Right, so I thought instead of just a write-up of my impressions of the unit, why not have a dedicated thread where everyone can post all JB4 related information, experiences, questions, results in one place. It's the case in other VAG forums and I know it's quite helpful for anyone looking for JB4 related information. Also, since this was the 3rd time I have installed the unit (1st time on the Superb) I thought I'd share some conclusions and tips that helped me during the process.


Installation:

==========

For anyone who hasn't done this before, it can seem a bit tricky at first but following a few good practices can make life a whole lot easier. This is not a step by step guide as instructions do come with the unit but more like a few areas to draw attention to on how things could be better carried out more easily.

The unit has 3 plugs that are connected at different sensors in the engine bay. Two of them (B and C) are straightforward plug out and then in, but the bottom one (D) is the tricky one. To access it, you need to lift the car slightly and remove the plastic under-tray held by T25 screws. I did it at my garage using a jack and lifting the left side of the car just a bit to allow me to unscrew all the screws. Then, to un-plug it you should have definitely practiced your grip on those connectors as they need a special technique and if you haven't worked with VAG cars before it will seem harder than it is. All it takes is a good press-pull (actually: pivot) of the top tab to release, you can usually (but not always) hear a "click" when it does, then you just pull the connector out. Problem is you can't place your hand exactly as you'd like due to the connector being at a funny angle so practice so as to be able to do it without looking at it. You could also use a screwdriver to pry it open but take care with that as you could brake something.
The AFR wire and positap connector, just follow the instructions on the manual (they are good on that part).

Finally, the routing of the OBD cable and the USB data cable (for those who didn't opt for Bluetooth connection) through the firewall. This is where I'd lost a couple of hours a few years back as the place behind the firewall is so tight you are just working by feel. How I prefer to do it eventually: Get a bit of steel wire to use as a "driver" but not too flexible (3mm thick would do). Attach the molex plug at its end and enter the engine bay from the oval opening with an upright angle (60-70 degrees roughly). You will need to cut a cross slit to the grommet to get through. Helps to have a friend checking what's coming out at the other end otherwise you should be pausing to check if you're good. When you are done, leave the steel wire there and attach the USB cable (the thin end going to the computer not the JB4 end) so that it can get to the cabin when you pull the wire back in through the grommet. Then just arrange all the cables below the steering so that they don't get in your way (I used cable ties) and you're good to go. 

It's good to drive normally for the first minutes after first installation, then gradually give it full throttle for the ecu and gearbox to adapt fully, ie. don't expect the full effect the first time you floor it. Then again it should not be a particularly long process either. Start with Map 1 at first to make sure all feels fine and no errors, lights come up (shouldn't but just in case some wire is not secured in place etc), and even do some logs to confirm this. Then if all looks fine you could switch to Map 2 which is closer to an actual stage 1.


Driving:
=======

So the million dollar question: How does the unit feel on a 272 AWD Superb?

Impressively linear. You won't/shouldn't get any unexpected power spikes, hiccups, noises or other weird reactions. In fact, the unit goes completely un-noticed and has no effect during your regular off-boost driving (you can easily check this by seeing actual boost being the same as ECU requested boost). The extra power is in relation with the throttle position and aggressiveness, when you ask for it, you get it, based on the way that you asked. And what you do get is not some explosion of power as I already said (would be hard to get this with just stage 1 power levels) but a noticeably stronger, more convincing will to accelerate hard up to the red line without any hesitation.

As stock, after the instant "get going" effect wears out (above 40mph) the cars feels like it makes progress but not particularly fast, more like in a fixed speed building state. With the JB4, the car wants to accelerate harder and harder the higher you go in the rev range, as if some limiter has been removed. Flooring it in 1st is hilarious, instant, almost electric slap so be prepared (and that was without Launch Control even), 2nd gear throws you back fiercely, 3rd still goes pretty strong and even in 4th you're accelerating significantly. The power delivery as a whole has expanded and is more interesting to explore the upper departments... But it never feels "injected" or "enforced" on the car, you could easily believe this is how it left the factory.

Coupe of things to note:
- My driving was done with Map 2 as after a quick check on Map 1 there was no point in wasting more time there. Map 1 will have a less pronounced effect on all of the above as it tapers more the extra power.
- The car has a pedal box already which definitely amplifies this instant low speed pick-up and I think one complements the other into a great combo. Again, expect a less pronounced effect without it.


Rough data:
==========

 

Haven't yet had the opportunity to safely compare 0-60 times but judging from the rest of the acceleration figures I got and the way the power is laid down in the first 3 gears (the new 7speed helps there) it definitely feels it can do mid 4's. Update will come in due time.

100-200km/h (or 62-124mph for the UK guys):  Stock, the car did it in 16.6". On Map 2 and no other mods whatsoever this dropped to 11.9"-12.1" which is ridiculously good improvement for a mere stage 1 without any other mods whatsoever. For reference, this is significantly faster than the latest 540i xDrive and S6, and still faster than the latest S4/S5, 440i etc. so not too bad.

Still for people coming from relatively powerful cars, and especially above 100km/h, you will feel it's ok but nothing extraordinary. The good (or bad, that depends... )  thing is this platform can handle a lot more power so up to you really where you feel it's enough. For the time being I'll just add the Racingline filter and turbo inlet pipe that I got out of my previous 2.0 TSI  and call it a day till the situation with the GPF downpipes clears out, then we'll see. I somehow feel I ultimately won't be able to resist a proper upgrade on this car.


 

Edited 26 March, 20197 yr by newbie69

Great write up.  Do you intend to do some in-place 'optimisation' of the box on a dyno? 

 

The main UK seller/distributor for BMS isn't a million miles away and I'm thinking of contacting them to see if they'll help with the installation and also help with dyno tuning, once the box is in place. 

46 minutes ago, penguin17 said:

Great write up.  Do you intend to do some in-place 'optimisation' of the box on a dyno? 

 

The main UK seller/distributor for BMS isn't a million miles away and I'm thinking of contacting them to see if they'll help with the installation and also help with dyno tuning, once the box is in place. 

By optimization I assume you mean setting up a custom Map 6 (the only map that allows custom boost target values). To do this on a dyno, where I'm based I would need an expert with me and the cost of the dyno and his time would not be worth the gains, there's only so much that you can extract from a stock car anyway. However on the JB4 this is also done by contacting George @ BMS directly, he suggests some starting values, then you log on the street and depending on the logs values you work with him to fine tune the map. I did that on my previous car when I wanted/cared to squeeze out ever possible drop of performance but at some point it became a tail chase. Conditions were not always the same or reproduce-able and if you want to max it out, you fine tune it one way which works well on one occasion, then the other day it's uch hotter (or colder) and it's not ideal and you need to log again and end up going back 'n' forth for marginal gains which don't matter unless you race or engage in some other competitive activity which I don't.

That been said, you could extract slightly more juice with a custom Map 6 but, based on my experience with these engines, the +5.2/5.4 psi that Map 2 makes over stock is a healthy chunk of extra boost that I'm happy with, that also leave some safety margin on a bone stock car like mine so I'll stick with that until I get some proper hardware mods. Also, the car still runs close to stock fueling, nowhere near as rich as most ECU remaps usually change it, which in turn go as high as +6 PSI over stock so again I would not like to max it out for that reason too. Also, my car has the new GPF's so to get the best out of it we would probably need to do some more testing instead of dialing in some values that have worked in past cars and I don't have the time for that. 

Let's just say that for the time being I'm glad just with getting rid of the "stock-ness" of the engine, that's a good way to put it  

Edited 26 March, 20197 yr by newbie69

22 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

By optimization I assume you mean setting up a custom Map 6 (the only map that allows custom boost target values). To do this on a dyno, where I'm based I would need an expert with me and the cost of the dyno and his time would not be worth the gains, there's only so much that you can extract from a stock car anyway. However on the JB4 this is also done by contacting George @ BMS directly, he suggests some starting values, then you log on the street and depending on the logs values you work with him to fine tune the map. I did that on my previous car when I wanted/cared to squeeze out ever possible drop of performance but at some point it became a tail chase. Conditions were not always the same or reproduce-able and if you want to max it out, you fine tune it one way which works well on one occasion, then the other day it's uch hotter (or colder) and it's not ideal and you need to log again and end up going back 'n' forth for marginal gains which don't matter unless you race or engage in some other competitive activity which I don't.

That been said, you could extract slightly more juice with a custom Map 6 but, based on my experience with these engines, the +5.2/5.4 psi that Map 2 makes over stock is a healthy chunk of extra boost that I'm happy with, that also leave some safety margin on a bone stock car like mine so I'll stick with that until I get some proper hardware mods. Also, the car still runs close to stock fueling, nowhere near as rich as most ECU remaps usually change it, which in turn go as high as +6 PSI over stock so again I would not like to max it out for that reason too. Also, my car has the new GPF's so to get the best out of it we would probably need to do some more testing instead of dialing in some values that have worked in past cars and I don't have the time for that. 

Let's just say that for the time being I'm glad just with getting rid of the "stock-ness" of the engine, that's a good way to put it  

Thanks; yes I was referring to 'map 6' and custom boost values, etc.  (though I didn't know it was map6 specifically ) I've seen quite a lot on Golf R and even BMW forums where the baseline recommendations from BMS tech support are usually spot on. 

 

How would you say the JB4 compares to a stage 1 ECU remap, with no additional hardware changes?  I'm quite keen on the JB4 as it's commonly regarded to giving the car OEM feel in how the car drives/accelerates/etc.  That's quite a draw for me as the tuning boxes I've used on diesels, whilst 'fun' do give some really odd power curve characteristics.  Whereas remaps I have had, feel like the car left the factory with them in place (but with more bhp).

 

 

4 hours ago, penguin17 said:

Thanks; yes I was referring to 'map 6' and custom boost values, etc.  (though I didn't know it was map6 specifically ) I've seen quite a lot on Golf R and even BMW forums where the baseline recommendations from BMS tech support are usually spot on. 

 

How would you say the JB4 compares to a stage 1 ECU remap, with no additional hardware changes?  I'm quite keen on the JB4 as it's commonly regarded to giving the car OEM feel in how the car drives/accelerates/etc.  That's quite a draw for me as the tuning boxes I've used on diesels, whilst 'fun' do give some really odd power curve characteristics.  Whereas remaps I have had, feel like the car left the factory with them in place (but with more bhp).

 

 

Yes, typically they would start with a safe set of values that has worked on previous cars, so not far off, and work from there.

I mentioned the linearity in my original message. It's one of the JB4's strongest points (for tuning box standards). There is probably only one spot, around 4K, where it felt as if more power was coming on but nothing aggressive or discomforting , you actually had to pay attention to notice it and given my very little mileage with the unit on it could just as well be something that goes away with more miles. Other than that it felt completely stock. 

Really good opinions here - thanks gents.

Edited 26 March, 20197 yr by NorthernSkodian

A 272 with JB4 in Poland got on the dyno today and the results were pretty interesting:

a) As stock it made 295bhp / 362Nm, not unexpected at all considering Skoda's history with official performance values (bhp, weight, times) announced consistently worse than in reality.





b) Off the shelf Map 2 saw the values rise to 343bhp / 423Nm






c) What's more interesting though is that a custom Map 6 did not bring any gains on bhp but with a more optimised power delivery, it gained an entire 20Nm extra (that's an entire typical stage 1 > stage 2 torque gain !) bringing the total to

343bhp/442Nm  

This will be a clearly quicker car (compared to the Map 2 car with identical bhp) without showing on the dyno if you just looked at peak values. The curve though and the flat top end is where the story is told:





 

Edited 11 April, 20197 yr by newbie69

Good numbers,

Interesting that the torque comes in later on map 6

Edited 11 April, 20197 yr by SteHaworth

2 minutes ago, SteHaworth said:

Good numbers,

Interesting that the torque comes in later on map 6

Map 2 gets to 400Nm @ 2200rpm whereas Map 6 is there @ 2700rpm but I would easily do this trade-off for what happens right after that point:

Map 2 stays mostly flat at 400Nm whereas Map 6 is always above 420Nm from 3200rpm all the way to 5600rpm which is where you will normally be spending your time when pushing on so it is all very usable. And being a Map 6 it could probably be fine tuned even further.

All in all very nice results for getting to keep your warranty at the same time.

I've still not had my damaged bumper fixed by the Skoda dealership so I've not fitted my jb4 yet but I plan to do a couple of intake mods along with it, namely turbo elbow, and intake pipe , undecided if I should just remove the snow guard and drop in a panel filter, or get a racingline r600 intake, the turbo elbow is reported to release a worthwhile amount more torque and power

2 hours ago, SteHaworth said:

I've still not had my damaged bumper fixed by the Skoda dealership so I've not fitted my jb4 yet but I plan to do a couple of intake mods along with it, namely turbo elbow, and intake pipe , undecided if I should just remove the snow guard and drop in a panel filter, or get a racingline r600 intake, the turbo elbow is reported to release a worthwhile amount more torque and power

Still? Wow... Hope you get it sorted soon mate.

Probably I'm not the best person to be discussing intake mods with as I have repeatedly discovered owners and tuners seem to be overly optimistic about them. In my opinion their biggest attraction is that they are rather affordable and easy to install by anyone so they look like "easy gains". However considering an R600 + turbo inlet pipe together cost as much as a JB4 and offer just a fraction of the power gains they may not be such a bargain in the end.

I have also (with time) managed to suppress the tendency of evaluating by ear, butt or wishful thinking as that had proved a not so trustworthy method.

I had Racingline's drop in filter and turbo inlet pipe on the Clubsport which I took out before selling up but I have only bothered installing the filter so far. Probably because I honestly could not feel (nor measure) a difference with either of them on before and I'll most definitely not feel a difference on this one, despite people saying the TIP alone gives 8-10bhp. Maybe I'm not that sensitive to such low gains I don't know or maybe their main purpose is to work on the owner's psychology first and less so on the car 

Edited 11 April, 20197 yr by newbie69

I prefer the look of the map 2 torque curve. Overall impressive gains. 

Just my two cents...
I have remapped ECU and the difference compared to before is considerable.
I didn't do dyno test because I don't care about the number, I want to feel the difference.
The only test i did before / after is a measurement using racelogic.
These are the results:

Before:

0-100 km/h = 5.5 sec 

50-150 km/h = 10.0 sec

100-200 km/h = 18.4 sec

After:

0-100 km/h = 5.2 sec 

50-150 km/h = 8.1 sec

100-200 km/h = 13.5 sec

 

The only downside is consumption, which could potentially be better than before. But we know that it's impossible not to push hard on gas pedal, and now it takes a lot more fuel than before.
For now I have done 400 km with an average of 16.5 lt / 100 km (which is about 17 mpg).
But it's worth it!! 

 

9 hours ago, KeteCantek said:

I prefer the look of the map 2 torque curve. Overall impressive gains. 

How so? Any tuned turbocharged engine will have this slightly inflated middle area on the torque curve and will never be as flat as the stock curve, that looks perfectly normal. Mind you, it's neither a significant bump nor one that you can feel behind the wheel anyway, but it's done so that the extra torque is introduced smoother and then let gone a bit earlier as well for safety reasons, especially on otherwise stock hardware cars. But you are always above stock or mild remap levels anyway.

A completely flat torque curve as in a stock dyno run or in Map 2 in this case, shows that potential is left on the table. If the car can maintain x Nm practically all along the rpm range it probably means you can raise that value in the mid-range, and that's the typical strategy of most stage 1/2 maps.

17 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

How so? Any tuned turbocharged engine will have this slightly inflated middle area on the torque curve and will never be as flat as the stock curve, that looks perfectly normal. Mind you, it's neither a significant bump nor one that you can feel behind the wheel anyway, but it's done so that the extra torque is introduced smoother and then let gone a bit earlier as well for safety reasons, especially on otherwise stock hardware cars. But you are always above stock or mild remap levels anyway.

A completely flat torque curve as in a stock dyno run or in Map 2 in this case, shows that potential is left on the table. If the car can maintain x Nm practically all along the rpm range it probably means you can raise that value in the mid-range, and that's the typical strategy of most stage 1/2 maps.

Prefer it because the torque comes in earlier so day to day it is slightly more useful. On a fast drive the map 6 curve will be slightly better. 

 

7 hours ago, Roscio said:

Just my two cents...
I have remapped ECU and the difference compared to before is considerable.
I didn't do dyno test because I don't care about the number, I want to feel the difference.
The only test i did before / after is a measurement using racelogic.
These are the results:

Before:

0-100 km/h = 5.5 sec 

50-150 km/h = 10.0 sec

100-200 km/h = 18.4 sec

After:

0-100 km/h = 5.2 sec 

50-150 km/h = 8.1 sec

100-200 km/h = 13.5 sec

 

The only downside is consumption, which could potentially be better than before. But we know that it's impossible not to push hard on gas pedal, and now it takes a lot more fuel than before.
For now I have done 400 km with an average of 16.5 lt / 100 km (which is about 17 mpg).
But it's worth it!! 

Hmm, sounds like you either measured on a pretty steep uphill or your remap is really mild, do you have the slope data of those runs? I'm curious.

I did stock 100-200km/h in 16.6"   with slight uphill (+0.3%)




Then on Map 2  a 12.7" even with 1.5% slope which is too much and closer to 12-12.2" on a flat road or with slight downhill (-0.5% / 0.75%)


Goes to show how good job the JB4 does if on its Map 2 is faster than a mildly mapped car. I'm now tempted to work on a custom Map 6 with George after I saw the torque gains on that dyno, seems like high 11's would be possible,

But again, I'd like to see more data from you (if you can get it) as excessive slope (over 1.5% either way) can affect very much these times. Or it can be a really mild map and late, conservative power delivery. Hard to say without full run data and without a dyno.

Edited 12 April, 20197 yr by newbie69

1 hour ago, KeteCantek said:

Prefer it because the torque comes in earlier so day to day it is slightly more useful. On a fast drive the map 6 curve will be slightly better. 

 

Oh I thought you were referring to the shape of the curve along the mid-range rather than the rpm. Actually, looking at it again, I believe this late rise of Map 6 must be a "false" picture caused by late flooring on that run, reason is:

Stock: 320Nm @ 2000rpm
Map 2: 340Nm @2000rpm
Map 6: 280Nm @2000rpm??

But the JB4 is not a remap, ie. it does not replace the stock map with something completely different but works by adding specific amounts of extra boost at specific rpm and conditions on top of the stock map. In other words the car would make in worst case the same power as stock but never lower.

* That is unless they've managed to allow even less boost than stock with the latest firmware which wasn't true until some months ago - I will ask George about it.


In any case, even if the picture at low rpm with Map 6 is accurate, Map 2 would be more beneficial only if brisk/fast driving was limited from 2000 to 2700rpm but we're not driving diesels (thankfully ). I'm not saying I'm red-lining it during my daily commute or even drive past 5K, nothing as extreme, but I will drop a gear or two and be over 3K when I want to make good progress and get a good feel of what the engine has to offer. Horsepower will always come late anyway so if you want to get a taste of it you need to at least spend some time in the low-mid range (2.5K-4K) and there Map 6 would be consistently stronger.
 

Edited 12 April, 20197 yr by newbie69

@newbie69 How did you measure the 100-200 times?  Using an app? 

43 minutes ago, newbie69 said:

Oh I thought you were referring to the shape of the curve along the mid-range rather than the rpm. Actually, looking at it again, I believe this late rise of Map 6 must be a "false" picture caused by late flooring on that run, reason is:

Stock: 320Nm @ 2000rpm
Map 2: 340Nm @2000rpm
Map 6: 280Nm @2000rpm??

But the JB4 is not a remap, ie. it does not replace the stock map with something completely different but works by adding specific amounts of extra boost at specific rpm and conditions on top of the stock map. In other words the car would make in worst case the same power as stock but never lower.

* That is unless they've managed to allow even less boost than stock with the latest firmware which wasn't true until some months ago - I will ask George about it.


In any case, even if the picture at low rpm with Map 6 is accurate, Map 2 would be more beneficial only if brisk/fast driving was limited from 2000 to 2700rpm but we're not driving diesels (thankfully ). I'm not saying I'm red-lining it during my daily commute or even drive past 5K, nothing as extreme, but I will drop a gear or two and be over 3K when I want to make good progress and get a good feel of what the engine has to offer. Horsepower will always come late anyway so if you want to get a taste of it you need to at least spend some time in the low-mid range (2.5K-4K) and there Map 6 would be consistently stronger.
 

Yes I was looking at the graph. You are correct if you can actually use 3k and above rpm regularly day to day. 

 

But here in London  for my use case I barely touch 3k because of traffic. Only go over if in front of traffic light and it's clear ahead. 

 

A fun fact (to me ) is that my previous car has peak hp of 140 at 6800rpm iirc.  My current car if taking the stock chart makes that at just under 3000rpm. I could never fully utilise the whole rev range of the previous car normally... 

1 hour ago, KeteCantek said:

Yes I was looking at the graph. You are correct if you can actually use 3k and above rpm regularly day to day. 

 

But here in London  for my use case I barely touch 3k because of traffic. Only go over if in front of traffic light and it's clear ahead. 

 

A fun fact (to me ) is that my previous car has peak hp of 140 at 6800rpm iirc.  My current car if taking the stock chart makes that at just under 3000rpm. I could never fully utilise the whole rev range of the previous car normally... 

Not disagreeing with that as I too spend most of my time off-boost and in the lower rpm range but that's irrelevant from a tuning evaluation perspective is all I'm saying. Our engines, despite offering much more usable power than old laggy turbocharged ones or crazy high RPM N/A ones, they still only start to wake up at the low-mid range rpm. And I don't think anyone is tuning for such low rpm (<3k) where gains and differences are practically un-noticeable even between stock and stage 1 cars.

I love the last sentence - That's actually a really smart way to sell a high power car to SWMBO: 

"Well sweetie, yeah it's advertised as a 450bhp car but don't get fooled by that, have a look at its dyno graph over here for a moment...  There! Do you see that it's barely making 100bhp at 2000rpm where we're typically driving it?? We would JUST be able to make a safe overtake I tell you."

1 hour ago, technics100 said:

@newbie69 How did you measure the 100-200 times?  Using an app? 

To do an accurate and representative measurement the most important thing is a 10Hz GPS antenna/device. The GPS antennas of any smartphone out there are all limited to 1Hz which affects precision. In theory you could just use your phone and an appropriate app but the time won't be very trustworthy  especially if you want to compare it against other published times of other cars.  We are talking maximum of 1-2 seconds deviation but that's already too much. I use a XGPS160 receiver (cost around 120eur). It's smaller than a phone and connects to your smartphone via BT. The smartphone then via an external app like RaceChrono (many are compatible you choose which one to use) records the data sent from the GPS receiver and plots and exports it. If the app can export in .VBO format you can input the file to a couple of graph plotting websites like the one above and get a nice detailed graph of the run, and evaluate it accordingly. The main cost is the receiver and maybe the logging app (5-15eur depending).

The XGPS unit I;m using is for general use (car, boat, bike, track driving) but there's also devices that focus solely on measuring car accelerations like Dragy, or P-Box. Cost around 200eur but they come with their own app and they instantly show you the results and publish it (if you like) on leaderboards.

Edited 12 April, 20197 yr by newbie69

Thanks for the detailed explanation..  I suppose you could just do it from the speedo if you recorded it.. 

Edited 12 April, 20197 yr by technics100

5 hours ago, newbie69 said:

I'd like to see more data from you (if you can get it) as excessive slope (over 1.5% either way) can affect very much these times. Or it can be a really mild map and late, conservative power delivery. Hard to say without full run data and without a dyno.

I don't have complete data yet. I will post as soon as I get them.
Keep in mind that the results were obtained (both before and after) with 110 kg driver + 110 kg co-pilot + 40 kg full tank.
 

Mechanic said high 12's (or maybe 12.5) on 100-200 could be possible by repeating test with 180kg less !

21 minutes ago, Roscio said:

I don't have complete data yet. I will post as soon as I get them.
Keep in mind that the results were obtained (both before and after) with 110 kg driver + 110 kg co-pilot + 40 kg full tank.
 

Mechanic said high 12's (or maybe 12.5) on 100-200 could be possible by repeating test with 180kg less !

Ok that makes more sense. 12.5" should be perfectly possible with 340bhp, I've made that time myself on a slight slope so no reason why you wouldn't match it also.

I just timed 100-200kph (62-124mph) in my 2.0 TFSI 220BHP with a racechip tuning box from a video of the digital speedo and it's timing at 14 secs.. for a comparison..

Edited 12 April, 20197 yr by technics100