Kleeman KD-Box tuning kit.

[saorbust]

I'm sure its been asked before, but has anyone on here ever used one of these on a CDI engine ? I've been looking - you can buy one from their webshop for about ~850 Euros (~550 pounds), its removable, seems to give a really good increase in BHP / Torque (circ 204 to 250 bhp / 500 to 625NM) - and overall looks like a good addition.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of these things.

Thanks,
Jonathon.

 

[saorbust]

Edit - just found this http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-24742.html

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Is yours a V6 or I6 320 CDi? I believe MB dealers are offering Brabus ECU upgrades for the V6 engines, but probably at a fair wedge more than the Kleemann box. If warranty is an issue it's a safer bet though.

 

[saorbust]

I6 - thanks.

Its within warranty at the moment.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Brabus do engine upgrades for the I6 but I'm pretty sure that MB dealers don't offer them - Brabus outlets only. MB dealers only do the very latest V6 engines. Shame as the extra cost of the Brabus upgrade might be worth it to keep warranty intact.

The other alternative might be remapping the existing ECU via www.dmsautomotive.com or one of their many competitors.

 

[saorbust]

Price is now £399 from Kleeman.

Think I may go for it...

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Crikey that's cheap. Do you have a link?

 

[saorbust]

No - I mailed the UK Sales people and they told me the price. 399 + VAT. £10 for shipping.

What I like is that you can take it out - so the dealer will never know when you have it serviced etc. (Unless they read on here of course !)

J.

Try www.kleeman.de - lots of info there.

 

[wrong]

> Try www.kleeman.de - lots of info there.

In think you meant www.kleemann.dk
Was looking with interest at the KD-Box as well, but seems unlikely from the online info that it'll fit the lowly A-Class 180CDi (W169) I'm looking into at the moment :-(

 

[w124coupe]

J - its worth a call to your insurers - they seem to know some of the tuning box brands (e.g. Direct Line "understand" Tunit and Tuningbox) as you will need to tell them regardless of removing it prior to Dealer visits. The premium increase varies.

The insurers check all crashed and stolen/recovered vehicles for un-declared boxes now as they are so common - gives them an instant get-out!

 

[saorbust]

Hmm thanks for that buddy. I will call Norwich Union tomorrow - v good point !!

 

[SL300-24]

Did you go for it?

 

[w124coupe]

With a clean licence etc the extra for a box is about £10-20 per year...not worth tryting to fit and hide it!

 

[Chris_J]

That's damn good. I had a remap on my old Golf 1.8T and the price went up about £100.

 

[w124coupe]

Hmm, the boxes make use of the "spare air" in the diesels and so are limited to about 20% more power & torque.

The remap can also tweak the turbo parameters and so liberate far more power...makes the remap hard to quantify for the insurers I suppose?

 

[saorbust]

Well still waiting for the insurance co. to come back. I now have the manual for the kit - it basically boosts the pressure on the fuel rail - thats how it connects. I have a more offical explanation but I'll wait till the insurance co. comes back. Thanks for the tips - will keep you posted !

 

[w124coupe]

If its like the Tunit ones, I would expect it to sit in series between the fuel rail pressure sensor and the ECU. It will modify the sensor voltage reading to make the ECU think the fuel pressure is lower than it is.

The ECU has a built-in fuel volume adapation map of fuel pressure against injector open time to be used to adapt as the pressure varies from wear over time.

Thus the box fools the ECU into compensating for the "lower pressure" by holding the injectors open longer so more fuel is injected.

Most of the units are adjustable so you can tweak them to use all the "spare" air that the tolerances of your particular engine can breathe in so you get max power without smoke.

The UK Tunit guys do this on a rolling road for an extra few ££s.

One of our engineers has a TDI130 Bora that is now a TDI185 (verified on the rolling road). Quite a pocket rocket.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Anyone else noticed that Kleemann UK seem to have disappeared?

No mention of a UK dealer on www.kleemann.dk anymore.

Maybe an opportunity for of our members in the MB sales/service business??