thebiglad
Well-Known Member
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- 7,387
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- Central France
Ok, so as many of you might know, I'm quite fond of my 2002 Td5 auto ES, but I just found that even after de-EGR and de-catting the car, it didn't perform as good as it could, imo. Handling and ride were always excellent, but the relationship between the engine and the autobox were not always successfull.
The issues I had with it were:
1. Sluggish after initial take off and not enough umph to overtake safely;
2. Cruising at 60mph in D with lock-up equates to 2100rpm, 70mph/2500rpm in my car. I do quite a lot of long distance motorway work and when I encounter long motorway hills, the speed would drop to the extent that I would go to 2000 or below and into a great hole of power delivery. No matter how much throttle I would give the car, she wouldn't pick up and what was worse, the more throttle I gave her the more likely it was that she would drop out of torque lockup, so revs would rise, impulsion was lost, an altogether unsatisfactory situation;
3. When towing I had learnt to drive around the above issues, but it wasn't as good as it should have been. Using 3 with lockup helped alot but should I need to do this?
4. Any improvements in mpg are always welcome.
Design brief for remap
1. More immediate power between 1700 and 2500rpm;
2. More power in this rev range;
3. The throttle pedal sensitivity had been reduced in the version of ECU software that I had which I wanted to sharpen up;
4. More grunt for towing;
I decided after looking around the market that for me the company to use was Dynachip run by a chap called Mike. I selected them on price, experience (Mike races a tuned Defender) and long-term LR man. Also he will go, with his kit to wherever you want your car remapped. He would have even come to France if I could have generated (and I did try) enough interest to make worth his while. I found him a quiet, honest, motivated and knowledgable individual.
Right, so we are now on the day of the remap and in the morning I am broken down at the side of the M1 with a lake of atf flowing behind my car and no drive. Got dragged back to my mates place to find that one of the oil pipe fixings had come undone to allow all the oil to escape.
After fixing that (which Mike helped greatly) he started the remap, by first of all making a back-up copy of all my std setting as a precaution. He then went onto install the new map looking at fuelling quantities at different rpms, torque delivery curves etc in order to "fill the hole".
After he finished version one, he then used a Nanocom and one other tool too examien all the systems and clear fault codes.
We then went for a drive. I was looking for a little more at lower revs and lower throttle openings so he did version 2. Please note that to me this is bespoke remapping not just 'lobbing' something in and walking away.
After version 2 the car drives as I believe it always should have done straight from the factory but hey ho - it does now.
So, how does it drive now? How does it compare with the design brief?
You'll no doubt be pleased to know it meets my brief perfectly, but here are some details:
1. At 50mph in D lockup the engine is doing about 1750rpm - before the remap there would have been nothing and it would drop straight out of lockup with revs flying all over the shop. Now by progressively applying throttle she just takes off - NOT like a Ferrari but much more like it feels she always should have done. Smooth power from very low down, above 2000rpm as soon as you give her pedal she's off and the more you give the more she goes. Now she drives properly. As a result when I was driving back last night feeling very tired, this new "Françoise" took me home easily.
2. The autobox engine relationship is now MUCH happier with unneccesary changes being avoided allowing you to drive on the torque.
3. The Cruise Control works MUCH better. As I said I was tired so unnusually for me I used CC for a large part of the trip down from Dunkerque to home and it works loads better now, presumably as the engine has more grunt.
4. MPG - well early days of course, but I did something like 600kms (about 385mls) on just over half a tank of juice. I was cruising at 75mph so about 2650rpm and she was just sailing.
So, hopefully that rather long statement, helps other TD5 auto owners to get a glimpse into what is possible with their cars. I'm not interested in tearing around, I just wanted my car to react when I asked it to.
Good luck
Dave
The issues I had with it were:
1. Sluggish after initial take off and not enough umph to overtake safely;
2. Cruising at 60mph in D with lock-up equates to 2100rpm, 70mph/2500rpm in my car. I do quite a lot of long distance motorway work and when I encounter long motorway hills, the speed would drop to the extent that I would go to 2000 or below and into a great hole of power delivery. No matter how much throttle I would give the car, she wouldn't pick up and what was worse, the more throttle I gave her the more likely it was that she would drop out of torque lockup, so revs would rise, impulsion was lost, an altogether unsatisfactory situation;
3. When towing I had learnt to drive around the above issues, but it wasn't as good as it should have been. Using 3 with lockup helped alot but should I need to do this?
4. Any improvements in mpg are always welcome.
Design brief for remap
1. More immediate power between 1700 and 2500rpm;
2. More power in this rev range;
3. The throttle pedal sensitivity had been reduced in the version of ECU software that I had which I wanted to sharpen up;
4. More grunt for towing;
I decided after looking around the market that for me the company to use was Dynachip run by a chap called Mike. I selected them on price, experience (Mike races a tuned Defender) and long-term LR man. Also he will go, with his kit to wherever you want your car remapped. He would have even come to France if I could have generated (and I did try) enough interest to make worth his while. I found him a quiet, honest, motivated and knowledgable individual.
Right, so we are now on the day of the remap and in the morning I am broken down at the side of the M1 with a lake of atf flowing behind my car and no drive. Got dragged back to my mates place to find that one of the oil pipe fixings had come undone to allow all the oil to escape.
After fixing that (which Mike helped greatly) he started the remap, by first of all making a back-up copy of all my std setting as a precaution. He then went onto install the new map looking at fuelling quantities at different rpms, torque delivery curves etc in order to "fill the hole".
After he finished version one, he then used a Nanocom and one other tool too examien all the systems and clear fault codes.
We then went for a drive. I was looking for a little more at lower revs and lower throttle openings so he did version 2. Please note that to me this is bespoke remapping not just 'lobbing' something in and walking away.
After version 2 the car drives as I believe it always should have done straight from the factory but hey ho - it does now.
So, how does it drive now? How does it compare with the design brief?
You'll no doubt be pleased to know it meets my brief perfectly, but here are some details:
1. At 50mph in D lockup the engine is doing about 1750rpm - before the remap there would have been nothing and it would drop straight out of lockup with revs flying all over the shop. Now by progressively applying throttle she just takes off - NOT like a Ferrari but much more like it feels she always should have done. Smooth power from very low down, above 2000rpm as soon as you give her pedal she's off and the more you give the more she goes. Now she drives properly. As a result when I was driving back last night feeling very tired, this new "Françoise" took me home easily.
2. The autobox engine relationship is now MUCH happier with unneccesary changes being avoided allowing you to drive on the torque.
3. The Cruise Control works MUCH better. As I said I was tired so unnusually for me I used CC for a large part of the trip down from Dunkerque to home and it works loads better now, presumably as the engine has more grunt.
4. MPG - well early days of course, but I did something like 600kms (about 385mls) on just over half a tank of juice. I was cruising at 75mph so about 2650rpm and she was just sailing.
So, hopefully that rather long statement, helps other TD5 auto owners to get a glimpse into what is possible with their cars. I'm not interested in tearing around, I just wanted my car to react when I asked it to.
Good luck
Dave
