Hello,
Main point is a good running engine, you can spend £1000s on fancy performance tuning parts looking to gain massive power only to be knocked back by a £20 one way check valve bleeding all you power off.
The first stage of tune is STOCK, get the car running 100% spot on, fuel trims within reason, peak air flow where it should be, n75 and boost within the correct range. PCV system in tiptop condition (9 out of 10 1.8ts that come to us has a leaking PCV system and can cause fuel trim issues stock and major power losses once mapped) Fuel filters tend to get left out and unchanged and end up causing high rpm lambda issue. Old weak coils packs and poor quality spark plugs can cause ignition pull and loss of power. Cheap or faulty mafs can go unnoticed but can also cause major fuel and power issues. The oil should be of the best quality, not non of the £4.99 crap, oil pick up should be checked and changed (£15 for the oem unit) The to finish off run the car on V-power or simlar grade fuel to keep the timing adaptions as best they can be.
Lets say we are working on an AUM 150
Once the car is running 100% spot with the stock map you can have a stage1 remap, to compliment the stage1 remap you can add a good air filter and a Forge 007p with the correct spring setup 200-210bhp 220-230lbft 37-39mpg
R-tech Spec1 remap
Just by adding a full turbo back exhaust to the spec1 remap the ecu can adapt to around 220-240lbft, but with a overload dip in the midrange..
R-tech Spec1 remap running with Milltek turbo back
Then we go to spec1.5 map, which opens the midrange power up by 20-30lbft avg by giving a rich burn and a bit more boost, just with the turbo back exhaust system and maybe some fancy boost hoses.
Add a good FMIC, turbo intake pipe, PCV breather mod
Then to spec2custom remap which is lower than some tuners peak power claims, but offer much more avg power with a really broad strong torque curve. Expected peak gain 225-232bhp 245-260lbft and still getting 35-40mpg
Then spec3 will be fully bespoke, from k04-023 mapping which could be based around a Seat Leon Cupra R 225 remap custom tuned due to the differing compression ratios and which mean the 225 timing map wont be any good for the AUMs CR. stage 3 can go up to Gt35s5 500bhp+ with 4" maf offsetting. IMO the best mapping option for 400bhp+ is to run stand alone ecu, the Omex D600 will allow the coild packs, MAF DBW throttle,and many sensors all to be removed. You will just be running the engine on TPS, 3.5 bar map sensor, wasted spark coil block, AIT and CTS.
Nick
