Hi all;

I've been looking into engine remapping/chipping options for my Skoda Fabia VRS and have taken in the opinions of those on this board who have suggested only using recommended companies. Unfortunately, the companies mentioned aren't that close to me in Southampton which wouldn't be a problem if it was a one off journey but I don't fancy having to travel too far to have it 'unchipped' should I decide I don't like it.

There is a company near me however called BHP Plus who sell a tuning box called the Speedhawk Diesel Tuning Box - Pumpe Duse which I believe is a plug and play fit between the sensor and the common rail (and requires a power feed from the battery) and has 4 available settings to try out to give the best overall return.

So far I like the sound of this as (in no particular order), it's a DIY job, it has 4 settings, it can be moved from car to car (and reprogrammed/connectors replaced if necessary), it comes with a 28 day no quibble refund policy so if I don't like it I can just remove it, plug the sensor back in and get my money back.

OK, those are the advantages as I see them but;

Does anyone here have this (or any other) tuning box?

What are your opinions of them ?

Are there any draw backs ?

etc etc, all opinions and replys welcome.... or

Thanks

EDIT

After a several phone calls, emails, conversations and trawling through loads of posts, I eventually went for a similar box, the Shark Performance STS or self tuning system. I have passed on my thoughts here:

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/159952-speedhawk-diesel-tuning-box-pumpe-duse/page__view__findpost__p__1970595

Edited 30 April, 201016 yr by chris-x1

Hi all;

I've been looking into engine remapping/chipping options for my Skoda Fabia VRS and have taken in the opinions of those on this board who have suggested only using recommended companies. Unfortunately, the companies mentioned aren't that close to me in Southampton which wouldn't be a problem if it was a one off journey but I don't fancy having to travel too far to have it 'unchipped' should I decide I don't like it.

There is a company near me however called BHP Plus who sell a tuning box called the Speedhawk Diesel Tuning Box - Pumpe Duse which I believe is a plug and play fit between the sensor and the common rail (and requires a power feed from the battery) and has 4 available settings to try out to give the best overall return.

So far I like the sound of this as (in no particular order), it's a DIY job, it has 4 settings, it can be moved from car to car (and reprogrammed/connectors replaced if necessary), it comes with a 28 day no quibble refund policy so if I don't like it I can just remove it, plug the sensor back in and get my money back.

OK, those are the advantages as I see them but;

Does anyone here have this (or any other) tuning box?

What are your opinions of them ?

Are there any draw backs ?

etc etc, all opinions and replys welcome.... or

Thanks

I dont know of bhp plus but i think you have two other options, JKM which i'm sure is near soton or portsmouth so do check. They are superchip and revo dealersn and also have a RR. They are highly recommended and have plenty of experience doing fabia's.

Alternatively you could try a different approach...rapid remap which actually put you in control of doing it yourself. At least one person on this forum has used them and had good feedback. Rapid remap would send you the software and then you email them the file, they tune it to your liking and send you it back for you to upload. Not saying this is a good way to do it, but its an option if travelling is too far.

personally i'd give JKM a call.

Edited 27 April, 201016 yr by newskoda

i'm in a similar situation, I live in Southampton and was considering a remap. Now whilst I have used JKM and was extremely happy with the price/service for a cambelt and waterpump, having researched different maps etc I believe the Revo to be quite spiky, not something I really fancied. I don't know how the superchips stacks up against it.

The various reviews of tuning-boxes i have read tend to be negative, especially considering the similarity in price to a remap. Expect some negative replies!

I can't help you any further than that - having little experience in the field.

best of luck whatever you decide!

PL

Thanks for the replies so far.

I've had a look at JKM, iirc a friend had a superchips conversion done on his octavia somewhere up north, i'll ask him what he thought about it although I don;t think he has anything to gauge it against, and i'll give JKM a call.

good plans - don't forget to update us!

out of interest, whereabouts in Southampton are you? i'm over Lordshill direction...

I'll let you know how I get on with JKM and post my findings once I finally make a choice. When i'm home I'm on the otherside of the Redbridge causeway.

I'll let you know how I get on with JKM and post my findings once I finally make a choice. When i'm home I'm on the otherside of the Redbridge causeway.

cool.

And yes Phantom, the revo maps can be quite aggressive at times.I've heard this also here. It really is more to do with what you want from a remap.

Tuning boxes get mixed opinions generally ranging from they're great to they'll screw up the turbo.

in general i think the superchip map is a little tamed back from some of the mental maps that are around, personally its the one id be considering as i dont want 170bhp+ that some maps offer, id want to keep the power a bit lower than that and the superchips one seems to offer 160bhp which should be possibly the most DMF friendly map around apart from custom jobs

Superchips are good

so is revo

For those of you who don't want to travel, have you thought about our STS unit? It gives you a proper remap with the

benefits (and more) and convenience of a tuning box - http://www.sharkperformance.co.uk/sts.asp

You have Regal who sell GIAC remaps, who are just off Thomas Lewis Way in Southampton.

I'd take that option over a plug in box if you don't want to drive.

For those of you who don't want to travel, have you thought about our STS unit? It gives you a proper remap with the

benefits (and more) and convenience of a tuning box - http://www.sharkperformance.co.uk/sts.asp

Hi Ben,what sort of gains in bhp/torque is likely from the STS? or is it to the same as your level 1 remap?

Edited 28 April, 201016 yr by newskoda

Hi Ben,what sort of gains in bhp/torque is likely from the STS? or is it to the same as your level 1 remap?

Yes, any of our maps can be delivered by the STS, so typically you'd have a normal stage 1 map but anything can be

catered for really

Shark Performance STS (self tuning) Box.

Well i've got the box and the engine is now remapped so as promised here are my thoughts:

My main priority was to go for a tried and tested, specialist remap (written by someone who knows VAG/Skoda cars) and preferably one which has received as much unbiased positive feed back as possible. Most of my book marks have been deleted now but from memory I looked at companies such as Star Performance and Jabba Sport and various other companies who supply Super Chips and Revo remaps. All of the companies mentioned have received plenty of positive feed back although supprisingly, both Super Chips and Revo's reviews came with some caveats. I'll let anyone who is considering using them do their own research as I can't offer any personal experience on these products.

I chose the STS box for the following reasons:

*Ben (of Shark Performance) and Shark Performace products and services have received a lot of positive feed back on this forum (and on VAG forums i'm told) with little or no negative feed back.

Here is a sample of the many threads I trawled through regarding Shark Performance.

Sample1 Sample2 Sample3 Sample4 Sample5 Sample6 Sample7 Sample8 Sample9 Sample10 Sample11 Sample12 Sample13 Sample14 Sample15 Sample16

*Shark performance (seem to) specialise in VAG/Skoda and are obviously highly thought of and reputedly give good customer service.

* It was the same price as a Super Chips remap but the mod can be undone, redone, fault codes can be found and the entire car immobilized (should that ever become necessary), all from my home.

*Ben knows his stuff, this is obvious from the posts on this forum and from talking to him. This convinced me that the quality of the remap was at the very least acceptable and probably very good.

*They were offering a 20% reduction for this bank holiday week end on the remap (although not the box) but it's still something like a £50+ discount.

So 2 days ago I ended up ordering the box, sometime around early to mid afternoon. It arrived at around 10.40am the following day (less than 24hrs).

In the package was the box, the approriate leads and an advice slip directing me to the Sharkperformance downloads page where the manual and combined software and drivers can be found.

So I had a good read and installed the software. I then connected up the unit. It's worth noting windows wont find the drivers automatically, you have to direct it to the c:(drive)/xconsole. When you do, it installs without any problems.

The software interface is basic but it doesn't require anything more, after changing the language the unit is ready to plug into the car to take a copy of the standard/original map.

It all went smoothly and I videoed and YouTubed the whole opperation which can be found here (just incase anyone is intersted in buying a box but like me is a little daunted by messing around with your cars brain).

(it's available in HD if you want to follow the on screen prompts etc, in which case it is probably best watched in fullscreen mode where you can get to see how dirty my car/dog taxi really is).

The whole opperation was easy and completely painless and you could almost do it without reading the instruction manual, the whole thing is pretty much intuative. If the unit could wirelessly e-mail Shark the old map and receive the new map you would pretty much only need to plug it in to the car and comeback after lunch break to find it all done for you, I'm sure that will come one day.

As for the results.

I haven't driven the car enough to asses the fuel economy, I suspect it will be lower than normal for the first week or so as I test out the cars new found performance.

The 0-60 or off the mark performance is difficult to judge. The car was always very quick but it also always ran out of revs too quickly being a diesel so I wont be exploiting much of its new found potential there (much ). It's not a drag car anyway.

The most noticable difference is at over taking speeds, ie 40-50, 50-60 etc, it appears to have more torque and gets there a little quicker. I also found it was possible to do well in excess of the national speed limit very quickly and without realising...of course I never did exceed the speed limit, I just noticed that this was possible :no:

It was also very easy to loose perception of speed, I started to wonder whether the speedo had a digital input from the ecu and that the remap had effected it (I have no idea whether they have an analogue or digital input these days). So much so that I returned home to pick up GPS unit to find out. As ever though, the speedo read around 5% over the speed indicated by the GPS which from memory is the same as it has always been and I have always found that in the past my various golf gtis and corrado have indicated up to 10% over so I assume nothing has changed.

It still drives very smoothly though, certainly not spikey as I've heard some remaps being described as.

So was it all worth it ? Only time will really tell when I drive the car in normal situations but there is a discernable difference in torque and acceleration. It will be interesting to see if there is any return on fuel economy too.

Would I recommend Shark Performance ? Absolutely. These days when everyone seems to give positive feed back, 5 stars and glowing testimonials to retailers for providing what in the past would have just been considered acceptable service it's easy to get carried away, (i'm not that old). But here's the deal, everytime I spoke to Ben at Shark he was polite, informative and courteous and he tirelessly answered all my questions. He offered me the bank holiday deal a few days ahead of time and it was a good deal imo.The unit arrived within 24hrs (infact I had the whole thing installed within 24hrs) of parting with my money. The modified remap and immobiliser map were returned within the hour (40mins to be precise). The unit itself seemed to work flawlessly and the downloadable manual was well written and easy to understand and the system offers more than just a remap, it can display fault codes, reset the car to its original configuration (and back again) and immobilise it should the need arise, all for the same price as some companies are charging for a stand alone remap. As I understand it the same box can also be used for a new remap or used to remap your next car.

I think that's worth 5 stars or a glowing testimonial.

(is that enough for you Mr Needham ? :p )

Edited 14 April, 201115 yr by chris-x1

Absolutely brilliant write up Ill give you 5 stars for the write up

Yeah, very good write up. Definitely be looking at this direction once I got all the mods in place for a remap. Since it can be catered for individually for car/user, the 165 figure is arbitrary number really isnt it

Are you a professional writer/reviewer?

that was excellent.

What a great review.

I am very temped about buying something similar from another company, but they give a performance and economy tuned maps, as I'm not interested in a immobiliser map.

How much power do you think you have now? The one I was thinking adds 28bhp + 55 NM for the economy map and 38BHP + 75/80 NM for the Power map.

Thats a good point actually, how easy is it to switch between maps and what is the process in doing so? I'm guessing the car can't be running as you switch?

Thanks for the update, that is fantastic. Good info, and certainly gives me food for thought.

Hope you are enjoying the upgrade. Don't forget to update with a further review....

Ta!

PL

What a fantastic video and write-up, and many thanks for the excellent review Chris

What a great review.

I am very temped about buying something similar from another company, but they give a performance and economy tuned maps, as I'm not interested in a immobiliser map.

How much power do you think you have now? The one I was thinking adds 28bhp + 55 NM for the economy map and 38BHP + 75/80 NM for the Power map.

No idea i'm afraid, Ben may be able to tell you, i'd phone or e-mail him. I doubt you're actually paying anything for the immobiliser map though, I'd imagine that the £275 (-20% at the moment) is mainly for the work that goes into development of the performance map and any associated costs etc. (Don't forget there's the cost of the box on top of that.)

From my perspective the actual bhp and torque figures are irrelevant really as I'm more concerned about how it drives and i'm pleased with the results. I had a truck for a while when I lived in the US which had a something like a 250 hp Magnum engine in it, my Fabia doesn't develop anywhere near that but I suspect it is still quicker.

One thing I noticed today is that it seemed to drive more smoothly when crawling along in a traffic jam and another thing I seemed to noticed was that I could change up to 6th gear at lower speed to get a better fuel economy where previously if I did so below 50 the fuel economy would drop right off (according to the fuel computer).

Whether this is technically possible or not I don't know. I'd be interested to hear if anyone can confirm whether this is or not.

Thats a good point actually, how easy is it to switch between maps and what is the process in doing so? I'm guessing the car can't be running as you switch?

Not having done it but based on uploading my performance map, I believe its just a case of plugging the box back in. Once you do so it tells you to switch the ignition on and you are then presented with various options, I can't remember what they are exactly but you can see them on the video. You select the option to 'write file to ECU' and are then given the choice to upload one of the maps stored on the box, ie the 'originale map' (it is spelled that way on the unit), the 'performance map' or the 'immobiliser map'. Once you select one you then confirm your selection and the box automatically erases the old map and installs the new one. I just set it off and left it while I had a cup of tea but I reckon it took around 10 mins to complete the opperation so I'd imagine reinstating the original map would take about the same amount of time. It then tells you to switch off the ignition and remove the cable.

Also, thanks to everyone for all the kind remarks.

Edited 30 April, 201016 yr by chris-x1

I thought it may be something like that, I'd love to have a dual map that I could change at the flick of a button but just doesnt seem to be an option on the fabia :(

What a great review.

I am very temped about buying something similar from another company, but they give a performance and economy tuned maps, as I'm not interested in a immobiliser map.

"Performance" and "ecomony" tune maps are a farce - more useable power will give better fuel economy when driven sensibly, which is why we don't offer "economy" maps or "fast road" or any similar gimmicky named map

.

Edited 4 May, 201115 yr by gazman1