Anyone tried Upsolute chiptuning on their RS.

In Ireland there seems to be very limited options. I was going to go down the Superchips route as their is one distributer in Dublin who does it but I have heard the spec. on Superchips website does not represent what you get.

Now I have found a distributor who does Upsolute. From looking at their website the power increase seems pretty good.

Before After

180 HP/PS 212 HP/PS

Torque Before After

173 ft / lb 218 ft / lb

Max speed Before After

146mph 153mph

Any recommendations ?

I seem to recall they are a franchise operation - so there may be both good and bad upsolute installers....

Seem to recall Jon used Upsolute a long time ago, sure he will be along shortly with any thoughts.

Please don't do it.

Yes, I've been there done that got the T-shirt. In my opinion it was crap. Those figures are probably accurate, its just the way the power was delivered. They made use of the overboost facility and its peak boost was approx 25PSI shame the turbo is only reliably rated to 16

Do they still have that bit on their website about for every 5 seconds you use full throttle you knock 5km off the life of the engine? Mine would have been dead and buried by now based on their figures.

I believe Des tried it at one time as well, his opinion is the same as mine - its the way he calls it the "nutter chip" that sums it up. If you are serious about it, I'll send you mine, all you need to do is to solder it in to the ECU in place of the standard one - no charge for this (I'll even pay postage) but I offer no warranty or guarantee.

Jon

Wow. Some interesting posts about this.

TaviaRS - thx for the offer. I'll definitley think about it.

Of course this 25PSI thing worries me. Exactly what adverse effects did you see when you had the chip ? Was there a noticeable performance increase ?

This is what they say about how chiptuning affects the life of the engine.

"...The simple answer is: No!

The power reserves of the engine are so large, that you don't have to expect more engine wear. We optimize the settings of the engine without exceeding the limits of the reliability. If the car is driven normally there are no decreases of the lifetime! If the car is driven very hard (racing situation), the approx. reduced lifetime is about 3-5 %..."

Flanno,

If you take a race across the border there is a Revo agent, 'Triple 7' near Cookstown I think. The location and email address are on the Revo site. Might be an option for you.

rgds,

Between about 2000 rpm and 3499 rpm there was a massive boost spike, come 3500 and it dropped to 14 psi then slowly edged up to about 15. The effect of this was that for those 1500 revs you were trying to exit through the tailgate, hit 3500 and the transition caused by the loss of 11 psi of boost almost put you through the windscreen. Entertaining in a way, but not conducive to smooth driving. The engine also could not get enough fuel at that level of boost so was merrily detting away which isn't good for it.

If its an option I'd go for Revo out of the 2 any day of the week.

I'm not an automotive engineer but even I can see that (Upsolute's claim) is crap! If you use more engine power, you will get more wear and tear. With a conservative rechip - Jabba or REVO, maybe? - that wear and tear should be minimised but it will still occur regardless of the engine's reserves.

Try this for an extreme example. The Viper jet engine (as fitted to the Jet Provost trainer) was also fitted to the Shackleton Mk 3 Phase 3 to boost power on take-off at high weights. The 2 Vipers had to share the same fuel supply as the 4 Griffon engines - ie avgas (100/130 or 115/145 octane aviation gasoline) rather than Avtur (equivalent to paraffin). The Vipers had a total engine life of 200 hours at idle running on avgas, and 12 hours (or could be 15) running at maximum power. However there was a 5 minute limit on the use of maximum power. IIRC, most Vipers were removed for repair before they reached the 200/12 hour limits.

ANY kind of chipping/remapping/tuning is going to put more stress on an engine. Sometimes that will be within the built-in capacity, other times it will be outside the envelope. People like Jabbasport take care to only remap to known limits of the engine - e.g. the turbo pressure rating. In some cases - take the 4x4 engine, the engine has been effectively de-tuned to start with, so there is a big area of "slack" to take up before any undue strain is put on engine parts. Upsolute (and some others, if you believe the rumours) just go all-out for the maximum they can get out of the map without too much concern for the life of the parts involved.

When my car was remapped, Mike showed me the parameters that have to be tweaked to give the appropriate boost at different throttle angles. It's not as simple as dialling in a pressure value and expecting that to apply across the range - for a start there's no direct measure of boost pressure - that's why he does road tests after programming the map. Any off-the-shelf chip is going to have different effects when installed in different cars. In some cases this may result in boost values outside the rating of the engine concerned, but you won't know that unless you put a boost gauge on the engine and actually measure it.

JM2PW

Flanno,

even though Jon's offer is very generous remember as he said he offers no warranty.

If the ECU is a 44pin jobby it's a real nightmare to de-solder and then solder on the new one. One slip of the soldering iron and you're up **** creek without a paddle!

Also bear in mind that tuners are made on their reputations; already there's two of our brethren who disapprove (although I think one of our overseas brothers is quite pleased with his; sorry can't remember who).

What's

So, what are the "known limits" of the 1.9 TDI - I assume 150 BHP as the golf comes with this engine? Engine life-restricting is probably my biggest worry about doing a Jabba remap

Good advice from all.

By the way - what kind of rep. does Superchips have ?

Mixed - Jon's running one in his vRS I believe, and it seems perfectly fine. I know other

people who have been pleased with the results too.

I know some people who wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

This probably isn't a useful post...

Rob.

Arr yes the fabled "Nutter Chip" from........... no comment!

If you do go for a superchip or any chip for that matter make sure the car gives smooth power delivery, if it doesn't give it back. It should drive like the original map but with more power, if that makes sense.

Good luck Des

wasn't there a problem with juddering at low speed/light throttle with the Upsolute chip??

Delcac Wrote

It should drive like the original map but with more power, if that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense to me , that is exactly how I'm hoping the Jabbasport chip will be .

Originally posted by mellowyellow in this post

Delcac Wrote It makes perfect sense to me , that is exactly how I'm hoping the Jabbasport chip will be .

My understanding of the Jabba remap is that it is geared towards how you want it to be, and not just an overclocked Skoda programme...

edit: Yes, yes, yes! 400th... Jon, I'm catching up

Originally posted by Flanno in this post

By the way - what kind of rep. does Superchips have ?

Have heard very mixed opinions about Superchips from several sources.

In my personal opinion and from experience I found them expensive and erm.... ever so slightly optimistic with their power gain claims.

I'm sure many of their customers are delighted though, so I may be in the minority.

I got an email from a Tech. who does the upsolute remaps for his tuning company. He quotes 450euro all in, and this will get me 212bhp and 218lbs/ft torque. Takes about 3 hours. Regarding turbo pressure tolerance he says it only has a bearing on the dump valve, which can be upgraded. Of course, I still have to get feedback from him on the power delivery as from reading the posts here, that seems to be an issue.

By the way - is the dump valve in the RS good enough to handle this remap ?

It would appear that the Upsolute response to any problems with their map is "check the dump valve".

Go to forums on their website and do a search for the following thread title:

Dynoed.. not quite as expected

Have a read, its the same response every time.

In which rev range does the car's performance increase?

With an UPsolute chip you will feel the power over the entire rev range, but especially in the lower and middle rev range.

Ain't that the truth!

Jon - while I believe what you say as you know more about these things than me, I think you

misread what the mechanic was saying.

"It only has a bearing" rather than "it only has bearings"...

Rob.

Ooops, misread it, I'll edit it. Cheers Rob

Was back on to the techie at LogicAutomotive who does the Upsolute remapping. I asked him about power delivery and the possibility of the turbo overboosting beyond Skodas spec.

He says the driveability of my vRs will remain exactly the same as before, after the remap, and that the turbo will read a steady pressure of 1.0bar.

What to do ? The remap cost 450 euro which is very reasonable from what I have seen.

IIRC they do a 28 day money back guarantee (something I was told after 3 months of complaining about mine ) try it and see.

Jon