I couldn't resist buying one of those cheap powerboxes for my vRS, as I was perusing Ebay, and fitted it a week ago.

Initial impressions were of increased kick, but after a couple of hundred miles, I started to notice a couple of side effects too.

I thought the engine was smoother, but put it down to the placebo effect, until the wife mentioned how smooth and quiet the car sounded! Another regular passenger said this too.

The engine idle does not seem to drop down quite as fast, which is not good, but in fairness hardly noticable, and I may be wrong about this one anyway.

Exhaust smoke is not pronounced under hard acceleration at higher revs, but when driving around using only a little throttle, I do get a fair old smog on occasions, so thi is another slight downer which I was aware of beforehand.

Overall, for

I ran one of these for a while just to see and they do seem to work very well for the money. Smooth and more power. Smoother in fact than a Tunit i had from before!

Side effects with mine were quite a bit of soot being chucked out sometimes and i got a check engine light after 1000 miles.

I'm running one of these too. Been on the car for the best part of 15k miles Only think I noticed is that the idle can sometimes be a bit "rougher" due to it idling higher but apart from that, it's the best money I've spent on the car and with the mpg saving, it's probably paid for itself now too

Chris

Is this one of those piggy back units, that plugs into the ECU or something totally different???

Tony

Is this one of those piggy back units, that plugs into the ECU or something totally different???

It's an "Analog PD Tuning Box" and basically plugs into the fuel temp sensor under the bonnet. 5 minutes to fit and just as easy to remove

Chris

I couldn't resist buying one of those cheap powerboxes for my vRS, as I was perusing Ebay, and fitted it a week ago.

Initial impressions were of increased kick, but after a couple of hundred miles, I started to notice a couple of side effects too.

I thought the engine was smoother, but put it down to the placebo effect, until the wife mentioned how smooth and quiet the car sounded! Another regular passenger said this too.

The engine idle does not seem to drop down quite as fast, which is not good, but in fairness hardly noticable, and I may be wrong about this one anyway.

Exhaust smoke is not pronounced under hard acceleration at higher revs, but when driving around using only a little throttle, I do get a fair old smog on occasions, so thi is another slight downer which I was aware of beforehand.

Overall, for

What sort of power and torque figures are u looking at from these units? On a pretty much standard car, also who many miles would u need on the clock before u think about fitting one?

Tony

What sort of power and torque figures are u looking at from these units? On a pretty much standard car, also who many miles would u need on the clock before u think about fitting one?

Claims vary wildly, but seems to be between 20-30% increase. Not had mine on rollers to confirm, but you'll notice a difference with the "butt dyno" Not sure on mileage - would prob just recommend it's run in before hand (1k miles) ......

Chris

If you thought that was good ...if you can find one cheap enough on ebay ....buy the Dragon digital tuning box most times it will go for about

No probs........ free most of this weekend......my co-pilot got very sweaty palms when we tried it out the first time and he kept trying to press something with his foot on the passenger floor

All I can say is 100 comes around very quickly :eek:

what did u search for on ebay, what they called !?!?!

what did u search for on ebay, what they called !?!?!

Try searching for dragon tuning box

or email them ...site is at

http://www.mrhoot.com/

I really can't beleive people still fit these 20p resistors on something like a fabia vRS.

Calling it a chip will give chips a bad name. A 'cheap' chip is something like upsolute for around

Eddy, I agree...

But if someone doesn't want to spend

Just out of interest - when does it put in more fuel, when the resistance is higher, or lower?

Just think about it - if you could "improve" the situation noticeably by adding a cheap component costing only a few pounds, do you not think Skoda would fit them as standard?

Anything costing little but claiming improved performance AND improved economy just can't be right.

There MUST be a downside somewhere - though I admit it could be in higher emissions levels which won't concern the sort of people who fit these...

Anything costing little but claiming improved performance AND improved economy just can't be right.

Like a remap? Altering the fuelling means that you can use a higher gear where before you'd have to change down which means that for normal town driving you're using less fuel. Obviously if you drive everywhere flat out, you're not going to see an improvement in economy, but who does that?

Chris

As far as the digital boxes go, here's an exert from an email sent to me from Mr. Hoot:

"The digi unit is the only one that will work with the VRS -

http://www.mrhoot.com/proddetail.asp?prod=TBPD010

this unit will not give you any DTC's and when removed prior to service or repair, the agent will not be any the wiser.

You need 1000 miles on the car, they are very tight until 10,000 - but the unit is ok to use after the foist 1k.

The units are always in stock here, they have just been updated and now have a smaller case, and 16 end user settings."

Confused now with all this chipping an tuning lark. I want mine to look like Josh's on paper. Is there only 1 way of achieving that !?!?

Confused now with all this chipping an tuning lark. I want mine to look like Josh's on paper. Is there only 1 way of achieving that !?!?

Basically, a remap changes fuelling and boost, and a tuning box just alters the fuelling. You will get a significant performance increase going the tuning box route, and you'll also be able to sell the tuning box on when you sell the car for a fair portion of what you paid for it, which brings the cost down significantly. Remap, is obviously better as the map itself is adjusted, but it costs more and is not easily transferable between cars.....

You pays your money, you takes your choice

Chris

this is part of an email from dragon to me

Correct - this analogue chip will give you up to 20% increase (very good value for money)

If you want 160BHP then you will have to have the Digital unit.

I bought one of these in november on ebay, fitted it and now get 64.9 m.p.g, before I was getting a steady 59.8 m.p.g

I drive quite sedately so don

*cough*

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7966521251&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Jut

Can you do me a favour and measure the resitance across the terminals of your PD box for me - Please, okay, pretty please :P

Just fitted an analogue box from ebay (