How I got stage 1 power (245hp) on stock software for £20

[Flexiblemouse]

Well I didnt pay 10k for my car, in fact I paid less than half that!. I was looking for an 8L S3, had liked them for years, then out of the blue an 8P 2.0 TFSI appeared for sale less than 2 miles away. The previous owner didnt give it a lot of love and the garage thought it had serious problems. Turns out it needed a new diverter valve, the N75 valve was leaking badly and the thermostat was stuck open, apart from that it was great. I knew that with a couple of mods it would be faster than the old S3, with more potential for more later, and the 8P was 3 years newer than the 8L's I had been looking at. My budget is tiny compared to most of you guys so 300 is a lot of money, and the cost to benefit doesnt make sense to me. In fact you could say I am stubborn and I wont get remapped until I have found the limits of the stock software and can get no further.

 

[S3Alex]

Problem with most forums is they are "sponsored" by Revo etc and therefore if anyone releases a guide of how to get power without a remap, either the thread gets binned and the guy gets banned or thousands of "insert tuning company here" fans get involved....

I am glad it is working for you flexiblemouse

Personally I would have a company remap my car. Why? Liability. If they mess up it is their fault. That simple. Buy a £10k car what is £300 for a remap ?

I think that in fairness,Revo have been the least culpable in that respect,and without opening the "tuning war" can o'worms,we all know who carries the biggest "chip" on the shoulder for that.

This forum,and VAGOC tend to resist the pressures from outside,and let most threads take their course,and the admins and mods ought also to be thanked for that.

 

[S3Alex]

..... My budget is tiny compared to most of you guys so 300 is a lot of money, and the cost to benefit doesnt make sense to me. In fact you could say I am stubborn and I wont get remapped until I have found the limits of the stock software and can get no further.

I understand what you're saying,and appreciate that not all of us are made of money.

My only warning or advice to you,would be not to find the limits of the car's hardware,whilst exploring the limits of the software,but it's not for me to say that you shouldn't do otherwise.

I wouldn't take this route,and hadn't even in the past,when engine software and technology was much simpler,but I am fortunate in being able to afford not to.

 

[Gazwould]

What would a remap cost for this car ?

 

[hollows wife]

20 years ago this is how you could get serious power from the old rs turbo 1.6 cvh engine's that and a 21 psi actuator from a sierra cosworth . i imported a 1.9 block from america and bolted the 1.6 cvh head on it .that went past the needle on the clock to its max limit , use to melt the ends off platinum spark plugs , turbo use to glow orange/white after a good thrashing ,but it never melted a piston , just had to turn the fuel up slightly on the metering head to run it rich .

these days the ecu should in theory compensate automatically for this due to the maf etc .

 

[S3Alex]

What would a remap cost for this car ?

Anywhere from £300 up to around £500,which usually includes testing before,and then software loading,RR and road testing.

 

[S3Alex]

20 years ago this is how you could get serious power from the old rs turbo 1.6 cvh engine's that and a 21 psi actuator from a sierra cosworth . i imported a 1.9 block from america and bolted the 1.6 cvh head on it .that went past the needle on the clock to its max limit , use to melt the ends off platinum spark plugs , turbo use to glow orange/white after a good thrashing ,but it never melted a piston , just had to turn the fuel up slightly on the metering head to run it rich .

these days the ecu should in theory compensate automatically for this due to the maf etc .

That technique didn't work on Cosworth engines though,and was the cause of many a wrecked engine.

I appreciate that you were fortunate enough not to hole a piston,but if you were melting the ends off your plugs,your cylinder temps were way too high.

The Cosworths needed a lot more attention to detail,and a more comprehensive approach if you wanted any sort of reliability,and building a 450+bhp engine was a serious investment...

 

[Gazwould]

Anywhere from £300 up to around £500,which usually includes testing before,and then software loading,RR and road testing.

What about a generic map with just before and after road driven logs ?

 

[S3Alex]

What about a generic map with just before and after road driven logs ?

Without diverting this thread from it's original course,what I'd say is that most reputable tuners will do the whole package including health check and setup.

The simplest plug and play map with loader is the Bluefin at around £350,but you could probably find offers from the major companies such as Shark,Revo,AMD and APR for not much more.

 

[Boon]

Still fail to see how a simple diode makes this possible... A diode is an electronic one way valve that obviously lets voltage & current flow one way and not the other. Can't see how it limits a voltage, if you put too much voltage or current through a diode it will overheat and burn out

Please correct me if I'm wrong and explain if you would... (I'm not interested in doing it, just want to get the facts right & learn something)

 

[Flexiblemouse]

A zener diode lets the MAP operate as normal until a certain point, then the excess voltage flows back to ground. So for example, if your car goes into limp mode at say 15psi, the MAP is seeing a voltage that corresponds to that 15psi, lets say 4.9v for arguments sake. So whenever the ECU sees 4.9v it triggers limp mode. With the zener diode you can cap the voltage at 4.8v so everything operates as normal until that point, then the voltage stays at 4.8v no matter how much higher the boost goes. So the diode lets you run as much boost as you like without ever hitting limp mode.

 

[Boon]

Ok so as I'm reading that it is NOT a simple diode infact not a diode at all... It to me sounds like a transistor, this WILL cap a voltage or regulate it

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong

A diode will give you all or nothing, no regulation

Don't know where 'Zener' comes it to it, the makers name perhaps

As said I'm trying to get my head around how this works and let people know the correct components if they so wish to try it. I can see how a transistor will cap the voltage as you explained to fool the ecu

 

[Flexiblemouse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zener_diode

 

[hollows wife]

yep but it was loads of fun lots of power light weight cars ,no abs ,no power steering . felt like a car not a machine

 

[hollows wife]

a diode can work , it caps the peak voltage , i.e if the n75 max voltage is 5v at which point it cuts boost then a 4.6 v zener diode doesn't allow the 5v to be reached . therefore more boost is obtainable as the threshold for boost shut off cannot be acheived

 

[Nuttro]

Be interesting to know what the internal temperatures are, my guess it's gonna run so hot you'll be melting the pistons before you know it. There's a reason people remap instead of just spending 20 quid unfortunately. You've gotta adjust the fueling and timing too, it's not all about just increasing the boost.

I have to agree with this. Turning up boost with a manual device and not having the fuelling/timing corrected is a bad move. Also you've lost the ECU's ability to pull boost should a problem occur. Personally I'd say get it remapped and leave the MBCs to the Ford and Jap boys!

 

[Flexiblemouse]

I have to agree with this. Turning up boost with a manual device and not having the fuelling/timing corrected is a bad move. Also you've lost the ECU's ability to pull boost should a problem occur. Personally I'd say get it remapped and leave the MBCs to the Ford and Jap boys!

All I can tell you for sure is that my setup has been way over stock boost for 9 months or so, and so far I have not encountered any serious problems at all. I have read lots of threads where people have been remapped and had problems immediately, some even left without the use of the car for days. I checked the spark plugs 2 weeks ago, I was going to replace them as a matter of course but when I saw they looked perfect, I put them back in. The ECU does pull timing to protect the engine, I have seen it for myself in my logs (when intake temps are high), and as I have said before the ECU will cut the fuel when getting too close to the limits of the hpfp. As I said yesterday, I have found that the engineering is much more robust than a lot of people seem to think, our engines are in fact not made of snot and bog roll.

 

[hollows wife]

i do agree a remap is a more desirable option and the safest to a point (could get a bad map which in effect could cause detonation amongst other things) as cars have evolved so has the software than controls them and it will just keep on getting more complex . but its not my car so if the guy wants to use a boost controller then fine its his car and his choice ,if in the future it does cause meltdown then there is only one person to blame and that would be the OP .