After a weather delayed but uneventful train trip I managed to get up t’north to collect the car from Chris yesterday. He had a bit of a slow morning, so I ended up spending nearly an hour or so over a coffee bringing him up to speed on all things Vee. We also had quite a detailed conversation about gearboxes, as he’s developed an Renault adaptor kit for one of the Audi 6 speed box that’s proving rather popular with the 172/182 guys. Obviously useless for my purposes, but a useful contact to have none-the-less as I’m sure I’ve not heard the last of gearbox troubles...
Anyhow, he walked me round the car and showed me what he’s changed and the effect it’s had. To be honest, as you can see from the photo, it all looks rather neat and other than a few screws you wouldn’t know anything’s changed. Turned out to be a good job I left the tool kit bracket in there after all!
Out with the old:
In with the new:
The ECU is a simple plug and play now, so once the tuning software is downloaded from t’interweb it’s just a matter of bunging the USB cable in to the laptop and then voila I can adjust pretty much whatever parameter I want. To be honest I’m only going to do more harm than good if I start changing things, but I can always run data logs and email them to Chris for his critique and tweaks if required.
Having picked up a lot of tuning mumbo jumbo from the MPS crowd, I was aware that everything and anything can be tweaked using the software, but what I didn’t realise was I can now do random stuff as well, like adjust what temperature I choose the fans to come on or play with the VVT. It really is a complete shift from “impossible to crack” to “change anything the hell you want”!
So brief lesson over and Chris’s next customer chomping at the bit it was time for the off. Chris did warn me that I needed to be careful as a) it’s now an extremely responsive beast and b) it was absolutely pissing it down. Warning heeded I took it easy and realised very quickly that petrol was the first concern!
After filling up it was onto the motorway tip toeing away with the lorries in the loser lane. The weather was that bad I wasn’t able to really prod the pedal home until I was on the A1 – so about 100 miles of tip-toeing!! It took so long that I was actually quite nervous by the time everything clicked into place: road dry, tyres dry, road clear, road straight.
So here we were then, 6th to 5th - still too high - so down to 4th. Car settled, revs about 4k, pedal then mashed. Immediately the engine note hardened and then rose. And then rose some more. The power kept building with the revs and (I’ve no idea why) the dyno graph flashed through my thoughts as I realised that the power keeps building up to peak at around 6.7k. Things felt like they were going to burst. The induction was whip cracking away, the gearbox (I think) was whining, the engine sounded just insane and, well, I couldn’t even hear the exhaust. I actually involuntarily laughed. I couldn’t help myself. It was complete overload of the senses. Considering I’d driven this car for the best part of 2 hours and it was such a quiet, easy gentle cruiser; now it felt like the throttle pedal was connected to a landmine! Getting my kicks in a turbo cars for the last few years I’d got used to the all in one kidney punch that FI torque meters out. This was something different though, there was no real punch but the speedo flashed around the dial just as quickly. I suppose that’s the flat torque curve for you.
Fun over, throttle down and let the engine braking take over. NOW the exhaust could be heard crackling and popping away on the overrun. The barking cherry on the top then! Chris mentioned that on a couple of the dyno runs when he was fine tuning it was doing it flame spitting party trick, so he’s actually had to dial it back to where it currently is now!! lol Was grinning like an idiot when I finally got in. Absolutely bloody mental car.
Not sure about everyone else, but round our way today was easily the nicest day of the year so far. Warm, not a cloud in the sky and just perfect driving weather, so took it out for a couple of hours on a few of my favourite roads.
With more seat time I’m starting to pick up on a few of the intricacies of Chris’s work. The throttle is super sensitive. You press and the revs rise. There is no dead spot at all. Twinned with the TTV it’s a match made in heaven; the engine just responds to the throttle pedal with revs galore. It feels like my foot is pushing the rev needle. It’s actually quite difficult to complete the perfect up and down change, because I’m having to do things so much faster as the mechanicals now allow it and can respond to it. Taking a bit of time to dial in, but we’re getting there and it’s so satisfying learning and then, every now and then. getting it absolutely spot on.
Some other things I picked up on:
- The PH2 box feels nice to use. The short throw is a big improvement over the ph1!
- The BCs are confidence inspiring. The car is stiff and over any sort of imperfections it’s noticeably harder than OEM, but it’s so composed and compliant and not crashy like I’d feared. They do need to be set up professionally though. It’s on the short term to-do list.
- The idle issue is no more. It’s been completely erased. In the entire journey yesterday and 2 hour hoon today the car didn’t stall once and returned to idle perfectly. Case closed.
- The rear side passenger brake calliper is sticking on intermittently. The effect of this is a bloody huge great wiggle!! Thought it was a rear wheel bearing at first (though I’m getting Scott to definitely rule this out) but it’s intermittent and so I’m pretty sure it’s not them.
- The dash looks like a Christmas tree what with all the things “broken” or “missing”! The dash will be coming out for upholstering anyway so I’ll solder what needs to be soldered then.
- The car is absolutely filthy! It hasn’t had a proper clean in best part of 2 years!! Once the wrap is off I’ll be giving it a proper inside/outside/engine bay/the works detail.
Anyhow, there’s always something to be done, which is why I love this car so much. The fun of it isn’t the destination but the journey there. The car is now everything I hoped it would be from the outset. Yes, there are things still to do, but for now I’m going to keep things simple and my plans small. It’s been a long time coming but the mechanicals are up and running and (very loudly) on song! Now to just drive and enjoy the thing!!
As for torque we can test that when we meet up. Need to see your graph and see how it translates in reality. Main thing its ready to rock and roll for the summer. And be nice to see it Iceberg again 
