Because of all the space where the torque should be on your plot...
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I know you're all bored of this, but here's a proper update that I can copy and paste everywhere.
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Today was the day.
As everyone knows the Mk2's been running around on an unknown map, which I deemed as safe because I think I know everything.
The Mk2 had it's problems, it would misfire under full throttle, I had various N75 faults, throttle body faults, atmospheric pressure sensor faults, overboost issues, no real way of telling the AFR, no real indication of timing, no idea if the MAF values were correct, and no idea if the injector tables were adjusted correctly.
I did however rectify 99% of those problems, overlook one and develop ways of driving the car so that it was safe enough to still have fun in. So in my mind, it wasn't all that bad.
Getting the car mapped at Jabbasport was a big thing for me, for many reasons. As we all know I'm wholly devoted to Niki at R Tech, and he has looked after me so well in the past, and done such an absolutely fantastic job that I felt disloyal to him and nervous about taking the car anywhere else.
I didn't want to burden him with the uncertainty of mapping my car, I didn't want to experience his wrath if I turned up and it was an un-tunable shit heap, and I didn't want to cost him money by booking me in and wasting his time.
Kevin from Jabba approached me on Facebook and talked me through mapping options, said it could be done in a day, quoted me a very reasonable price and won over my business.
Up at 5 this morning, and on the road for 6. My appointment with Jabba was at 9:30, and I didn't have a clue what to expect.
Traffic was easy, made plenty of time.
I had to deliver something to a mate of mine, we agreed to meet at a service station on the A1.
So, a service station on the A1 consists of a petrol station, a BBQ shop and a sex shop...f**k me, they really are great up North.
I then drove past another three 'gentleman clubs' on the A1. Maybe I live in the wrong place?
Got totally lost trying to find Jabba, they've built a stupid bypass and changed their postcode location; but they haven't moved!
I got a lovely warm welcome from Jabba, really nice family run business, everybody was so accommodating and friendly all day. I felt really welcome and nothing was too much trouble.
They let me use some of their tools to raise the suspension a bit more on the Mk2 to get it on the rollers, their setup is quite deep and a bit different to other dyne's I've been around.
Their rollers sit like this.
They must work though, we had no traction issues all day and we didn't even need to use a contact adhesive on the tires.
Got the car on the rollers, did a few low speed runs, a few half throttle runs and worked out where we were.
Mike was having a few issues, and we couldn't work out why.
Now, Prawn told me about this...And I forgot.
AGU's run an atmospheric pressure sensor, to tell the ECU the atmospheric correction factor required to adjust the fueling for a denser airflow.
When we fault code read my car the fault code came up and wouldn't disappear.
The atmospheric pressure sensor sits near the airbox, and has a three pin connector. The wiring goes with the loom which runs behind the engine.
I didn't have a plug, so I assumed it had been coded out.
I changed the TB, reset the fault codes and it didn't re-appear. So I assumed it was an anomaly.
It wasn't, it's the reason the car hasn't been running right.
These aren't a part which EVER fails, so nobody has spares of them because they just don't break. And I didn't have one, and we couldn't map my car without one.
TPS didn't have one, Euro didn't have one, none of the breakers within a 30 mile radius had one, there wasn't one on a car at the workshop that we could nick one from. And we couldn't find the wiring for it either.
Googled the wiring, found the colours. Eventually found the plug. The plug had been shortened and was positioned along side where the carbon canister would sit in a Mk4/A3, so on the opposite side of the engine bay to where it should be.
But we still didn't have a sensor.
So Mike took me back to his house, a fairly lengthy drive away and we had a rummage though his workshop.
At this point you can imagine I'm freaking out; I've driven hours, paid a load of money and taken up a load of his time for a £20 part I could have fixed weeks ago had I of known.
BINGO!
BINGO BINGO!
Phhhhhew.
We raced back, I fitted the sensor, Mike got logging at part throttle and everything was sweet.
Now for those who don't know. AGU's are a bit weird. At part throttle they use the lambda sensor to keep everything in check. At full throttle they resort to a pre-defined table of values to determine almost everything. So an AGU is almost indestructible at part throttle, because it'll just shit the bed and protect itself when things get out of hand. But on full throttle they have basically closed their eyes and started running around based on what you've told them.
Bless.
So Mike cleared the fault codes, the car was then registering what so we did a quick run.
Then we started getting a misfire at what again.
You can really hear how eager the car is to spool up, it really wants to go at low revs.
Mike thought it might be a dodgy ignition amplifier, potentially a coil pack or a failing injector. But we both agreed it would be the plug gaps (Prawn told me this days ago...)
So I pulled the plugs out, gapped them and put them back.
This gave us a really clean pull, no misfires, no faults, no issues, no codes raised. We were happy
The mapping wasn't great, and it sounded like it was overboosting. It was however a clean run with no faults. Or so we thought...
A few weeks ago Prawn gave me an N75 valve, before I changed the throttle body. Because the car had an N75 fault code. We fitted the N75, I drove it around on part throttle and still had the issue, so he gave me another. That was before I correctly diagnosed the throttle body and changed it...The N75 I had fitted didn't throw a code, and the car drove 100% better than it did before the TB. So I assumed I'd sorted both issues.
Turns out that the N75 Prawn had given me first was sticky, and was fully open.
This resulted in exactly the overboost and terrifying experience I've been driving around for the last few weeks, and when coupled with the atmospheric sensor and the gapped plugs it gave a strong and clean run...With 1.8bar boost!
The resulting chaos was a true 'before' reading of my car, as per the map, as I was driving it and what I've been honing around in.
Quite scary really.
Which begs the question; maybe this engine has a set of rods in it? Or maybe it's just stronger than any stock internal 1.8t known to man? Who knows...
So I swapped the N75 for Prawn's spare which I'd taken with me, and from there on in it was all plain sailing!
Until my car decided that the expansion tank was going to blow up, and thew coolant all over my ECU, all over Jabba's emulator, all over the car, all over the rollers, all over everything basically.
Shit me was I worried about that when it went off haha!
So Mike spent a few hours refining the map, making it smooth, load testing it, logging and explaining to me what he was doing.
And we ended up with this.
Which sounded like this.
And thanks to the gliding centre air strip which is just round the corner from Jabba (actual truth) went like this.
It just keeps pulling and pulling, and it's so smooth. Absolutely love it.
To drive it feels like a constant pull, low down the torque kicks in with a little boost spike to get things going and just as the torque starts to go it is replaced with power. It is exactly what I wanted, almost to the digit in terms of figures.
It doesn't feel like any of my 1.8t's have before, and it's great. Deceptive, but great.
There's a few things to sort, the exhaust is very restrictive and could be freeing up some power. And I really need to sort the oil leaks out now.
Now the most important thing that I can say about today, which totally eclipses the car because cars come and go...
EVERYBODY at Jabbasport was outstanding, I literally cannot thank them enough. My car was an absolute b*****d today, but the entire family were so patient and helpful today that I feel they need a huge shout out and recognition for a hard days work with me.
The quality of mapping was outstanding, the knowledge that Mike had was fantastic and the business as a whole was so welcoming and professional that I can't urge people enough to go and see them.
And just look at the finished product. From a misfiring 1.8t conversion with missing sensors and dodgy mapping to this in a day...
Spot on.