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Remap Or Superchip?


james132
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Still looking into remapping the focus soon, iv been reading a recent thread about the bluefin superchips, had a quick look up and read about them, they seem to have the same sort of improvements as having the car remapped, perhaps the superchip offering a little less increase.

What advantages do they have over one another? I presume the superchip is easily removable and you can fit and remove yourself.

Cost wise there fairly simular, remap being around £300 and superchip at £400.

Dose the superchip just come with 'pre loaded' map on it that is a general basis for the car it is purchased for? If so it seems fairly simular to having the car remapped at a tuning garage who will only have a general basis map for your car/engine.

Iv also been warned about clutch/gear box issues, I beleive the gear box should be able to take the extra power no problem, but what about the clutch? My cars done just over 80k, is clutch failer prown to be an issue?

One last thing is insurance, do insurance companies tend to penalise one more over the other? Iv read many people saying with superchips etc you can remove them quickly in the event of an accident, but personally I would never take that chance and will be letting my insurance company know whichever I choose. What is the rough increase on your premium when adding either of the two? Or dose it simply vary on the driver/car/person who deals with the call?

Any help would be much appreciated.

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Hey,

never use a tuning box ;), you can buy a bluefin device. That is actually writing the software on you ECU. So it is like you have the remap in your own hands. It is more expensive than just go and remap it somewhere, but on the other hand, when you go to have your car checked, you just plugin the bluefin, change to default software job done.

Bluefin = an OBD device that remaps your ECU, same as any remap. The good part is that you can choose how much you want to tune your car, and you can always change it back to default

Tuning box = a device that "fouls" the ECU. It is something that you would have to keep pluged in all the time, and actually sends wrong info about the diesel/air mix in order to give more power. This is bad because it will run you turbo charger in a way that will break it.

Also never tune your car to the max, do a safe tune first. After DPF delete, new exhaust, better air intake system (i don't mean just a filter change)', you can increase the power gradually (bluefin has 3 stages of remap that you can upload to your car). Keep in mind that some so called "tuners" don;t take into account, the maximum pressure your turbo charger can take. Also they don't take you account that your turbo, because of all the "save the planet" stuff put on your car (EGR, DPF, CAT), works overtime, so if you take all that off, your car will breathe better, have more fresh air (no EGR means no gas recirculation), and it will work better, even without tuning ;)

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Interesting stuff... Sometimes there's just too much choice eh? The tuner that built my exhaust reckoned he could work wonders with the re-mapping on my motor (2.0 TDCI) But i haven't yet taken him up on his offer... My car is nudging the 200,000 mile mark, so it may not be a wise move to start tuning the engine with that many miles behind it :blink:

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First of all there is no better solution for the car than remap. Why? Because it is done for one particular engine according to it's parameters, condition etc., it should be done using dyno to make corrections in order to have the best possible result - not necessarily highest power. The thing is you have to find good tuner to do this properly.

Every other solution is kind of universal. I have used tuning box for abt 3 years. I did it only because I bought used one much cheaper than I would have to pay for remap. I was very pleased with it and I loved additional power. Nothing happened to the engine or clutch, there was no black smoke when accelerating. One thing about tuning boxes is they give to a lot of torque from low revs and if you do not operate properly this can kill the clutch pretty fast. New tuning box costs more than remap. Forget cheap tuning boxes from eBay for few quid - they just cheat air temperature sensor, this has nothing to do with real tuning box. For me the biggest advantage of the box is the fact, that you can take it out at any time, fit it in other car (as long as it is compatible) or simply sell it and get part of the money back.

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Ive been interested in a blufin remap on my 1.6tdci focus but my car has DPF would it still be ok?

Anyone got the blufin remap on there focus diesel?

cheers

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I have on mine, no DPF though.

Better panel filter but no modifications to the exhaust and I still get 150hp.

When I got the car it had been apparently tuned before but not very well as it was flat in second.

Now it has good power through the full range and only a very brief lag.

It goes like a goosed whippet.

:P

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Pidu you are right, but also keep in mind bluefin is not generic, when you get it, you have to get your own ECU software, send it to them, they would, in theory create a tune map for your car, and then you can upload it in your ECU. At least this is how i got it done on my old mondeo.

It is true that a remap, using real time dyno, plus a few other tweaks, getting new tubo times, new gear times, new pressures and so on is the best you could have, but bluefin is a good alternative nevertheless.

PS: 200.000 miles is kind of late for a remap, but if your car is ok, engine wise, turbo wise, EGR is clean and so on, you should be fine ... unless you are willing to do an engine rebuild. My personal advice would be to do a safe tune, for a 2.0tdci 136 bhp, you could go for about 170bhp i think.

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Pidu you are right, but also keep in mind bluefin is not generic, when you get it, you have to get your own ECU software, send it to them, they would, in theory create a tune map for your car, and then you can upload it in your ECU. At least this is how i got it done on my old mondeo.

Bluefin you are talking about is new to me, so I was not talking about it at all. From what you say I would place it between tuning box and proper remap, because tune map you get will never be as good as remap done with dyno, but will be way better than box.

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Hey,

never use a tuning box ;), you can buy a bluefin device. That is actually writing the software on you ECU. So it is like you have the remap in your own hands. It is more expensive than just go and remap it somewhere, but on the other hand, when you go to have your car checked, you just plugin the bluefin, change to default software job done.

Bluefin = an OBD device that remaps your ECU, same as any remap. The good part is that you can choose how much you want to tune your car, and you can always change it back to default

Tuning box = a device that "fouls" the ECU. It is something that you would have to keep pluged in all the time, and actually sends wrong info about the diesel/air mix in order to give more power. This is bad because it will run you turbo charger in a way that will break it.

Also never tune your car to the max, do a safe tune first. After DPF delete, new exhaust, better air intake system (i don't mean just a filter change)', you can increase the power gradually (bluefin has 3 stages of remap that you can upload to your car). Keep in mind that some so called "tuners" don;t take into account, the maximum pressure your turbo charger can take. Also they don't take you account that your turbo, because of all the "save the planet" stuff put on your car (EGR, DPF, CAT), works overtime, so if you take all that off, your car will breathe better, have more fresh air (no EGR means no gas recirculation), and it will work better, even without tuning ;)

Thanks very much for the info, much appreciated!

My car is non DPF, I beleive it was introduced to the focus' in 2006? But anyway, with that in mind there is no need to remove dpf etc.

When you say the bluefin kit has 3 tune stages I presume that is just a generic map that increases power and torque each time? (3 being the most)

You also mentioned in another post about you send your current ecu data to them and they can create a map for you? Dose this mean when you buy a bluefin that is is 'blank' and you have to upload a set of map data to it? I may have misunderstood what you meant there though.

Also when you say 'you can plug in and set back to standard settings when you have your car checked' I presume this is in reference to warrenty? My car has no worrie so therefore isnt an issue to me.

Also once you have the bluefin device, say for example I sold my focus and bought I dont know.. For arguements sake vw golf turbo diesel, can I download new 'map software' to the device so that it can be used in other cars?

Sorry for all the questions, the bluefin device is completley new to me!

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When I bought my bluefin I was asked to supply the car details.

Bluefin came with a generic map for it but they give you the option to upload your current map to them and quite quickly- one hour for me - they mail back a custom map based on your cars data.

I did mine and then a buddy of mine who works for VOSA did a dyno test for me.

Lower setting gave me 135bhp top one runs at near as makes no difference 150bhp.

Standard tune was 115bhp.

I recommend a full service beforehand to get the best tune results.

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http://www.mybluefin.co.uk/s/faq-s

Read the second part ... it will answer some of your questions. ;)

This is a more general info :

http://www.mybluefin.co.uk/search?make=9&fueltype=2&model=2&variant=1735

http://www.superchips.co.uk/

If you change car, you will have to buy a new one i think. Not 100% sure.

Bluefin may be let's say "out of date" not blank.

In theory there should be 3 stages of tuning stored on the bluefin :

Stage 1: the so called "eco tuning". Increases your bhp/torque by about 5-10% maybe

Stage 2: The most used without any other modifications (safe tuning) to the car (no air kit, no exhaust and so on) that will take you car to around 30% increase

Stage 3: This will take you car further, over 30%

Keep in mind these numbers are for a new focus. With 200k miles, this may be different.

Yes, you can make a backup of your original/default ECU software with this, and you can store it on a computer/laptop/stick whatever you want, and put it back if you ever need it.

Also, take into consideration what "Pidu" said, this bluefin is a generic tuning more or less.

As a general knowledge, most manufacturers of normal cars, "under tune" their cars. Why? Because those cars have to perform the same in all kind of conditions (Hot/cold, humid/dry and so on) for a lot of time. This is why most turbo charged cars, it is said they have an upper limit of about 25-30% more then you get when you buy the car, in which you can increase you performance, without any real effect to the cars "health". After you pass this limit, you will shorten your cars life. By this i don't mean the engine itself, this may include, turbos, hoses, superchargers, transmission, clutch, egr and so on. The diesel engine is very sturdy by design because it has to withstand a lot of explosions after all. and a lot more pressure then a petrol one. But the components all around it ... that is another story.

Also tuning means more then a remap. Tuning means getting your car in a better condition. If you were for example to get involved in racing, you will find that the first "tune" you car will suffer is suspension and/or braking system. Engine remap it's probably the last thing you should do ;). And then change the ECU with a custom one like "Diablo" or AEM universal 1900, just to begin with.

SO, tuning means more then just a simple remap, i am just saying :D and a lot more money :P

Hope this answers your questions.

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Again, interesting stuff... Given the mileage of my car, it'd probably be wise for me to get a compression test done on it to ensure all the cylinders/bores etc are still within parameters. I had an old TDDI focus estate some years back with 325k miles on it, and after a compression test the lowest cylinder was number 3 with 86% efficiency, the other 3 cylinders showing 90%+! :blink: It was still on it's original turbo too!

I'm not a particularly fast driver, but occasionally i do DRIVE the car if you know what i mean? ;) Re-mapping is as much about economy to me as it is extra power... I've always been a strong believer that too much power used wisely is more economical than a stressed smaller engine driven on the limit... Re-mapping will (to put it crudely) "make my engine bigger" (excuse my overly simplistic terminology)

I reckon a re-map would suit my motor rather than a box or a bluefin...As i do have a custom twin exhaust, but no filter upgrade at this stage (opinions on filter upgrades appreciated, good? bad?)

Does it matter if one was to run on regular diesel or BP Ultimate post mapping? My car doesn't seem too fond of BP ultimate (almost cut out twice) But seemed happier on a half and half mix of regular fuel and ultimate.

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I've always been a strong believer that too much power used wisely is more economical than a stressed smaller engine driven on the limit... Re-mapping will (to put it crudely) "make my engine bigger" (excuse my overly simplistic terminology)

Thats my exact way of thinking!

Iv just had the car serviced less than 20 miles ago (not getting to drive the car as im working abroard a lot at the moment) And I also plan to have the cambelt done within the next 5k, proberbly after my next stint abroard after march. I will proberbly save having either a remap or buying a bluefin till then, At the moment im more swaying towards the bluefin, simply because you can varey the 'tune' on the car to what you prefer, you can reset back to standard any time you like, and it also acts as a fault code reader, for what you pay you get a fair bit of kit.

Dose anyone have any information/experience regarding using the bluefin as a fault diagnostic tool?

Again, thanks for all the helpful information.

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bluefin as far as i can remember has some generic codes in it not really all ford codes, so as a diagnostic tool ... it's ok let's say. Anyway if you have a trip computer you can always go into test mode and see any fault there. Permanent fault i mean, because it won't show you any kind of ransom fault.

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  • 1 year later...

I just got a Bluefin for my Focus TDCI 2.0 (134hp). While I would feel the improvement to the car's performance (eagerness), I uninstalled it and took it for a dyno for a run , install Bluefin back and did another few runs. Unfortunately, I was quite dissapointed that the gains registered were much lower than expected. Superchips published expected typical gains of 26Hp/54Nm (which I trusted as very conservative and should be very achievable) for my car but I only gained 18Hp/15Nm which is much lower than expected.

Besides that also noticed power delivery still start at the same points and not as their dyno graph which quicker delivery (@ lower RPM)

I just emailed them about this and hopefully they will give me a revised map. Before I purchased, I asked them how many maps they would provide and they said only 1. Hopefully they would be willing to help me fine tune it for me.

What are your experiences with Superchips if you have encountered before ?

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Hi, a 1.6 Ecoboost owner had a similar experience and went back to superchips, they issued him a revised map and now he is happy. My own experience was that I noticed the gains immediately...

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Hi, a 1.6 Ecoboost owner had a similar experience and went back to superchips, they issued him a revised map and now he is happy. My own experience was that I noticed the gains immediately...

Very glad to hear that and hope to hear a favourable response from them. One of my friends also had Bluefin with Mondeo Ecoboost and performance gain was also very low after dyno. Will ask him to go back to Superchips as well.

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One dyno can have completely different results from another, only the actual power getting to the wheels is measured, the crank power is "guessed"

power gains can be very dependant on the condition/ milage of the cars engine etc

Even temprature can make a big difference, the same car on the same dyno can give different results on the same day, morning to afternoon

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Cost wise there fairly simular, remap being around £300 and superchip at £400.

Superchips is/was doing a 20% off promotion so the £400 can be had for £320

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I was jammy as I bought into a group purchase on special offer via work.

Police spec Bluefin map which is a tested 148bhp average on 3 dyno runs.

It looks like they keep the best maps for the BIB ;)

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I was jammy as I bought into a group purchase on special offer via work.

Police spec Bluefin map which is a tested 148bhp average on 3 dyno runs.

It looks like they keep the best maps for the BIB ;)

Stoney871 How did your Dyno map look like ? Perhaps I should ask them specifically, give me the police spec map ;) !

The shape of my map before and after bluefin was almost the same except that the peaks were higher. Power/Torque vs RPM climb was also exactly the same until 2.2K when it started to branch higher with bluefin. Does yours start earlier i.e. @ lower RPM / graph shifts to the left a bit with bluefin ? Was expecting a bit of that @ 100/200 rpm lower.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-iOXMo2BIjLQ/USr4RrMABEI/AAAAAAAATlc/qRkxXMTsA_Q/s800/dyno2.JPG

Yes, temperature could be a factor indeed but both runs around same temperature. Unless what we are saying is that heatsoak already limited both runs's output. Ambient temperature at where I am is typically around 30-35 degrees C in the afternoon

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I have turbo pick up lower in the revs and minimal flat spots below 2k revs.

It runs nice and smooth full the full rev range but 1st gear is still a bit weedy.

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Stoney871 How did your Dyno map look like ? Perhaps I should ask them specifically, give me the police spec map ;) !

The shape of my map before and after bluefin was almost the same except that the peaks were higher. Power/Torque vs RPM climb was also exactly the same until 2.2K when it started to branch higher with bluefin. Does yours start earlier i.e. @ lower RPM / graph shifts to the left a bit with bluefin ? Was expecting a bit of that @ 100/200 rpm lower.

https://lh5.googleus.../s800/dyno2.JPG

Yes, temperature could be a factor indeed but both runs around same temperature. Unless what we are saying is that heatsoak already limited both runs's output. Ambient temperature at where I am is typically around 30-35 degrees C in the afternoon

The bluefin torque curve is a lot "fatter", from 2300 upwards, and a massive gain of 160Nm at just under 3700,

its a shame the power curve doesent keep rising all the way to 4k and above, no point in revving it above 3700 (peak power) (unless you are in top :) )

Its a good shape with an overall rising power characteristerict and extended torque, a significant improvement with barely any drawbacks compared to stock (win- win sort of thing) the map could be revised so the power came in earlier but it may smoke more and the increase in low-down torque may put your DMF under more stress

An exhaust upgrade (DPF delete/ decat larger diameter downpipe/ straight through muffler) may help your power pich-up by helping your turbine to spool up faster,(you can also ceramic coat your/ heatwrap your exhaust manifold) and a freer flowing intake (improved/ gas flowed airbox/ larger freer flowing pipes etc) would help the flow before the turbo has time to spin up (helping bottom end power and improving gas-flow through the range, whilst your compressor/ turbo would not have to work so hard)

A larger, better FMIC helps as well

Finally, fitting a solid EGR blanking plate would help pick-up a little too

Looking at your figures, you must notice an improvement "in real life"?

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The bluefin torque curve is a lot "fatter", from 2300 upwards, and a massive gain of 160Nm at just under 3700,

its a shame the power curve doesent keep rising all the way to 4k and above, no point in revving it above 3700 (peak power) (unless you are in top :) )

Its a good shape with an overall rising power characteristerict and extended torque, a significant improvement with barely any drawbacks compared to stock (win- win sort of thing) the map could be revised so the power came in earlier but it may smoke more and the increase in low-down torque may put your DMF under more stress

An exhaust upgrade (DPF delete/ decat larger diameter downpipe/ straight through muffler) may help your power pich-up by helping your turbine to spool up faster,(you can also ceramic coat your/ heatwrap your exhaust manifold) and a freer flowing intake (improved/ gas flowed airbox/ larger freer flowing pipes etc) would help the flow before the turbo has time to spin up (helping bottom end power and improving gas-flow through the range, whilst your compressor/ turbo would not have to work so hard)

A larger, better FMIC helps as well

Finally, fitting a solid EGR blanking plate would help pick-up a little too

Looking at your figures, you must notice an improvement "in real life"?

Many thanks for the analysis. Yes I can feel 'real life' improvement actually in terms of the eagerness and stronger pull when accelerating. Btw, just as I was typing this, I just received an email from Superchips that new map is available !!! :) So gonna try it and see.Will provide my feedback after testing it out.

I also have plans to make changes to the exhaust systems (decat) and my EGR blanking plate is on the way :).

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I want to chip my car but my gfs brother is a car mechanic and if you say use a superchip or anything simular including a tuning box a hexflag will come up within the ecu and these flags cannot be cleared. Car companies do this so if your car is under warranty and you but one of these and install it.. all being well you use it and the car needs a service and they find other things wrong that involves warranty and they've plugged it in. These flags will cone up and they all have individual codes and theses codes say what has been changed/altered. And the car conpay will just laugh at you. But I would love to chip mine. I e got a dog on mine so there's no point as there will be no great difference plus I like having a warranty. But blanking egr valve won't effect warrenty and it won't cause any flags on ecu. I've got a kn on my 1.6tdci and the car is much better in acceleration. But yeah.. sorry to waffle on lol

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