I had my TD5 Defender 90 remapped. It upped the horsepower to 150hp ish from 122hp but made it so much more driveable. Fuel wise it was around the same. 26 to 30mpg. So no improvement!

Air filter…. I had an bad experience with one of these. The oiled filter deposited the oil (from the filter – strange that!) onto the MAF sensor over a period of time. Luckily I figured it out quite quickly, cleaned the MAF sensor and put the OEM filter back in.

A proper service – oil, plugs, filters and HT leads – will make restore lost power. Take a look at your driving style as mpg improvements can be made with some very simple / easy changes. Google will help you find advice.

“I had my TD5 Defender 90 remapped. It upped the horsepower to 150hp ish from 122hp but made it so much more driveable. Fuel wise it was around the same. 26 to 30mpg. So no improvement! “

that map removes the huge dead spot the 5 pots prone to though.

you can do some amazing things with those engines for what they are. far better than the puma transit engine thats replaced it.

I could write you a short book on this subject (a real interest of mine,I’ve mapped a few engines including my own from scratch) but I will simply say for a 1.6 petrol n/a you won’t notice a difference in power or economy worth that price. save your cash. there is plenty that can be achieved but it is almost impossible for an end user to discern the difference in economy or power without falling foul of complicating factors like the placebo effect.

And just to be pedantic, a service won’t give you any gains, it just cuts a few losses.

You can marginally improve some modern engines breathing and efficiency, but not while keeping legal items like cats, or original filtration. Some cars are crippled purposefully, but returning them to their full capacity won’t be easy or cheap generally if they are n/a. plenty of folk will tell you their mods help airflow etc but very few IME have fluid dynamics knowledge and understanding of the resonant tuning used by OEMs.

Yes air filters help, as part of the Stage 1’s on the SMART’s the air filters were changed and also a larger hole cut into the filter housing allowing more air down the pipe..

How does that work? Quicker acceleration = more fuel for a shorter time = the same as less fuel for longer.

Like I said, thats what some tuners try and feed you. I’m not sure how it works either. Which is why I fettle push bikes and not car engines…

Worth it is complicated… I got my 2.2 diesel done, after a couple of minor tuning mods, and the end result was just under 30bhp. Now personally I’m not that bothered about that, you just get used to power in no time anyway unless it’s bonkers, I was taking it for granted in no time. But drivability improved a lot, it’s a much nicer engine now for just everyday driving about, pulls cleaner from low down and has nicer response all over.

Economy, mmm. Theoretical economy improved, my test drives showed that fairly well, but real world economy is still controlled by the foot not the ECU so it’s ended up being more or less the same. But if I was driving for economy, it’d be more economic 😉

Personally, I like driving and I like driving nice feeling cars more than lumpen feeling cars so even if it hadn’t unleashed a single horsie I’d still probably be happy. But it’s hard to put a value on intangibles like “it feels nice”

It can be counterproductive too… I had my bike in for a dyno run to check my DIY jetting, and another rider was in with a modified GSXR. He was raising hell- “You’ve taken away all the top end, it’s miles slower”. When they compared the dyno curves, actually they’d added a few bhp on top, but mostly what they’d done was remove a massive flat spot in the midrange.

Unfortunately, what the owner liked was the huge pick-up you got when driving out of the flatspot into the peak power, so by removing the flatspot, they removed the contrast and even though it was stronger everywhere, it no longer felt strong.

But it’s hard to put a value on intangibles like “it feels nice”

It sounds like you are experiencing increased torque at lower revs, tbh.

molgrips – Member

It sounds like you are experiencing increased torque at lower revs, tbh.

Oh yeah, that’s most of the change- the engine’s tuned soft at the bottom end, to make it easier for dobbers to drive it without wheelspin, and according to Internet Facts there’s emissions restrictions too… the remap removed all of that. But it’s also generally more responsive and direct, which is what translates into “feeling nice” when bombing around.

TBH it’s similiar to my motorbike, mostly it’s not really tuning, it’s un-de-tuning.

Am I missing something? How will increasing the power by 10bhp lower the MPG? Surely it’d make it less fuel efficient or is the remap about making the engine more efficient and the increase in power is a side effect?

Err…. a lower mpg *is* less fuel efficient. You travel fewer miles per gallon of fuel.

I got my 2.2 diesel done, after a couple of minor tuning mods, and the end result was just under 30bhp

Was that a Honda by any chance? I think the blurb I read for my 2.2 diesel Honda was +20bhp but torque was where the real gains were made (unsurprisingly). I think they claimed the same as a Ferrari 360.

honda use an isuzu engine no ?

they can go from 115-150 with a remap alone iirc – they tuned them down for lower in the range models rather than changing engine.

Remapping can make a huge difference to the driveability/performance of the car, here a dyno chart for my Sabb 9-5. This is the before and after the ecu was remapped.

Injectors have a fine spray pattern that tends to be lost over time as they clog up which prevents the fuel being combusted as efficiantly which looses you power and ups your emissions. When the Top Gear Renault Espace was serviced and got back it’s power to factory levels, they replaced the injectors. Replacing them is expensive, so the next best thing is to give them a clean. There are different schools of though on cleaning them and some people take the injectors out and put them in sonic baths, but I’ve just used injector cleaner from time to time. The high street brands don’t seem to do a lot, but I have found the Forte stuff to be very good after my mechanic suggested it. (try an ebay search for Forte injector cleaner or Forte gas treatment for their lighter stuff). I have an 16 yr old golf that gets it once a year and it runs perfectly and an A4 2.0 TFSI (the same engine as the Golf GTI) which was a little rough pulling at 1500 rpm when I first got it and after the cleaner, it was perfect. Also a mate at work with a little looked after 1.6 Focus gave it a try and found that as well as making the engine smoother, he now gets an extra 40 miles from a tank.
And no, I don’t work for them, I’m just impressed with the results.

they can go from 115-150 with a remap alone iirc

Factory power for mine ( ’05 2.2 ) was 150. The Honda forums talk about it going up to 190 in some cases.

See if this works as the picture above didn’t.

Dyno chart

anything turbo is worth a remap

anything na keep the money in your pockeet

samuri – what milage did those engines go to ?

my mate did something similar with a skoda fabia VRS bought new and all done via the skoda dealer to about 190 bhp.

14 months later … new turbo please ….

managed to get it on warrenty though as the dealer did all the mods- went back to original power as he said it became pretty undrivable with all the torque meaning quick take offs would result in lunching of the front tires.

The remap is only as good as the mapper, and the condition of the engine.

Stay away from the cheap “£150 cash and you’ll get 1 million hp gain”.

Perhaps cleaning your injectors would help first?

This person gained about 8hp…

http://www.ttforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=279709&start=15

looks like placebo effect at its finest.

i see no dyno data there only “i reckon i got about 8-10 bhp” …. i washed my car last week , i think i got about 4bhp from that.

He has the LiquidTT gauge, which reads (and logs) data from the ECU.

It’s not all guess work 😉

the gauge can only make an edducated guess nothing more its a good comparison, however gaining 8bhp from a turbo engine could have been done with a 2 deg drop in AIT far to many variables to measure such a small gain

Trail-rat, I’m surprised that a Skoda dealer approved a map that brutal on a vrs engine. It’s generally accepted that 170-180 is as high as you should go with that engine before going to new components, and even 180 remaps often ruin the clutch fairly quickly.
The Ibiza Cupra will go to just over 200bhp as it has bigger injectors, turbo & larger front mounted intercooler. I’ve got the Ibiza Sport, same engine as the vrs and considered doing this for ages. Decided not to in the end as didn’t want the increased insurance & tyre costs as well as being sceptical about the longevity of the engine after the change.

I think some Seat dealers were offering a gentle Revo map on the 130 1.9 that didn’t invalidate the warranty. I think that only took it to 155bhp.

I should have stumped up the extra for the Cupra when I bought the thing!

stumpy – said dealers no longer a skoda dealer nor is he in business anymore.

this was back when no data points were availible for it as the model had just been released.

My mate just read about it on the net and said – i want that done and they did it.

was alot of arguements afterwards about who was liable.

Yikes! That’s quite a risk! I got mine on 06 (03 plate) and tuning them was fairly well established. I think Jabba, p-torque & custom code were the ones always mentioned on seatcupra.net
Apparently the Revo ones were quite on/off and generally ruined clutches.

I came very close a few times to joining a group buy on the seatcupra forum, but always decided I didn’t wanna take the risk & expense.

Looked at Cupras recently but next car will be an estate…

Honda had a spate of issues years ago with the Civic diesels. They could be so easily chipped to increase touqe (yes the Ferrari claim is sound) that the gearboxes were shredding. People would change the ECU’s abck over for a warranty replacement and it was costing ££££ – the ECU was then locked out in newer models.

samuri – Member

Was that a Honda by any chance? I think the blurb I read for my 2.2 diesel Honda was +20bhp

Mondeo 155 in my case.

Don’t see the pic of dyno chart above. Might be blocked so will try at home.

I wouldn’t believe any website that puts example dyno charts up that aren’t an obvious straight printout of the machine. Very easy to spot a fake though. And I’ve seen fakes. Or at least ones that redefine the definition of HP for commercial gain.

andytherocketeer – Member
Don’t see the pic of dyno chart above. Might be blocked so will try at home.

I wouldn’t believe any website that puts example dyno charts up that aren’t an obvious straight printout of the machine. Very easy to spot a fake though. And I’ve seen fakes. Or at least ones that redefine the definition of HP for commercial gain.

I was trying (badly) to link to a screen shot jpg for my actual car. I’ll also try again at home when not hindered by a work firewall.

ah yeah. it trys to link to an html not jpg file.
edit: oh missed the other link, but that’s a microscopic jpg.

Here you go.

This isn’t the actuall dyno graph I can’t find it. This is from a peice of software call T7 Suite used for mapping Saab’s own Trionic engine management system. This is the projected standard and new power curves with the modified map loaded in my car.

The software has been developed from Saabs own developement software I believe and the projections a remarkably accurate from the acutal dyno runs I’ve seen.

There is quite a big Saab tuning scene here and in Europe, I’d need to start with hardware mods to go on beyond here. But the bottom end is good for over 500BHP and the are serveral cars her in the UK runnning this sort of power very reliably. One car I know was running 546 BHP and close to 600Nm for over 50000 miles before it suffered a block failure – the block had 187000 miles on it at the time.

i have had a mk3 astra with a b205 in it and i used to map it with t5 suit awesome how cheap and what can be done with them.

sbd16v – Member

i have had a mk3 astra with a b205 in it and i used to map it with t5 suit awesome how cheap and what can be done with them.

There’s quite a lot of people fitting that engine or its bigger brother into Astra’s

tbh i bought it done cheap, but it developed an oil problem (i expect due to lack of service by previous owner) and i killed it after a few months, that was when i decided that i sold my other astra(450+bhp one) because i had had, enought of cars so just broke it and got more into mtbing instead lol

legend – Member

I’d put that £150 on a bet saying the remap doesn’t get you 10hp

This man speaks sense.