850/V70 TDi tuning

[Ade]

As I've recently bought an 850 TDi, (and have zero experience of TD tuning!) I'm looking for experience and pointers on any straight forward upgrades these can take....


When the original turbo inevitably implodes are there any simple upgrades? And how would the original mapping cope with a bigger turbo?

Any advice on who does remaps for these? Or plug in tuning boxes which actually work/ones to avoid? And does a remap/tuning box when fitted to these engines automatically increase the boost, or do yu have to do that separately with actuator pre-load adjustment, or a bleed valve?

Can you plumb in a boost gauge easily enough on these?

Any other 'bolt on' style mods worth doing?

[Dan H]

I'm currently in the same situation as im going to be getting an 850 TDI myself, Ive found a tuning box on ebay for around £75, they seem pretty good, You can probably get the more expensive tuning boxes but they do the same thing just about, More expesinve just gives a little more power.
As for the boost gauge, On the top boost pipe coming from the inlet to i tercooler there is a small vac pipe, I was planning ln T piecing that for a boost gauge to see what its getting as standard then once its had a tuning box on.
Im also getting a straight through pipe fitted to it to free up some more power and also thinking about doing a hard boost pipe conversion on it

[Ade]

They're on ebay ranging from £29 from Poland, all the way up to £400 from some UK tuners with many inbetween, but all seem to claim very similar gains.

A higher price doesn't always indicate a better product, especially when it can be an identical product packaged differently. Would be good to hear of some experiences....
Also do all of them work in the same way? Or are some more crude than others?

[Dan H]

Two of my mates have Astra 150bhp CDTI, one put a cheap £100 tuning box on and the other put a DTUK tuning box on and the DTUK was 100x better than the cheap £100 one. They all work the same way i think its the more expensive have more settings so you can have a mixture of a little better MPG and a little more power, Or alot more power and little more mpg, or you can do it more for MPG and a tiny bit more power As far as im aware

[pezzaVR4]

I am in the same boat I have an 850Tdi and been following Martin S' progress using the RonBox tuning box which has good reviews. I believe it uses realtime MAF readings to calculate the parameters it alters which is more effective than the usual
tuning box. Have a read : http://www.roverron.co.uk/

Check out Martin's thread here,

http://www.vpcuk.org/forums/showthre...Rolling-roaded

I think he is a touch over a 185hp with clutch killing torque :-) I think he has downpipe, decat, freer flowing exhaust and a manual boosty. That's my next purchase now that I have had diesel timing setup properly (which made a huge difference in mpg and power even when stock)

[martin_r_smith]

They're on ebay ranging from £29 from Poland, all the way up to £400 from some UK tuners with many inbetween, but all seem to claim very similar gains.

A higher price doesn't always indicate a better product, especially when it can be an identical product packaged differently. Would be good to hear of some experiences....
Also do all of them work in the same way? Or are some more crude than others?

Yes some are extremely crude and are simply a resistor in a box that fools the ecu into thinking the fuel is a different temperature to what it really is and thus alters the injection quantity. I have tried and tested quite a few of these now including the fleabay cheap ££££e and that is exactly what they are, ££££e. As pezza said the ronbox for me has been the best for the price (£144), it is very adjustable and works perfectly. Combined with a MBC, ball and spring type NOT a bleed valve, you can get a very smoke free powerful return for about £160 all in!

But i say this every time i give advice, make sure your car is maintained to the very highest level before you plug one of these boxes in as it WILL find that weak spot VERY quickly. Make sure the injection pump belt is new and all dynamically timed correctly as this will have a huge effect on the output.

[Ade]

A glorified resistor fooling the ECU sounds quite obviously one to avoid.

So these boxes from Ron, do they have a dial for increasing fuel supply?
But if you want more boost you must add your own boost controller? Is this the normal situation?

So do none of the typical upgrades actually increase the boost themselves? Coming from a turbo petrol background this seems very very odd!

[martin_r_smith]

You can adjust fueling yes. A diesel turbo works in a very different way to a petrol. On a prtrol you can increase boost and the ecu will up the fueling to match. A diesel can't do this as it has no O2 sensors. If you wind up the boost on a diesel it will do nothing but increase exhaust gas temperatures to silly high levels. Its really up to you to match the increase in fuel with enough air, either by mbc or a 3BAR map sensor. These ecu's can not be mapped with out first being socketed and then your 'chip' added. But in the uk you will find it hard to find anyone that does these old cars, I've not found one yet.

[Ade]

This is really weird..... So a typical remap or tuning box only ups the fuelling on a TDi?
Can't see how that would increase performance or economy.

[martin_r_smith]

This is really weird..... So a typical remap or tuning box only ups the fuelling on a TDi?
Can't see how that would increase performance or economy.

No a remap would do both, but I haven't found anyone in the uk that can do this the msa 15.7 or msa 15.8. A diesel relies on the extra fuel as no matter how much you increase the boost it will not increase the fuelling automatically. These are old engines that do not have all the sensors a new one does. So you have to do it manually. The only thing that tells it to increse fuel is the maf sensor and this is a very simple version of that. The boost is controlled by the map sensor and boost control solenoid, there is no input from the fuel pump so it cannot increase boost even if you manually add fuel. However, the more fuel you can wedge in the more power you will get, the reason for the extra boost is to clean up the smoke and create a cleaner burn and this needs to be done manually.

It is very easy to increase power on a tdi but doing it without creating so much smoke you turn on street lights as you drive past is the tricky bit. As for increasing economy, you wont because the extra power is addictive but you wont necessarily make it worse.

It sounds like you need to research tdi (direct injection) tuning some more, and not get confused with common rail diesel tuning as it is very different.

[T5frankie]

hlm has map files for these cars

[martin_r_smith]

hlm has map files for these cars

They do but unfortunately (for me anyway) they don't cater for extra mods, nozzles, bigger turbo etc. Rica do one, which I guess is the same on hlm has got, but its a bit on the conservative side ond will only give 170bhp. As I've shown this is eadily done, plus more, with the standard map alone.

[martin_r_smith]

Maybe I should have said no one does a custom remap to be more clear, a few companies offer a remap. Also the ecu needs to be socketed and 'chipped' as it can't be written via ODB II.

[T5frankie]

Maybe I should have said no one does a custom remap to be more clear, a few companies offer a remap. Also the ecu needs to be socketed and 'chipped' as it can't be written via ODB II.

same as any p80 then lol

[M-R-P]

chavboy's D5 made 177 bhp and 343 ft/lb with a dti tuning box on it (you see an advertising banner at the top of this site sometimes)
I'd say it's an effective little gizmo to say the least.
I believe he's selling it soon but I doubt it works on the older models.
food for thought really.

[martin_r_smith]

chavboy's D5 made 177 bhp and 343 ft/lb with a dti tuning box on it (you see an advertising banner at the top of this site sometimes)
I'd say it's an effective little gizmo to say the least.
I believe he's selling it soon but I doubt it works on the older models.
food for thought really.

Yeah they really do well on the new stuff and there are plenty available for the older tdi, like the one I use. On its own it gave me 171 bhp - 270 ft/lb. Not bad for less than £150! As I've said before there are cheaper options but they really don't work as well.

I have pretty much maxed the standard nozzles and turbo now and we will see on the 29th where we're at power wise, it was 186bhp & 282ft/lb a few weeks back so maybe 190+ now.

[martin_r_smith]

My prediction was right on the dyno it was 191.4bhp. That is the absolute maximum you can get without hardware changes. So guess what I'm going yo do