Page 1 of 1
Litchfield remap
Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 4:24 pm
by J66kco
Just looking for reviews from people who have had the litchfield remap. I have ordered a cat back miltek exhaust which will be fit prior to remap. I have booked in with litchfield and was more than happy until reading Leo's comments on another couple of threads on here. He seems to be very pro MRC. I contacted litchfield after reading comments and questioned if they just use a generic map on all cars or rolling road each car and set up from there. They told me they are confident with there generic map so no rolling road needed, just a drive after installing. This didn't fill me with confidence. Hopefully others can confirm the litchfield map is perfectly fine as a generic install
Cheers lee
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 4:42 pm
by doodlebug
Go to MRC.
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 4:46 pm
by W8PMC
It's an aged old topic, but a generic map may be fine for lower value/performance marques, but i'd not consider anything less than a custom tune (i'd also steer clear of piggyback/tuning boxes) on a car such as the RS6.
Litchfield are an established outfit & i'm in no way knocking either the quality of their work or them as a business as they have a great reputation & yes i don't doubt a car with their tune would indeed be 'fine', but is fine really what you want?
Personally due to my long standing relationship with them having had many cars custom tuned there & the fact they work at the very high end of the market (Lambo/McLaren/Porsche), i'd choose DMS as they've now done quite a few C7 RS6's & have tuned many RS's over the years, otherwise i'd be spending my money with MRC.
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 6:02 pm
by MikeFish
Yes, go to MRC. Of course Litchfield will tell you their method is the right method. The RS6 is a complicated beast and yes a generic tune will work but it won't be as good as a custom tune.
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 12:26 am
by E14STO
JBS or MRC for me.
Used them both and had good results - both map to individual car and will be comparable if not cheaper in £.
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 11:37 am
by Leo-RS
Would you go to MRC for Nissan GTR work? Probably not.
The lure of Litchfield is due to the low cost, £600 or so. The only reason Litchfield actually have a map available is Iain was/is running an RS6 as a daily. He wouldn't have TTRS/RS3/S4/S5 developed maps for example.
Iain runs a business that is predominately Nissan GTR based. 90% of his work will be working on the R35, that's his speciality, it works. He simply does not have the time, nor the interest to spend on other projects.
I become very frustrated with him when I was initially enquiring about tuning to the RS6. He wouldn't answer emails and he was pretty much impossible to get hold of on the phone. When I did get hold of him, promises of call backs never sufficed. His dyno numbers were all wrong for a start (730hp or so with a cat back) He was developing Litchfield downpipes and promised he would have costs and ordering information by the end of the week, which led into months which led to them not even being produced in the end.
He just wasn't interested.
I've used MRC quite a few times in the past and their speciality is S/RS tuning, they do have good working knowledge of the 4.0TT engine and ECU etc.
When I first turned up at MRC, they told me that the RS6/7 cars are unusual beasts and that no two cars are the same. They loaded a saved Stage 1 file into my car and it produced 650ps for example. They spent all day on the dyno tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and I left with nearer 700ps from the Stage 1 about 6hrs later. I don't mind paying money for that, it's dedication, it's proof that they simply care and that they want the best from each and every car that passes through their workshops. They don't treat cars like they're on a conveyor belt, car in, load the map, car out. That's not how MRC work. I don't mind paying extra for that.
True, it's around £1200 for the map (ballpark anyway, I can't recall the exact figure) but it's £1200 well spent. It's an £80k base car, it gives you a good 100-150ps uplift in power, it removes your 155/174/189 limiters free of charge (How much do Audi charge for the privilege for the 175/189 boosts) and you're getting a lot of dyno time. Not cheap in itself. I think my car had 12-13 runs perfecting the map.
Can't speak highly enough of them and it's a 1000 mile round trip for me. I could have visited a revo or an APR dealer here in Scotland, but I chose MRC as I believe they do it best, and in addition to that, I trust them. Any issues quickly rectified, support pretty much 24/7 on social media, and they go above and beyond should owners get themselves in a pickle. They reverted my car back to standard again through the post so I didn't need to do the 1000m trip to remove all traces again. They've helped out other owners who have had warranty issues etc.
Anyway, it may seem like a sales pitch, me promoting them etc but it's just my opinion of them having used them over the last 10yrs to tune numerous Audi RS cars for me. I'm in no way affiliated with them, no connections at all. They do do things well and their cars speak for themselves.
There's a big market out there with a lot of choice of course, the above is just my opinion based on my own experiences with them. APR have a very quick RS6 in Glasgow (Run by a company called Ecotune), APR are at the top of their game too, I think even more expensive though, £2k seems to ring a bell for their RS6/7 software.
JBS have a history of tuning VAG cars too, probably a little cheaper than MRC, they have a dyno and the owner James knows his stuff too.
DMS/Revo are also worth consideration.
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 11:54 am
by Leo-RS
J66kco...
http://www.litchfieldimports.co.uk/Audi/RS6/tuning
I wouldn't fall for their marketing bollo*ks in the link above, there's not a hope in hell you will see anywhere near 730hp with a catback exhaust.
750ps (740hp) is about the maximum the turbo will flow on the 4.0TT engine and you need the downpipes done and a very cold day to get anywhere near that.
Catback will not give you much at all, MRC don't show much change between Stage 1 cars with normal Audi exhausts and Stage 1 cars with catback exhausts (There is a lot of info / dyno graphs of various RS6 cars on their
Facebook page) The big gains come from the downpipes and the subsequent map tweak (Stage 2) -
I suspect some other tuners may use a generic stage 1 file thus lower numbers (650hp) and then tune and tweak for a cat back and making it look like the catback is showing good gains. That's not the case though, that's the initial map not being optimised, rather than gains coming directly from the catback (would appear to be the case with Litchfields published figures)
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 12:16 pm
by E14STO
And you could also look at my thread about my current tuning experiences with JBS.
Litchfields figures just don't hold up - well they wouldn't on JBs dyno!
JBS used to be APR dealers and REVO but have been doing their own stuff for years now just like MRC.
MRC transformed my first RS4, generic stage 3 MTM.
Used the same hardware but MRC mapped it to the car - loads better, more responsive, flat spots sorted etc
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Sat May 06, 2017 8:24 pm
by Tadass910
APR company I think very well know in UK as well, there are lot of dealers
https://www.goapr.com/dealer/ and apr Know how to tune Rs6/Rs7
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 9:51 am
by J66kco
Thanks all for the advice. I've rang MRC and was really impressed when talking to them so decided to cancel litchfield and go with them. MRC came out at £1000 with a high flow filter and will be individually set up on rolling road (multiple runs), litchfield £600 for genericic map and road test no rolling road. No brainier really
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 10:26 am
by Bit_evl
I don't often comment like this but thats not a good decision. I have no vested interest in any of these companies. I do not mean to be rude. I just want to share my perspective.
View 1 - Insurance/Warranty. I would be willing to pay money to ensure that any mods done to my car are as good as possible. Especially when they are going to drive me to use it harder. A rolling road check will ensure that the engine is good before (and so it is safe to tweak it) and then after to ensure it is not running lean and so leading to reliability issues or bad stuff.
View 2 - If I only have a delta of £400 and I am going to get it checked to see what is being provided then I would consider it worthwhile to ensure that I got my moneys worth.
View 3 - The company that is willing to flash a new spec onto your existing car without checking what they are getting themselves into does not have a strong customer ethic in my opinion. £600 for a generic map is worse value for money than £1000 for a check, inspect, installation and custom setup that protects your engine long term. £100/hour for trained engineers is not an unreasonable rate. A company that protects itself and does the job well is one you will probably get better service from following the setup if you have an issue.
I am going to do my car soon. I will be looking for someone I can trust who takes pride in their work.
I am not saying litchfield are bad, they have a great reputation and I nearly bought a GTR33 from them many years back.
I would just prefer to protect my P&J (and my wallet) and do it right. How much is an engine for one of these ?
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 11:08 am
by MikeFish
Bit_evl wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 10:26 am
I don't often comment like this but thats not a good decision. I have no vested interest in any of these companies. I do not mean to be rude. I just want to share my perspective.
View 1 - Insurance/Warranty. I would be willing to pay money to ensure that any mods done to my car are as good as possible. Especially when they are going to drive me to use it harder. A rolling road check will ensure that the engine is good before (and so it is safe to tweak it) and then after to ensure it is not running lean and so leading to reliability issues or bad stuff.
View 2 - If I only have a delta of £400 and I am going to get it checked to see what is being provided then I would consider it worthwhile to ensure that I got my moneys worth.
View 3 - The company that is willing to flash a new spec onto your existing car without checking what they are getting themselves into does not have a strong customer ethic in my opinion. £600 for a generic map is worse value for money than £1000 for a check, inspect, installation and custom setup that protects your engine long term. £100/hour for trained engineers is not an unreasonable rate. A company that protects itself and does the job well is one you will probably get better service from following the setup if you have an issue.
I am going to do my car soon. I will be looking for someone I can trust who takes pride in their work.
I am not saying litchfield are bad, they have a great reputation and I nearly bought a GTR33 from them many years back.
I would just prefer to protect my P&J (and my wallet) and do it right. How much is an engine for one of these ?
Bit early to be on the booze? He said he was going with MRC.
Re: Litchfield remap
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 11:49 am
by Bit_evl
Sorry - started writing it but life got in the way. Went back to the browser and noticed I had not sent it. Long delay between one and other.
My bad.
As for the booze. No, I ran out ages ago. Better get onto Naked Wines again.