck on the first time round, the guides says 6 torx screws, but in actual fact, there's 10 of them! All reused for the replacement RS6 grill. The original grill has around 17 clips all the way round, and the easiest way is to start from along the top corner and work your way across, before tackling the bottom. It's easier with 2 pair of hands here, but I just about managed it with loads of flat blade screwdrivers!

New Grill finally fitted onto bumper and fitted onto car, looks amazing with no numberplate!

The finished article!

 

[NotNormal]

That looks great @jojo

 

[woollyjoe]

Yeah well done, got more patience than me. Not sure about the electrical tape though. Would have thought some paint by brush would have sufficed.

 

[jojo]

Yeah well done, got more patience than me. Not sure about the electrical tape though. Would have thought some paint by brush would have sufficed.

I had a rattle can, paint brush is messy! To be honest, it's just to stop the silver of the crashbar showing through. The original grill has a foam thing that hides it, it needs trimming down to work with the new grill, bit I kept it complete, so I can reverse the mod, just incase.

 

[desertstorm]

There is a similar leaf trap on the A4 between the intercooler and the rad. Because the dealers suck the oil out of the sump rather than using the drain plug the undertray doesn't need to come off.
Looking at Elsa Win looks like you can remove the front part of the undertray that will allow you to get the leaves out. It's the same on the A4.
Just undo the screws and it drops down . There looks to be a wire clipped to the back of it.

There looks like a lot of leaves in there, they blocks airflow through the intercooler and hold moisture so not good for them to be there.

 

[jojo]

There is a similar leaf trap on the A4 between the intercooler and the rad. Because the dealers suck the oil out of the sump rather than using the drain plug the undertray doesn't need to come off.
Looking at Elsa Win looks like you can remove the front part of the undertray that will allow you to get the leaves out. It's the same on the A4.
Just undo the screws and it drops down . There looks to be a wire clipped to the back of it.
View attachment 73143
There looks like a lot of leaves in there, they blocks airflow through the intercooler and hold moisture so not good for them to be there.

Cheers Karl, I'll have a bash at it when I have a spare hour, the wiring is the parking sensors.

 

[evans1089]

Great result! So jealous lol

 

[Nilz]

Car looks great Jo and even better in the flesh, the power delivery is instantaneous and its surprising how fast it is for the size of the car.

Great purchase dude!!

 

[quattrojames]

Nice one Joe, I'm a bit late to the party here, but these are awesome cars.

Great choice Joe,I've been in one and they are rapid…seriously.

That was a good day

 

[Brennan]

Looks great with the grill, what other plans do you have?

 

[jojo]

Looks great with the grill, what other plans do you have?

20" alloys is my next mod I think? Undecided on what style, I was thinking OEM Rotors, but that's kind of boring, I'm considering the facelift RS6 style rims, as they look amazing on the A6 Avant parked in the Birmingham Audi showroom!

I think that will be pretty it for this car, it's my daily after all. I declared the tuning box, RS6 grill and after market alloys at the time of purchasing insurance!

 

[desertstorm]

If you are fitting an RS6 grill and RS6 wheels you might as well fit some better anchors, Your standard brakes are going to look lost inside a 20 inch wheel .

 

[jojo]

If you are fitting an RS6 grill and RS6 wheels you might as well fit some better anchors, Your standard brakes are going to look lost inside a 20 inch wheel .

The standard brakes on mine are S6 spec.

 

[jojo]

Well, there's only one way to test how practical the A6 is! lol (Yes, those are beansprouts, I run a fastfood joint! )

Boot overloaded, I needed to use the rear seats!

The A6 just about passed the test. Despite having a bigger loading area, my ancient B5 Passat Estate carries more! Only because the A6 has a raked boot lid, the Passat was almost upright like a van, and it was slightly taller for stacking things upwards.

But the a prod of the loud pedal in the A6 alleviates any doubt of its purchase! 350+bhp vs 130odd in the Passat is just no contest!

 

[jojo]

So a few more updates since fitting the tuning box. The extra power/torque is a welcome addition, however, it confuses the gearbox, it stays on the red line in certain gears and doesn't change up automatically, you need to use the manual shift buttons. Doing a bit of digging around, it seems this is totally normal, as the tuning box obviously adds more power at the top end, and since the gearbox doesn't know the extra power is there, it just doesn't detect the drop off in torque to shift up, so hangs onto the gear!

I was pretty sure my car has the Hands Free Boot Opening feature also, I finally figured how it works after watching a YT vid!

I've also found the heated seats rather handy in the cold snap we are having! I've had heated seats previously in my 8L S3, but in the S3, the dial had 5 setting, the A6 only has 3 setting on a push button. Still very effective though, heats up a lot quicker than the S3 ones!

Made use of the Memory seats function also today, handy when your other half is petit in size, she's set as Number 2, I'm Number 1!

 

[evans1089]

How do you know if your car has the boot feature?

 

[desertstorm]

That's strange about the gearbox I would have thought it would know the engine RPM and be mapped to change at the red line if it's in sports mode.Will it change up if you lift the accelerator slightly as this would reduce the available torque.
Hope your Mrs knows about this as it could be embarrasing / dangerous if attempting an overtake and you end up not accelerating as you should.