MK7 GTI now feels like a GTI (DTE Systems Pedal Box)

[GrahamFR]

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

[corgi]

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... 

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...

[Andrew@DTUK]

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

[corgi]

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?

[Andrew@DTUK]

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.

[Exonian]

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... 

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...

[GrahamFR]

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.

[corgi]

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...

[Geomets]

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).

[Exonian]

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?