Right, here's that update I threatened.
My friend Phil had to take his car up to R-Tech to be dropped off for a custom map which will take two weeks, the plan was always to take my car up at the same time and get it custom mapped as well. But money and time constraints meant that it just wasn't possible, so we had arranged for me to drive his diesel Mk5 up there to drop his A3 off.
Phil and I on the way to R-Tech -
I got fed up with people taking the piss out of me on forums and basically saying that I was all mouth and had no proof of how quick my car was; so I maxed the credit card and we took my A3 to R-Tech. I couldn't quite afford a full custom map, so I was booked in for a free Torque Intervention removal on my existing R-Tech map; still worth the drive up though.
Got up to R-Tech and it was business as usual, a customer in with an AGU Mk4 Golf who had all of his work done by Awesome GTI. Awesome couldn't find the cause of this mans over boosting and over fueling so they had agreed to book the car in with R-Tech to get the map updated. Was good fun chatting with the bloke, his car made 225bhp and he left a very very very happy man.
We stood about and chatted for 5/6 hours as you do at R-Tech and had a cracking time. Niki pulled my car on the ramps and had a quick play about, he asked me what I thought it would make and said that he'd seen my wild claims that 191.2g/s could reliably be divided by 0.8 to give an accurate BHP figure. A fairly wild claim; dividing airflow by 0.8 to accurately determine the cars power...I told Niki before he even turned on his laptop "My car will make 239bhp."
I've been getting SO much shit and hatred from the VAG forums for logging airflow so much, people have been saying it is all total bollocks and ruining me for it.
234bhp dead from the first map, and after a couple of pulls to let the car settle down the old map spat out 239bhp. From a three year old R-Tech stage 1 map. Niki was so impressed with the car, he said there was very little more to give in terms of peak figures. But he would give me 100bhp more in places.
Again, this picture shows the before and after map.
245bhp with the updated custom map with Torque Intervention managed and throwing loads of timing at it.
A good guess from me? My car now logs 196g/s of airflow every time I measure it, which = 245bhp. On the cold morning on the way to work I see higher, 199g/s as my peak so far. On the road it is possible to get more power due to atmospheric conditions effecting the intercooler.
So very happy about that indeed, it makes my car one of the fastest K03s cars out there without water meth. Now that Mylo has blown up his Leon I think I am pretty much top of the food chain.
Niki also mapped in launch control for me, which is f**king awesome fun! But more on that later...(fairly low rent video clip from a 5 year old phone; HD camera launch will be done soon
http://youtu.be/at6CqOth4bw
A quick video on the rollers (Phil missed the flames though...)
http://youtu.be/9wrRzTDJqek
And a quick in car video as well.
http://youtu.be/4GXRTovC4iQ
I know it was wet; but the way it loses traction now even in the dry is mental. as you can see in that video as soon as I suggest full throttle at 4500rpm in third (at 70mph) the wheels instantly light up. The torque and power is in all honesty difficult to control; I've outpowered the chassis now as well as my own driving ability. Any more than half throttle in first, second and depending on the surface in third and it just spins up so aggressively. I'm going to have to upgrade the lower arms, hubs and front roll bar to Leon Cupra R units and try to get some front camber to retain the traction advantage I used to have. With the old map I could drive everywhere foot to the floor and not really go quick enough to really be too dangerous; and it was great. The way this map delivers is night and day to the old map; and it is a true testament to Niki at R-Tech in terms of performance it's wicked.
The first upgrade now is brakes though; because the new map is so smooth compared to the old one I am finding myself travelling a lot faster than I should be a lot quicker than I think. I'm seeking that pull at the top end that I've never had before; as though the low RPM torque is still there but it doesn't die off keeping me away from the power. It's a slippery slope for sure
To just touch on the mapping a little more, you might be wondering what "Torque Intervention" is. To explain in short terms it is a way of the stock ECU trying to limit torque by adjusting the timing, for instance if you imagined a row of timing points as being (for instance) 20*, 20*,0*,20*,20*,0*,20*,20*,0*,20*,20*,0*,20* and so on there are points in there where the timing is retarded (in old speak) back to 0* to limit the amount of torque that the car can make. The aim of TiV removal is to remove the 0* timing which is occurring and replace them with a less radical timing adjustment to make power and torque delivery smoother and much more linear.
It is something which the Bosch 1.8t ecu's do, and until recently was something people were aware of but unable to map around. Niki at R-Tech found a way to do it, and has been firmly at the top of the tuning game ever since.
The Torque Intervention can be seen by the squigglyness of the previous map, and the benefits can be seen by the linear and smooth plot of the post map as well as the ability to control the turbo more efficiently and add more timing which allows for more power and torque at the top end. Both maps are shown with the same sample and scaling rate; where as previously the sample and scaling rates would have been adjusted to make the graph look smoother and it was just a trait of the ECU.
So there we have it! My car was all mapped up and awesome. Now the bad part.
Got in the car and did my first launch; there was an almight crash and a bang and a plastic scraping sound being dragged across the road.
My front bumper had fallen off due to the launch being so aggressive...We replaced the bumper and re-secured it and set off, there was the most horrific noise coming from the gearbox. We stopped right away and fully inspected the car, there was no audible knocking at idle, the casing was not broken, no fluids had been lost and after checking the dip stick and checking over the engine oil we had found the issue.
Bearing in mind I have been in Prawns A3 for three gearbox annihilations, Phil works for a VAG specialist and is the most technically knowledgable person I have ever met for VAG stuff between the pair of us we both agreed we would put our log books and a years wages on a sheered diff rivet. The noise was horrendous, and in third it sounded like a bag of nuts in a washing machine. There was a shocking wining noise on over run and it quietened down at high speeds. It was the only thing on the car which could sound like it.
We had also deduced that I had split or compressed my dog bone and gearbox mounts because the gearbox was knocking backward and forwards on its mounts, and the exhaust was now hitting the subframe and rear axle on pull away.
I spent three hours driving at crawling speed, crying with my head in my hands because we were both totally certain we had sheered a diff rivet launching the car. 20mph along the M42 in the hard shoulder during rush hour for three hours...NOT enjoyable, and honestly I was a total mess. I must have cried a pints worth of tears!
My phone battery was dead from using sat-nav on the way up, and due to reasons beyond our control Phils iPhone could not make any outgoing phone calls or use data. We were stranded unless we got it back.
I got to the first services about 200 miles from home and as I changed down through the gears I felt the gear stick lock out, it had done this before and I knew exactly what it was. The catch can had fallen off its mount and was stuck in the shift tower.
I was ready to kill a child at this point, so I threw the car into the first parking space opened the bonnet and like a madman with one foot on the top of the bumper I ripped the entire PCV system and catch can off the car and launched it across the carpark into a hedge.
Went and had a couple of fags and a coffee to calm down, phoned my missus from Phils phone on 0800 reverse and told her the bad news.
Waited half an hour and off we went again to try and limp it home.
Noise was TOTALLY gone, other than a very small gearbox whine in first and second which in all fairness was there before. In short...Where we had launched so violently I managed to sheer the gearbox mount (which to be fair is 12 years old) which had moved the engine back half an inch momentarily, the grumbling noise we were heearing when on overrun was the engine tilting forwards and the selector tower hitting the catch can, and the horrendous wining was just the engine and gearbox vibrations going through the catch can.
Yeah the car still needed a gearbox mount; but they're £20 from GSF haha!
Phil and I felt like such a bunch of fannys. This is the text Prawn got from Lou -
Which pretty much sums it all up haha!
So we made our way back at warp factor speed and I will be doing a full set of engine mounts, a new polybush dogbone mount and a transmission fluid change tomorrow after work haha!
Didn't I ever feel bloody silly...
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Today I went and picked up a Miltek for my friend Joe, and we also got him an ITG Maxogen induction setup which I fitted for him this afternoon.
Climate panel says "Hi and Lo" which always makes me lol.
Joes car looks pimp -
The ITG Maxogen kit is f**king MASSIVE. To give you an idea of size I can stand a redbull can up in the larger intake pipes..
There you have it; that's what I've been doing whilst I was away.
