Its all down to who writes the map, Shark have in the past tweaked a map several times until the owner is happy.

 

ATEOTD all maps start out as generic, the tweaks then make them custom to the engine.

Also, shark do an STS box, which lets you apply the remap without the drive to them.  I went this route, and my old STS is now for sale!  See 'Parts for sale' section.

Gotboosts rollers are out by a good 10bhp, never used them personally but I know a lot of people who have, and they all give out similar feedback. wait and travel to someone that knows the cars inside out where your money will be better spent

Presumably this is a 'while you wait' service therefore it's a generic map? Why do blacksmoke get slated for offering this over the likes of shark?

That's a perfectly valid question. And so is "Why are Ling Ling tyres slated for being black and round while people seem to like Michelin?"

Both Shark and Blacksmoke are remaps. Tuning the PD130 is laughably easy. All you have to do is turn up the amount of fuel injected until it stops making more power. That genuinely is about it. You can make 160bhp PEAK power just by doing that, but it'll smoke like a very smokey thing.

Peak power isn't the be all and end all. Look at the graphs. Some remaps make a very high headline power but the total area under the line is less.

Sharks remaps make some of the least impressive headline numbers but they make those numbers (or very close to them) for a long time in the rev range, so they pull like a train low down like the standard car and then that keeps going. It never feels like it tails off like the standard mapping so you keep your foot in all the way to the redline and that makes the car faster in real life and it feels much more satisfying to drive.

You don't need to take your car anywhere to get it mapped by Shark. Someone on here has offered you a used STS box. Buy that, upload your stock map to the box. E-mail that file to Shark in Mansfield and they'll send you an e-mail back (once you've paid them, obviously!). Then you plug it back into the car, upload the map to the car and Bob's your uncle. You're remapped.

Faboka literally taught himself to remap cars (and a lot of us followed his education, genuinely impressed by his tenacity and willingness to pick up a skill to get exactly what he wanted). He then turned that into a business. He can charge less for his remaps not because they're any less good than Shark's but because he's not supporting a big organisation that has a building and staff. Those things cost money. Shark have them, Faboka doesn't.

If you want a great map, with a direct relationship with the people who actually write the maps, Ben and Mikko at Shark won't disappoint, but neither will Faboka because Faboka is where Shark were maybe 10 years ago. In time, I have no doubt he'll be a serious player in VAG tuning.

Gotboosts rollers are out by a good 10bhp

If that's all they're out then that sounds quite good. Rolling roads can be a bit of a lottery. The same rolling road, on two different days, with the same car, will give different results because cars are affected by air temperature, humidity, the amount of air being pushed at it by the big fans, the operator also makes a difference, as does how an automatic is held in gear.

JabbaSport's rollers used to be infamous for being optimistic but on the same day the before and after difference was still valid. It just started at 150bhp and went to 180bhp rather than starting at 140bhp and going to 170bhp. That's really all rolling roads are good for. The one at Gotboost could say 1000bhp to start, and then 1030bhp afterwards. The increase is 30bhp and that's valid.