Shark, Darkside or Other?

[blueboy1]

I am in the process of buying a Mk1 Fabia VRS with a view of doing some upgrades.

 

Not going mad was looking at intercooler, PD150, brakes, map etc and was wondering who was the best place to use.

 

Can anyone advise whether Shark, Darkside or AN other ?

 

[Jrjg]

Pd150 turbo or head bolts?

Shark do get good reviews. Where a bouts are you located?

JRJG

[Rich79]

Out of the two I certainly wouldn’t recommend Shark Performance.

I was talking to Darren (Dazza66) the other day and to be honest he has had a bit of a nightmare with this organisation to say the least.

In a somewhat summarised version (the detail as discussed with Darren was much longer!!)

Darren had taken his car ( a well know Fabia SE “09” plate) to Shark back in June 15 (last year) for uprated injectors to be fitted, stronger headbolts, head skimmed, custom map and aircon fixed.

He was told the work would take 10 days to 2 weeks max.

The Turbo then exploded on the dyno (apparently a boost pipe had failed and had caused something to get into the turbo) – sounds strange to me.

The Turbo was then sent off to be fixed which Darren agreed to pay for (I wouldn’t have)

Anyway it then took until June 2016 – a full year and 1 week apparently for them to finally sort it – I nearly fell off my chair!!

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it as when Darren went to drive off after paying a substantial bill (can’t believe how much he paid for the privilege) he noticed the back panel and door had been damaged and had to get this repaired at a bodyshop – which thankfully Shark paid for (that was good of them!!).

Oh and the air-con that was supposed to have been fixed didn’t work and when he took it to a local garage to be re-gassed they said it wasn’t the condenser but the compressor – easily missed I guess!

Although the car (apart from the aircon) was now working well Darren decided he had enough of modified cars and put it up for sale.

Just to add to his woes on the work done by Shark - once he had sold it the new buyer was driving home and the boost pipe popped off – so nice one Shark, seems they really did a good job here.

Anyway based on the above I would certainly steer clear of Shark Performance if it was my choice but I am sure others may have a more positive view/experience of them.

Bit of a long-winded reply to you query I know but believe me this is the shortened version.

So they blew up the turbo, took a year to sort it out, charged a fortune, damaged the paintwork and then it broke down after he sold it !!!

As for Darkside - I have no knowledge of them so can’t really comment but would recommend looking around.

[BATVANVRS]

http://r-techperformance.co.uk/

[Rich79]

Thanks BATVANVRS after dazza66's experience I certainly won't be using Shark. I Notice on their Facebook page all the bad reviews have no comments listed always a bad sign.

[stevobeavo]

Unit 18 in milton keynes

[Skoda_Saint]

R-Tech aren't REALLY known for doing PD engines. 1.8T and above most definitely but the diesels not so much. Although I did see a positive comment on Nikki's work on FB from a PD owner, so can't be 100%. I wouldn't take a 1.8T or petrol VAG anywhere else but him though.

 

As said above I'd look around and see who gets the most recommendations.

 

Fabooka had great reviews however he has now stopped which is unfortunate.

 

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Jrjg]

Derv Tech at Manchester seem to get good feedback, they specialise in diesels (obviously).

Kristian from Diesel Powered is doing the work on my car, he was recommended to me by Fabooka, I can't yet comment on his mapping as I still have to finalise a few things before his visit (cambelt, head bolts). But I can say that his customer service so far has been exceptional.

He also maps cars 'remotely' if distance is an issue.

JRJG

[DarrellGB]

Contact ADE Tuning, really know what they are doing and produce some fantastic projects, inc my 200bhp 1.6tdi Yeti.

[blueboy1]

Out of the two I certainly wouldn’t recommend Shark Performance.

I was talking to Darren (Dazza66) the other day and to be honest he has had a bit of a nightmare with this organisation to say the least.

In a somewhat summarised version (the detail as discussed with Darren was much longer!!)

Darren had taken his car ( a well know Fabia SE “09” plate) to Shark back in June 15 (last year) for uprated injectors to be fitted, stronger headbolts, head skimmed, custom map and aircon fixed.

He was told the work would take 10 days to 2 weeks max.

The Turbo then exploded on the dyno (apparently a boost pipe had failed and had caused something to get into the turbo) – sounds strange to me.

The Turbo was then sent off to be fixed which Darren agreed to pay for (I wouldn’t have)

Anyway it then took until June 2016 – a full year and 1 week apparently for them to finally sort it – I nearly fell off my chair!!

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it as when Darren went to drive off after paying a substantial bill (can’t believe how much he paid for the privilege) he noticed the back panel and door had been damaged and had to get this repaired at a bodyshop – which thankfully Shark paid for (that was good of them!!).

Oh and the air-con that was supposed to have been fixed didn’t work and when he took it to a local garage to be re-gassed they said it wasn’t the condenser but the compressor – easily missed I guess!

Although the car (apart from the aircon) was now working well Darren decided he had enough of modified cars and put it up for sale.

Just to add to his woes on the work done by Shark - once he had sold it the new buyer was driving home and the boost pipe popped off – so nice one Shark, seems they really did a good job here.

Anyway based on the above I would certainly steer clear of Shark Performance if it was my choice but I am sure others may have a more positive view/experience of them.

Bit of a long-winded reply to you query I know but believe me this is the shortened version.

So they blew up the turbo, took a year to sort it out, charged a fortune, damaged the paintwork and then it broke down after he sold it !!!

As for Darkside - I have no knowledge of them so can’t really comment but would recommend looking around.

 

Thanks for the heads up - I will steer clear of Shark then !! 

[Matt.]

Narco seem to be pretty decent also.

[t_reazy]

Shark.

[blueboy1]

I was considering Shark until I saw the post about Dazza66's experience - that has put me off now

[DarrellGB]

I've had great experience with Shark tuning to stage 1, hit problems with stage 2 and that's when I switched to ADE Tuning on the Greenline project.

I took the latest Yeti project back to Shark and they have had a few new staff members in the interim period which seems to have them back to there best. Worth giving them a call, ask to speak to Carl who really knows his stuff.

[blueboy1]

I may pm Dazza66 to get his take on things as it seems he sold it straight away and fairly recently too so would have dealt with the new staff I guess.

[Harry1212]

Shark 5 years ago maybe, there are so many better alternatives out there these days who specialise in the PD engines

 

TRP Developments in Birmingham are good

 

Also ##!!##h, Narco, etc who are a bit more established in the world of mapping

[mattievrs]

Can only comment from experience but I'd go with shark.

Had a Fabia vrs, Volvo C30 and Volvo v60 mapped with them and they've been fine. My best mate had his wife's fiesta tdci mapped with them and his current Volvo C30, again both fine. It only takes one person to have a bad experience to give a bad review and damage an otherwise decent companies rep. I get that they had problems........ But in the thousands of cars they work on etc, it's definately more good than bad.

[Crazylegs1892]

Something I don't get with VAG cars is with remaps, all the mapping places just seem to do a generic map i.e stage 1, stage 2 etc whereby the end power is all similar.

 

No one seems to be able to fully remap a car to its maximum potential, for instance a stage 1 seems to generate no more than 170bhp on the Fabia VRS and this seems similar across the board and most cars.

 

Although all the same car I'd have thought a decent mapper would be able to eek out a little bit more power from one car to the next, or am I imagining things?

[Jrjg]

170/180 seems to be the upper limit for the standard pd130 turbo I think. There isn't much more power to be had above 170/180 without replacing/upgrading the blower. I wouldn't say a 50bhp increase from just a remap is a bad improvement at all though. Considering it is a 1.9 engine. I know that the 3 litre dervs in BMW's remap to a consider jump up the power scale, but I wouldn't say the PD lump is too bad either in terms of power increase from remap alone.

JRJG

[duck]

I have had experience of Shark and Narco, I would not use either of them again!

p.s. Just remapping not mechanical work

Edited 11 August, 2016 by duck

[blueboy1]

Out of the two I certainly wouldn’t recommend Shark Performance.

I was talking to Darren (Dazza66) the other day and to be honest he has had a bit of a nightmare with this organisation to say the least.

In a somewhat summarised version (the detail as discussed with Darren was much longer!!)

Darren had taken his car ( a well know Fabia SE “09” plate) to Shark back in June 15 (last year) for uprated injectors to be fitted, stronger headbolts, head skimmed, custom map and aircon fixed.

He was told the work would take 10 days to 2 weeks max.

The Turbo then exploded on the dyno (apparently a boost pipe had failed and had caused something to get into the turbo) – sounds strange to me.

The Turbo was then sent off to be fixed which Darren agreed to pay for (I wouldn’t have)

Anyway it then took until June 2016 – a full year and 1 week apparently for them to finally sort it – I nearly fell off my chair!!

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it as when Darren went to drive off after paying a substantial bill (can’t believe how much he paid for the privilege) he noticed the back panel and door had been damaged and had to get this repaired at a bodyshop – which thankfully Shark paid for (that was good of them!!).

Oh and the air-con that was supposed to have been fixed didn’t work and when he took it to a local garage to be re-gassed they said it wasn’t the condenser but the compressor – easily missed I guess!

Although the car (apart from the aircon) was now working well Darren decided he had enough of modified cars and put it up for sale.

Just to add to his woes on the work done by Shark - once he had sold it the new buyer was driving home and the boost pipe popped off – so nice one Shark, seems they really did a good job here.

Anyway based on the above I would certainly steer clear of Shark Performance if it was my choice but I am sure others may have a more positive view/experience of them.

Bit of a long-winded reply to you query I know but believe me this is the shortened version.

So they blew up the turbo, took a year to sort it out, charged a fortune, damaged the paintwork and then it broke down after he sold it !!!

As for Darkside - I have no knowledge of them so can’t really comment but would recommend looking around.

 

From the above though the mechanical side does seem to be the issue - don't want  to be waiting a Year !!

[wja96]

I've used Shark Performance since 2007 when Ben was in his original lockup in Mansfield. It was only just big enough to get a car in and he did good work.

He moved to the bigger unit (the one beside the kids playground place) where he got his first scissor-lift.

When he moved to the current unit he didn't know how he would fill it and yet it's now chock-full of cars.

Now, I've had issues with Shark over the years, and every one of them has been resolved to my satisfaction. Someone has posted a second-hand story and folks are taking it as gospel.

If the person concerned posted, fair enough. But I suspect they won't post, because whatever issues they had were resolved and they're as happy as they can be.

I would at least have a chat with Ben at Shark.

[Crazylegs1892]

170/180 seems to be the upper limit for the standard pd130 turbo I think. There isn't much more power to be had above 170/180 without replacing/upgrading the blower. I wouldn't say a 50bhp increase from just a remap is a bad improvement at all though. Considering it is a 1.9 engine. I know that the 3 litre dervs in BMW's remap to a consider jump up the power scale, but I wouldn't say the PD lump is too bad either in terms of power increase from remap alone.

JRJG

 

Ah cool, wasn't aware it was the turbo that was restricting the power further, 170 is a nice power hike and I'm sure it feels nice even on a standard car.

 

Hoping to get mine remapped early next year. What is the power feel like once remapped, is the delivery more instant and linear?

Edited 11 August, 2016 by Crazylegs1892

[wja96]

Ah cool, wasn't aware it was the turbo that was restricting the power further, 170 is a nice power hike and I'm sure it feels nice even on a standard car.

 

Hoping to get mine remapped early next year. What is the power feel like once remapped, is the delivery more instant and linear?

It depends how it's mapped. In the old days (2005-ish) Superchips had a remap that was a bit like the standard map in that it gave you EVERYTHING at the 3500rpm mark so the car pulled like a TRAIN then tailed off disappointingly. Shark's old-school map never peaked like Superchips but just keep on pulling steadily all the way to the redline. Everything is a compromise. You talk to all the tuners then pick the one that matches your driving style. Personally, I wouldn't map a vRS now. The youngest cars are almost 10 years old and most have done a LOT of miles. You can pretty much guarantee that unless the clutch and turbo have been replaced before the remap, they will need replacing soon after a remap.

[wja96]

170/180 seems to be the upper limit for the standard pd130 turbo I think. There isn't much more power to be had above 170/180 without replacing/upgrading the blower. I wouldn't say a 50bhp increase from just a remap is a bad improvement at all though. Considering it is a 1.9 engine. I know that the 3 litre dervs in BMW's remap to a consider jump up the power scale, but I wouldn't say the PD lump is too bad either in terms of power increase from remap alone.

JRJG

It's worth bearing in mind that very few vRS actually only made 130PS when new. Certainly, the BLT cars were all making 140PS plus (my own was 148bhp (150PS) so the remap only actually got you 20bhp in most cases. The real benefit for most people was in how the torque and power were delivered. The headline maximum bhp figure isn't the important bit. The important bit is when and for how long it produces more power than standard. Area under the curve is generally more important than the maximum bhp or torque figure.