Skoda Superb 2.0tdi Remap???

[ChrisWilton85]

Good morning,

Has anybody had there 2.0tdi 170bhp remapped with a DSG gearbox.

Just wondering as superchips have an offer on at £259 and they come and install the map.

I'm in Stoke on Trent if there is better options. 

[chimaera]

There isn't a huge amount of overhead in the 170 engine, the most you might get is 200 bhp if it's mapped on a rolling road.

[varooom]

4 minutes ago, chimaera said:

There isn't a huge amount of overhead in the 170 engine, the most you might get is 200 bhp if it's mapped on a rolling road.

It's a Diesel, it's not about HP...

 

Last 170 I had remapped went to around 200HP, but the torque went up 19% and that you do notice (effortless overtaking)

[mwlee512]

I’ve had my 170 remapped but it isn’t the DSG.

 

Made a big difference to the way it drives, took it to 216bhp and 444nm torque.

 

 

[ChrisWilton85]

Looks like I'll do some more research and then make a decision. 

Not after it being a rocketship, just more interested if the drivability of it would be smoother/better.

 

[Smart Pro]

Mine is manual, not DSG and I have fitted a tuning box (TDI Tuning), with a bluetooth interface, which connects via an app on my phone and allows one of 7 levels of 'tune' to be selected.

 

I generally use level 5, and the increase in available torque is very noticeable, which aids overtaking and allows you to hold higher gears for longer.  On a long trip, this helps fuel economy (unless you are constantly using the increased performance)!

 

The tuning box connects to the fuel rail and turbo boost sensors, the latter meaning that you have to approach it from underneath the car. The unit is well made and support from the company has been very good.

 

I have also fitted one to my VW Crafter van and again, very impressed by the improvement in torque and fuel economy.

 

 

[chimaera]

11 hours ago, Smart Pro said:

Mine is manual, not DSG and I have fitted a tuning box (TDI Tuning), with a bluetooth interface, which connects via an app on my phone and allows one of 7 levels of 'tune' to be selected.

 

I generally use level 5, and the increase in available torque is very noticeable, which aids overtaking and allows you to hold higher gears for longer.  On a long trip, this helps fuel economy (unless you are constantly using the increased performance)!

 

The tuning box connects to the fuel rail and turbo boost sensors, the latter meaning that you have to approach it from underneath the car. The unit is well made and support from the company has been very good.

 

I have also fitted one to my VW Crafter van and again, very impressed by the improvement in torque and fuel economy.

 

 

Those things are not good for your engine because they force it to run out of control from the ECU by feeding it bad data. Get a remap from a competent tuner.

[Smart Pro]

On 03/01/2023 at 21:39, chimaera said:

Those things are not good for your engine because they force it to run out of control from the ECU by feeding it bad data. Get a remap from a competent tuner.

Can’t say I agree with your statement as you are suggesting that all tuning boxes are equally bad in terms of the data, which is not the case! You can get a bespoke programmed tuning box from a reputable company, which will be calibrated and better suited to your particular vehicle than an off the shelf remap from a flash it and go tuner! Equally, there are a lot of duff tuning boxes which use generic maps and only alter fuel rail pressure. 

[Ootohere]

@Smart Pro Which reputable company would you recommend to buy a Tuning Box from? 

[chimaera]

19 minutes ago, Smart Pro said:

Can’t say I agree with your statement as you are suggesting that all tuning boxes are equally bad in terms of the data, which is not the case! You can get a bespoke programmed tuning box from a reputable company, which will be calibrated and better suited to your particular vehicle than an off the shelf remap from a flash it and go tuner! Equally, there are a lot of duff tuning boxes which use generic maps and only alter fuel rail pressure. 

They are all bad because they hide the true state of the engine from the ECU, risking overboost or excessive fuel rail pressure. Some might just be less bad than others.

 

A remap means the ECU sees the exact state of the engine and can therefore maintain full control and stay within hardware limits.

[Smart Pro]

12 hours ago, chimaera said:

They are all bad because they hide the true state of the engine from the ECU, risking overboost or excessive fuel rail pressure. Some might just be less bad than others.

 

A remap means the ECU sees the exact state of the engine and can therefore maintain full control and stay within hardware limits.

A remap will alter values relating to boost pressure and fuel / air mixture / fuel injection pressures by overwriting the manufacturer’s software code. A tuning box works to the same set of principles, except that the signals from the ECU are intercepted and altered further down the line.

 

An ECU will only work within the parameters that have been set from the software code. A good tuner will use a rolling road to alter the parameters on the fly, however most remaps are performed without the aid of a rolling road and are therefore off the peg, albeit to the specific characteristics of that particular vehicle. Exactly the same as with a decent tuning box.

[Smart Pro]

In terms of recommending a tuning box supplier, I only have experience of one, which is TDI Tuning. 
 

I have one of their tuning boxes fitted to my VW Crafter van and Skoda Superb and have been more than happy with the results and the service from the company.

[Ootohere]

Plenty people use them and are happy enough.

If they work for them then fair enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chimaera]

32 minutes ago, Smart Pro said:

A remap will alter values relating to boost pressure and fuel / air mixture / fuel injection pressures by overwriting the manufacturer’s software code. A tuning box works to the same set of principles, except that the signals from the ECU are intercepted and altered further down the line.

 

An ECU will only work within the parameters that have been set from the software code. A good tuner will use a rolling road to alter the parameters on the fly, however most remaps are performed without the aid of a rolling road and are therefore off the peg, albeit to the specific characteristics of that particular vehicle. Exactly the same as with a decent tuning box.

No.

 

All a tuning box does is tell the ECU that fuel rail pressure and boost are lower than they actually are, to fool the ECU into increasing those parameters further, with the risk that they can be pushed past safe limits because the ECU doesn't know what the real values are. It's a fudge.

 

It's also limited in what it can achieve since increasing fuel rail pressure is not a particularly effective way to increase fuel flow. It also can only influence two of the many control parameters the ECU uses.

 

In a remap, the tuner modifies the values in the map that the ECU uses to control the engine. They can make sure the engine stays within safe limits for all components. They also have far more options for increasing performance since things like injection timing and duration can be tweaked to push more fuel without needing to increase rail pressure. Even a stock remap is safer and more effective than a tuning box.

 

I realise that I'm unlikely to change your mind due to your choice supportive bias but hopefully I'll help others avoid this mistake.

[Smart Pro]

1 hour ago, chimaera said:

No.

 

All a tuning box does is tell the ECU that fuel rail pressure and boost are lower than they actually are, to fool the ECU into increasing those parameters further, with the risk that they can be pushed past safe limits because the ECU doesn't know what the real values are. It's a fudge.

 

It's also limited in what it can achieve since increasing fuel rail pressure is not a particularly effective way to increase fuel flow. It also can only influence two of the many control parameters the ECU uses.

 

In a remap, the tuner modifies the values in the map that the ECU uses to control the engine. They can make sure the engine stays within safe limits for all components. They also have far more options for increasing performance since things like injection timing and duration can be tweaked to push more fuel without needing to increase rail pressure. Even a stock remap is safer and more effective than a tuning box.

 

I realise that I'm unlikely to change your mind due to your choice supportive bias but hopefully I'll help others avoid this mistake.

I have had vehicles remapped in the past and spent time researching both options so my decision to run with a tuning box on this occasion was one that was made objectively and certainly not with any degree of bias.

 

To say that a stock remap is safer and more effective than a tuning box is misleading as there are poorly written remaps as well as cheap / ineffective tuning boxes with limited parameters.

 

If a reputable tuning box supplier such as TDI Tuning, which has been trading for a number of years and is prepared to offer a 5 year warranty on its product, is selling something which is potentially unsafe and ineffective, don’t you think they would have faced litigation and ceased trading by now?

 

I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[varooom]

I like both your points of view, brings balance to the force.

 

I've had boxes in the past and proper remaps too.

[chimaera]

5 hours ago, Smart Pro said:

I have had vehicles remapped in the past and spent time researching both options so my decision to run with a tuning box on this occasion was one that was made objectively and certainly not with any degree of bias.

 

To say that a stock remap is safer and more effective than a tuning box is misleading as there are poorly written remaps as well as cheap / ineffective tuning boxes with limited parameters.

 

If a reputable tuning box supplier such as TDI Tuning, which has been trading for a number of years and is prepared to offer a 5 year warranty on its product, is selling something which is potentially unsafe and ineffective, don’t you think they would have faced litigation and ceased trading by now?

 

I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm looking at this from a fundamental engineering point of view: the principle behind tuning boxes is inferior to that behind a remap, because they reduce the ECU's ability to control the engine and increase the risk of damage as a result. All tuning boxes are bad because of this, just some might be less bad than others. That there are some bad remaps our there doesn't change that fundamental fact (you wouldn't argue for instance that cars are a bad idea because some specific examples are bad).

 

When a less bad tuning box costs as much as a custom remap it's a no-brainer.

[Smart Pro]

The ECUs ability to control the engine, as you put it, is entirely dependent on the code which has been uploaded to it. The ECU will never operate outside of this code, whether it’s stock or remapped. The code which is uploaded to a tuning box’s ECU, intercepts the code from the car’s main ECU. It is quite possible that the same code is uploaded to a tuning box’s ECU as a remapped car’s ECU, if both sets of code are off the shelf. The end result will be the same.

 

Incidentally, I think you will find that a custom remap applied with the use of a rolling road and several hours tweaking said code, will result in a significantly higher cost than that of a “less bad” tuning box! Also, a custom remap would need to be applied to a ‘modified’ vehicle, where for instance, a straight through exhaust with cat delete has been specified, ported headers and / or a hybrid turbo has been fitted. Otherwise, if the vehicle is unmodified in all other respects and has been well maintained, an off the shelf remap or dare I say it, a decent tuning box, will probably suffice.

Edited 6 January, 2023 by Smart Pro

[chimaera]

14 hours ago, Smart Pro said:

The ECUs ability to control the engine, as you put it, is entirely dependent on the code which has been uploaded to it. The ECU will never operate outside of this code, whether it’s stock or remapped. The code which is uploaded to a tuning box’s ECU, intercepts the code from the car’s main ECU. It is quite possible that the same code is uploaded to a tuning box’s ECU as a remapped car’s ECU, if both sets of code are off the shelf. The end result will be the same.

 

Incidentally, I think you will find that a custom remap applied with the use of a rolling road and several hours tweaking said code, will result in a significantly higher cost than that of a “less bad” tuning box! Also, a custom remap would need to be applied to a ‘modified’ vehicle, where for instance, a straight through exhaust with cat delete has been specified, ported headers and / or a hybrid turbo has been fitted. Otherwise, if the vehicle is unmodified in all other respects and has been well maintained, an off the shelf remap or dare I say it, a decent tuning box, will probably suffice.

The tuning box doesn't intercept any code from the ECU and that's the fundamental problem. It has no ability at all to communicate with the ECU.

 

All of the sensors in the engine are analogue i.e. they produce a voltage proportional to the physical parameter that the ECU then reads and converts into a number that is then checked against the map.

 

All the tuning box is capable of doing is modifying that analogue sensor output so that the ECU is fooled into pushing more fuel and air than it's programmed to do.

 

Literally if turbo boost is reading for example 1.1 bar, modifying the signal so that the ECU reads 1.0 bar and behaves as if that's what's actually happening.

[Smart Pro]

With a tuning box, the data cables from the ECU that go to to the boost pressure and fuel rail sensors are intercepted by the tuning box in that those cables now plug into to the tuning box and the ECU within the tuning box modifies the code from the ECU. The modified data is then transferred via the tuning box's cables to the boost pressure and fuel rail sensors. This is exactly the same principle that a remap adopts except that it flashes the 'custom' data directly onto the ECU. 

 

You are tarring all tuning boxes with the same brush and I accept that some just have a cable going to the fuel rail sensor for example and others use very basic code to crudely manipulate the boost and fuel pressure. It is the same with a remap. A cheap off the peg remap could be used on a variety of different diesel engines and still result in an increase in torque / bhp. However, the settings used would not be optimal for that particular engine / vehicle and this is where the problem's occur, usually when the vehicle being 'tuned' has been neglected where regular maintenance is concerned.

 

My last vehicle was remapped by Celtic Tuning, a reputable tuning company, albeit without the aid of a rolling road. The technician downloaded the code to my ECUs (yes my previous car had two), which had been written specifically for my model of vehicle. No tweaking, other than the actual download of the code was undertaken as it would have been pointless without the rolling road. I was very happy with results.

 

For my current vehicle and van I spent a lot of time researching tuning box technology and suppliers as I wanted the ability to be able remove the boxes and revert to stock. I satisfied myself that the 'tune' provided by the supplier of my tuning boxes would at least be equal to that of a decent off the peg remap. Again, I was and am very happy with the results.

Edited 8 January, 2023 by Smart Pro

[chimaera]

So I just looked at the installation instructions for the TDI Tuning box you say you have. It connects to the fuel rail pressure sensor and the boost sensor and nothing else, so it's exactly the same as every other box: it messes with the analogue signals from those sensors and fools the ECU into pushing more fuel/air. Wherever you're getting your information from is wrong.

[J.R.]

9 hours ago, Smart Pro said:

My last vehicle was remapped by Celtic Tuning, a reputable tuning company, albeit without the aid of a rolling road. The technician downloaded the code to my ECUs (yes my previous car had two), which had been written specifically for my model of vehicle. No tweaking, other than the actual download of the code was undertaken as it would have been pointless without the rolling road. I was very happy with results.

 

For my current vehicle and van I spent a lot of time researching tuning box technology and suppliers as I wanted the ability to be able remove the boxes and revert to stock. I satisfied myself that the 'tune' provided by the supplier of my tuning boxes would at least be equal to that of a decent off the peg remap

 

A shame you did not get the guys at Celtic tuning on the subject of tuning boxes and wear your listening ears.

 

If it were not for a tuning box bodging the boost pressure in the same way as it does the injector duration then it would be no better than a simple resistor hidden in (an expensive) "Tuning box" connecting between the loom and the coolant temperature sensor as many once did.

 

I have a Celtic tuning remap.

[J.R.]

10 hours ago, Smart Pro said:

With a tuning box, the data cables from the ECU that go to to the boost pressure and fuel rail sensors are intercepted by the tuning box in that those cables now plug into to the tuning box and the ECU within the tuning box modifies the code from the ECU. The modified data is then transferred via the tuning box's cables to the boost pressure and fuel rail sensors

 

One slight problem with that Fairy Tale, the data goes in the other direction, the ECU does not control the boost pressure and fuel rail sensors, it controls the injectors and turbo actuator using values from a 3D look up table in response to inputs from (amongst others) the boost pressure and fuel rail sensors, in the case of a tuning box (deliberately) incorrect values.

[Smart Pro]

26 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

A shame you did not get the guys at Celtic tuning on the subject of tuning boxes and wear your listening ears.

 

If it were not for a tuning box bodging the boost pressure in the same way as it does the injector duration then it would be no better than a simple resistor hidden in (an expensive) "Tuning box" connecting between the loom and the coolant temperature sensor as many once did.

 

I have a Celtic tuning remap.

Yes, I am sure the guys at Celtic Tuning and anybody else with a vested interest in remapping (not that I have anything against them) will be more than willing to provide an objective and balanced analysis on the subject of tuning boxes! As I have already said, I am perfectly happy with the performance of my choice of tuning box and the research / testing that the supplier undertook, so I shall leave it at that!

[Whitebeach]

On 29/12/2022 at 09:25, mwlee512 said:

I’ve had my 170 remapped but it isn’t the DSG.

 

Made a big difference to the way it drives, took it to 216bhp and 444nm torque.

 

 

Who  did the remap?