Anyone Chipped a Diesel?
Turbo Mini Forums

Earlier this year I flogged my Subaru and bought a Volvo V50 diesel. I've never really got on with it and I plan to change it as soon as I can aford it; most likely I'll look at another Subaru.

The problem is that the Volvo has a 2.4D 5-cyinder 180bhp engine, and power wise is great, the Subaru will only be a 150bhp 2.0D. So to make it perform how I want, I'm thinking of a 'chip'.

I've seen a few companies that offer 'chips'. I'm just after any thoughts on the pros and cons and any recommended companies.

Cheers

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

www.twin-turbo.co.uk

Get it properly remapped on a rolling road, much better than some chip which messes with the ecu...

I quite like the look of the legacy tourer with a boxer diesel engine.

Mr Fenton has had his A4 Avant remapped maybe he could recommend a place.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

I bought a "chip" for my Discovery TD5, I was dubious as it just goes inline in the injector loom, and changes the pulses to the injectors, it transformed the driving, made it feel like a tonne has been shaved off the weight, goes like shit off a shovel (well for a 2.8t motor!), and fuel economy has basically been unchanged.

I was hoping economy would go up, it certainly hasn't dropped and is good on long drives, the other bonus is you can adjust the power/economy on it, yet to try it, only took a few mins to install, and of course can remove it in seconds if you need to.

www.topcatcustom.co.uk

I have a chip on my Ford Focus. It was half a house brick that came off the back of a skip lorry. It bounced in the road, onto my bonnet and then smashed my windscreen. Did very little for the fuel economy or performance.

I was going to have my a4 done when I first bought it, but never got round to it. I was going to use a company called chip n spin.

Have a look at the corten-miller website. Very good tuning company in lincolnshire. They do custom re-maps, chip tuning the lot. They also have a state of the art rolling road.

The turbo build has finally started

whats wrong with the v50 ours was a fantastic car although it had the ford/french 2.0D, only issue we had was the very small fuel tank

There is fundamentally nothing wrong with the car, it's just not for me. Also, every Volvo dealer I have had dealing with are wankers.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

www.twin-turbo.co.uk

Get a proper remap, Simon at e maps is very good, but his prices reflect.

Edited by bennyy on 28th Aug, 2012.

Audi s4 b5 - 470bhp & 486ft lbs

On 30th Apr, 2012 Brett said:
yeah stick the bit in and give it a wobble

As said above i had my A4 remapped (note NOT chipped, remapped) and can highly recommend it. I didn't want the most power available coupled with mass black smoke everywhere, what I wanted was a bit more grunt for towing with really, my car has also done 160k on the original clutch and turbo so I also had this in the back of my mind that I didn't want to finish these off.

Anyway in an age old case of not what you know but who you know, one of my old mates now runs a rally prep business and works alongside the head guy of DNA Tuning, so I got it done by them really quite cheaply. Usual cost about £300 as far as I know.

The difference is staggering. Now it wasn't a slow car before by any means, in fact the PD130 engine does perform pretty damn well as it is. However after the remap the difference is massive. It hasn't been on the rollers as it is a well proven map on this engine, I would estimate it is now around the 160bhp area. Towing wise it did exactly what I wanted, previously towing my 205 to the Nurburgring I was struggling massively up some of the longer climbs on the European autoroutes, down to 45-50mph in places slogging along. Post remap I did the same trip and did a comfortable 70mph up hill down dale.
One thing I was massively sceptical about was the claims of improved fuel economy as well as more power, but it does seem to be the case, towing the trailer it will do 35 to the gallon, on a steady run over 50, even getting a move on at 80-ish on cruise high 40's.
All in all I wish I'd had it done sooner than I did, it would be well worth paying the full price for, I was just lucky that I got it cheap.

I've had my last and current cars re-mapped by an agent of Celtic Tuning. Both are VAG units so the benefits may not be replicated in the subaru; I also recall a few comments that the boxer engine doesn't have the same torque.

On the older car, there was a noticable improvement on low down pick-up (pulling cleanly in 2nd when i'd have had to drop into 1st as an example) on top of the actual uplift in power (a4 2.5tdi quattro; 180bhp to claimed 220ish bhp). On the same lines as Tom, I regretted not getting it done sooner to the extent that the new car was re-mapped within days of collecting it - that I do regret as i never got used to the lower power to appreciate the improvement.

the new car is the A6 2.7tdi quattro 180. it is remapped to a claimed 230 ish. from what i recall of the drive when i picked it up, it is far sharper on pick up; the mpg avarage did increase but as i had only just got the car, i've have no comparrison in relation to changes in driving style that may also have allowed for this anyway.

One of the guys at thew place i get mine done has a 1.9tdi golf which has been remapped - not sure exactly but the chat was it went to 190ish. He drives the car like it is stolen and still gets an overal avarage of just under 45.

Edited by Rob Gavin on 28th Aug, 2012.

As long as you pay for a "proper job" its always worth it.

My experience with a much lower spec vehicle (Peugeot 306 turbo diesel) was that , for £300 (ish) I got a car that was real pleasure to drive - lots of torque and even better economy - even my wife commented on how much better it was !

I have been thinking about tuis for the clio, granted its petrol but there is a remap with dyno printouts ect for £250 including a performance panel filter, they get a minimum of +20bhp and still keep the fuel economy they say!

Drives
-Ford S-max Mk2 Ecoboost
-Rover 100 VVC #2 - track project

Searching is all you need on TurboMinis

Don't forget to tell your insurance

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

we had the TT remaped as well. Obviously petrol model. Increase from 225 to 265. Went like the car always should have but mpg was noticably down

Cheers for the help guys.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

www.twin-turbo.co.uk

Been in quite a few remapped diesels, some react to it much better.
The VAG group's seem to behave well, my old bosses Mk5 golf had lovely torque, think that was a bluefin remap. got a bunch more MPG's too, got 68mpg on a 500mile round trip, some of which were A roads (the A66)
Buying an audi soon and will be one of the 1st things on the list to do

Edited by mini93 on 28th Aug, 2012.

David.

Wil I have had two diesel car's remapped. A skoda Fabia vrs by amd technik which was switchable. I did 30k on this car that went from 130 to 180. The power came it massive chunks that you had to fed in or the clutch would judder. I owned this car from new and was chipped in the first three months. Black smoke everywhere but man did it go once rolling. It was then switched back to 130 for two years as the wife didn't want to pay the extra insurance. Sold the car at 60k all good.

The second was a 330d estate done by superchips this went from 180 to 207. The matched the same curves so it just had more power but the character as before. This car had been Chnaged by the previous owner that I knew. He had it done from about 20k on the clock. I Baught it at 50k and ran it until 100k . The car was then ten years old and always driven like it had been stolen. No issues with the enigne and drive train. Just the suspension wearing out whic was due to the age...

My current car is standard, thinking of getting a bluefin by superchips as I like the fact they don't change the character, my history shows they are reliable, and seem well setup rather than a tuner out of a van with a laptop and lead...

The only thing that worries me is how technical modern diesel cars are with all this dpf shite and like.....

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!