189 kw from a wee chip

[Pullstarter]

Thats the ABT Tiguan, another German tuning company.

Austrian actually, but I'm just being pedantic

The APR chips are actually vehicle specific and dyno tested (at length) in those specific vehicles. None of the other big chip tuners such as Oettinger, GIAC, C2 etc dyno tune every car they chip either. If you're working on an identical car with no mods why would it be any different? I don't quite understand what you're getting at. If you're talking about cars that have other significant mods then yes I would take it upon myself to get it dyno tuned and I think most enthusiast owners would understand that. However, I would say the vast majority of APR customers would not have significant mods on their cars, chiping seems to be the first port of call these days.

[Sharkie]

Every car is unique and no 2 cars will ever return exactly identical power figures, even if identical from the factory. Car manufacturers of mass produced cars produce a generic model specific ECU tune that on average will work well with a specific model and applies to all.

The "mass" tuners work to the same principle.They produce tunes that are generic and on average will produce the same results. A figure such as this 189kw is the average of a number of cars doing many dyno runs. Minor mods such as CAI and FMIC's are handled quite well by the ECU and it can adjust and "learn" to some extent.

Mods such as exhaust, cams, bigger turbos etc will require a retune and APR for instance does one with the exhuast on the GTI. This is still a generic tune and not 100% optimised for each individual car.

You can therefore by some really custom tuning improve on it still. This is however really expensive and requires many many many hours on the dyno. I ran a Haltech on my Mk1 turbo and spent days calibrating it on the dyno at a huge expense. It was great but we only really did Air Fuel and Boost. Not a lot of electronics on a 1800 16V ......

Modern VW (and other) engines has so many parameters to set that I doubt you'd ever get it 100%. For the price advantage, ease and speed of doing it, even though its not totally optimised, I'd go for some thing like the APR chip everyday with the mods I've got planned.

If however, I wanted to go extreme and do cams, big turbo etc I'd go custom tune.

[Paragon]

Thanks for the info. It just seems tho (to me who is very new to VW tuning) that there is a fair difference between a tune for a 190kw car and a 220kw car in terms of fuel maps / timing / boost to get that extra 30kw safely.

The amount of extra fuel to gain that extra 30kw cant be the same amount of fuel to make 190kw, otherwise running that same tune on a car producing only 190kw would be rather rich or the 220kw car running lean.

I will most likely go with the APR product anyway but will also be doing before and after dyno runs to check my air:fuel anyway for peace of mind, I'm just not completely sold on this one tune for all idea, might have to ask the APR boys some questions.

Unless I am not understanding the APR product properly and they would provide a chip with a different tune for those with extra intake/exhaust mods?

[Paragon]

Oops, re-read ur post Sharkie and makes more sense that APR is providing that "Generic" tune for all the cars within one standard deviation of normal. Like I said, just not what I am used to.

Just as a comparison, on previous cars, fully programmable aftermarket ECU approx $1400, 4 hour dyno tune $700. Most standard ECUs can handle CAI, FMIC, exhaust and some extra boost just fine.

I wonder on a Tig whether $2000 worth of bolt on mods run on the stock ECU would get better results than stock everything + $2000 APR chip? Who wants to give it a go

[philthy]

Oops, re-read ur post Sharkie and makes more sense that APR is providing that "Generic" tune for all the cars within one standard deviation of normal. Like I said, just not what I am used to.

Just as a comparison, on previous cars, fully programmable aftermarket ECU approx $1400, 4 hour dyno tune $700. Most standard ECUs can handle CAI, FMIC, exhaust and some extra boost just fine.

I wonder on a Tig whether $2000 worth of bolt on mods run on the stock ECU would get better results than stock everything + $2000 APR chip? Who wants to give it a go

The APR chip is just new software for the standard ECU, has no physical components. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the ECU controls the timing & boost, so bolts ons like exhaust, intake, intercooler etc by themself would have a lot less effect than winding up the boost by 50-100% and playing with the timing?

[Guy_H]

We already have exhaust specific software for the tiguan - and guess what!

Also have software for the upcoming stage 3 as well

To the best of my knowledge, no stand alone computers can currently handle the complexity of turbo & FSI technology

[Guy_H]

I wonder on a Tig whether $2000 worth of bolt on mods run on the stock ECU would get better results than stock everything + $2000 APR chip? Who wants to give it a go

I will have some of that action please

[Paragon]

I will have some of that action please

nah I like the idea of just changing the tune to increase power / response without having to drive a car around with a larger exhaust making a whole heap of noise.. must be old age setting in. But the question is just out of curiosity on a technical level.

[Sharkie]

We already have exhaust specific software for the tiguan - and guess what!

Also have software for the upcoming stage 3 as well

Mmm, more info on this please Guy ...... (I'll try and stop by tomorrow to have a chat anyway.)

[qsilverza]

I highly doubt it Boost is making the power and some timing+ a host of other stuff.

No doubt a bigger exhaust will work but you have to have the flow to make use of it.

Think of it as a chain of people, one person can carry 20 KG's while a strong athelete can carry 40 KG's, if they were in a chain, the load would be restricted to 20 KG's even though other people in the chain could handle 40 KG's.

Ciao

[Paragon]

I highly doubt it Boost is making the power and some timing+ a host of other stuff.

No doubt a bigger exhaust will work but you have to have the flow to make use of it.

Think of it as a chain of people, one person can carry 20 KG's while a strong athelete can carry 40 KG's, if they were in a chain, the load would be restricted to 20 KG's even though other people in the chain could handle 40 KG's.

Ciao

Thats what I meant, it would be pointless to put on an exhaust if the fuel maps were made for a car running a standard exhaust as it doesnt account for the extra possible flow.

But anyways, Guy has answered my question in that they do have a specific tune anyway for cars running exhaust mods compared to just stock cars.

[Paragon]

On another note, can the APR chip be done straight away or should you put some k's on the engine first? Any recommended driving styles for the initial run in period you can suggest Guy? Lots of opinions on this from babying the car for a few thousands k's to thrashing the hell out of it right away to bed in and create a better seal with the pistons?

[Sharkie]

On the GTI I had the APR chip done at about 150km. It was a real pain then to keep the revs down until I could get it to 1000km .....

After which I started using that power .... .... a lot .....

On the Tig (and the R20T) I plan on doing the 1st 1000km unchipped purely to restrict the temptation to use all that glorious extra power ...... You have to remember that its more than just the engine that needs to be run in .....

[Guy_H]

Hi Paragon,

no mileage really required - we do a lot of cars with very little mileage on them. As with all these modern engines (and synthetic oils) a "harder" run in is better for long term oil / fuel consumption.

Just follow manufacturers guidlines & you will be fine.

On the tuning / calibration side of things - these FSI cars are something else. EGT control is critical, and one car I witnessed calibration on (by the APR Calibrator) had over 70 dyno pulls & 45 road pulls to get the calibration to where it was acceptable - total was about 8 days spent on it - so getting a one off tune to that standard would be pretty tough!

[Paragon]

Did you guys ever come to any conclusions re the difference in hardware on the 125tsi and 147tsi Tiggys?