Octavia now at Stage II ...

[Weekend-Warrior]

Interested to hear the exhaust. Does it have a GTi DSG farty sort of exhaust sound on upshifts? That's all I want!

Also do you have dyno chart to show where the gains have been made.

[Martin]

Sounds great! Are you worried about volding the warranty?

Not at all mate - I want to enjoy the car and experience
I am planning on 10k oil changes as a easy/cheap way to look after the engine
(I got this car so cheap that it would not matter if I incurred a big service cost)
Ultimately I can see me converting this car into my club circuit racer

Interested to hear the exhaust. Does it have a GTi DSG farty sort of exhaust sound on upshifts? That's all I want!

Also do you have dyno chart to show where the gains have been made.

It is a DSG but there are no farty exhaust sounds during upshifts
(Well, not that I can hear inside the car - maybe from an observers perspective, dunno)

I have not had it on the dyno - don't need to, the gains are significant and across the board
It's something that would be interesting to do but would need a stock car also for back to back comparison

[dArK5HaD0w]

some very nice mods there.
looking forward to seeing all the bits & bobs on the 2nd.

[MacVW]

Hi Martin. You have actually done all the mods that I have been researching and planning on doing. I have been worried about voiding the warranty. I know for a fact that DSGs are not cheap to fix. I work in car sales for a major Brisbane dealership and we do have Skoda/VW dealership franchises. I have discussed doing such tunes with the service manager and whether I could get away with even a stage 1 tune. He swears that their software picks up any changes to the ECU. If a warranty issue arises and they can show the ECU has been remapped and that this may have caused the fault they can legally void the warranty. He is not saying that he would do so in my case but it is a possibility. It is a bit of a conundrum for me. How far can or should I go? How important is the warranty? Can I afford to not have a warranty? Should I consider extending the warranty? From your description of the results from the APR Stage II upgrade it sounds like you have the RS running just as I have imagined that it should from factory. I have driven several, DSG, manual, Tsi and TDi, liftback and wagons. I love the drive and the feel, but I have always felt it needed that bit more. Thank you for listing your upgrades and results. It has given me food for thought.

[Martin]

Hey MacVW

There are legal conventions and precidents in place whereby manufacturers can't void warranty without "due cause" (a lot of greay area there however)

There is no way engine tuning will impact the DSG mechatronics

Frying the clutch is a different matter - that is torque related for sure
The DSG remapping agents say the standard clutch (6 Speed) is good for 360nm
The Stage II give 325nm of torque - I'm comfortable with that
If you remap the DSG also, more clutch pressure is applied to prevent burn out

Nothing really bad will happen to the engine, but clearly if it fails you're on your own
In my 30 years of driving I've lost 1 engine and elected to rebuild 2 (pre-emptive)
I am planning on 10K engine oil changes as a cheap preventative measure

The APR (and others) firmware remap is not detectable by the factory service equipment
They just don't have the equipment or training to deal with ECU programming
(Older physical chip soldering methods were obvious)
If you only run Stage 1 you can clear the fault codes a month before service,
select the factory mapping and then lockout the APR ECU functions
When you go Stage II the exhaust and Carbino intake are obvious clues that changes have been made

You could wait for the factory warranty to expire before making these changes
If you buy a car on finance that may also hold you back (I always buy cars outright)

Also note there are a number of people who's engine/DSG claims have not been serviced by the factory warranty
Also note, the number of engine/DSG problems reported on this forum are a small part of total sales

This $32k car is a small % of my overall finances (house, investment property, managed funds, two cars, etc)
In another two years I guess this car will be worth less that $20k
Year by year it quickly becomes a less significant part of your financial position
Ultimately it will become a liability due to age, mileage and wear/tear
And even if you have a problem, you are looking at $2.5k~$4.5k which is even less of a concern
My 60" 3D LED TV cost $3.4k and is almost one year old - if it dies I will run out and get another
In my mind it's a similar situation with the engine/gearbox

If I did have a problem, and could not get factory assistance, I would not get the work done by a dealer
I'm finding that performance shops are doing more and better work per hour than some dealers

I've had numerous nice cars that I kept in factory condition - limiting the enjoyment and experience
This car really appeals to me, I want to enjoy it and even take it on the ocasional track day
Ultimately I would like to convert it into my club race toy - roll cage and all
I was looking for a car in the 170kw~190kw range
In stock format the Octavia is quick but not fast
I may not have bought this car if the ECU updates were not available
(I drove it directly from the dealer to an APR agent and flashed it immediately)

But each to their own - we all have different values and situations

[Martin]

Day 7 update

Got up this morning (still raining) and braced myself for a firm ride to work
(This is an indication that the car is a tad firmer than I prefer)
As I went over the driveway curb onto the street I immediately thought "that's not so bad"
The rest of the trip to work was more comfortable than last week - while still being noticeably firmer than stock
It does appear that the springs have settled! The harsh edge they had last week has been reduced
I'm pretty happy (and surprised) about this...

I'm also back to driving with medium to high music volume
(having got over the initial thrill of these modifications)
I don't hear the induction noise over the music during normal usage

So I may have over stated what a Stage II tune does to the car
(Last week I had reservations about the springs and living with the car)
It's not too bad (although I don't want to make any further suspension or engine modifications)

In the wet you need to be gentle with the throttle - very easy to wheel spin from stationary

I'm having trouble encouraging the gear box to kick down from 5th to 4th is slow traffic
I get a few engine resonances (like labouring) at low rpm
I use a little more throttle to tell the gearbox to change down
This works when wanting a change down from 6th to 5th
I find it hard to get the same change down from 5th to 4th
I tend to get 3rd and the engine switches to ragging bull mode
Easy to get around the problem by using the paddles

I have two more changes planned:
Larger intercooler - summer/track insurance
The engine mount insert thing that fills the void in the dog bone (car to gearbox brace)
I just feel that with this extra power I don't want the engine swinging or slapping around

(Tempted to play with front brakes also...again for track days, to prevent fade)

[Martin]

I've now realised that the APR ECU upgrade has taken the torque to a level exceeding the rating of the DSG clutch, which is about 350mn. Stock torque is ~280nm and my engine is likely to be around 400~420 nm

(APR specify 314 but the units are foot pounds - bah, details)

This may explain the false neutral I got the other day during a launch control start...(DSG trying to save it's self)

[Martin]

The Stage II ECU tune is not impacting my fuel economy
40km less per tank compared to factory ECU mapping, this is driving to work
If you spend a lot of time using the power I'm sure it would impact fuel economy
The point is, the car can still be used in a frugal manner

[Dutch77]

The Stage II ECU tune is not impacting my fuel economy
40km less per tank compared to factory ECU mapping, this is driving to work
If you spend a lot of time using the power I'm sure it would impact fuel economy
The point is, the car can still be used in a frugal manner

Certainly if you get up it I'd expect lower economy, but it might be fair to suggest that with more power on tap across the board that in day to day driving you may use less throttle as a result which helps keep the fuel use down? (or I could be completely wrong..)

Either way sounds like the mods have been a wise choice, hopefully the DSG won't become an issue!

[Martin]

The Stage II ECU tune is not impacting my fuel economy

Whoops - spoke too soon!
While it was on track at half tank I came up short at the end of the tank today

So here are my fuel tank range figures:
Stock ECU Map = ~565km
APR Stage 1 = ~520km
APR Stage 2 = 480~490km

Given how much better the Stage II performance is I'm happy with that
Not so much from a power level point of view,
from a power band point of view, low end and top end improved and smoother
Stage II is more usable and pleasing

Also, as our automatic Mazda SP23 with 120kw can only do 420km on the same fuel load I'm laughing in Skoda