Engine Chipping

[dog]

Now presumably someone will point out to me that this cant be done...... I have a pair of D3 130's and I have been lead to believe that the difference between the 130 and 160 version is in the engine managmement. The 190 version actually has some different mechanics to gain the extra hp. So no doubt you have guessed my question- whats to stop me having my 130s re-mapped for some extra oomph? The D3 engine is based on the 5 cylinder unit as fitted to Volvo cars and I am aware that these are available at a 180hp rating as standard.

Volvo wanted 3-4k more for the 160s when I bought them which prevented me doing so, but it has since dawned on me that you can re-map diesel cars for £300-£400. The Land Rover TD5 is a good example of this- 160-190 hp from re-mapping over the standard 120ish.

Anyone got any Informed info on this subject, or can marine diesels not be treated in the same way as a car?

 

[David2452]

Short answer is Yes, but you would have to get Diagnostix or some other tuning company to do quite a lot of research before a reliable "re map" could be done. Suggest you contact one of the tuning companies direct, my guess is they would not want the hassle and you wouldn't want the cost as all the research and development cost would be amortised to one job instead of over the hundreds the sell for cars & vans. A simple off the self chip would probably not suffice as the curves required for marine -V- road are entirely different.

David

 

[britemp]

Surely you wouldn't need a company to remap the ECU as the 160 ECU already exists. What you need is access to the contents of an existing 160 to download the settings and upload them into the 130's ECU or straight onto an eprom to replace the 130's ECU with?

Of course next time something goes bang (which is not uncommon with Volvos if you believe this forum! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) your warranty, if you have one will be worth about the same as a sheet of used Andrex. . . . . /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[dog]

.....thats what I had wondered, use the 160 map. I had'nt planned on doing any of this until the warranty is up. Needs a little more homework first I think-thanks for the replies though!

 

[Its_Only_Money]

Quick test would be to see what VP want for the 160 ECU....then you'd need to find what other dependancies there may be such as different sensors - assuming there really are NO mechanical differences (if there were they would probably be turbo/wastegate, injectors etc etc, stuff like that). If the D3 only has a single ECU box then it >may< be a straight swap.

I'd rule out being able to swap in a car ECU though, even if they look similar, it would probably need to talk to other bits of elactronics around the car as part of the anti-theft system (On my TD5 Disco the engine, gearbox and body ECU's all have to agree and talk before it'll start).

 

[dog]

Just spoken to VP technical dept- very helpful and didnt seem to fall over when I explained the idea. He will come back to me with a definitive answer, so I shall let you know.

I was only really interested as there is now a large number of companies offering after market power ECU upgrades especially for the Defender with the Td5 engine and got me wondering why no-one is doing it for modern marine diesels.

I wonder how many owners would be interested in a power upgrade for a realatively small outlay......

 

[GC1]

My Defender TD5 has had a Van Acken box fitted to the ECU which upgrades the bhp and torque, the vehicle certainly flies, I don't know whether they would be interested in talking about it.

 

[Dave_Snelson]

I posted on this subject about 4 years ago because a mate of mine had an aftermarket device fitted on his diesel car. It was about the size of a matchbox and fitted in-line with the engine management system and was instantly unpluggable when you took the car for service.

It had a small dial on the top of the box for "a little more power" or "loadsa power". And it worked. It really worked!

I think the cost was about £130 ish. Its made by Tuning Box

I approached Tuning Box at the time to see if they were interested in developing this box for boats - but I never pursued it. 4 years ago, large boat engines were still fairly mechanical - not so now though.