Hello all,

I looked at a used Fabia VRS today that I am fairly interested in but am concerned about the fact it had a Dragon Box fitted between 20,000 and 50,000 miles. It was set to 14 out of 16.

The car has now done approx 70,000 and has been used for the past 20,000 miles un-tuned due to the failure of the Dragon Box 20,000 miles ago.

The car seemed to drive well but what are the chances that damage has been done to the engine by the Dragon Box?

I can't find a website for these dragon boxes. Don't they have one?

What's the price of these Dragon Boxes, in some threads people have bought them for 75 quid but in others a few hundred!

Any information on Dragon Boxes is greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Coiner

Edited 26 June, 201214 yr by coiner

Found this if you type Dragon Tuning Box into Google

=0000002903/category_drop_down_1=0000000007/category_drop_down_2=0000000041/category_drop_down_3=0000000221/category_drop_down_4=0000002903"]http://www.tdi-tuning.co.uk/product.html/search/cat[]=0000002903/category_drop_down_1=0000000007/category_drop_down_2=0000000041/category_drop_down_3=0000000221/category_drop_down_4=000000290

=0000002903/category_drop_down_1=0000000007/category_drop_down_2=0000000041/category_drop_down_3=0000000221/category_drop_down_4=0000002903"]3

They used to have there own website and ebay shop but i think they are not in business no more.

A few years ago there were many threads on here about them and everyone liked them but obviously went to a full remap in the end.

As I understand it the Dragon box sits 'upstream' of the fuel injection sensors and fools the sensor into thinking the ambient temperature is much lower than it actually is.

When you press the loud pedal, in goes more fuel because its 'cold' and you get more ooooomph.

That's for the cheaper tuning boxes which bypass the fuel temp sensor and gives a higher temp then normal. The ecu has a fuel temp map which the higher the fuel temp the longer IQ.

I believe the dragon is like the more expensive ones which intercept the signal to the injectors. Depending on the settings depends on how longer it makes the fuel duration.

Both methods increase fueling across the whole rev range.

As above it is a proper digital box and intercepts the messages to/from the injectors not just a cheap resistor that fools the ECU into thinking the engine is colder than it is.

The only realy danger is if the box was turned up quite high it could have caused exessive smoking and coked up the injectors and turbo etc. Other than that there isn't really any danger.

Phil

I stand corrected (well, I'm sitting but you get the idea). Thank you gents.

Thanks for the information.

So basically it could damage the injectors and turbo if abused but in general causes no problems?

Edited 27 June, 201214 yr by coiner

I had a bad experience with one of these, bought one second hand and car woulnt start, clogged my injectors

I had one on my vrs for a few years with no problems at all .As what was said before if you turned it up it smoked abit so I only had it set in the middle setting ,I have taken it off and the car is going great but a bit slower,if the car runs ok I cant see it doing any damage.

if the car runs ok I cant see it doing any damage.

on the car i am interested in it stopped working 20,000miles ago and so is for sale un-tuned.

just wanted to try and work out if it is likely to have damaged anything resulting in things being more likely to fail after i have bought it as it is already stretching my budget.

Edited 27 June, 201214 yr by coiner

If they had it on a high setting and did lots of booting the accelerator before the turbo had spun up then it is likely it will have got very sooty inside the engine.

No way of knowing short of dismantling stuff.

On the other hand if it is running fine then I see no problems and a clean out never hurts even a fairly clean car. If everything else seem fine then buy it then give the EGR, turbo (exhaust side) and intercooler a good clean out. The stick some millers or other fuel additive in and take it for a good run.

All these are pretty simple jobs and would probably take just half a day to do. I plan to clean my EGR and turbo out soon. Already cleaned the intercooler and pipes out.

Phil

Hi Coiner and all,

The car in question belongs to moi! ..got your pm re above question cheers mate -thanks for having a look. ..thought I'd reply here...

I bought the dragon box after a good bit of research and positive feedback on this forum.

I installed it myself - easy process of disconecting multiplug from engine block and reconnecting the two ends of the Dragon box loom between. The unit then requires power from the battery. I initially set the unit to level 10 (out of 16) later increasing to 14 once I was comfortable there were no problems.

I have always been a regular user of the Millers Diesel Power Ecomax product (mentioned by Phil above) the best cetane booster / detergent I know of. I would generally add a measure every other fuelling. I also tend to use super unleaded from Shell or BP who poss use better (more beneficial) additives than others. I am told this helps to keep the engine and turbo in good condition - clean! so in theory sooting should not be a problem.

Oh, and I cleaned the intercooler and pipes out last year. Cotton Green air filter was regularly cleaned and lightly oiled (with green filter oil only).

Cars that have been modified to some degree always (understandably) generate caution in a buyer. I know I reject a TT i was tempted by that had been heavily modified a few months back. But I would say most of the people I know of that have modified cars treat their cars much better than the average unmodified and tend to know much more about their car. I never cut corners with this car re repairs etc. I would always go OEM or better often paying a lot more money for uprated parts that I believed would last longer i.e Sachs performance clutch and Jabbasport smfw etc. The car was my pride and joy for 7 years - not flogged to death!

..I still have the Dragon Box if anybody is interested - poss a nice little fix-it project for anyone good with electronics? Poss a failed cap?

If coiner doesn't want it than anyone else PM me and you can have it for free!

Andy

Thanks for the info Andy.

Your car is certainly very well looked after, I just wanted to check what other people thought especially as the dragon box was set to a high setting.