Evoque Remapping by Alive

Alive Tuning have announced tuning options for the new baby Range Rover – the Evoque. Designed with drivability and smoothness at its core, the tuning gives notable increases throughout the rev range – virtually eliminating the sluggishness of the 2.2 litre diesel unit.

With recorded GPS verified 0-60 times for the 190hp SD4 Auto of 7.87 seconds, a gain of 0.63 seconds over the (also GPS verified) 8.5 standard, performance is aimed at those who require just that little extra from their Evoque.

The car feels much stronger through all of the gears and it just feels more relaxing to drive, something that is very well suited to this car. Much easier and free revving and a noticeable shove in the back to go with it - almost as quick as the Si4!

Power increase is estimated to be around 220bhp, with very significant gains in torque throughout.

Our test car was an Automatic SD4 Prestige 5 Door, with 1400 miles on the clock, a quarter of a tank of diesel, and our tame racing driver!


Above is a graph of the standard spec car, doing a full throttle 0-60mph sprint from a standing start in 9.55 seconds. All runs were done in sport mode, with traction control switched off.

The graph across the middle of the sheet shows longitudinal acceleration (G Force). You can see on this run an initial spike from turbo lag, and the torque converter taking up drive. The other spikes are caused from gear changes, and undulations in the road surface. Not all tests were carried out on the exact same section of road, and so inevitably there will be some differences between the charts.


This chart shows the standard car’s 0-60mph run, with a racing start. The method was to hold the car on the brake until around 3000rpm, and then let it go. Notice how much smoother the graphs are. 0-60mph was achieved in the factory stated 8.5 seconds.


Here we have the graph for the racing start on the remapped car, which again is very smooth, so showing there are no flat spots. The scaling of this graph had to be extended because of the initial G force from the standing start was so much greater. We struggled to hold the car on its brakes too, as the engine was creating so much torque! There is even more performance to be had from this engine, but I'm holding onto the reigns for now!


Evoque Heavy braking test!

For more information please call 01472 812900 or visit http://www.alivetuning.com

Any plans for the Si4?

Have you Torque figures. Significant does not mean much to me I'm afraid.
Prices?
Cheers

mark_n: We've got an Si4 coming in a few weeks time. As long as I can get access to the ECU, I can tune it. Will set that up on a dyno.

Griff: Assuming the factory quoted figure of 420Nm is accurate, I would expect there to be a gain of around 60Nm on that particular car (+15%). It feels as though the gains are immense, but i dont like to exaggerate my figures, so in the absence of a rolling road test at this time, i'll keep it realistic. I can easily adjust the software to raise or lower requested torque anyway!

Definitely interested in looking at remaps, but i'll kick off the big question... What is your take on the warranty concerns?

Sounds promising. Ditto gomarks question.

Was the remap done through the obd port or on a bench?

Regarding warranty, there are no two ways about it... It'll be void! It's as black and white as that as far as I am concerned.

Having remapped thousands of land rovers over the years, I've not ever known of a failure that has been as a direct result of the power increase. Sure, there may well be in increase in wear and tear, but so long as the service work is done on time, using good quality parts, and the car is not abused, then the differences in lifespan of the car's engine and drive train should be negligable. These area's are the ones that are likely to suffer as a result of a power/torque increase.

Brakes are almost certainly going to wear out faster, but this should easily be monitored at service time. As you can see from the photo above, this is just one other area we are looking into improving. AP Racing 6 pots anyone?

Another factor to considder here is the way in which the torque is delivered. Smooth and progressive power delivery is always going to be more gentle on the transmission than a tune that has a lot of 'punch'. Surges of torque can lead to massively increased wear in gearboxes, differentials, and other components in the drive train. Not good!

Since the Evoque is based on the Freelander 2, it's got some well proven components fitted. I've not heard of many serious mechanical failures on those, and I've remapped more than I can remember. The experiance gained from remapping these has helped me to gauge the changes required to get the best from the Evoque. Some maps are actually identical to the 2007>2011MY FL2 models, but obviously there needs to be changes made elsewhere due to the DPF, so as not to cause regen any more often than needs be.

Here's the next issue; Programming procedure. The introduction of the latest generation of engine management systems is a good thing as far as I am concerned. The anti-tuning protection is so good, the tools and equipment needed just to make comms with them can cost tens of thousands of pounds. Due to this, The only people able to remap these are those who are from reputable companies, filtering out your average 'we tune any car' types that seem to be cropping up all over the place! This is a good thing for our industry.

Programming of the latest generation of Land Rover's can at present only be done on the bench. It may be that in time the manufacturers of the tuning tools we use, crack the code to enable ecu programming over the OBD port, but don't hold your breath.



Chances are there may well be a few PCM software updates (eg. to the engine ecu) over the comming months, and so any remap work carried out now, would need to be re-applied to the new software after the dealer update. This causes the issue in having to bring the car back to us after every dealer software update.

Thank you, an excellent and frank warts and all piece.

Interesting!

But for me 0.63 sec quicker is not enough for me to take the gamble. If it was 1.5 sec quicker then thatvwould tempt but 0.63 is just not enough for me.