Tuning my Cupra TDI (PD150) - Remap, EGR, DPF and Mufflerectomy

[MrSix]

Hi Guys,

Over the next few weeks I'm having a bit of a tinker with my car and I'll be documenting the process for future reference. Because of this I need a bit of advice on a few things.

As I'm having the car remapped and I'm looking to start with the best possible hardware set up before I go tweaking the electronics.

EGR Delete
What benefits will I see (if any) from deleting the EGR and what is necessary to carry out the job. Is the "A01" kit from egrvalve.co.uk all I'd need? (sorry can't post links yet)

DPF Delete
Do the MK1 Leon Cupra TDIs have a DPF? I've found lots of people doing it to the MK2 but nothing on the Mk1 so far.


As well as the above I'll also be doing the following:

Mufflerectomy
Removing the back box and replacing it with a straight through 2.5" pipe and tip with before and after power runs to see if there are any gains to be had by performing this cheap and fabled mod.

Standard airbox and filter, uprated panel filter and an open cone filer
I'll be comparing all three (before the mufflerectomy) to see if there are any gains to be had by 'upgrading' from a standard paper filter.

Remap
I'll then be remapping the car after we've achieved the most gains from the mods described above. I'm still running the standard clutch and so the map won't be an aggressive one, rather a tune that makes the car pull harder in gear - especially third and fourth.

Eibach B12 Sportline kit, Pro-Spacers and Anti-Roll kit
I have a full Eibach suspension set up coming over from Germany that comprises of Bilstein dampers, Sportline springs, Pro-Spacers and front and rear anti-roll bars.


This should leave me with a well rounded, economical daily driver with a bit of grunt and nice handling...now we'll just wait and see the results!


*EDIT*

Here's the video of the process - continue to read further down the thread for my write up of the process.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/mMmIqOXxjQU?hd=1

 

[DarrenJ]

Definitely interested in hearing about how you get on. Here's a link to a frenchie who shows how he deactivated the egr, looks dodgy tho!

http://www.youtube.com/user/nounours45220?blend=21&ob=5

 

[MrSix]

Hmm I'm sure there's more professional ways to deactivate the EGR!
The car is going in today for the first lot of work - we'll probably manage the air filter test and mufflerectomy today with the EGR delete and remap on Friday.

I'll post back the results when I get them.

 

[Pixis5]

Hmm I'm sure there's more professional ways to deactivate the EGR!
The car is going in today for the first lot of work - we'll probably manage the air filter test and mufflerectomy today with the EGR delete and remap on Friday.

I'll post back the results when I get them.

I did my EGR also by removing the vacuum hose... but also remaped my EGR map so I don't get a check engine light on. Everything is just a 30min job.

 

[MrSix]

Right then, yesterday I took the Leon down to Thor Racing in Coventry for it to be tuned.

First of all we had the standard car on the dyno (which is a hub dyno, so figures are at the wheels rather than at the engine).

The standard car made 130.7bhp and 236.9lbft at the wheels which equates to roughly 150bhp at the engine - pretty much bang on the manufacturers stated power.

We then ran the car without an air filter to replicate the very best airflow to see if fitting a high flow panel or cone filter could potentially make a difference. Over four power runs the car made identical power (within the tolerances of the dyno). Thus bringing us to the conclusion that on these PD150 engines, as standard an aftermarket filter offers absolutely no performance gains whatsoever - the only difference was a more noticeable induction note.

We then had the car back out in to the workshop and performed a "mufflerectomy" which involves cutting off the backbox just after the exhaust pipe runs over the rear beam. The backbox is then repaced with a straight 2.25" pipe and a new tip (i'm running a Cupra R style oval). We were all very surprised at how little difference in sound there was once the backbox had been removed. On startup there's now a slightly lower growl but on idle there is no audible difference between stock and no backbox - the difference comes when changing gear and you can hear a slight "chirp" from the turbo from outside the car (which I quite like). Inside the car you wouldn't be able to tell if it had been done or not and there's no droning on the motorway either at any speed or RPM.

The car was then put back on the dyno to see if the mufflerectomy had made any difference to the car's power and we were quite shocked to see that by this simple £60-£100 mod had actually made 6.2bhp at the wheels and 8.4lbft of torque. Over four more dyno runs we saw the power figure staying at a consistent 136.9bhp and 245.4lbft torque which equates to approximately 160bhp at the engine.

Now that the car was clearly breathing better, we removed the air filter again to see if an aftermarket high flow filter would make a difference. But once again the dyno results showed no gains in power. Leading us to the conclusion that the standard induction system provides sufficient airflow.

Conclusion
So all in all a very good days work having leveraged an extra 6.2 wheel BHP and 8.4lbft torque from just a simple, cheap modification. The added benefit was that I saw my average MPG increase by 6-8mpg on the motorway run home.

The next stage is remapping the car and I'll report back on Friday with the results of that.

 

[MrSix]

Need to make this 15th post so I can put a picture in my first report!

 

[DarrenJ]

Very interesting stuff altogether!

Will the turbo be under more pressure as it will spool up sooner and faster and for a longer period? Would this shorten the life of it?

Cutting out the backbox is basically removing the catalytic convertor so could the engine emissions warning light show up on the dash?

 

[MrSix]

Very interesting stuff altogether!

Will the turbo be under more pressure as it will spool up sooner and faster and for a longer period? Would this shorten the life of it?

Jaybus! As you've asked the same question three times in three different threads I'm going to answer you...no it wont.

 

[MrSix]

So yesterday I took the car back to Thor Racing for the remap.

We loaded the initial map and it made around 14bhp (at the wheels) more than it was running with just the mufflerectomy and the torque curve wasn't the best looking thing in the world! The fact that we were mapping using the dyno filled me with confidence because any "mobile mapper" would have loaded that first file on my drive and taken my money. But we were able to modify the generic map used by many companies and tweak it to get us to a place we were happy.

After three or four revisions to achieve the desired peak power and smooth out the torque curve we ended up with 287.2lbft and 168.2bhp which equates to approximately 195bhp at the fly.

I'll be driving the car for a week to see how it adapts and then probably taking the car back next week for a minor bit of fettling to further smooth out the torque curve between 2300 and 2800rpm, basically lowering the peaks a fraction and removing that valley and then shifting the whole torque curve across to make peak torque at 2500rpm which should give the clutch a slightly easier time.

The car is now a real animal to drive, it pulls like a steam train in all gears and the exhaust has taken on a rather brutal note at full power that is more turbo and whistling air than a typical exhaust drone. Inside the cabin however you'd never know it wasn't standard as the sound doesn't make it inside the cab.

I'll report back in a few days with the MPG which on first impressions seems to be the same.

Now excuse me, but I'm going out for a play in my tractor!

 

[DarrenJ]

That sounds like the way to do a re-map!

I can just imagine how much pull it has now. I don't know what they put i nthose PD's but sometimes it's hard to believe they are diesels!

I did the de-cat last weekend and I'm happy with it have to say. It seems to be burning off some of the soot that has built up and with the help of a dose of Redex it should clean everything out.

Sound wise it sounds far more substantial and low grunty and the engine is far freer and better able to breath.

It seems to be better on juice too, but I'll wait until it has used up this tank of diesel as it has a generous helping of Redex in it and I find the MPG increases with this stuff in it.

Keep us posted, sounds like you're getting a proper custom re-map that will leave the car responding exactly as you want it to. Good luck!

 

[MarkWales]

any news on testing the egr delete?

 

[MrSix]

any news on testing the egr delete?

We haven't done it yet, but I'm looking at the best way to perform this mod - via an allards kit or just keeping the stock unit and using a thin bin of aluminium with a tiny hole in the centre.

 

[devonmikeyboy]

any news on testing the egr delete?

What is there to test? Panel filters where proven 5+ years ago not to make any difference to diesel cars. As long as the engine is getting the requested air that the ECU is asking for which can be easily checked via VCDS you cannot improve bhp with any filter change/type.

 

[MrSix]

Here's how the car now sounds with the mufflerectomy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP0rj1xP2A0

 

[BigV]

How does the car cope on a standard clutch?

 

[Nick-21]

Cutting out the backbox is basically removing the catalytic convertor so could the engine emissions warning light show up on the dash?

I did the de-cat last weekend and I'm happy with it have to say. It seems to be burning off some of the soot that has built up and with the help of a dose of Redex it should clean everything out.

In one word, no.

The cat is not at the back box, the back box is only a silencer, the cat on these cars is under the front seats in the exhaust.

Standard exhaust has a cat, then straight through center pipe then a back box. If you have removed your back box then its the Mufflerectomy part you have done, if you have removed the thing at the front of the exhaust then that is a de-cat.

 

[Dabbalz]

So yesterday I took the car back to Thor Racing for the remap.

We loaded the initial map and it made around 14bhp (at the wheels) more than it was running with just the mufflerectomy and the torque curve wasn't the best looking thing in the world! The fact that we were mapping using the dyno filled me with confidence because any "mobile mapper" would have loaded that first file on my drive and taken my money. But we were able to modify the generic map used by many companies and tweak it to get us to a place we were happy.

After three or four revisions to achieve the desired peak power and smooth out the torque curve we ended up with 287.2lbft and 168.2bhp which equates to approximately 195bhp at the fly.

I'll be driving the car for a week to see how it adapts and then probably taking the car back next week for a minor bit of fettling to further smooth out the torque curve between 2300 and 2800rpm, basically lowering the peaks a fraction and removing that valley and then shifting the whole torque curve across to make peak torque at 2500rpm which should give the clutch a slightly easier time.

The car is now a real animal to drive, it pulls like a steam train in all gears and the exhaust has taken on a rather brutal note at full power that is more turbo and whistling air than a typical exhaust drone. Inside the cabin however you'd never know it wasn't standard as the sound doesn't make it inside the cab.

I'll report back in a few days with the MPG which on first impressions seems to be the same.

Now excuse me, but I'm going out for a play in my tractor!

It'll be under more pressure now, the life of the turbo will be much shorter now. Still bet it's nice to have the extra power.
It's a pain in the arse owning a bike, everything feels slow. I drove an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, Ferrari 360, Porsche 911 GT3 and a Lamborghini Gallardo a couple of weeks ago and all but the Lambo felt slow. You can imagine what the FR feels like to me, still love the low down grunt and the high mpg though!

 

[TonyG85]

I hate to ask the poor chav question. but how much did this all cost you??

 

[hoggy90]

great thread mrsix, keep it coming!

 

[DarrenJ]

You cut out the back box I see, but you kept in the cat?

Will you be leaving it in or opt for straight through system?

Very good videos by the way. This will steer us modders in the right way anyway!