Car horsepower…is it just me…

You might not get a broken legs or arm, but you are more likely to suffer internal injuries/head injuries than you were back in the day.

Sauce? Road deaths are not higher than they were 20 years ago, despite the number (and power/speed) of vehicles increasing massively.

had one of my cars remapped and two months later the clutch was shot and it’d done a transfer box

Mate of mine co-founded BriSkoda. You’d be shocked – actually, you probably wouldn’t be – about the number of conversations he’s had with people over the years who’ve had some back-street remap or other done with very similar outcomes. As Solo says, there are remaps and there are remaps.

(As an aside, the same guy’s parents live on a bend on a country back road. They average about one hot-hatch a year on its roof in their front garden, rotating gently to itself.)

Cougar – Moderator

Mate of mine co-founded BriSkoda. You’d be shocked – actually, you probably wouldn’t be – about the number of conversations he’s had with people over the years who’ve had some back-street remap or other done with very similar outcomes

BriSkoda & SeatCupra.net attracted tons of Fabia vRS & Ibiza FR/Cupra fans & there were lots of
“what re-map?” posts, followed 2 weeks later by “what clutch?” posts after the OP had ignored warnings to not go for all out power, but get a good quality map that didn’t just gob all the power out in one go.
People on the Seat site reckoned that Revo maps were prone to wrecking clutches, but not sure how true that was.

I warned the bloke who bought my Ibiza off me that mapping it wouldn’t be a great idea. It was on 274k miles when he bought it, with its original clutch, turbo & injectors. Had a text from him about 3 weeks later saying he’d mapped it to 175bhp & the clutch was slipping in 4th, 5th & 6th. He was still pleased with the car though – had a text from him recently telling me it had sailed through the MOT!! 😆

flange – Member

Oh dear what’s up with the M6, mine’s in for a new fuel pump as I type.

Spun a shell, nipping it up and bending the crank in the process. If you have the V10, I’m (now) informed that you’re not to run it on the 10/40 they tell you to use but use thinner stuff. Also, the new crank and rods use the same part number but are visibly different parts, much more beefy! But obviously there isn’t an inherent problem with the engine and therefore no need for a recall…..bastards!

The bearing issue is well known. I replaced mine as a caution. I don’t think changing to thinner oil is a full answer as the Vanos pump that runs at 1000psi can have issues creating the pressure on thin oil.

Most important thing is not to push the engine until the oil is fully warm and thinned down.

Either you’ve been very lucky or do twelve miles a year.

Funnily enough, the more carefully I drive, the luckier I get. Yeah, I know there are accidents where one party couldn’t do anything about it. Something I recently heard was the suggestion to leave a larger gap in front when a tailgater was behind, so you wouldn’t have to brake so hard. My approach previously has been just to slow down until I judge the speed to be appropriate for the gap they leave. But I agree, if you’re parked up and someone just drives into you, not much you can do about that. Not clear how extra power would help in that scenario.

jimjam – Member
But have you actually checked that they are EXACTLY the same apart from the engine tune?
Perhaps I didn’t make my point as clearly as I may have.

It’s not about detailed component differences, but pricing a product in relation to it’s performance and to the performance of other cars in that range. The OEM in question can’t, imo, justify the price premium for an ‘S model if the TDi can make the same numbers.
So, it’s my belief the OEM has de-tuned the engine in my car, mostly via the ECU, to clearly differentiate between the two models and keep the number of bespoke components required, to a minimum.

Extrapolate that situation and seeing as this is a significant volume car, it would almost certainly make a better business case to use the same base engine of a higher mechanical spec for all those vehicles and then bolt on an additional turbo, use a different map obviously. But you can also de-tune that engine to “enhance” the performance of a more expensive model.
BMW are now using the same base engine and just adding a turbo or two.
While that’s a simplified description, I can’t explain it any more clearly than that, I’m afraid.

Funnily enough, the more carefully I drive, the luckier I get.

If you’ve got any sage advice as to how I can be a safer driver whilst walking across a car park with a week’s shopping I’m all ears.

My approach previously has been just to slow down until I judge the speed to be appropriate for the gap they leave.

See, if you had more power you could do that and then out-accelerate them back up to the speed limit, thus creating a nice large gap behind you. (-:

Not clear how extra power would help in that scenario.

Pretty certain I gave an example of where it would – and did – in the other half of that self same post you’ve just quoted.

Clearly extra power wouldn’t helped me in a collision when my vehicle is unoccupied, but by the same nonsense logic I might as well have all the seat belts and air bags removed as they wouldn’t have helped either.

Honestly.

Can someone teach Solo how to do quotes properly, please? So much writing wasted as I can’t be arsed trying to separate everything.

michaelbowden – Member
Most important thing is not to push the engine until the oil is fully warm
[Threadrift]
I have “activated” the oil temp display in my car for this very reason. Nothing “happens” above 2Krpm in my car until the oil is up to temp.
[/Threadrift]

So, it’s my belief the OEM has de-tuned the engine in my car, mostly via the ECU, to clearly differentiate between the two models and keep the number of bespoke components required, to a minimum.

What is your problem with this?

Even if 90% of the engine is the same, the rest of the drivetrain will be different and the interior.

As many have pointed out, there is more to selling a car than how many BHP it has. The BHP comes at a cost and the car costs more to run. Not everyone wants that.

Cars are cheaper than ever and a lot of this is due to sharing components across dozens of different models.

How many cars on based on a Ford Focus floorpan?

gobuchul – Member
What is your problem with this?

No problem, I was commenting in relation to the OP, that bhps aren’t only going up, but are being manipulated for business reasons.
Not an issue for me, for the reasons you point out, lower insurance, for example.
🙂

Most important thing is not to push the engine until the oil is fully warm
[Threadrift]
I have “activated” the oil temp display in my car for this very reason. Nothing “happens” above 2Krpm in my car until the oil is up to temp.
[/Threadrift]

Is that actually true any more? I remember it being accepted wisdom when I used to get in the car with my grandad but I thought modern synthetic oils / engine design had negated that these days? I’ve a vague recollection of Castrol using it in advertising as justification for selling it at a price point per litre somewhere between HP printer ink and unicorn semen (and of course advertising never lies).

Is that actually true any more? I remember it being accepted wisdom when I used to get in the car with my grandad but I thought modern synthetic oils / engine design had negated that these days?

Yes still true, most effective way to shorten the life of any engine (and particularly the associated turbochargers) is to hammer it from cold. You should also let a turbo car idle for a short period of time before switching it off to give the hot turbos time to spool down fully before its oil supply, supplied via the oil pump is switched off.

Variable service intervals (e.g. 20k mikes or longer) don’t do cars any good either. Oil, even good modern stuff is not ideally suited to performing at its best over that period of time. Suits the manufacturers though as 20k service intervals help them sell ‘low maintainence’ cars to the fleet market, and so long as they get past third 3 year warranty period then they don’t care any more.

before the oil supply, via the pump is switched off.

I thought the pump continued to run after the engine was switched off, until they had cooled?

Cougar – Moderator
Is that actually true any more?

There will be a variation in the performance characteristic of an engine oil, which is temperature related. Couple this to extracting high output figures and I’d suggest it’s best practice to be patient and get the engine oil up to temp. That can be a longer wait for a diesel, obviously, as is the case for me.

In extremis we see this with F1 cars where the vital fluids are brought to within an operation range before starting the engine, which typically there after, the engine will be working quite hard within a minute of starting.

Were I to be running a remapped car, or even a non-remapped car…. I’d be patient and wait for engine oil temp to reach operational range. Also, if the oil temp gets too far north of that range, I would ease up on the right pedal.

Possibly not to be confused with vehicles of the past using older tech oils and with stories about gearbox oils in such cars, needing to reach a temp before allowing ease of use.

I thought the pump continued to run after the engine was switched off, until they had cooled?

That’ll be the aux fan, which continues to run using its own electric motor sometimes after the car is switched off. So long as the engine isn’t running there won’t be any coolant or oil circulating in the engine any more.

Ref turbo cooling and engine oil. I tend to ease off, several miles from the destination, to allow the turbo to cool. On occasion I’ve also raised the bonnet and allowed the car to idle for a few minutes, once I’ve parked.

Ime, once the engine stops the oil which was passing through the turbo main shaft bearings, ceases to flow. The temp of static oil/water will elevate as the metal components are still hot. In the case of the turbo I’m lead to believe this situation can burn the engine oil and leave small fragments of carbonized engine oil in the bearings.
Then at start up these fragments momentarily get dragged round inside the bearing before being flushed from the bearing and circulating through the rest of the engine.
You’re unlikely to totally avoid burnt oil from occurring, but some mechanical sympathy can go a long way, imo.

If you’ve got any sage advice as to how I can be a safer driver whilst walking across a car park with a week’s shopping I’m all ears.

I bet you had been scooting on the trolley earlier 😀

Variable service intervals (e.g. 20k mikes or longer) don’t do cars any good either. Oil, even good modern stuff is not ideally suited to performing at its best over that period of time.

The variable intervals take that into account though. The interval can be a lot shorter than 10k miles as well as a lot longer.

agent007 – I think you are me from 3 years ago. I ended up moving down from the RS4 to the S4 as it was all a bit silly with fuel and very expensive things were starting to break… £900 to replace one of the DRS struts… I didn’t bother with the others 3, just sold it.

That list of power to weight was interesting.

2006 B7 RS4 Avant
242 BHP/ton, 414 BHP

1984 Audi Quattro
240 BHP/ton, 300 BHP

Performance very, very close too.

In ten years from now, there are going to be a lot of 250bhp+ cars on the road that are affordable for teenagers, which they won’t have the experience to handle or restraint not to exploit. I can’t help but wonder if now is the time to have a graded age/power licence similar to that on bikes.

I’ve got a little 135i, and as much as I love it, it’s so quick I feel like a tit if ever I put my foot down with anybody in the vicinity…

In ten years from now, there are going to be a lot of 250bhp+ cars on the road that are affordable for teenagers, which they won’t have the experience to handle or restraint not to exploit.

They might be able to afford the cars. The insurance however….

The variable intervals take that into account though. The interval can be a lot shorter than 10k miles as well as a lot longer.

Well I’m only relaying a message from a very well reputed independent specialist I use who’s seen so, so many problems caused by variable (or longlife as it’s normally known) servicing. Everything from minor stuff like clogged air/particulate filters, blocked oil filters to full engine failures.

Might not be apparent on a car that’s a couple of years old, but I’d never touch a second hand performance car that had been serviced every 2 years or 20,000 miles. An annual oil change is essential in my book and I’d never run the oil in any car past 10k miles. Don’t forget that the engine oil doesn’t just lubricate the engine, it, together with the filter removes some very harmful contaminants and particles from the engine. It also might explain why I’ve never run into an engine problem with any of my second hand performance cars – could be coincidence, but I expect probably not.

Any particular brand?

This is known as “illusory superiority” and is a well-researched phenomenon. Something like 80% of drivers rate themselves as being above average. People also believe themselves to be less biased than others when making that assessment.

Haha; that sounds about right.

I was only jesting anyhow, I said as much two posts later.

I bet you had been scooting on the trolley earlier

I resemble that accusation.

In truth, I stopped doing that after an… incident. I used to do it regularly on the full-sized trolleys. Did it once on one of those half-depth ones; transpires they have a different centre of gravity, who knew?

Car park of Cardiff Tesco Extra maybe twelve years ago, I ran across the car park and jumped up locking my arms out on the handle. The trolley did what I suppose the cool kids call a “manual” these days but I’ve always known as a wheelie, the front end went skywards like a pissed-off bronco and it deposited me horizontally on the floor, splat. I was picking gravel out of various bits of me for days. Never done it since.

To address solos confusing myriad of posts regards manipulation/price fixing or whatever you want to call it.

The cost of the bits to fit boggo turbo on a mid spec engine will be around 15% of the cost of the base engine. You want to reliably increase the power by say, 20% you are into a new turbo, probably running higher speeds/boost pressures, so it’ll need to be better balanced and built with tighter clearance, if you can get away with the same turbo, you’ve struck lucky. But you might need some cooling added (more cost) upgraded injectors (cost) slightly bigger intercooler (no cost but a pain to fit) lots of changed plumbing for greater air intake and exhaust and different harmonics (more part numbers, possibly lower volume, more cost). That 15% becomes 20-25% at least 25% if you need a new, bigger turbo. Probably more.

You want to add 40% to the original engine, you’re into fancy pants injectors (probably 5x the cost of the original ones) water to air intercooler, oil cooler for the engine, upgraded fuel pump then a fancy variable geometry turbo with proper cooling, you’ll also need a new radiator and fan pack, possibly a transmission cooler all the intake and exhaust will need rejigging, aftertreatment stuff will need to be changed. You’ll be looking at just the turbo costing 20-25% of the cost of the engine. (Decent variable geo turbo, even at OEM purchase volumes/costs is the most expensive single part of the engine.)

Get into what VW and others are doing with their high power multi stage charging (biturbo and turbo/super and so on) and the charge system will be well over 50% of the engine cost. And the engine now costs twice what it did when it was producing half the power.

And regarding oil temps, lots of cars (especially high performance derivatives) have oil temp measurement, and will inhibit power if the oil is too hot or cold. According to jimjam, you can switch stuff like this off. 🙄 😉

Audi RS models definatly do not allow high revs with a cold engine.
I was told by a race mechanic to allow 1 min per 1000 rpm to give the oil and moving parts time to heat through properly. So 5 mins before hitting 6000 rpm.
Most turbo intsalls have the feed from the bottom , so the shaft wont be running dry if the engine suddenly stops. Its more that the CHRA can be glowing hot and the oil in the body carbonises and this restricts or stops the oil flow leading to a dead turbo.

Cougar – Moderator
Who knew?

With a mechanical Engineering backround, I’ve always viewed those trolleys as the devil’s work and treated them with a degree of caution.

However, such an experience would hopefully be good prep for the day you get a wheel chair.

While hopefully that day never actually comes to you. I was once promoted to wheel chair pilot, for an afternoon, and there are four middled aged Spanish ladies who probably laugh their sizeable asses off about it, even today!
🙂

@GhostlyMachine.

Apologies if my posts have confused, you.

Just a remap, no hardware, elicits performance from my car, matching a more expensive model. As I’ve already outlined. If the business case supports it, a higher unit cost can and is mitigated by volumes, if you have those volumes. The OEM producing my engine knows full well it can reliably and durably produce a higher output, but decides to “fettle” outputs for commercial reasons.
Personally I’ve no issue with it.

The OEM producing my engine knows full well it can reliably and durably produce a higher output, but decides to “fettle” outputs for commercial reasons.

you’ll have to go and explain to them how they can do that then. Most of the aftermarket maps take all sorts of risks with reliability and durability of the engine. It’s apparently extremely easy to tell exactly what has been switched off once you’ve got the ECU in front of you. Even if the original map has been put back in.

And FWIW there are very very few completely identical engines producing different power outputs in the same platform. Mostly at the very very bottom of the market to get round company car tax breaks by weight/emissions.

Solo

Just a remap, no hardware, elicits performance from my car, matching a more expensive model

This is true of virtually every car with a turbo. In fact a lot of them require much less sophistication than that to get more power.

The OEM producing my engine knows full well it can reliably and durably produce a higher output, but decides to “fettle” outputs for commercial reasons.

So they tune they appropriately so they don’t explode. Right. Got it.

According to jimjam, you can switch stuff like this off.

You were speaking in giant sweeping generalities. I was referring to driver modes like /comfort/sport/race etc. I’m still waiting on your examples 😉

Cars are definitely getting faster and more powerful. As OP says many examples where of “normal” cars with 250+ bhp.

Interesting thread. To answer the OPs question – it probably is getting a bit silly.. However, being a petrol head I can’t say I’m against it. It has meant I’ve been able to get a car (M135i) with mental performance and 5 door hatch practically at a relatively reasonable price point (I can’t afford a fun car AND a normal car so this is a perfect compromise). Only last week I managed 39.5 mpg on a 240 mile round trip. Staggering really to think it’s better on the juice than my old ’04 20v 2.0i Passat that had 130bhp..

Do you really need all the power? Absolutely not. However, one of the main things I enjoy is that due to the incredible amount of performance available the car is so unstressed on the motorway at 70mph (just below 2000rpm in 8th) it’s incredibly relaxing and enjoyable to drive. No buzzing, harsh vibrations, etc etc. Our other car is a Mini Cooper and I think that has about 120bhp – although it is quite powerful for a little car it can be a right pain in the arse on long motorway journeys. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy many other things about the little Beemer as well but it’s not all about red lining it sideways everywhere. Mind you what does piss me right off is the lack of a temp gauge.. It has the functionality you just have to type in a wee code using the odo reset button every time you get in if you want to display it!

Interesting point on the long service intervals. The 135 has just ticked over 10k after a year and isn’t due its first service for the same again.. Maybe a call to the local indie for an interim oil service is due.

Interestingly enough (for a loser like me anyway) the cars I generally see getting howked al owa, tailgating people, cutting people up are in 90% of cases 4 banger 2 litre oil burners in the rep brigade (320d, A4 2.0tdi etc etc). Most of the other 10% are mentalists in vans, and that’s what worries me the most… A heavy van with generally shite dynamic ability getting hoofed along at 90mph.. Dodgy. As. ****.

Not sure if this has been covered…..

Speed limits on thr motorway could be like on the autobahn as I genuinely believe our motorways are to a better standard.

but it is, IMO, total Stierscheiße…. What sections of UK motorway are you using?

In the last week I’ve driven from Munich, across Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France, and then from Dover up to Bamburgh castle…

In no way whatsoever are UK roads in a better state than in any of the countries that I drove through (although bits of Belgium motorways and the driving are on a par with the UK).

UK roads are massively overcrowded. The A1(M) is a joke… Cannot believe that you have T-junctions or crossroads,no hard shoulder, crappy sliproads and at times footpaths on one of Britain’s most heavily used roads….!

The roads around Leeds were packed when I drove through on Friday. Add to that lots of cars struggling up the hills with lorries bearing down on them.

That said, I find it kind of ironic when you see Porsches, big M-BMWs and those Audis with the flip up spoiler cruising along at 70ish on UK roads. Totally make sense in Germany where you can derestrict the engines and get from Berlin to Munich in 3,5 hours….seems a bit daft in the M62.

Plus big motors with loads of power are not going to be as much fun going over the moors or through the forest as an MX5, Caterham or hot hatch.

The 135 has just ticked over 10k after a year and isn’t due its first service for the same again.. Maybe a call to the local indie for an interim oil service is due.

Yep good idea, no need to even tell BMW 🙂

WTF? Why would i give you examples when we are talking about two entirely different groups of things?

I’m lost a bit. VW not that long back did a 2.0 diesel with at least two power outputs 140bhp and 170bhp. I always thought it was the same engine and same turbo, just with the boost pressure turned up a bit?

At the start of the year we bought a Fiesta 1.0 ecoboost 100bhp. I was gutted when I found out it was a different turbo to the more powerful 125bhp model, I had thought about getting a remap done, but should have researched it first. However as I understand it the 125bhp engine is the same as the 140bhp engine

Funkydunk has the pipe recall been done?

What’s wrong with the power? I had a hire one- loved it. 🙂

WTF? Why would i give you examples when we are talking about two entirely different groups of things?

I meant examples of two cars from the same model range and one that has +150bhp but only a 75bhp gain.

FunkyDunc

I’m lost a bit. VW not that long back did a 2.0 diesel with at least two power outputs 140bhp and 170bhp. I always thought it was the same engine and same turbo, just with the boost pressure turned up a bit?

Perfect example. Yes, both cars have the same 2.0 diesel engine but they do not have the same injectors, intercooler, turbo (and associated plumbing). If you drill down into the costs of upgrading all the parts to the high spec (more powerful car) and remapping it you are into thousands.