Diesel Vehicle Power Upgrades

[Litespeed]

We have an Espace 2.2 dci for towing our Abbey Aventura. We have just fitted a P-Box diesel power upgrade to the vehicle. It increases the BHP of the vehicle from 150 to 168bhp which really makes a huge difference on those long hills. Its a small 'Black Box' that changes the mapping and settings of the ECU and takes about 15 minutes to fit.

We have found that we are using approx 10% less fuel as long as you keep your foot back and use the extra power to achieve the same performance as would prior to the up grade being fitted.

Our vehicle before this was a Mitsubishi Shogun 3.2, The box we had fitted to that increased the BHP from 160 to a whopping 190!!

 

[Icemaker]

Hi simon, we only got our new alhambra 4 weeks ago so its not yet run in properly but a friend of mine who has a golf told me about a power upgrade that he has on his golf. my engine is the vw group 1.9 tdi pd 130 bhp, this engine as it stands is outstanding towards my old galaxy 115 bhp tdi but i decided to check out the upgrade so off i went to AWSOME GTI, in manchester, had a chat and was shown the box, i was surprised to see that this particular upgrade was done vie the diagnostics socket in the dashboard, it was simply a case of connect the box push a button and 3 minuites later the mod was done. i took the car for a quick drive and the difference was unbelievable, i originally had 130 bhp and 245 ppf of torque i now had 172 bhp and 389 ppf of torque, on top of this a claimed increase in fuel economy of 10%, but the best bit was the torque now came in at 1600 rpm rather than 2000 as previous. this is great for us as when we got the car in to sixth gear with the van on the back we found we had no power as the revs where only 1800 which meant constantly changing down to fith gear on hills. after the test the engineer simply pressed another button on the box and my car was returned to its existing settings and nobody was any the wiser that i had had the upgrade fitted so my warranty was safe. the only downside to this mod is that the box does have to stay on the socket for it to work but my socket is out of sight so not too much of a problem. i've now ordered my own box to be fitted when the cars done a couple of thousand miles and can't wait to have the benefit of the extra power and fuel economy. One point though simon, you should of course inform your insurance company that you have upgraded the power as i was adviced that they are now wise to this and they do check vehicles are subject to a claim. obviously if you where able you could just disconnect the box at the scene of an accident but its not really worth it for a few extra pounds on the premium. PS, we ordered an espace 2.2 but renault in stockport quoted 12 weeks delivery so we cancelled and bought the alhambra, shame i would have liked to try one.

 

[CaptainKangaroo]

Simon, did you inform your insurance company about the modification to your car? if not and you have an accident they will not pay out, if it is a serious accident with personal injuries and they sue you in court, say good bye to your house and everything else you own ............. all for 15bhp ........... not worth it!

 

[Litespeed]

I informed my insurance company by both phone and in writing. There was no increase in premium either.

Also the increase in BHP differs with all models. Some give a modest 15bhp increase while others up to 47bhp. The upgrade is obviously tailored to the vehicle manufacturers tolerances on the power train.

 

[CaptainKangaroo]

Thanks Simon, that is interesting to know, I thought that a modified car would really bump up the premium ............I'm gonna look into a black box for my car now!

Cheers

 

[keith_5065359]

Anyone got a web address to look at these devices???

 

[Zbungle]

Take a look on Honest John's website. There is lots of information, plus links, to be found at http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=17

 

[Windrush1]

I also have a power box fitted to my Rover 75 and have informed my insurance Co also with no extra charge I got mine out of an advert in the Caravan Club Mag It certainly make the differance on those long devon hills

 

[Litespeed]

I bought mine from Dales Central Motors in Cornwall, and tied the lot in with a break away with the family.

There website is www.dalescornwall.co.uk or the email fro the chap I dealt with was ile@dalescornwall.co.uk. The mans name is Ian Lewis - he will instantly be able to tell you the increase in torque and BHP and the price for a P-Box fitted.

Oh and by the way P-box are an Austrian company who can be found at www.pbox.cc

 

[Mac2]

I have had my Land Rover Discovery TD5 fitted with a power upgrade which increases power from 134 BHP to 180 BHP. Again this was done in 5 mins by connecting under the dash and downloading from a "box of tricks". Brilliant!!!

 

[Icemaker]

RE MY EARLIER POST, the company i have used for my alhambra is called awsome gti they are in manchester, they have a web site at; www.awsome-gti.co.uk they do many performance products for vw, audi, seat, skoda and bmw. the component for the diesel upgrade is called the "dual system" and you can view the power curves etc online as well as price and order. as i stated earlier in my post my car is still too new to have the upgrade on permanently so ive ordered one for the end of this month. Iwas recently discussing this dual system mod on a vw forum and it gets fantastic praise from many many people due to its ease of fitting and removal, a few of the forum users also recommended changing the air filter for a K&N type as they say this releases another 3-4 bhp on top of the dual system. depends how much money you want to spend really but it does start to get expensive, 475.00 for the dual system then 50.00 pounds for the K&N but it does give an extra 45 bhp and buckets of torque.

 

[coljac]

How much do these upgrade boxes cost and if you required warranty work done on your car would the garage reject your claim if you had a box fitted ?.I know you would remove the box but with all the computerised kit in modern garages would they be able to trace that you had fitted a box

Coljac

 

[Litespeed]

The vehicle manufacturers warranty is not affected in any way unless the fault can be attributed directly to the fitting of the P-Box.(Very unlikely)As mentioned earlier P Box make sure that they do not exceed any manufacturers tolerances with regards to the power train ie. engine, gearbox, driveshafts etc.

Some of the other make engine up-grades boast huge increases in BHP and Torque far in excess of the manufacturers tolerances, which is where the problems can start.

I paid just over the

 

[Neil_5041165]

I also have a power box fitted to my Rover 75 and have informed my insurance Co also with no extra charge I got mine out of an advert in the Caravan Club Mag It certainly make the differance on those long devon hills

Windrush can you supply more details which model 75 have to done this to, whats the increase and what was the cost. Is your car still covered by any warranty and if so how do you intend to deal with it during the next service. I have a CDTi 130Bhp and am curious ?

 

[Windrush1]

Windrush can you supply more details which model 75 have to done this to, whats the increase and what was the cost. Is your car still covered by any warranty and if so how do you intend to deal with it during the next service. I have a CDTi 130Bhp and am curious ?

Hi Neil my Rover 75 is A 2ltr CDTI Connoisseure SE I have had to take a new warranty contract out and before buying this box went into the ins and outs with the Rover dealer who seem to think that it would be ok but in any case if in dout remove it as it takes lest than five minutes to do so it increased the BHP from 130 to 150

 

[Neil_5041165]

Hi Neil my Rover 75 is A 2ltr CDTI Connoisseure SE I have had to take a new warranty contract out and before buying this box went into the ins and outs with the Rover dealer who seem to think that it would be ok but in any case if in dout remove it as it takes lest than five minutes to do so it increased the BHP from 130 to 150

Which make have to chosen and what cost ...roughly if you like ?

My Rover dealer is honouring the remaining 18 months of Rover warranty and they will not entertain anything other than Rover mods...fair comment.There was a modification to the 110 bhp diesel turbo that increased it to 130 but they say Rover had not proved any increase or data to support safety on any further increase to the more recent 130 models like yours and mine. This being the case it would not be insurance covered !!!!. I thought these CDTi models were BMW engines and their standard 320 / 520 pushes out more that 150 i believe, so the rest of the system must be lesser quality !!!

Any ideas ?

 

[Windrush1]

Hi Neil my Rover 75 is A 2ltr CDTI Connoisseure SE I have had to take a new warranty contract out and before buying this box went into the ins and outs with the Rover dealer who seem to think that it would be ok but in any case if in dout remove it as it takes lest than five minutes to do so it increased the BHP from 130 to 150

Hi Neil The unit which I have fitted to my car is a PSI POWER BOX and if you log onto dieselchiptuning.co. you will get all the information you require first hand

 

[Award1]

Simon

When I had an Octavia 110, my dealer said they didn't care, but if a Turbo blew prematurly and it had been chipped, the warranty would have been void.

As a point of interest all new Fords, so I presume other manufactuers black boxes now record every start up, gear change etc, and it stores it for 60 days or so, to prevent someone trying to claim on awarranty for a possibly self inflicted damage to engine/gearbox.

Food for thought.

 

[Icemaker]

ANDREW, Are you sure ? i would think they would have to tell you that the vehicle is recording your every move to comply with the data protection act after all it is effectively spying on you. I have very recently picked up a new seat alhambra to replace my 2 year old ford galaxy and non of the manufacturers ever mentioned that the vehicles would record my actions, ford, seat, vw, toyota and renault where all aproached to quote for a vehicle. not only that but software is available on the web to reset service monitors and fault codes via a lap top and the dignostics socket so it would not be too long before you could clear a cars memory anyway. you may be right but the makers would be treading on very thin ice if they did not tell you.

 

[RogerL_5041474]

How much long term damage is done by over-stressing the engine and/or transmission through chipping. If it were that simple don't you think the vehicles manufacturer would have done it to increase sales?

 

[parker1158]

A bit of advice to all, don't underestimate the manufactures they are continually ahead of the tuning guys. I worked for some time for one of the top German car importers and I can tell you they are not as 'green' as you would like to think they are. For instance an example, a car is in the dealers with a fault car is plugged into a computer at end of business say 5 pm. Next morning the techies in Germany have read the cars control system and relayed data back of fault and repair (They can even repair on line) They will also transmit details of the cars history as regard to repair and driving characteristics ( I have even seen warranty claims dismissed because the system picked up over-revving and apparent abuse. Their technology is far and away more advanced, and continually being kept ahead of, the non franchise repairers. It has always been the way of the 'tuners' to gloss over the facts to get a sale. I would agree to some extent that it may be possible with a fair wind to get away with it.

All I would say in summary is I would not do it to a car that was still protected by any sort of warranty unless I had express written permision.

 

[Simon_5041570]

Hi Simon, I also own a 2.2 dci Espace so your post is very useful. I looked into the Diesel tuning stuff a while back before we used the vehicle for towing our new Bailey but didn't take the plunge. I noticed that there are 3 flavours of 2.2 dci engine (based on bhp). Perhaps a daft question but how did you know which one you had. Mine was new in September 2001. I could certainly do with a bit extra on the long hills but other than that it seems to tow well although they don't have a good reputation on the reliability front. Does it fit under the bonnet or behind the dash and do you reckon it could be fitted by a competent DIY'er? One last question... do you use the on/off switch or do you tend to leave the pbox on?

Thanks

another Simon

 

[ian_5074556]

try putting 10 % petrol in your tank. no joke.

 

[MarkR]

I work for a vw dealer and can confirm that vw use the same engine in several cars with differing bhp....and it's all done with engine management.(in fact most manufacturers do it) Another easy to use tool is 'Bluefin' same thing just reprograms engine management and more, plus it's just as easy to reverse

 

[Icemaker]

Thanks for that MARK, ive heard that vw are happy for the 1.9 tdi to run at up to 200 bhp as its such a robust engine so i'm not too concerned at my alhambra running at 172 bhp, as you will know the vw tdi has an awfull problem with turbo lag below 1800 rpm and tends to stall easy at low revs but the dual system box i have has improved low end torque imensly so i now get power at around 1600 rpm, at 2400 rpm the car would spin the tyres if allowed the torque has improved so much. as a result of the box i no longer need to rev the engine so high so i have achieved a fuel efficiency improvement of around 10% also, more power and beter economy, could not be happier.

A collegue of mine has put the same box on his golf gti tdi 150 and on the rolling road it had improved to 190 bhp and over 400 pound of torque, it is absolutely awsome.