Hi, picking my vrs up 2 nite and was going to get a remap but I've heard no one can do the self tuning systems as it can't be done through obd port, I wanted this so I could remove it if any thing was to happen.

So as this can't be done I've been looking at the tmc tuning box, the only person I can find on here is VRS-powered I've pm'd him after some info but he hasn't got back yet.

So just want to know what people think of them in the 1.4 tsi has anyone got any dyno's or 0-60 with it fitted.

Thanks all

Hi, picking my vrs up 2 nite and was going to get a remap but I've heard no one can do the self tuning systems as it can't be done through obd port, I wanted this so I could remove it if any thing was to happen.

So as this can't be done I've been looking at the tmc tuning box, the only person I can find on here is VRS-powered I've pm'd him after some info but he hasn't got back yet.

So just want to know what people think of them in the 1.4 tsi has anyone got any dyno's or 0-60 with it fitted.

Thanks all

Apologies mate, will shoot you back a Pm today still haven't had mine on the rollers or down at Pod yet :(

Well I have ordered my TMC this morning so should be here for tomorrow. 200+ bhp here we come only done about 50 miles since I got it, it does have 2.5k miles on it now so should be run in enough.

let us know how it goes... I'm still considering one of these... may buy some winter tyres instead though! lol...

Will do going to go out 2nite an get a few standard figure 0-60 etc. Then compare them to tuned figures, gives people a good idea on what sort of improvement they should expect.

Winter Tyres is what I'm after as well, you might know this question, will mk1 vrs wheels fit the mk2 I'm sure they will just want conformation really. Also with the TPM if I take the wheels off an put others on will the TPM think there is a problem all the time, e.g a flat tyre

Will do going to go out 2nite an get a few standard figure 0-60 etc. Then compare them to tuned figures, gives people a good idea on what sort of improvement they should expect.

Winter Tyres is what I'm after as well, you might know this question, will mk1 vrs wheels fit the mk2 I'm sure they will just want conformation really. Also with the TPM if I take the wheels off an put others on will the TPM think there is a problem all the time, e.g a flat tyre

don't know if they will fit, someone will answer, a tyre size calculator is what you need so the rolloing radius will be less than 3% difference...

like this http://www.tyresave.co.uk/tyresize.html

205/45/16's would be a good match..

Also with the TPM if I take the wheels off an put others on will the TPM think there is a problem all the time, e.g a flat tyre

Nope, as you will need to reset the TPM once the tyres are fitted

But if the new wheels didn't have tpm could you still do that?

But if the new wheels didn't have tpm could you still do that?

Shouldn't be an issue. There isn't an actual 'pressure monitor' in the wheels as such -I think the ECU just detects a rotational speed difference between the wheels and flags this up as low pressure. If all four wheels are the same you won't have any problems

Ref winter tyres you can adjst the speedo via maxidot. Thers a winter tyre mode that allows you to plus or minus either 5% or 5mph (cant remember which and i cant check as my car is around 7000miles away lol.

Ref 0-60 thats a largely useles comparison to nake as its launch/grip, temperature dependent etc. Its also an unrealistic performance marker. I can out perform a focus RS 2.5T 0-60 and pip it over a 1/4 mile, however its not realistic as once rolling it mullers us easily. What is a wiser and more relevant measure of performance increases is measuring say 20-50 in 3rd, 50-70 in 4th and say 50-70+ in 5th. When tuning this is where the BIG improvments are made as the power band is so much more flexible

Shouldn't be an issue. There isn't an actual 'pressure monitor' in the wheels as such -I think the ECU just detects a rotational speed difference between the wheels and flags this up as low pressure. If all four wheels are the same you won't have any problems

I din't know that!, i thought they had proper tyre pressure monitors on the valves of the tyres, Thanks for the info

Ref winter tyres you can adjst the speedo via maxidot. Thers a winter tyre mode that allows you to plus or minus either 5% or 5mph (cant remember which and i cant check as my car is around 7000miles away lol.

Ref 0-60 thats a largely useles comparison to nake as its launch/grip, temperature dependent etc. Its also an unrealistic performance marker. I can out perform a focus RS 2.5T 0-60 and pip it over a 1/4 mile, however its not realistic as once rolling it mullers us easily. What is a wiser and more relevant measure of performance increases is measuring say 20-50 in 3rd, 50-70 in 4th and say 50-70+ in 5th. When tuning this is where the BIG improvments are made as the power band is so much more flexible

I've seen that about winter tyres on the maxi dot.

If you get an average of 0-60 7 secs for example and then when tuned its 6 secs, you know you gained a second so to me that is important and a good way to judge how much it has improved. I also like to know 30-50, 40-70 etc but its hard to relate that to anything, manufactures don't quote these figures. But i know if my car does 0-60 in 6 secs it'll be pretty quick

How often do you do 0-60? An M3 hits 0-60 less than half a second quicker than mine, but were not even close performance wise. In gear rolling starts are wear your car does its work. And once mapped you can expect to be a good 2-5+ seconds quicker on those speed increments above.

Heres some comparisons for you

I do 0-60 more than the average person lol.

I've seen that test in evo I'll have to dig out that's and read it again now, see how the gti does!

For me, the performance figures I'm interested in are

0-60

0-100

Top Speed

1/4 Mile time + terminal

Id be keen to get figures on all of those before and after remap.

in gear acceleration is good to know for 'real world' driving, but I say 'real world' as no one actually stays in 5th gear at 40 to get to 100 quickly, you slam down as many gears as you can and go for it.

Would be good to get the above figures and then compare against the other cars out there.

I've found this, but the guy has R888's which obviously makes a fair difference.

"filmed at Bruntingthorpe runway, 14/10/10 for a mag feature on Ibiza TSi. GPS timing gear on loan from AUTO EXPRESS magazine. Final time - 13.1 sec to 100 with 1/2 tank of fuel and passenger. Best lap of Castle Combe 1min 26 sec, best 0 - 60, 4.9 sec, best 1/4 mlie, 13.4 sec at Santa Pod (FIA timing)"

Somebody who thinks like me lol. Seen that cupra, it's mapped an most of the interior stripped out, very fast 1.4 lol

Yeah hes stage 1 revo, with light weight bucketsets, stripped interior, coilovers semi slick tyres etc. His car is also having a major engine rebuild after his pistons went pop. Fair play to the guy, hes uprated all the pistons and internals now though.

I reckon i could get sub 5 second 0-60 easily with some 215/40 R888s. Im only 0.6 seconds off and that was with the standard 205/40 contis which at best are only average, 1st gear was written'off due to traction issues, the surfce wasnt ideal due to showers etc. Easily make that time up with better conditions, stickier tyres and being able to use the whole of 1st gear

Well the TMC came this morning and its now all fitted!

Went out and you can definitely feel its a lot more eager to go pulls so much harder! tried 0-60 before and got 6.50 and after fitting got 5.98. The run afterwards did spin the wheels a lot more, both were done with TC off, might be better with it on actually I'll have to try.

The only thing is i can't work out whether it was miss firing above 5k rpm doing a 0-60 it felt like it was but when pulling in 3rd an 4th joing a dual carriage way it didn't, could of been it breaking traction in 1st an 2nd? hope its just that anyway.

Anyway i got a telling of by the police, a was so happy with my newly found power i came off a round about held it in 3rd and was just accelerating, changed to 4th and there it was a BMW 5 series in a side road. he soon pulled out lol, pulled me over asked if i knew why i'd been pulled i said yes because i nailed it off the roundabout. Said sorry, they checked my details and said be careful, thank you mr police man and lady!

Well the TMC came this morning and its now all fitted!

Went out and you can definitely feel its a lot more eager to go pulls so much harder! tried 0-60 before and got 6.50 and after fitting got 5.98. The run afterwards did spin the wheels a lot more, both were done with TC off, might be better with it on actually I'll have to try.

The only thing is i can't work out whether it was miss firing above 5k rpm doing a 0-60 it felt like it was but when pulling in 3rd an 4th joing a dual carriage way it didn't, could of been it breaking traction in 1st an 2nd? hope its just that anyway.

Anyway i got a telling of by the police, a was so happy with my newly found power i came off a round about held it in 3rd and was just accelerating, changed to 4th and there it was a BMW 5 series in a side road. he soon pulled out lol, pulled me over asked if i knew why i'd been pulled i said yes because i nailed it off the roundabout. Said sorry, they checked my details and said be careful, thank you mr police man and lady!

It's maybe like a mason's secret hand shake.. driving a fast Skoda earns a little respect

:yes: thats the one

0-100 and 1/4 mile time please ! :p

Will get it as soon as mate! It's pis**** down outside so it could be a few days lol

Just found this tuning box guide. Its near enough the same deal for the petrol as it is for the petrol. Pretty much sums up my thoughts on how they work

http://www.dyno-tuning.co.uk/articles/tuningBoxGuide.pdf

Chances are, if you are reading this then you may be considering tuning your diesel vehicle and have no doubt

seen the huge variety of 'plug in' boxes that are being marketed as a tuning solution. In this article we will

explain the ins and outs of these boxes and shed some light on what they do, and why you should take care

when fitting them and consider other tuning options.

Back in the early days of TDi (turbo diesel injection) tuning things were simple, most engines used a simple high

pressure mechanical fuel pump and these could be tampered with to increase the fuel pressure, often by a

simple turn of a screw. You could also adjust the boost just as easily thanks to adjustable actuator arms that

controlled the turbo pressure. Fortunately these engines are now almost obsolete and modern day TDi engines

are equipped with advanced engine management systems in the form of Electronic Control Units (ECU's).

The ECU is nothing more than a small, but highly complex computer that controls inputs and outputs of the

engine, it gathers data from hundreds of sensors and inputs and from this information it generates output

signals to tell the engine what to do and when to do it. The ECU knows how to do this as it contains 'maps'

which are developed by the vehicles manufacturer. These inputs and outputs are processed by the ECU maps

thousands of times a second, this results in an engine that is refined, smooth, powerful and economical.

So the engine now has no way of being adjusted or 'tuned' by a simple turn of a screw as it is controlled by a

complex computer system that is only really understood by someone that understands software programming,

electronics and an in-depth knowledge of how modern diesel engines work, these individuals are few and far

between and to become one of these individuals it would take years of research and learning.

This is how the tuning box came into existence, people knew that you can make a diesel engine produce more

power and torque by simply adding fuel, nothing more complex than the old fashioned method of turning a

screw, but now that this wasn't possible, so a new method was developed. This involved fooling the ECU into

adding this extra fuel by altering the signal that controls fuel pressure. If you cut the input signal to the ECU

from the fuel pressure sensor and use a simple resistor to bridge the break, the ECU will think fuel pressure is

low, low fuel pressure can damage an engine and the ECU counteracts this by opening the fuel injectors for

longer and/or adds more pressure, this adds more fuel than the ECU thinks and the engine makes more torque.

ALL tuning boxes work this way whether it’s £30 from ebay or bought for £300 from a glossy advert in a car

magazine, they all use the exact same basic principle, creating an imaginary fault to trick the ECU.

So where’s the problem? I hear you ask. So here it is, using such a primitive method to trick such a highly

complex ECU doesn’t even scratch the surface of what is possible. We bought a few of the most expensive

boxes available and tested them, we also monitored the vehicle for power output, fuel input, fuel pressure,

injector duration, exhaust gas emissions, turbo boost pressure and exhaust gas temperatures. The results are

on page 2…

Our initial findings were shocking, on all of the boxes tested we found that extra fuel was only added in

higher load conditions, meaning that although the box did trick the engine into making extra power this

would only happen under full throttle. The power gain was also very 'peaky' meaning that the extra

torque was not generated for very long during the RPM range. Fuel pressure was increased by over 22%

(adding stress to the fuel pump and injectors) and we didn’t even need to look at the exhaust gas

emissions to know that things were not right, this was obvious by the huge clouds of smoke emitted from

the exhaust, a problem that is associated with tuning boxes. Luckily the test vehicle did not have a DPF

filter, if it did then it would undoubtably become clogged very quickly. Please visit our website for more

info on DPF filters.

Let’s look at why this smoke is here, due to the extra fuel pressure, more fuel is being forced into the

engine, however no extra air is being requested in the form of turbo boost pressure meaning a very rich

mixture and wasted fuel. But the manufacturers of these boxes have added a small amount of

adjustment in the form of a screw for you to turn to alter the amount of extra fuel, one had a series of

switches or 'jumpers' to move around. So effectively your modern diesel engine is being controlled by an

adjustable resistor in a box. Some claim to use microprocessors, however none of these microprocessors

match the speed and ability of the ones in your ECU that they are trying to fool, this creates conflicts.

These conflicts can result in fault lights on your dashboard, your engine running in 'limp home mode' and

we have even seen a Mercedes which had the wiring loom catch fire after having a tuning box installed.

Other problems are not noticed immediately and occur over longer periods of time, these include failed

injectors, failed fuel pumps, Blocked DPF filters, increased fuel consumption and clogged EGR valves, none

of these are easy or cheap to put right.

So why do people sell these boxes? It is simply profiteering. A dedicated and professional tuner will

always look for the best way to tune a vehicle and not base their final product on development time, cost

or profit, neither will they take the easiest route and sacrifice the final products reliability and quality.

Tuning boxes are the exact opposite of what the professional tuner strives to create, many contain

nothing more than a few cheap components inside a flashy box, often manufactured in China and offered

to resellers in the UK for just a few Pounds per unit.

So in summary, a tuning box is a compromise and also a risk to the reliability and longevity of your vehicle.

We certainly do not sell or install them, and this is the case with most professional tuners, however we do

remove a huge amount of them from vehicles when diagnosing faults, in most cases this resolves the

symptoms of the fault and the customer then looks into having their vehicle professionally remapped.

For more information on ECU remapping, feel free to call or email us

Good find but coming from a company who will make money by saying tuning boxes are rubbish and will supply a remap for you aren't really going to say they are fantastic, i totally agree a remap is better than a tuning box.

But i have had 3 diesel cars all have had tuning boxes on (still have 1 and its still got a tuning box on), one i went for a full remap as i could remove it myself, and i have never had a problem i spent a lot of time looking into them when i had them on the diesels and one place to read about how good they are is Astra owners network. They nearly all have DTUK tuning boxes and I've never once seen a thread saying that a tuning box has caused any problems.

The reason i have gone for the TMC over a remap is the ability to remove it and it going undetected, If they (shark or Revo) can make their self tuning systems go undetected or at least put the original map back on i will have one.

Good find but coming from a company who will make money by saying tuning boxes are rubbish and will supply a remap for you aren't really going to say they are fantastic, i totally agree a remap is better than a tuning box.

But i have had 3 diesel cars all have had tuning boxes on (still have 1 and its still got a tuning box on), one i went for a full remap as i could remove it myself, and i have never had a problem i spent a lot of time looking into them when i had them on the diesels and one place to read about how good they are is Astra owners network. They nearly all have DTUK tuning boxes and I've never once seen a thread saying that a tuning box has caused any problems.

The reason i have gone for the TMC over a remap is the ability to remove it and it going undetected, If they (shark or Revo) can make their self tuning systems go undetected or at least put the original map back on i will have one.

I've got to agree with H17YD here, yes a remap is more personal to the car but as that came from a remapping company, it's hardly an unbiased view!

I have spoken with Ben @ Shark quite a bit and got to say, without a doubt I will be paying for him to remap my car when I get some more cash. He has answered a lot of questions I had and even offered to RR the Fabia with the tuning box on, he's gone out of his way to help me and I haven't even spent a penny with him yet, now that's a good company!

I was bought the TMC box as a present, at this current time I've had no problem with it and can definitely feel an improvement over the standard performance. For anyone worried about their warranty this would be the option to go for.

i got a rebate from work. really intrested in this. any one got comprison times 0-60 0-100? what about fuel consumpion