Last week I went to AMD for the 5th time, I had to go back once again as my 4th visit was meant to be for them to put the original 1st map as seen in the Dyno in the 1st post, but to take the fuelling down between 1000-2000 RPM as on part throttle it was a bit to smoky and for the majority of my town driving you really do not need any more torque than standard in that rev range.
Unfortunately when I left I did not look at the new Dyno graph as I thought it was the same as before, big error. They had remapped it again, this time peak power was 179.5 BHP, a lovely increase from my so called standard 165 BHP and my god it felt sluggish.
So back again for the 5th time, with plenty of apologies from AMD, they took the car back in, but said they do not store maps and settings, so would need to remap the car once again. Shaun (owner/director) is mostly responsible for the remapping so he took charge of the car. Another few hours and he said it was completed and much better, he did not give me a Dyno graph but said it was putting out approx 195 BHP. So I took it for a spin, it was lovely and exactly how I expected between 1000-2000 and pulled nicely through the upper rev range but nowhere felt as strong as the first map and it still tailed off in power past 4000 RPM far too much for my liking. Compared to my old PD150 Bora the two engines are like chalk and cheese, the PD150 unit remapped pulled like a real steam train with no real let of in power till deep into 4300 RPM. Out of interest I timed the 0-100 MPH in the Audi post remap, it took 20.6 seconds, the Bora remapped to 185 BHP and 315 LBFT could routinely do it in 17.6-17.9 that is a massive difference! Ok so the cars gearboxes, weight, drag etc all play a part but still, huge difference!
So Im a bit perplexed about their Stage 2 advertising, they say with a full turbo back exhaust they can hold torque longer in the rev range which means you should get more power at the top end of the rev range, but this is not the case. Honestly if I took the exhaust off it would not make any difference if you ask me. I have always said to friends that only ever get a full turbo back exhaust if you are going Hybrid turbo as it really does nothing on a diesel and I stick by that now. Wish I had saved myself some pennies.
To conclude, I suppose I started out with a slow but economical car and I tried to make it faster to suit my needs, but following what I would class as a not 100% successful remap, Im not exactly overwhelmed by the whole experience, even my partner moans that it is not very fast and not that enjoyable to drive but coming from a 335 BHP 2005 Volvo T5 I suppose it was never going to be.
Maybe it is just this car, maybe I'm just not in love with it as I thought I would be, so 4 months down the line, I have decided to put it up for sale come Jan 2010 and buy myself a petrol car, I dont do the miles now (change of job) so fuel costs are not an issue. Would be interested in a Audi A3 3.2 DSG if anyone is open to a swap
I also test drove a Megane R26 F1 and a Golf GTI edition 30 the other day, both blew me away, amazing cars.