‘Superchip’ a Volvo Penta engine??!!

Peterlewis321

Peterlewis321

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Has anyone ever considered (or done) a performance chip upgrade on their VP?
Our Princess V45 can struggle a bit when fully laden with the twin D6-370’s and I see on the internet that some companies (like Superchip in the UK) do seem to market a perf chip that would potentially offer an extra 30-60hp per engine and a good deal more torque......be interested to hear any views!!
 
We had a Mercedes engine remapped boosted from 650hp to 775hp worked great for 2 years then totally destroyed it
Was not on a boat but agricultural machine
 
Many of these chips are dodgy in that they alter the fuel maps outside the manufacturers parameters, all sensors are fitted as "averages" and this basically means that if you have a sensor with resistances from 100-200 ohms the manufacturers set them at about 150 ohms with a variance of =/- 75 ohms so they will register from 75 - 225 ohms and stray outside this and you get fault codes and with many engines, a default mode or total engine shutdown.

Many of these chips operate by changing a couple or a few of the parameters and you have to change them all for the engine to operate correctly and you never get something for nothing and this means they often increase engine maximum RPM and this creates extra wear on the engine mechanicals along with generating extra heat and this could push other things such as cooling systems or even lubricants; if you gain somewhere you lose somewhere and if you gain more top end power you generally lose bottom end power and with a boat this can create even more problems.
 
Simi said:
We had a Mercedes engine remapped boosted from 650hp to 775hp worked great for 2 years then totally destroyed it
Was not on a boat but agricultural machine
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Yikes. That is what I thought......not worth the risk on something so expensive!!!
 
this place claim to be able to get 435hp out of your D6 370

Volvo Penta D6 370 Marine - DTUK Performance tuning box D6-Series

personally i don't see the chip / remap causing the damage if you drive it as you do now

however

the reason you get a remap is to get more power and end up using the increased power all the time, your right foot in a car and right hand in a boat will inevitably get much heavier and thus strain your engine more and bad things happen
 
Definitely to be avoided, on a common rail the only way to get more fuel into the cylinder is by increasing the rail pressure as the injector opening duration is controlled by the ECU. So what these chips do is make the high pressure pump work harder by altering the signal from the rail pressure sensor which controls the MPROP valve. You are now operating outside the safe limits written into the original software programme. The other point to is consider engine cooling, the extra fuel burnt creates extra heat which has to be got rid of, again usually beyond what the system has been designed for. I have had two experiences with customers who had chip tuning, both negative, one customer had D3 and it overheated anywhere near full power, the other was Mercruiser and I drove the boat while the chip guy loaded in 4 different maps, none of which worked giving either lots of black smoke or engine alarms as it hit the rev limiter, in the end the customer gave up and bought a boat with a bigger engine.
 
spannerman said:
Definitely to be avoided, on a common rail the only way to get more fuel into the cylinder is by increasing the rail pressure as the injector opening duration is controlled by the ECU. So what these chips do is make the high pressure pump work harder by altering the signal from the rail pressure sensor which controls the MPROP valve. You are now operating outside the safe limits written into the original software programme. The other point to is consider engine cooling, the extra fuel burnt creates extra heat which has to be got rid of, again usually beyond what the system has been designed for. I have had two experiences with customers who had chip tuning, both negative, one customer had D3 and it overheated anywhere near full power, the other was Mercruiser and I drove the boat while the chip guy loaded in 4 different maps, none of which worked giving either lots of black smoke or engine alarms as it hit the rev limiter, in the end the customer gave up and bought a boat with a bigger engine.
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You more or less said what id have replied .

Now do this magic company also realise that the D6 435 has a much bigger intercooler than the 370 , perhaps they have done a thorough check with the remap and included a new intercooler , high pressure system , injectors etc within the price .

i doubt it very much , I also doubt they have done any homework at all , have they actually purchased a boat to use as a test bed and carried out hundreds of hours cruising carrying out live re maps looking at fuel burn , temperatures , boost pressures , fitted the blocks with detonation sensors , No I doubt it very much .
Spend your money a bit wiser .
 
Thanks for all the replies-I’ve never considered a chip in the past (car or boat) and somehow (clever internet I guess) I got a feed in my Facebook yesterday about a company that supposedly does these things for boats. So I was just curious to see if anyone had ever done it-as suspected, the answers appears to be ‘no’ if any common sense is applied!!! My 370’s are fine 95% of the time anyway (we generally only cruise at part throttle c22knots) it is only when the conditions are rough that I always felt a little extra grunt would help in/out of the holes......as someone said, I’ll just have to wait and buy bigger engines in the next boat!! Cheers
 
This is an interesting one because of course there is a 435hp version of the D6, so VP themselves run it at this power. The big question is whether the 435hp version has beefed up internals (my guess would be that everything is standardised for cost reasons so they'd be the same, but it is just a guess).

In this instance I think my bigger concern would be the outdrives - VP don't mate the 435hp version of the D6 with outdrives (although they do the 400hp version now, but I don't know if it uses the same drives as the earlier 370hp version)
 
I always think performance boat engines have a much lower duty cycle than road going engines, so to tune them even more is probably not a good idea.
I remember reading one of the cummins had a full power duty cycle at something like 15 percent, yet a road going diesel will be much nearer 100 percent.
 
Aquatom ( not seem him on here for a while) has two engines just inside reception in his place in Mallorca.

The customer ( not him) chipped the engines. They went bang. He fitted new ones and the old ones have been sitting there for years.

A car gets more acceleration etc. All fine. Most of the time it will run at - I dont know - 20-30% of rated power. A boat runs at 70% or rated power - or more. The mechanics above have explained then impact - heat etc etc etc. Bang. Dont do it.
 
lynallbel said:
I always think performance boat engines have a much lower duty cycle than road going engines, so to tune them even more is probably not a good idea.
I remember reading one of the cummins had a full power duty cycle at something like 15 percent, yet a road going diesel will be much nearer 100 percent.
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Ask the chip tuners if they'll replace your engine when it goes bang.
 
the owner of the Red Hunton 37 in the Solent has for many years been playing around with his engines,
He runs his own hydraulic engineering company so does know a thing or two,

Here is his project its worth a read all the way through and if you every in the same marina as Peter go and have a chat with him

Volvo D6 DPR drive/HuntonXRS37 - Boatmad.com

He continues to work on his boat and try things well outside what the average person would dream of .
The 1 that amazes me is that overall he has increased the MPG significantly
 
Bad idea .
I know via the tinternet after a bit of googling it feels ok .
But then google“ :) flat earth “

I,am on a Bentley GT forum and various Ferrari .
The Ferrari guys never go down that road
The Bentley is full of them ...most end in tears .
let me answer the Q why the difference of uptake between the two .
Ferrari guys hang on to OEM and residuals or investment rise for some means a chipped car is a detriment and numbers are low and the bar financially for entry is high .For more performance...just wait and buy the next modal .
In context most boats even D6 s theses days equal or exceed Ferrari values when new by many times more ...so it seems daft to even contemplate chipping !

Mean wile with 65000 stock Bentley GT gen 1 @ 556 Hp or super sport 610 or what ever they depreciate and fall into the reach of guys , there’s no easy way to say this ( apologies ) with tattoos, from council houses , attend raves etc , who may have cut there car teeth chipping a Citroen Saxo .With social media it’s inevitable the chipper guys get there hooks into them .
If you thought a D 6 was “ tech ed out “ try a W 12 , that std factory Hp is there with help of powerful ECUs .
Anyhow they all have follow up issues the 680 - 700 Hp chipped versions .Most within a few weeks .
Its not as if a std 0-60 in 4 point something or 196 mph is enough with stock .
400 Hp now the latest D6 from VP ...leave it to VP ...it’s still the same block i here the chippers saying .

Anyhow a bit of TD. But see what I mean .
Nice guy and he has not chipped it ....got a few neurones :) .
 
if your car engine goes phut, you pull up at the side of the road
If your boat engine dies on you, its an entire different ball game.
 
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