Fuel mapping units

[seadoguk]

I recently came across a company who produce 'fuel mapping' units for electronically controlled diesel engines. They claim to have units available for the Volvo Penta KAD300 engines and claim these units can offer an increase in power by up to 25% plus an increase in torque and fuel economy. All sounds too good to be true!! Has anyone used these units and can offer comments on if they are successful

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

These are versions of the remapping software which many tuning companies have developed for turbo diesel road vehicles. I've used a company called DMS on a number of turbo diesel cars and their products do indeed give significant improvements in power, torque and fuel economy
DMS have worked on Volvo marine engines in boats as well but it's not as simple as cars because not only has the engine got to be remapped but the prop has got to be changed as well to take advantage of the increased power and this requires a bit of trial and error. I'll be using DMS to improve the performance of the VW engine in my RIB next season so I'll be able to say whether it works soon

 

[Latestarter1]

Re mapping for automotive engines is real easy.

Automotive engines run at far lower emissions levels than even current Tier II marine engines. Therefore a straightforward slug of timing advance in the calibration and virtually switching off of the EGR function which marine engines do no have anyway does the job.

However automotive engines unlike marine are optimised on a transient cycle unlike marine which are optimised steady state.

Because marine engines have a heat exchanger with a defined cooling capacity, and engine manufacturers are unlikely to share the heat exchanger data with you, re-mapping is at best risky. Do not forget the faster a car goes the more efficient the radiator is.

Quite rightly prop will require re-optimising, however without knowing what the engine curve actually looks like this will be dangerously hit and miss.

Unlike the VW engines KAD 300 is not a 'full authority' electronic engine, so all of the above applies with less to gain.

Re mapping can give some gains in terms of get up and go, however the manufacturer will have spent hours optimising the engine AFR in order to obtain best compromise of acceleration Vs black smoke. Re tuning the AFR cal seems pointless unless you wish to undo everything and go back to a black transom.