flango
Hardcore MB Enthusiast
This is one that might interest some of you, I have just taken on some work with VW Motorsport for the summer which will see them run some diesel performance cars in one of their race series. Anyway yesterday I met with one of the race engineers who will be responsible for this programme and we all got talking about modern Diesels and how good the economy was. Matt the VAG engineer had worked on everything from the Audi Le Mans car to the Seat BTCC car and apparently is well known for his skill in remapping diesel engines and he reckons the maps are so generic on modern diesels there is always room for about a 10% improvement in economy and up to 30% Improvement in power. He also reckons that some of the newer plug and play tuning boxes on the scene can give very close to a remap at a fraction of the cost. Now a few of our clients cars have the Kleeman KD box or the Brabus D6 and one BMW has a Spider Diesel Tuning box all of which have made big gains in performance and economy but are not cheap. Matt reckons there is no difference between a good cheap end box and an expensive high end model, if you know what you are looking for, just the ammount of profit the manufactuers want to make is the governing factor.
So we felt a challenge coming on, my Volvo V50 1.6d DRIVe work wagon is supposed to have had it's ECU optimised by Volvo to give maximum economy and over the last 6000 miles its average mpg over a very mixed bag of motoring is 59. 8 mpg which I think is excellent.
We challanged Matt to pick a tuning box for < £200 that would improve my cars economy when used for a 1 month period. After this period we then challenged him to remove the tuning box and remap my car and again run another month and compare results.
He came back this afternoon and this is the box he has chosen.
Its made and designed in the UK, not generic and is fully adjustable cost £199 he will fit this to my car next weekend and set it up for maximum economy.
So we thought we better get a baseline and put the car on the dyno, well here came the first big shock. According to Volvo the engine spec should be.
109 PS @ 4000 rpm and 240 Nm torque @ 1750 rpm with combined fuel economy of 62.8 mpg
Our Volvo dyno'd at
118 PS @ 4140 rpm and 267 Nm @ 1787 rpm and fuel economy to date 59.8 mpg
So it looks as though we already have a sweet engine.
Just thought I would let you know about our little experiment and will provide you regular updates.
All comments and thoughts welcome as always.
So we felt a challenge coming on, my Volvo V50 1.6d DRIVe work wagon is supposed to have had it's ECU optimised by Volvo to give maximum economy and over the last 6000 miles its average mpg over a very mixed bag of motoring is 59. 8 mpg which I think is excellent.
We challanged Matt to pick a tuning box for < £200 that would improve my cars economy when used for a 1 month period. After this period we then challenged him to remove the tuning box and remap my car and again run another month and compare results.
He came back this afternoon and this is the box he has chosen.
Its made and designed in the UK, not generic and is fully adjustable cost £199 he will fit this to my car next weekend and set it up for maximum economy.
So we thought we better get a baseline and put the car on the dyno, well here came the first big shock. According to Volvo the engine spec should be.
109 PS @ 4000 rpm and 240 Nm torque @ 1750 rpm with combined fuel economy of 62.8 mpg
Our Volvo dyno'd at
118 PS @ 4140 rpm and 267 Nm @ 1787 rpm and fuel economy to date 59.8 mpg
So it looks as though we already have a sweet engine.
Just thought I would let you know about our little experiment and will provide you regular updates.
All comments and thoughts welcome as always.
