MadaboutKitcars

Its still April 1st !

Dyno operators can easily manipulate engine loading on runs to prove what they want you to see.
There is no way you'll see a 30-40bhp gain on a normally aspirated, 3 litre production motor by just a remap, unless the original map was somehow corrupt and your car's performance was well under par before you started.
Perhaps he/she fitted throttle bodies, cams, ported the head and re-mapped the lot while you weren't looking?

A quick check at the weekend on the private road

Rolling start at 20mph. Duration is seconds to reach the next increment

MPH Now Before Intake Originally
20 0 0 0
30 0.78 0.80 1.20
40 0.88 0.90 1.10
50 1.32 1.35 1.47
60 1.43 1.48 1.67
70 1.83 1.93 2.07
80 2.24 2.39 2.43
Total 8.48 8.85 9.94

After fitting the intake manifold from the 325 the car is quicker throughout the range and almost 0.4 seconds faster from 20-80mph. Overall improvement from the original is almost 1.5 seconds faster 20-80mph

Sarcasm is definitely the lowest form of wit. As I stated my car went from 231 BHP to 259 BHP. When I went to school that made 28 BHP. Most remappers will GUARANTEE (or your money back) 10-15%. Perhaps you went to a different school?
28BHP is in the middle of this range. And not a throttle body or cam in the equation. I was fairly happy with this although not ecstatic.

Firstly, I think sarcasm can be very funny when warranted by the right circumstances. If you lightened up a bit perhaps you'd have enjoyed my statement too.
I stand by the fact that your claim of 30-40hp is ridiculous. With the experience you state you have you should realise that. If you think carefully about it, do you honestly believe you could gain that (or even the 28hp you claim you saw) on an otherwise standard motor by remapping, and all this for 300 quid! Don't you think manufacturer's and especially BMW would use some of that. And please, no excuse about different RON/MON/air temperature etc: the motor is mapped for Europe.
And then you make it worse by stating you weren't happy with a gain of 28hp! What on earth did you expect?
Anyway, don't take this as a personal dig. I'm not challenging you, just the data.
BTW, I would suggest 10-15bhp is a more reasonable expectation.

If I could play devil's advocate too, what you are suggesting is conjecture, backed up by no more than your theories.
At least Nubodi's supposition is based on some data.
You can only rationally challenge his statements if you have a counter-argument based on some kind of factual evidence.

Not a personal dig either!

Play nicely boys. We don't want another round of Internet arguments.

I got the biggest performance gains by spraying the man sensor with some contact cleaner and adding s flowerpot, not the most expected tuning methods but it worked for me.

No access to a rolling road so don't know the bhp gain but video evidence, on a private road, of the increased acceleration. I am sure someone can reverse engineer the time to get bhp.

Rolling roads are good for only one thing - comparative tuning. The outright figures mean zilch.

You can get a decent increase in power reading simply by over inflating your tyres. Get your car on the rollers, get a baseline figure, adjust, check the figures again. Preferably same day, same conditions.

NA remapping, well, essentially all you can do to effect peak power is tweak the mixture and timing - you can't get any more air into the engine so it all comes down to AFR and how much you want to push timing.

Remember, manufacturers er on the side of caution in terms of AFR at WOT to allow for engine longevity - there's a tolerance - whether that's 10-15% is another argument....and also remember some manufacturers have been known to detune their own engines - my old Toyota 3ZFE lump being a case in point.

My brother works for Land Rover developing maps and carrying out hot and cold climate testing. I can tell you that they do look at after market solutions and test some of them. One I can remember was the last iteration of the classic mini when they were looking to get the magic 100bhp out of the Cooper S and were looking at aftermarket injection systems - they tested a Weber system and let's just say they couldn't recreate the manufacturers claims (by some way). In the end they came up with the MPi which was actually a clever way of dealing with the siamesing port issue

Like Richard, and no doubt many others any here, I've been around the clock a few times and my statements are made due to my experiences as well as applied theoretical knowledge. I've had many cars re-mapped - n/a, and turbocharged petrol and diesel. The petrol motors have been in competition and road cars. I've attempted to map a couple myself.
Here's a challenge for you to help understand this discussion: take your car to a reputable remapper with a rolling road. Run up your normally aspirated Z3, map it and repeat. I recommend Superchips. If the gain is '30-40bhp' I'll buy a hat and eat it.

With a "remap" you can see a small gain, maybe 10 or 15% or there abouts.
I remember the days of the K&N filter and JanSpeed exhaust. Both would show a similar small gain but at 6,000rpm and your X Flow might go pop if you went around making use of your new hi performance motor !
The remaps I've seen alter the torque and power figures to give a little extra low to mid range which is more useful. The after market systems are more flexible and offer more options but you might have to upgrade parts to make the best from them, but its still remapping .

This reply will appear as an article in my monthly thread in Kitcar Magazine in two months time.
A wise man, Mr Chris Welch told me how to deal with people who will try to discredit you publically (basically saying you are lying) on internet forums. His advice was to take a breath and respond the next day professionally. So here goes.
I made a statement that it is possible to gain 30-40 BHP on a 3.0i normally aspirated BMW engine. Let me tell you why I stated this fact. The general consensus is this is impossible (I’m being polite here). Firstly I am not pertaining to be an expert at anything, however I have a thirst for knowledge and only listen to people who are qualified to wear the title ‘expert’.
I tend to disregard what my mate says down the pub or have read it on the internet till its proven either way. There are some dodgy tuners out there who you will never get proper gains with. In my other business of developing and selling Supplemental Hydrogen Fuel Systems I had to find a solution to running with a different fuel, which meant learning everything about fuelling and fuel maps. I sought out many experts.
Seven years ago I travelled to Southern Ireland to see the most revered and respected re-mapper on the planet. I will not mention his name as he prefers to work under the radar. This is where I first heard the term ‘Tall poppy Syndrome’ (google it). This chap wrote most of the generic maps which 90% of the re-mappers out there copy and use in their work. He explained the truth behind why re-mapping works which I will come to later. He let me play with some fuel maps to show what could be done and how to unlock ‘look up tables’ that you would never get the chance to see or work with.
About five years ago I was privileged to have a consultation with Dr Steven Samuels of Oxford Brookes University. He is one of the leading experts in the world on Combustion and Thermodynamics. Testing for many BMW’s (funded by BMW) was done at his establishment before their own technicians get to work on the fuel maps. I asked him many questions about fuel maps and remapping for several hours.
Three years ago I paid for independent testing of my systems at Hertfordshire University by Dr Gareth Williams whose facility has a state of the art rolling road and laboratory testing for emissions and fuelling. We tested two vehicles and BHP was an interesting section of this eight hour testing. As you can imagine my knowledge increased.
I also paid for one of my employees to go on the Alientech re-mapping course (certainly one of the best our there) to gain more knowledge and be able to write and modify our own maps. This sometimes meant opening the vehicles ECU and connecting a device to read from the EPROM.
Two years ago I bought a BMW Z3 3.0i as a donor for the first prototype 250SWB Kalifornia. I was interested to see what could be done with this normally aspirated engine. I contacted my Irish contact and he directed me to a Truck mapper who gets phenomenal boosts in power and fuel economy. He agreed to retune my car under two conditions. 1. I had to be running on premium fuel (not the p**s weak supermarket fuel) and 2. It had to be run on a rolling road.
I hired a local rolling road for the day and tested several vehicles, mainly for emissions and fuelling. However I also got four runs with the BMW. Now it’s worth pointing out that the re-mapper did not operate the rolling road and the rolling road people made no modification to the vehicle. So there was no ‘making the figures look better than they actually were’.
The base run was 231 BHP which surprisingly was the exact figure that BMW quoted for that vehicle. The expert suggested it probably had more and had lost a couple of BHP over the years and suggested it had been ‘run in’ correctly to give such a good standard figure. After two runs with new maps it reached 264 BHP. The re-mapper adjusted it on the fourth and last run to 259 BHP which gave a margin of safety for the vehicle and his guarantee it would not blow up on the first track day!
I of course asked many questions to all of these industry experts as to how this is possible to gain so much on the BMW maps as they spend a fortune on developing the software. They all said the same answer, which in short is the following.
All motor manufacturers are restricted by EU law and more importantly their shareholders as to fuelling and emissions on their vehicles. If they give their customers more power they increase the chances of mechanical failure which hurts their pockets. They are having to ‘strangle’ their vehicles outputs to meet stricter emission, less fuel, less power. Also on a generic European fuel map the vehicle has to perform perfectly in 50 degree heat (eg, India) and minus 30 degrees (eg, Austria). The re-mappers can tweak the maps for our temperate climate. The question of the quality of the fuel is also important also. Our fuel here is better than some third world countries so gains can be had there also. Premium fuels can help unleash more horsepower also. The motor manufacturers have been lobbying governments to stop remapping as they say it’s unfair to them and their parameters. Tough. I am not suggesting a generic, safe remap will give you these type of gains but most remappers will guarantee you 10% improvement or your money back.
So what was the gain I got on my vehicle feel like. After 30+ years of competing in every type of motor sport I can honestly say I know what a 28 BHP increase feels like! I usually can drive any car and guess the BHP output to within 5 – 10 BHP. The car feels much more responsive to the throttle and has a definite shove in the back over the standard fuelling. I believe pound for pound it’s the cheapest way to extra geegees! Im at Brands hatch on Wednesday (all day!) for a VIP day with Burton Power so I can enjoy all of the extra BHP.
So no hat munching today sorry Mr Y Cymro!

NICE..textbook "Sit down, shut up and listen"

Will these clowns never learn. When someone obviously has more experience than the rest of us..listen and learn, not attack and insult

Thanks to Landmannn for his sensible post.

y cymro, you used to be one of my main supporters???

Nice reply.

My first thoughts were with y cymro that the figures Richard were quoting seemed high. I didn't say anything as I know Richard and he seems a basically honest guy and passionate about cars. Who am I to call him a liar?

An initial posting saying you find the figures too high is fine but follow that with either PM messages or a polite request for back up information.

You're all wrong.
It is a well known fact that if you want to increase your BHP you add go faster stripes.
The wider the stripe, the more of an increase in power, twin stripes for the ultimate power boost.
Simples!

I can't believe Jaguartvr is talking total bollocks!

Stripes just introduce additional turbulence - everyone knows it's down to paint colour and black cars are always fastest!

Black is faster by keeping the air near the surface warmer, it reduces the viscosity of the air in the boundary layer. This reduces drag, like shaving your legs (oh come on - we all do it - don't we?).

This was confirmed to me by professor Pat Pending of the ACME Black Paint Company (the bit about air viscosity not leg shaving)

Don't talk crap....we don't all shave our legs (thats an Essex thing!) Just our heads and chest. Thats good for 2MPH
And another thing I told you not to reveal my real name
Pat

Dimples

Dimples are the future, nothing but a round-headed hammer, plenty of time and precision strikes to your body work needed for less drag and an added 11% fuel efficiency

dimple by eric holm, on Flickr

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5SlwNf4K0

Dimples

Dimples are the future, nothing but a round-headed hammer, plenty of time and precision strikes to your body work needed for less drag and an added 11% fuel efficiency

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5SlwNf4K0

Forget speed stripes and dimples, it is the engine cover colour that matters



That red adds at least 15bhp of bragging maybe 20bmp when spotted through the engine vent

How come F1 Redbull have black cars but matt - I thought Black Gloss be best

My VW 1.4 TSi is black - when washed. And it is a beast !

(I'm going to keep saying it until I believe it at least)

I do have terrible wheel arches though. The wheels look silly - on the beast

Dave

In an earlier post, Richard claims that a gain of 30-40bhp in peak power is possible by remapping an otherwise standard, naturally aspirated BMW Z3. From personal experience he claims his 3 litre Z3 gained 28bhp rising from 231 to 259bhp. I don’t know why his car falls outside the full increase he reckons is available.

In my humble experience, this is not achievable and I stated this here at the time. For N/A motors I place it in the same camp as raiki, acupuncture, fortune telling and so on. It seems that many people put their belief in the fact that because a remap can achieve significant gains on supercharged motors (whether supercharged or turbine supercharged (ie turbo)) then a similar gain, naively, must be possible on naturally aspirated motors.

A number of reputable remap tuners state that a potential gain of 10-15bhp is possible on this motor. The very experienced Superchips claim a 14bhp gain, and it is worth noting that this is in the less useful rev range beyond maximum power - not an increase in maximum power as Richard’s tuner claims can be achieved. Up until maximum power, the Superchips increase is between 5 and 10bhp (my interpolation from a Superchips power plot).
I’ll use the term power throughout, as that’s what we’re discussing. In reality, we’re increasing engine torque – which is measurable, whereas power is a simple calculation.

So, let’s think of this logically. Returning to first principles, an internal combustion engine is a pump. Air is sucked in, mixed with the correct volume of fuel and exploded at the right moment, and gas is exhausted. Extra power can be gained by increasing the gas flow through the engine, increasing the amount of fuel being burned, or exploding it more effectively, or at a more optimum time. To burn more fuel, the volume of air will also need to be increased and this returns us to the fact that to increase power substantially we will need to increase gas flow. If we increased the volume of fuel and air into the engine then we should produce more power. It’s easy to increase the amount of fuel – a remap can do that, but to explode it to achieve maximise power we need a volume of air about 14 times larger – and that’s hard to suck into the engine without removing physical obstructions to air flow. A gain of 40bhp is an increase of around 17% - to achieve a similar increase we would need an engine size increase to around 3500cc. That’s a high expectation for a remap and realistically unobtainable. Next, we’ll discuss why.

Dealing with these things in order: first, gas flow. Maximum power is available at wide open throttle (WOT), because then the largest volume of air is allowed to enter the engine. There will be losses due to obstructions in the inlet or exhaust tracts, and because on a standard Z3 the cam train won't be engineered to flow air effectively if we increase the rev limit (which is why performance declines as we near the rev limit) but software changes in a remap won't alter these, so there's no gain here. At high revs and WOT the variable valve timing will be enhanced to its maximum so there's nothing to be gained here either. The only way to increase gas flow is to make a physical change(s) such as better flowing air filters and plenums, throttle bodies, intake or exhaust manifolds, ported heads, larger valves, high lift, different profile cams, etc. World Class Accident has made good progress here by swapping the inlet manifold, fitting a free-flow air filter with cold air feed (good use of a flowerpot), and fitted a straight through, free flow exhaust. A good next step would be to fit an M3 exhaust manifold. In other words, Nick is working to increase gas flow through his engine. His final step before spending huge sums of money would be to remap his ECU so fuel and ignition parameters exploited this additional gas flow.