Rather that firing a review on here straight after I got the map saying "oooh it's fast", I thought I'd give my review after I've lived with it for a few months. So here we go!

Vital stats:

2002 Mk1 Octavia vRS

114k miles on the clock at the time of the remap

118k miles current milage (4k miles with map)

I've had the map 4.5 months

Engine mods:

K&N airfilter

G60 flywheel

Forge DV

Catch can

99RON Shell V-Power

The car has run without a fault since the map, and I have not had to make any mechanical changes to the car since the map. Fuel economy appears unchanged, as I can still achieve over 40mpg on a gentle run, but 29mpg on a hardcore run. The average is still always about 35mpg, which it always has been. The car went straight though it's MOT yesterday, and passed the emissions test with flying colours. So with the boring economy, emissions and reliability out of the way, lets move onto the good stuff!

The boost peaks out at about 19psi gauge. The car can be driven like it was standard if you want to, as it still maintains it's low speed refinement. But when you plant your foot there feels like more torque straight off, and then the increased torque seems to hold through a much longer rev range. It's a smooth and constant power delivery, which has made the car massively quicker. Being more on the smooth side in terms of delivery, it's not so hard on the hardware, which is what I was after. In gear acceleration is fairly epic now, which has made overtaking very easy. Once the turbo is up and spinning it feels like it just wants to go and keep giving. You start off planning to overtake one car, and end up overtaking five! It's incredible up steep hills too, as it just goes faster and faster and seems to feed off the load. Off the line it is also much quicker, and you can really nail the fast starts if you want to. It's also a weapon on the motorway now, as you can happily cruise all day, but if you need to you can give the old girl a squirt of throttle and it takes off like a rocket, easily hitting 140mph before you know it. Not many cars keep up with me now. That is probably it's only bad point! The fact that you can hit 100mph so much quicker than ever before, so you have to watch your speed on country lanes and get used to the new found power!

So yeah, I love the map and I have no complaints, so I'd definately recommend it.

In addition to this, I found Shark a pleasure to deal with. Ben did the map at a time that suited me (late evening), and followed up with me days afterwards to make sure I was still happy. Great customer care.

P.S. I've not had the car RR'd so I'm afraid I have no torque plot for you yet. When I do, I will post the graph here along with the usual pub-figures of peak power/torque!

Thanks to Shark Performance, and I hope this review helps others in the market for a Stage 1 map.

I agree with everything

Shark make some quality maps, much better than some big name companies I've used before!

I agree with everything

Shark make some quality maps, much better than some big name companies I've used before!

Yeah I had the Stage 1 APR 6 hour trial on this car, and it wasn't as smooth as this is. Also APR were always stupidly expensive compared to everyone else!

Having had the APR trial also locked out my ECU, preventing it from being accessed via the OBD port. Ben had to open up the ECU and restore it back to base settings manually, so he could then map it via the OBD port. This is something that Awesome GTi decided not to tell me when they put the trial on, and something that is not openly documented on the APR website. Cheeky buzzards!

Nice review. I'm sure that'll be of help and value to those considering 'making the change'

Steve

Yeah I had the Stage 1 APR 6 hour trial on this car, and it wasn't as smooth as this is. Also APR were always stupidly expensive compared to everyone else!

Having had the APR trial also locked out my ECU, preventing it from being accessed via the OBD port. Ben had to open up the ECU and restore it back to base settings manually, so he could then map it via the OBD port. This is something that Awesome GTi decided not to tell me when they put the trial on, and something that is not openly documented on the APR website. Cheeky buzzards!

I thought it was just me lol.

Had exactly the same issue with my apr trial, but OBD still worked on mine. Ben showed me the memory dump and it had twice as much code as it needed, mostly garbage too!

Edited 22 October, 201015 yr by rk696

Does anyone know how a shark remap will effect the 0-60 time?????

The more i read the more i want, my only concern is that with 99k on the clock and being Ex Police the clutch has probably had a tough time.

A remap will undoubtably put more strain on the clutch and don't fancy forking out £600-£700 or whatever it costs for a new clutch and DMF, can i ask Bodge is your car on the original clutch? (i presume mine is as i have no paperwork to suggest otherwise)

Thanks, Jon

My car is on 123k and the standard clutch is doing fine with the map

If it does eventually go it'll be a good excuse to fit the g60/vr6 jobbie everyone raves about which will work out cheaper than what you've been quoted.

Get it mapped you won't regret it

The more i read the more i want, my only concern is that with 99k on the clock and being Ex Police the clutch has probably had a tough time.

A remap will undoubtably put more strain on the clutch and don't fancy forking out £600-£700 or whatever it costs for a new clutch and DMF, can i ask Bodge is your car on the original clutch? (i presume mine is as i have no paperwork to suggest otherwise)

Thanks, Jon

Clutches don't last long when they are abused.

However, I would expect the clutch on an ex-Police car to be fine, because the Police drivers are professionals and will have driven the car properly and with mechanical sympathy.

PS> Please don't shout at me if your clutch packs up in 5,000 miles time.

I also run with stage1 about 6 months ago. 

The car pulls noticably better, i also installed 2 weeks ago Boost and Oil pressure gauge , the boost is reaching up 1.3bar then drop to 1bar and kepping there.

But !!! i have some strange behaviour , ... sometimes when keep pushing for ex. in 4,5th gear the boost is dropping to 0.5,0.6 from 1bar and usually start to raise then drop again and so on every 2-3sec.

Mostly in sec gear is pulling well , but i noticed that sometimes in third gear starts tu pull with 1-1.1bar then dropping back to 0.5,0.6bar and you can feel that the car loosing power in acceleration.

 Overall is going well but it is weird that sometimes pulling good sometimes less a bit , and another issue is that if i push the gas to accelerate and the boost goes up and than i stop pushing further the gas pedal and taking back a bit  than the car feels like a cutoff or something like DV cutting off and you can feel a strong boost or accel. cutoff which feels weird a bit., but this is happening once or twice a day .

 

I dont know the brand of my tuners as we have no garage in proximity which can do this tuning jobs , so i have a frend who is working with diagnoses and such thing on cars , we read the map out from the ecu and he sent to some colaborators which thay mapped than we rewrite the map.

 So i found another 2 maps on the net which are stage 1 for Auq engine, I will try it to see how it works with those maps .

  I will really interested in shark performace map as Bodge explained about .

 

"Bodge" 

So i just ask if i can have your mapped .bin file (in case if you have) to test on mine ??? 

 I can give mine too (with the other from the net maybe for comparsion ,as yours seems to work good)

 

I also want to ensure if the map is not written (optimized) well or i have some faulty sensor or something with the car.

I mention that i have no errors in ecu i have no modification on car , have 200000km on board , but the turbo seems to work fine at least as i hear

Hi just wondering if anyone can help me i've done the upgraded brake discs and pads i've done all the polythene bushes wishbones i i thought i do performance before power loli have just bought a front mount intercooler i was just wondering if i could just fit it 2 a standard engine I have a vrs mk1thank you