Hmm I'm a tad confused on this one guys. Just need a couple of inputs from you fellow fabia owners.

Well me and a friend had a bit of a play tonight. On a long, open straight back road. There are no obstructions and we could both clearly see the road/lanes ahead. Anyway you may see where this is going here.....

My car has a few tweaks, a standard 170 map with egr delete for power, lovely 312mm brake upgrade and spax rsx fully adjustable coil overs. So she's pretty good on the road as a general car. I don't make a habit of racing nor have I raced the vrs until this today.

Well my mate owns a standard suzuki swift sport 2014 model. 1.6n/a 138bhp as standard Nice little motor it is but I know they're not the torquiest nor quickest hot hatches out there so I thought in a straight line my fabs gonna have him. Nuh uhhh! He had a passenger in the car also.

Well we rolled out of a corner, him in front and he floored it. So I pressed the load peddle too but to my surprise I just could not catch that swift. With all my lovely torque and only me in the car, his swift was actually pulling away.

Now we are both older car nuts and to be honest we never broke the speed limit (well actually i never got into 5th gear) nor are we interested in top speeds but we were both surprised that his little 1.6 performed so well against the fab.

This is my first experience of being out dragged and it's especially worrying that it was done in a car with less power and torque and the same weight if not more than I was carrying.

What would your thoughts be?

Service wise the cars had fresh oil and filters, a full decked head, valves and shells, along with pd150 head bolts and a lovely darkside oil cooler. So I'd hope it's not to do with maintanence.

Could it be a poop map? I bought the car with it mapped already but not sure of brand. It kicks out alot of unburnt fuel deposits up the rear of the car so I have no doubts it's mapped - unless these cars do this as standard? I'm not great with diesels, I'm from the petrol tuning side of things.

Yeah well let me know your thoughts and if I should be worried. I presumed it would have pushed him along the road but I was soooo wrong lol

Oh that's meant to read de-coked head, valves etc....

I know my standard vrs pulled slowly from a 2006 sport. I'd say bad map.

When I had the pd150 turbo with 180bhp I could keep up with a 2012 golf gti from 20-70....ish lol

LOL,

What a wonderful not racing story up to National Speed Limits.

somethings wrong you shouldn't have had a problem beating that plus if its just a stage 1 map it shouldn't be that smokey i'd get a new map tbh when i had a hybrid on mine with cooler and zaust it produced 218bhp then had my m8 map it who's a mapper and he said if it wern't quicker then he wouldn't charge me lol. anyway against a ep3 civic type r with old map they would catch me after 4th gear with my m8s map we were on par they couldn't pass me i'd look in to the map tbh

Edited 7 January, 201610 yr by steveopc

You didn't mention a fmic? heat soak or boost leak? you should beat a 1.6 swift :P

Yup thought so, I am very surprised that my car didn't pull on the swift. I'll have to get it on a dyno and have it checked.

I'm wondering if the timing might be out as it's going through fuel like my petrol octavia vrs (family car). I get and have always got since owning it, roughly 300 miles to a tank.

All boost pipes have been inspected, with no residue around their seals. I have suspected the map for a while now but I've never driven another fabia so I have no comparison(s).

The car doesn't have a front mount Intercooler or exhaust system upgrade, only an s2k cone filter as the precious owner have drilled the OE airbox and it was all cracked (as if stood on).

Ah i forgot the 'joys' of forums - Pmsl at Mr root tootsies, like you've never accelerated hard in your car on a public road ( even if it is on a slip road).... Please do get over yourself as some of us aren't your typical stereotype "boyracer" but car enthusiasts. Why else would you buy a "hot hatch" over a 1000cc hybrid micro car..... shhhheesh. And may I add I am a family man, with plenty of driving experience on both public and track - check out a company called Revolution Motorstore. .. I worked for them for over 10 years preparing high performance cars. I respect other road users and my own family hence the road we picked out (on our way home anyway) was a duel laned, center divided national speed limit road. We did not break the limit, just accelerated up to it. At which point there was no need to go past and floor it into 5th and 6th as I clearly wasn't making head room on the swift in my torqueSt 3rd and 4th gears. Have fun not exposing your "quick" exploits in your vehicle.

Anyway rant over, I shouldn't have bitten.

I would tell you how good the Swift Sport is but I'll get told off. All I will say is on the same road home from work (52 mile of Welsh B road) the Mk1 Swift Sport matches the same times home my Mk2 vRS did.

Power vs weight ratio is about the same ~130 so I'd say it would be a close call between those two. I think the transmission did the difference in this case. Swift sport has a 6 speed gearbox and 195/45/17 wheels, when Fabia has 195/45/16 as standard. These would make a 2s difference IMHO.  Naturally aspirated engine though, no reasons for lag, smooth power delivered straight to 7000rpm .. looks pretty neat to me.

Suzuki Swifts can get a shift on, and some drivers are a bit slow on dropping a gear and getting a shift on because they think their car is quicker than it is.  (Why Suzuki Swifts are so high rated by motoring Journalists and othrers, 

only a Warm Hatch, Value for money, not many HP's, and surprises plenty Hot Hatch drivers.) Then there is the fact they are petrol engine cars.

It is the boy racer way. Even us older boy racers can get caught out, more so with a manual where you dont just floor the accelerator, you need the correct gear. Especially with a not very light Turbo Diesel

Now that you know that Adz_VRS you can get on with modifications that actually improve performance.

With 10 years preparing performance cars you should be pretty well up on what you need to do.

 

PS

Standard Suzuki Swift Sport 134 BHP / 136 PS (Minimum)

http://evo.co.uk/suzuki/swift-sport

Edited 8 January, 201610 yr by GoneOffskiroottoot

Indeed sir and as mentioned I apologise for biting. Shouldn't have gone there. I can whole heartedly appreciate the difference in engines. I believe alexandru has the best valid point in the gear box ratios. Where as the fab has such a short band, the swift can hold and "rev out" with no power drop.

I do believe however that my car "should" have been quicker especially in a straight line given the power and torque difference. What ill have to do now is establish how the cars "map" is performing.

Having more power doesn't always mean you will be quicker. For example one of my mates brought a remapped vrs, at the time I was driving my mk1 golf gti which at a push probably had 120bhp, so I guesstimate he probably had 50bhp more than me but I could match or beat him in certain situations. I also had a dust up with a Leon cupra 180bhp version and again I could match it.

Why? Just different characteristics plus a lot less weight.

Check your map by all means maybe even contact fabooka as his skills are highly regarded.Also you have to remember that the vrs has a very small power band

Edited 8 January, 201610 yr by theezenutz

Daft question, but were you going up too high in the gears? It's the torque that makes them shift, once you're past that, there's not much there in all fairness.

I would be more incline to test vcds before map .. plus its much easier :P

Edited 8 January, 201610 yr by FromTheDarkness

If you're reacting to someone pulling away there usually has to be a fair amount of difference in performance and length of road to make up the ground. The only way to really compare would be to line up with the swift from a standing start. To be honest with the weight of the swift and it's spec I'm not surprised it surprised you, maybe you should have been able to get closer but over a short distance in that situation you won't see much difference coming from behind. As mentioned it's not just about power figure but how it is delivered through the gears.

It does sound like you could be running a bit rich though...

Edited 8 January, 201610 yr by YellowCar

Hmm I'm a tad confused on this one guys. Just need a couple of inputs from you fellow fabia owners.

Well me and a friend had a bit of a play tonight. On a long, open straight back road. There are no obstructions and we could both clearly see the road/lanes ahead. Anyway you may see where this is going here.....

My car has a few tweaks, a standard 170 map with egr delete for power, lovely 312mm brake upgrade and spax rsx fully adjustable coil overs. So she's pretty good on the road as a general car. I don't make a habit of racing nor have I raced the vrs until this today.

Well my mate owns a standard suzuki swift sport 2014 model. 1.6n/a 138bhp as standard Nice little motor it is but I know they're not the torquiest nor quickest hot hatches out there so I thought in a straight line my fabs gonna have him. Nuh uhhh! He had a passenger in the car also.

Well we rolled out of a corner, him in front and he floored it. So I pressed the load peddle too but to my surprise I just could not catch that swift. With all my lovely torque and only me in the car, his swift was actually pulling away.

Now we are both older car nuts and to be honest we never broke the speed limit (well actually i never got into 5th gear) nor are we interested in top speeds but we were both surprised that his little 1.6 performed so well against the fab.

This is my first experience of being out dragged and it's especially worrying that it was done in a car with less power and torque and the same weight if not more than I was carrying.

What would your thoughts be?

Service wise the cars had fresh oil and filters, a full decked head, valves and shells, along with pd150 head bolts and a lovely darkside oil cooler. So I'd hope it's not to do with maintanence.

Could it be a poop map? I bought the car with it mapped already but not sure of brand. It kicks out alot of unburnt fuel deposits up the rear of the car so I have no doubts it's mapped - unless these cars do this as standard? I'm not great with diesels, I'm from the petrol tuning side of things.

Yeah well let me know your thoughts and if I should be worried. I presumed it would have pushed him along the road but I was soooo wrong lol

I work for suzuki dealership and the swift sport is a good fun car, fairly nippy but it's party piece is the handling it's proper awesome, anyways I own a fabia vrs se in standard form atm and mine is quicker in a straight line then the swift sport so something sounds odd to me there, the only time I struggle with a swift sport is in the twisties when the sport is brilliant. Like I said it don't sound right to me and I drive swift sports most days at work plus my brother in law has one

Get it on a dyno and check what it's putting out and how the power curve from the map is. A mapped vRS should be able to pull on a Swift Sport, but that being said the gap will probably be closer than many would like to admit due to power/weight ratios. Even with a passenger I'd imagine the swift to be a bit lighter than the vRS, they are quite lardy!

 

Petrol hot hatches, especially N/A, have short gearing so they don't need loads of power to make quick progress. It's why cars like the EP3 Type R are so fast despite them not really being that powerful. 

 

Not trying to teach you to suck eggs but you have learnt how to drive a diesel to get the best from it? It's not like a petrol where you rev it round the clock to get the power, the bulk of the power is from when the turbo comes in at around 1800-2000rpm to around 4000rpm when it starts to die off. Reving much past 4000rpm, even on a mapped car, is pretty pointless. Your better to change a cog and drop back into the torque band and use that. 

These head-to-head jaunts have too many variables. 1.6NA car accelerates first, 1.9TDI reacts? I'd always expect the Swift to get ahead.

 

Needs something like torque pro on a smartphone to do acceleration tests, then compare between the cars.

 

Regarding your MPG and the (lack of) performance.... Reads something like a boost leak.... I hope that's all that it is.

 

J.

All that smoke and horrible fuel consumption means that something is amiss, make a start by posting some logs, my feeling is you're way down on power whether it's the map or a fault somewhere else.

Well guys sorry for digging this back up after so long but last night under normal driving conditions I. E not spirited driving, my lower boost pipe popped off. So I suspect that this has been an issue for a while.

I'm still very much interested in the performance of my car so maybes fabooka is my man.

Thanks for your comments guys

Sounds like you nailed the reason !

 

I have to add that a Suzuki (Not) Swift and my own personal experiences on a standard BLT, they seem slow on the roads ( not racing them deliberately, just "making good progress"), similar to encounters I've had with standard Golf unmaped red TDIs and standard BMW 2.0 TDI's.

 

Not bad for modern cars, but "Swift" ? Nu uh. About as appropriate as writing "Rapid" on the back of that model of Skoda TBH.....they really should have done a vRS one of those too, and I'd have had one in that form too !