Improve your Fuel Economy and Performance

(17-10-2012 11:36pm)rhysadams Wrote:  Well I'm not going to bother with it! To be fair I have had over 40 mpg from mine on a long run! Just by changing manually and when accelerating on the motorway, flicking it into 6th on Commandshift so the system doesn't change down.

Well, I use my SD4 Manual on the motorways and stick to 60MPH (Northern Ireland) The A & B Roads where permissible I also drive between 50-60 MPH and I was getting nowhere near what your getting and your driving an Automatic?

(15-10-2012 10:48am)FujiSan Wrote:  A full ECU re-map is an altogether different animal. A professional re-map will involve getting the car into a controlled environment and on a dyno, so that the differences in tuning are only ever mainly attributable to the new map and not any other variable, and so that the difference in tuning can be accurately measured on the dyno. Because it is done in the ECU, It should also take account of all of the other engine sensor inputs, to ensure that within the parameters of the remap, other results are not unduly compromised (such as soot production, NOx levels etc.)

Of course there are differing qualities of remaps as well and the best will generally be quite expensive and involve either buying a new ECU chip or in some cases a complete new ECU to swap into the car. These would generally be regarded as a better solution as its easier to reverse to tune by putting your original ECU back in.

Please don't take any of this as an endorsement of either ECU remapping or tuning boxes, I'm simply answering the question.

Back to tuning boxes for a minute. Offering various types (i.e. tuned for economy or power, etc.) is a relatively simplistic thing to do as all they need to do is either increase or decrease the voltage that their tuning box sends to the ECU. If you think about it, you can probably achieve most of this yourself, by backing off the so-called 'boost' control/potentiometer. Reduced boost = less pressure = greater economy than higher boost levels.

...

Please don't take these voltage figures as at all representative of an LRE, or of any other vehicle, I only use them to illustrate the principle involved.

Anyway, I had best shut up now as I really do run the risk of boring the heck out of people.

Hi Fujisan,

So what would you think of RICA engineering ECM tuning... Seems they install competely new ECU software. The TD4 gets 497 Nm @ 2k RPM ?!? would you consider this?

It is weird that the SD4 will get less when tuned - 477 Nm @ 2k RPM.

http://www.rica-engineering.com/viewcar....hicle=2265

Thanks!

(20-10-2012 08:11am)Gorjan Wrote:  Hi Fujisan,

So what would you think of RICA engineering ECM tuning... Seems they install competely new ECU software. The TD4 gets 497 Nm @ 2k RPM ?!? would you consider this?

It is weird that the SD4 will get less when tuned - 477 Nm @ 2k RPM.

http://www.rica-engineering.com/viewcar....hicle=2265

Thanks!

If You are asking me if I would consider an ECU upgrade. No. Nor a 'Tune up' box. The Evoque works well enough for me to leave well enough alone. I have more than enough power output for my needs and it appears more mpg than most on here.

When I said an ECU upgrade was an altogether different animal, I was not intending this statement as any kind of endorsement. You have to make up your own mind as to what is right for you.

What I would say is that if you do any of these things, do please run it by your insurer first to make sure they are aware of the 'modifification'. Insurers are notoriously fickle over what they may consider to be a modification and it could result in parts of claims or even whole policy cover being invalidated if they did not accept the change or were not informed in advance.

Thanks Fujisan just wanted ur technucal opinion on these kind if tuning... Kind of strange tht they succeded to get these kind of performance...

Nothing strange about it at all. They just just altered the settings from a standard ECU.

This may seem strange but......
I installed a tuning box because I was irritated by the poor mpg and the turbo lag experienced at junctions. Once fitted I was happy with the increased performance, the vastly reduced turbo lag, a small 3mpg increase in economy and the auto box changing at lower revs (IMO when it should be).
Now this is were it gets strange.
I have some warranty work to be carried out so I removed the tuning box. Low and behold, although there is a reduction in performance (less BHP), the turbo lag has not reappeared, the mpg seems to be increasing and the auto gearbox is changing as if the tuning box is still connected (IMO when it should be).
Now, I do not profess to be an engineer, but I believe the auto gearbox 'learns' your driving style, therefore, has the gearbox learned from the tuning box?
Discuss............

Hmmmmmmmm, that's a good question!

Not possible. Reason being that the only thing a tuning box is doing is imitating the common rail sensor. If it were to be true, then when the tuning box were removed, then it would go back to normal.

I can accept that the shift points would change with the box in circuit, but then it must also be true that it would revert when removed.

If it has not, and after a longer period of time does not, then the shift point must have changed for some other reason. If the box does indeed learn your driving style, then all that happend is that it has learned your new style (with the box in place).

And if THAT is the case, then you truly have found the holy grail, a tuning box that you fit for a few weeks, get the improvements you need, then take it out again for a refund.

It may just be the sceptic in me, but....

Does your warranty work involve anything that will require disconnection of the battery as this will reset the gearbox ECU if it does and you could be back to square one

@XFFT - it does not and I believe you to be right, I would be back to square one.
@FujiSan - a sceptical answer, but the shift point did change, for whatever reason, after I fitted the tuning box and remained the same after I removed it. I fully understand and agree with your previous posts explaining the function of a tuning box.
It would seem to me that there is a link, although not directly, that the tuning box was the catalyst to the learning of the autobox. I have had a few cars that the autobox learns the driving style of a driver and I believe the RRE to be no different, however, the tuning box has not directly reconfigured the autobox, but by the action of the tuning box changing the re-action of the ECU it has probably indirectly done so. All this has done for me is to accelerate the learning process and taken the aggravation of doing so manually, and probably not getting it right. Also as stated by XFFT if the ECU is reset then the settings would go back to its factory setting and I would have to start all over again. If this was to happen I would reconnect the tuning box and see if it does the same again, which would be the only way to truly find out. I am more than happy with the performance of the RRE and the apparent added improvements which ever way its happened, but happened it has, and shall hopefully remain so.
This is just the optimistic analytical beast I am ....