Bluefin Superchip Tunes for Polo GTi

[Guy_H]

Bassik,

The way you word your comment seems to be a little off the way I think about it after having talked to a few tuners.

For me there are 2 key aspects of tuning a turbocharged engine, timing and boost. If you add more timing, you get more power. if you add more boost, you add more power.

Both of these in theory put more stress on components, then again, so does driving a car hard at all. The imposible question is how much is too much? Your modern engine (and even mine, derived from the 1.8T from the 90's) has many components to ensure that all is running well. We have temp sensors, boost sensors, exhuast gas sensors, etc, etc, etc. These all help the engine management stay in a safe zone, free from knock and leaning out.

Whilst an 'aggressive' tune runs a higher risk of causing damage, if the car is well maintained and the tune written correctly, then the real world risk is components life is reduced. For example, the turbo on a stock car might see 150k kms and on a tuned car, may only see 120k kms. Very basic and inaccurate example only.

I don't know the specifics of the 1.4 twincharge, but the reason I'd be wary of an aggressive tune on your car is due to the high number of issues encountered with oil, piston seals, etc. For my car, the biggest issue with an aggressive tune seems to be increased heat pushing the turbo-exhaust manfiold bolts out.

Tuners are not looking to make a tune that will damage a car, although its not impossible. The question is, are the parts up to the added power, boost, temps, torque, etc.

Mostly correct. On the twinchargers (and a lot of the newer emission vehicle's), leaner tunes & different oil classifications (as well as new fuels and a few other factors) have a great bearing on component life. We are seeing engine life shortened because the factory runs things a lot leaner, the new range of oils that are thinner (don't resist washdown as well) are all coming into play. In respect to twincharger software, on the MK5, there were at least 17 revisions from Volkswagen (on the engine calibration) for the same engine code, the MK6 had 12 when I checked a year ago. There are at least 5 for the CAVE as seen in the Polo, so VW is still trying to find a balance. Personally we (APR) run them richer than VW and have way less knock & detonation. In theory this should extend the life, even when driven hard (on the correct fuel of course!).

On the Polo 9N's I think you will find that EGT's are only a small contributing factor to the turbo bolt problem. The Audi A3's & Golf 4 GTI's which run the same turbo / manifold setup (and get tuned a lot) rarely have this problem. The engine mount configuration, subframe movement etc, all contribute to the the downpipe & flex pulling directly on the turbocharger (under acceleration & deceleration), stressing that joint more than it was designed for.

[Guy_H]

I think you need to talk to the tuners and make up your own mind. Don't get yourself confused between pushing the engine to the limit and a simple tune to tidy up the factory tune. For example if you look at veizu they offer a street tune (for better use of the term) and a track/race tune which in itself is still not on the limit but close still keeping it safe. Manufacturers are inherently very conservative in tuning, hence the amount of fuel most vw spit out on takeoff. And not all tunes are about power, but drivability. You don't have to raise the power or torque, juts place it where it's used most.

Do you know the specifics of the difference between track/race tune vs Street tune? Generally a "race" tune would be more conservative to keep temps in check when you can hit WOT for continually amounts of time lap after lap - where you couldn't on the street.

[Greg Roles]

Appreciate your input Guy, and yep, I am the first to say I don't know everything. I edited my post as on reflection it seemed too harsh on one brand, and it's not my place to comment on other peoples businesses like that. Plus I also realise I am nobody in the tuning world really, and it's egotistical to consider myself a tuner anyhow - I'm just customer service - load and upload - like a lot of "tuners" though when you think about it.

I often seem to regret trying to be honest, character flaw, and pulled my info I got from Audi as well as it's just not worth the debate. There is always so much more going on than can be posted, and this is certainly one of those cases. Foot in mouth, I am learning.

Viezu only use the Kess and K-Tag to load and upload tune files as slave devices, they don't use the basic Alientech tuning options you suggest above. Viezu UK have a ton of programmers too, and with every tune individually written from a read file, they actually have a huge staff, at no stage are these tunes just clones coming off a hard drive. I don't recall saying APR wasn't at the pointy end of things technology wise, in fact I have never had a problem with APR product directly. I actually think you have a textbook perfect business, and accept part of my defensiveness is sheer jealousy, but so too I do have different ideas on some things.

But thanks for making the "smoke and mirrors" of the tuning industry a little bit more exposed, that never hurts. We need Parso to jump in here.....

[gavs]

I'm just goint to jump in here and say thank you to Greg and Guy.

You guys have kept this as a very productive and explainatory thread, unlike so many when it comes to questions about tuning.

Now, before ANYONE else feels the need to start weighing in, don't. Unless you are a tuner that has further info to add to the discussion, I very strongly recommend you say nothing

[JonP01]

I'm thinking about getting it only coz its rather cheap and I love the fact you can revert back whenever. Question is that if I want to take the car into a VW service centre and revert back to stock tune will VW know that I had a tune previously?

At the risk of incurring the moderator's wrath (since I am not a tuner), I don't know the Bluefin is necessarily cheap. It would be interesting to know what you will be quoted. I was enquiring about a Bluefin for my standard Polo a couple of weeks back and was quoted $999 which of course includes the Bluefin unit. I was close to going ahead but after long thought have held back for the time being because I am a bit concerned about possible changes to emissions and I am definitely most worried about my warranty (not because of the tune itself but because I don't want to have to go to war with VAG to prove the tune didn't cause anything to break. Winning a case is moot if you have to endure a prolonged and stressful battle to secure a "win".

I don't know if you have corresponded with the Superchips / Bluefin Australian / NZ agent (Peter James) but I have found him very responsive and he seems to have a very good knowledge of both the technical and legal aspects of tunes. Like you I was very attracted to Bluefin and because it is a relatively mild tune and strikes me as merely achieving the performance the engine would have had ex-factory if I told VW I was always going to use good quality 98 octane and to get the car serviced according to the schedule.

From what I understand though, APR are the only company thus far who state they can return an ECU to stock configuration such that your vehicle won't score a TD1 on the VAG database. To me this confers a major advantage over all other tuners, though I am not sure I like the pricing structure for such peace of mind (from what I understand you have to pay up to $300 extra for three years back-to-stock and back-to-APR retuning, whereas many people may take their cars to independent specialists and in such cases they will never incur the wrath of an official VAG scan).