Picked up my vrs se last week, extremely impressed, absolutely fantastic car drive, performance and most of all mpg! Been traipsing through the forum and thought it would be easier to start a new thread, looking for a remap and uprated air filter

1. Now from what iv read a lot of you use and recommend the pd160 air intake/pipe and simply popping a better standard filter on but some people seam to claim that all it does is reduce smoke plus by the looks of it these days your looking 100 quid just for the pd160 intake so was wondering what other air filter set-ups people recommend, one iv used in the past was the bc cda which iv seen a few of you use

2. Been reading about remaps obviously two options get a remap unit so that I always have the remap even if it gets wiped off the ecu during service diagnostics etc or get a custom map, I see a lot of people favour shark performance but by there sts unit it only takes it up to 165 hp where as iv seen other units/customer maps that take it up around the 175 mark, I understand anything over 180 is risky on standard turbo and clutch and would be playing with reliability, I live in Cornwall but am willing to travel to get the best remap. My local people are Celtic tunning dunno what people's thoughts are on them? Sorry to drag on, any advice help would be much appreciated

Yes the PD160 intake will get a bit more air in the system, but whether it really makes any difference is up for debate. I bought mine because it was cheap, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered.

I've just stuck with the standard air filter, as you then never have the risk of contaminating the MAF with oil, and it's not really restrictive anyways.

Shark can put whatever map you like onto their STS, so if you want a custom map for any new components, that can be uploaded onto the STS too.

Also it's not just about peak figures. Yes others might make slightly more power, but maybe only briefly.

A Shark map is extremely smooth, and holds the power and torque right through the rev range. Just have a look at some of their dyno graphs and see for yourself

the shark map is a custom map so they can tailor it to whatever value you want upto about 180

Unit 18 do top draw remaps, also were offering a free pipercross filter last time I checked

Matt

any reputable tuner will be able to offer you a suitable map. It seems that different forums favour different tuners.

I went to P-Torque near wolverhampton for my map. Very good service and no problems in 15months since. RR'd 179.8bhp and 300lbs/ft at P-Torque, then a fortnight later ran 185.1bhp and 300lbs/ft at AmD.

Given that it's an SE and that they hold their value very well, I would leave it alone. Your call though.

Its hardly special enough to not mod it at all Not taking anything away from them, but its got leather, blue paint & CC, not gonna be worth mega dolla in the future

Matt

nah deffo not a classic lol

Cheers guys looks like it's shark performance and just pop a better standard filter in

The best standard paper elements to be found are manufactured by Mahle, they have more surface area and are better quality than any after-market rubbish in existence, and are usually somewhere around a tenner.

What most turbo car drivers fail to realise is that the single largest restriction in their intake system is caused by the intercooler and NOT the air filter.

Hence the most effective mod you can do on most modern cars is a well placed cold air feed to the standard airbox to help lower inlet air temperatures and increase charge density.

It's got to be twenty years or more since fitting an after-market air filter made any discernible difference to a production engine because what the clever Engineers at the manufacturers realised long ago was that what is bad for performance is also bad for fuel efficiency, therefore modern engine intakes are VERY well designed and are certainly not restrictive in any way.

Change your standard filter often to keep your intake performing at it's peak.

Anything else is a "should I get a pink one or a green one" type question and should rightly be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Remember; there's a big difference between passing your driving test and passing an Engineering degree, so be very careful who you take advice from