GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: Exonian on 01 December 2013, 12:30
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First things first, if you're 100% happy with the way your mk7 drives or are completely against modifying your vehicle from standard spec (both 100% understandable) then move on to the next thread now, it's pointless for you to read on.
And if you're easily bored then skip this bit too!
Those that have been paying attention will note that the only real complaint I have with my mk7 is basically the same complaint I had with the mk5 and then the mk6 GTIs in that the accelerator pedal needs a ridiculous amount of travel before it does anything.
Now, I can understand why this is but I don't like it.
It's not just the GTI either, nearly all modern cars and vans seem to have the same issue.
Casting my memory back to cars like the Polo GTI 1.8T and the Lupo GTI, half of the fun and enjoyment of these cars were their responses to driver input. VW even made light of it with the Polo GTI in their TV adverts.
You don't need 1000 bhp to have lots of fun in a car, you just need a car to work with you. The 205 GTI wasn't masses faster than a mk2 Golf GTI back in the day but it certainly felt it because the accelerator had a hair trigger effect and despite the Golf GTI being more tractable engine wise (and it didn't stall at every junction like the 205 used to as they liked to cut out) the 205 was leagues better as a cross country car. Unfortunately the Golf GTI was just a much better car full stop when you stripped it all away and I've had at least four mk2 GTIs but only one 205 GTI many years ago which I only kept a short time. That doesn't escape the fact that the 205 was more fun to drive.
Now, when I saw the initial launch of the mk7 GTI my ears pricked up and I took sudden interest as it promised much on paper - the VAQ diff was what everyone with a remapped GTI had been waiting for (the ability to put 300 lb ft down without masses of wheelspin), the option of factory bigger brakes, and to me the fact it had as much torque as a mk6 GTD as standard was a huge appeal; finally a GTI that shouldn't be crying out for a remap to make it more fun to drive…
So, I guess wisely, VW have carefully mapped the mk7 GTI so that although it has 258 lb ft of torque at very low RPMs it doesn't unleash hell when pulling out of a junction a bit briskly and in fact it still feels as flat at times as a mk6 GTI that had much less torque. So basically the same complaint I've seen from BMW 135i drivers which have even more torque again - it's quick, very quick, but just doesn't feel it.
I've had 'quite a bit' of experience of remaps and have spoken to tuners and asked them why, even once remapped, a mk5 or mk6 still has a pretty rubbish throttle pedal response and their replies have been the same; it's just the way the accelerator pedal is programmed to work with the fly by wire throttle system.
I used a Sprint Booster on my mk6 and it made a world of difference, it doesn't give the car any extra power or torque but it makes the throttle pedal more akin to a k-jet mk1 or mk2 GTI in response on a medium setting and like a 205 GTI on the max setting. In other words it makes it FUN!!! Which to me is what a GTI is all about. I don't give a toss what the top speed is or how quick it books at 0-62 mph because I don't drive like a loon. But I do like the car to respond with minimal inputs so it actually feels connected to me and as the mk7 has super sharp steering and hardly a hint of understeer with very good brakes it just makes it a crying shame that the engine controls feel like they belong in a ship.
My answer with the mk7 was to contact Andrew at DTUK and at super rapid speed a PedalBox was sent to me which has indeed made the throttle response super rapid too now and finally my GTI actually feels like it has a GTI engine in it and I've only used part throttle and fairly low RPMs so far too. The car hasn't been driven particularly quickly but it does actually feel alive now.
The PedalBox feels fairly substantial and has a lot more programs than the previously used Sprint Booster and does feel a bit better value for money just on its construction alone.
It takes about ten mins to fit absolute maximum.
One torx bolt to undo, a trim panel to drop, one plug to unplug and two to plug in, a cable to route into the little side cubby hole next to the drivers right knee and job done.
I did attempt some photos but they came out pretty rubbish so I may have another go at them in decent light not using my phone, so apologies there. There's nothing on view once it's fitted anyway if you so desire with a stealth application.
Money well spent? Yep, for sure
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So what's the gen with these pedal boxes? The whole response of the normal full pedal travel in about 1/2 of the travel (once revised), with the 2nd half doing nowt? Distortion of the lower end of the travel like 1/2 normal travel squeezed into the 1st 1/4 travel once modified and the other 1/2 of the whole travel response stretched across the remaining 3/4 of travel once modified?
Have I got it right there, or is there more to it than that?
Maybe VW thinks it feels sportier to have to mash the pedal to get the full potential out.
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It's basically a sort of amplifier. There are quite a few settings on the box and I've never in the 4 years I've owned one of these type devices ever felt the need to mash the pedal to the carpet afterwards to see what happens as it's just not necessary.
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It's basically a sort of amplifier. There are quite a few settings on the box and I've never in the 4 years I've owned one of these type devices ever felt the need to mash the pedal to the carpet afterwards to see what happens as it's just not necessary.
No you don't have to mash the pedal because it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, technically you're already got your foot down before you're even on the floor, you've got it spot on monkeyhanger and some people may like this but basically what your doing is just losing the ability to have a greater amount of control. My experience with this pedal box is admittedly from mapped tdis so it's going to be a different feel with a petrol, when and if my Gti arrives I get my box back out of the garage and give it another chance, we shall see I may eat my words you never know.
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I suspect it's the box fooling the the foot into fooling the brain there is more power than there actually is.
I would get used too and bored of it quite quickly I think.
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I suspect it's the box fooling the the foot into fooling the brain there is more power than there actually is.
I would get used too and bored of it quite quickly I think.
It's got nothing to do with extra power, it's taking the lag out of the system. Read post #1
Accessibility & ease of driving not trickery.
If you've ever driven a sporty carbureted car or one with mechanical fuel injection you'll understand.
"Response" is the keyword.
Depends on your driving style I guess.
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I suspect it's the box fooling the the foot into fooling the brain there is more power than there actually is.
I would get used too and bored of it quite quickly I think.
It's got nothing to do with extra power, it's taking the lag out of the system. Read post #1
Accessibility & ease of driving not trickery.
If you've ever driven a sporty carbureted car or one with mechanical fuel injection you'll understand.
"Response" is the keyword.
Depends on your driving style I guess.
Yes must be as I have a tuning box for gti and feels super fast when moving off and never need to put my foot down hardly at all.
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I suspect it's the box fooling the the foot into fooling the brain there is more power than there actually is.
I would get used too and bored of it quite quickly I think.
It's got nothing to do with extra power, it's taking the lag out of the system. Read post #1
Accessibility & ease of driving not trickery.
If you've ever driven a sporty carbureted car or one with mechanical fuel injection you'll understand.
"Response" is the keyword.
Depends on your driving style I guess.
Yes must be as I have a tuning box for gti and feels super fast when moving off and never need to put my foot down hardly at all.
I had a few TDI's many years ago with tuning boxes (amongst other mods) and I agree, they do alter the accelerator response more than a remap. One that I had about 13 years ago almost had turbo lag in reverse! You only had to breathe and the car surged forward!!! Keeping a steady speed was just not going to happen on that car on a motorway!
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http://www.pedal-box.co.uk/
Lots of info about the system available from Andrew on that link.
In laymans terms it reshapes the responce graph of the throttle pedal.
Monkeyhanger
If your interested why not give Andrew a ring to make an appointment to pop over and try a car with the system on as they are in Tanfield, Stanley, co. Durham not far from you.
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Snoopy: I think if I was going to do anything with the car i'd rather have more power via a tuning box than a pedal box that completely alters the pedal response but gives no more power (I don't mind hitting the throttle a little harder when I want the car to do more). I would imagine that it is working similarly to the pedal respose engancement you see in Sport or normal vs Eco (which is completely lifeless and pretty useless as a setting as it does almost nothing to give more economy and can in fact be counteractive to good mpg when the lack of response frustrates).
I think i've committed myself to a year of mod-free driving after taking up a year's insurance with esure last week. They are not in the slightest bit mod friendly.
My car has taken on a different personality since it hit 1900 miles/3000Km. It's about 5% more frugal overall and has a lot more go in it too. It's starting to feel like it might actually have at least 184PS under the bonnet, really surprised by the step up in power at a milestone mileage - almost as if VW have the ECU on a long term running in program.
I was considering a DTUK box at one point to get the car up to where I felt it should have already been (feeling weaker than my previous Scirocco 170TDI), but it has started living up to expectations - hopefully it has even more to give by way of ongoing improvement.
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I suspect it's the box fooling the the foot into fooling the brain there is more power than there actually is.
I would get used too and bored of it quite quickly I think.
It's got nothing to do with extra power, it's taking the lag out of the system. Read post #1
Accessibility & ease of driving not trickery.
If you've ever driven a sporty carbureted car or one with mechanical fuel injection you'll understand.
"Response" is the keyword.
Depends on your driving style I guess.
Yes must be as I have a tuning box for gti and feels super fast when moving off and never need to put my foot down hardly at all.
I had a few TDI's many years ago with tuning boxes (amongst other mods) and I agree, they do alter the accelerator response more than a remap. One that I had about 13 years ago almost had turbo lag in reverse! You only had to breathe and the car surged forward!!! Keeping a steady speed was just not going to happen on that car on a motorway!
This may have been my issue, more lag than before, so as i say it may be different on a petrol, time will tell
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Its a mod for the "Playstation" generation who are used to a digital response have grown up with traction and stability control and don't know about when the only traction control available was dependent on your right foot and stability was all about the feel through the seat of your pants... :grin:
The "pedal box" delivers more throttle opening for a given pedal travel by intercepting the drive-by-wire signal and altering it to increase the "throttle" opening...
Some of the best "drivers cars" I've had/driven have fairly long travel throttle pedals to allow more effective modulation of power to the wheels. This did not detract from the performance or the fun... In fact it probably enhanced it...
But if you like the effect that these pedal boxes give... each to their own...
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Hi Andrew
glad youre enjoying the Pedal box, they certainly do improve the majority of cars we've installed the too.
They are the most difficult product to describe, but i would say that if you think that you can emulate this by simply pushing your right foot quicker then youre totally wrong.
I usually describe them as actually lowering where the peak HP is produced, they don't increase the peak HP figure at all, but it does increase the HP produced within the lower part of the power curve.
Mark from Brotek has been sceptical of their merits for months, until this last week when he finally took the plunge.. www.facebook.com/brotektuning to check out his thoughts.
Im not saying they're for everyone, but 95% of customers who try one simply refuse to remove them afterwards
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I usually describe them as actually lowering where the peak HP is produced, they don't increase the peak HP figure at all, but it does increase the HP produced within the lower part of the power curve.
How does it do this? Please explain, I am interested to understand how it does this if it only connects to the pedal? It must be intercepting the signal between the throttle pedal and the ECU as I understand it... what is it doing with this signal to change where peak power is produced?
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We've had cars on the dyno and under full throttle their is no peak power produced, under half throttle power increases of upto 30bhp were recorded on a ford focus RS.
How does it do it? I honestly don't know as all we are doing it shortening throttle pedal travel.
All i know is that ii won't drive our mini countryman, or VW Amarok without one fitted.
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Its a mod for the "Playstation" generation who are used to a digital response have grown up with traction and stability control and don't know about when the only traction control available was dependent on your right foot and stability was all about the feel through the seat of your pants... :grin:
The "pedal box" delivers more throttle opening for a given pedal travel by intercepting the drive-by-wire signal and altering it to increase the "throttle" opening...
Some of the best "drivers cars" I've had/driven have fairly long travel throttle pedals to allow more effective modulation of power to the wheels. This did not detract from the performance or the fun... In fact it probably enhanced it...
But if you like the effect that these pedal boxes give... each to their own...
I usually describe them as actually lowering where the peak HP is produced, they don't increase the peak HP figure at all, but it does increase the HP produced within the lower part of the power curve.
How does it do this? Please explain, I am interested to understand how it does this if it only connects to the pedal? It must be intercepting the signal between the throttle pedal and the ECU as I understand it... what is it doing with this signal to change where peak power is produced?
First off, I'm far from the Playstation generation! My kids are of the generation not me, I'm middle aged and have been around Golf GTIs and other hot hatches since the 80s. That's my generation.
I like my GTIs to drive like GTI's should - not breaking any land speed records but just having a bit of fun within the confines of the law and traffic conditions and actually enjoying my driving instead of treating my car like white goods transport.
I drive quite a lot of cars and vans day to day so I know what a mk7 Golf feels like compared to other cars and so I feel justified in any criticism I level at it and to be honest the power delivery is the only criticism I have of the car that isn't nit picking.
There's no way you can pass judgement on a PedalBox or even a remap or tuning box for that matter unless you've tried one. End of.
It's a bit like the guys on the mk5 forum passing judgement on the mk7 when all they've done is look a a few pictures on the internet and seen Tiff Needell expecting the GTI to be something it's not designed to be in a fairly irrelevant TV article. Possibly VW are partly to blame for that TV article by mentioning the 'Ring in their advertising of the PP GTI but hey ho…
Try it and see for yourself is all I can say.
The PedalBox does nothing to the cars power it just intercepts the accelerator pedal signal and amplifies it just like a tuning box intercepts the ECUs signal. It makes the available power much more accessible rather than increasing it and as Andrew says - it makes it feel like the power comes in earlier as it just makes the car soooooo much easier to drive.
One benefit I've found is that you can trickle along in traffic much easier by just brushing the pedal so rather than making the car feel quicker in those congested situations it just takes the strain out of being in a traffic jam!!
As said, once tried you'd not want to be without it IF you're the right sort of person for one. I've had a version of it for over four years so that says enough I think!!! Even before I'd taken delivery I knew it was the first mod I'd have to do.
It's the same as anything, if you sit on the internet over analysing it then you'll get nowhere; try it...
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We've had cars on the dyno and under full throttle their is no peak power produced, under half throttle power increases of upto 30bhp were recorded on a ford focus RS.
How does it do it? I honestly don't know as all we are doing it shortening throttle pedal travel.
All i know is that ii won't drive our mini countryman, or VW Amarok without one fitted.
Im going to weigh in and say this could actually be true. I always thought there was a sweet spot with the pedal that wasnt mashed to the floor that was actually make the car accelerate faster. The car was actually slower to mash the pedal with this installed than without though so that was another reason I took it off. Again may be better with Petrol rather than diesel.
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Me too, I'm a child of the 80s/90s hot hatch era and have since moved to other sports cars and have wide experience of driving standard and modified cars and road, stage and track.
As I recall the Pug 205 GTI had reasonable travel in the throttle pedal - that's what made them fun to me... being able to balance them on the limit of available grip/traction. The throttle response was better in those days as they didn't have to worry about emissions as much and fuel economy was less of an issue. Also, all things being equal you will find that normally aspirated cars give better throttle response than turbo cars.
Also, with a fly-by-wire throttle there is not necessarily (and often isn't) a direct correlation between the amount the pedal is pressed and the amount the "throttle" is opened... In fact, in different circumstances the same amount of pedal travel could result in quite different "throttle" openings depending on the feedback from sensors e.g. knock, abs (for traction/stability) etc. to give the desired effect when the pedal is pressed.
In a competition car with a fly-by-wire throttle then the desired effect is the most available torque at those revs and load. In a road car the requirements are muddied somewhat by emissions, economy, nvh etc.
In my experience, the more powerful and more peaky the delivery then a longer and more progressive throttle is a great help in balancing the power delivery. Using a box like this to drastically shorten the amount the pedal is pressed before full throttle may be OK for some...
As for the statement about some cars not giving full throttle when the pedal is full depressed... were these drive by wire (i.e. MK2 Focus RS)? If so, were they giving 100% throttle at any point in the pedal travel? If they weren't there was something worng...
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As I recall the Pug 205 GTI had reasonable travel in the throttle pedal - that's what made them fun to me... being able to balance them on the limit of available grip/traction. The throttle response was better in those days as they didn't have to worry about emissions as much and fuel economy was less of an issue. Also, all things being equal you will find that normally aspirated cars give better response.
Totally agree with you. Also, the drive-by-wire system does not regulate the amount of throttle opening itself. It constantly moves the throttle according to the ECU signals to achieve the required torque which should be available in the certain pedal position. It's like the hybrid cars unfortunately, but we have to live with it, as it's the only way to follow to achieve the emission regulations (and low -artificial- consumption for low taxes for us, consumers, and manufacturer).
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As I recall the Pug 205 GTI had reasonable travel in the throttle pedal - that's what made them fun to me... being able to balance them on the limit of available grip/traction. The throttle response was better in those days as they didn't have to worry about emissions as much and fuel economy was less of an issue. Also, all things being equal you will find that normally aspirated cars give better throttle response than turbo cars.
My aim is to get the throttle response in my Euro VI (or whatever) compliant turbo'd hot hatch to be as good as the cable throttle in my old skool daily driver 2.0 8v normally aspirated 'hot' hatch and it's pretty much there now.
Turbo's will never react the same as a NA engine but the small turbo'd GTI's don't do bad as long as you don't expect the best response from snapping the throttle open - all turbo's are obviously going to work best with a smooth progressive accelerator pedal giving the turbo time to spool (which is pretty fast on modern turbos).
With the PedalBox you can just brush the accelerator and the turbo will begin to spool very quickly making smooth progress very easy.
Plus the box has loads of settings too so it's far from all or nothing.
I didn't spec DCC on my GTI but it runs to the same principle - you have a choice of settings depending on how you want the car to behave. If you can have sporty or boat like ride quality why not the same in engine response control?
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I know what Exonian is trying to explain.
If I step from the imediate throttle responce of my mk1 to the slower responce mk6 my mk6 feels so much slower and needs what seems like half throttle to even get any responce. Even stepping from my leon TDI PD to the mk6 has this same feeling as the leons throttle map is not flat and much more responsive at part throttle openings. Which makes it nicer to drive round town.
The mk7 GTI suffers the same as the 6 if not worse in the couple ive tried so far.
I guess the problem if you want to call it that is Exonian and myself dont just drive modern cars so have not been reprogrammed to they must be better.. I own cars from the 50s, 60s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s to compare it too and throttle responce like steeeing feel has deteriated dramatically over the years sadly.
In truth if I think about it to me cars now are too dull and detached.
I can see were a pedalbox would improve the throttle feel if you will as it would change it to more like my leons but the leon can can catch me out when I realise the latter part of the throttle doesnt react as well as the first part or like the mk6 in its later half which can give oh crap moments. Which is why I still prefer the mk1 throttle responce. Imediate responce and the last part of the throttle opens a second larger butterfly on inlet and it give a nice kick.
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Had another tinker with the settings yesterday in a quiet drive along a bit of slowish dual carriageway.
First thing I did was get rid of all the 'Sport' settings on the in-car menus as the 'Sport' engine setting does nothing but make a horrible vibrating misfire noise through the sound actuator - nothing like as nice a noise as the mk6 had.
The steering and everything else was put to 'Normal'.
And then a quick play with the PedalBox settings, but after a short time I put it back to where I had it previously in a happy 'middle of the road' setting. Ideal for winter driving, the car can now be trickled along slowly with no hunting and feels much more flexible and civilised than the factory 'all or nothing' set up.
The best way I can liken it was to when I had my first mk6 GTI with REVO software that was too brutal to use on winter roads so I used the REVO low octane fuel map which was nice and smooth with a lovely power delivery but obviously much less BHP than the 260 it put out on 98 RON mapping. Quite often more powerful is not quicker though.