GT gets Superchipped

[gldgti]

Hey Ted,

You need to remember 95% of people would be aware there is an engine in their car, and it's approximate position, but that's about it. As SoV rightly points out, car manufacturers need to factor in the "unaware" factor, and by understressing an engine, it will last longer, at least the term of the warranty.
Extra power brings with it extra wear and tear, on the entire vehicle, and without spending a LOT of money it's hard to get both. Mass produced cars are designed for the masses, if you want a car that is pushing the performance envelope, well you need a few hundred thousdand to spend. Even at the pointy end, you can always find more power if you can afford to.

Cars need to be designed to run in all sorts of environments, driving conditions and driving styles. Often cars are over or under fuelled to purposely make them perform in extremes, at the detriment of the "normal" consumer. All the tuners do is optimise the ecu to suit the environment, and with custom programs for example, it's usual to find more HP in a custom tune down south ( with cooler, less humid air ) than it is up here in QLD.

VW has to cater for these factors, and as they are running a business, the more universal they can make a car to suit various countries, the better for the bottom line.

End of the day, it's nice to know you can take an impressive car, and make it a fireball if you so choose. WHY be upset about GREAT choices???

nicely put....

i think that if you werent prepared for the returns (good and bad) from modification, you woulndt go there..... twice.

[ted]

Cheers guys, thanks for the explanation.

BTW, not upset, just curious.

Think I'll start with the driver course for now...any recommendations for Melbourne?

[Greg Roles]

Great Ocean Road. Weekly.

I am SO jealous....

[Blitzen]

Do these guys (Superchip) do petrol cars too?

[ted]

Great Ocean Road. Weekly.

I am SO jealous....

Ahh yes. It's been a while since I've been there, but I think the speed limit has been dropped from 80 to 60 (or lower in places), so not quite as fun as it once was.

[SoVeReIgN]

Cheers guys, thanks for the explanation.

BTW, not upset, just curious.

No dramas - A fantastic example is the 1.8t in the Audi A4 - It was always a 110kw engine, still is in the Polo GTi. But towards the end of it's life in the A4 they upped it to 120 and 132kw with no hardware changes. When chipped they still all produce the same power

[orsegtsport]

So Jaymz what's the verdict after a month of driving? Do you have anything to add about the car's performance that you haven't mentioned already? Fuel economy maybe?

[shadowmaker]

So this all sounds fantastic, but the cynic in me is saying "too good to be true".

So, do the VW engineers know something we don't?

Not sure I understand why "more torque = better fuel economy" either, could you explain that pls? Is it simply because you now don't need to open the throttle as much to make a nice quick take off? What about cruising?

It's the NOx emissions that VW has to deal with. To do that they need to run a bit too rich mixture, use lower CR, use EGR... etc. To optimize torque/power/economy by reprogramming it means that NOx emissions are getting higher with leaner mixture. Leaner mixture means better efficiency due to better burning of diesel.

Gasoline cars can also have more torque by reprogramming, but they don't have better economy as the A/F ratio stays the same (OK, maybe you can make things little more accurate, but that's it). More torque is achieved by adding more air (=boost) AND more fuel.

[Jaymz]

So Jaymz what's the verdict after a month of driving? Do you have anything to add about the car's performance that you haven't mentioned already? Fuel economy maybe?

Good friend of mine is the M specialist at BMW, gave him the keys and he was blown away at the driveability and sheer low down torque it has.
By the seat of his pants he feels its good for 0-100 in the 6's! Its amazing how quick you can make a car go whem you really know how to peddle it.

To me though its not really all about the power, its more about the driveability and i have to say it's really good. I will be putting it on the dyno next weekend so it will be good to get a graph out of it. Cogdoc is putting his on also so it will be good to see what difference mine has over a standard GT.

Fuel economy is always going to be a hard one. I would really like to tell you that its returning 1000klm from a tank around town but that would just be a lie. After doing alot of research on tdiclub its all going to come down to driving style.
The first few tanks i was averaging the same as standard and returning somewhere around the mid 600's. So i can confirm that it really isn't any thirstier under the same driving conditions. With that said though it will definately use more fuel if the boot is put into it all the time.

I am glad to say though after spending some time reading the many pages on tdiclub about economy, that i my last tank has me averaging somewhere around 850-900.
Click here for some good tips on getting better economy
Also i believe that once the engine has a few k's on it will start freeing up and will help with the economy also. My car now has 2500 k's on it and i believe this has helped with the good economy from my last tank, i really can't wait til it has 10,000k's so i can see how good the economy gets!

Hope this has been helpful. I will post the dyno graphs up when i get them.

Cheers,
Jamie

[orsegtsport]

Thanks Jaymz, sounds like money well spent. I would have gone down this route myself (before spending money on suspension and body kits), but I have the DSG gearbox and will be limited to about a 25nm increase in torque. I would get the same power gain, but nowhere near the same torque increase that you got.

I'm very interested in the dyno results though, because I have heard that the GT TDI's consistently produce more power and torque than the figures claimed by VW. I have heard of standard cars producing over 180 bhp and over 360 nm, which means that the gains claimed by the tuning companies may be somewhat overstated.

Still, as you say, it's not all about power, it's about driveability too, and it sounds as though that has been significantly improved....hmmm decisions, decisions...

Anyway, I need to get my panels straightened before I worry about anything else - I had a run in with a rather large member of the local kangaroo population!