MRC Tuning - Mihnea

[DuncS3]

Revo, MTM and AMD (stage 1?) are generic chips/remaps. Don't be too concerned about a generic stage 1 solution vs a custom stage 1, as although custom is possibly the preferred solution, it doesnt mean you are getting a bad remap with a generic one. Even MRC appear to offer generic remaps (forgive me if I am wrong) for the S2 and MTMs reputation is cast iron imo.

Dunc

[alastairg]

ok so now Im confused..

so the Revo code I am currently trialing is not a custom remap - just a generic chip? If so which companies out there (other than MRC) are recommended?

Oh lordy what have I done....

A custom map involves driving the car with ecu emmulators in situ linked to a laptop to allow the fuelling, boost and timing to be altered to the individual car and customer.
This is done with realtime monitoring of exhaust gas temperature with a wideband lambda, boost and inlet air temperature to ensure changes to parameters above result in safe, efficient performance enhancement.
All motonic safety features are retained.
I am no expert but took an interest in the process and above is the summary of what I understand was done. Mihnea spent several hours with my car and put up with my endless questions re tuning my RS2.
I spent a couple of hours last night around the backroads enjoying the transformation !!!

I suggest you contact Mihnea on this forum 'S2 tuner' or over on the S2 forum contact Mihnea or Doug or Lee i.e. MRC. The good news is Mihnea is setting up over here so you do not have to wait for his visits from Belgium anymore !

[JonnyX]

Pays your money and takes your choice. Id rather know what I was getting with a custom remap that retains knock control and other safeguards unlike some chips on ebay

According to what is posted above the 600 pounds figure I discussed
in my post was what was quoted for a generic chip. I was making
the point that a remap is already available for less than this and
that chips are available for far less. Hence my dissapointment.

Would you please post which chips on ebay do not retain knock
control.

[JonnyX]

Hmmm. Great. Yet another 600quid chip company. If you want a rechip buy it off ebay.de for
a lot less. My jabbasport remap cost 475 inc. vat. It may not be the best out there but it was a
remap and they did what I asked for (in terms of boost curve). I was exicited that there
would be another choice (and a better choice) which might disrupt the market a little. I guess
thats not to be.

Interesting but incorrect. If you look into this area you will find many companies selling rechips from a variety of sources. Some good and some not so good. Few are still developing remaps for older cars and most are happy to plug and play newer cars.
Where MRC/Mihnea are ahead is having the genuine experience/knowledge to manipulate motronic code to improve performance for the individual car with all safety parameters intact.
That is custom tuning and is another, better choice.

I didn't actually disagree with the benefits that you mention. The
posts which mention the 600 pounds figure indicate that this is for
the generic chip option. My point was that I got a remap for a lot
less than this and that 'chips' are available for far less.

[alastairg]

Revo, MTM and AMD (stage 1?) are generic chips/remaps. Don't be too concerned about a generic stage 1 solution vs a custom stage 1, as although custom is possibly the preferred solution, it doesnt mean you are getting a bad remap with a generic one. Even MRC appear to offer generic remaps (forgive me if I am wrong) for the S2 and MTMs reputation is cast iron imo.

Dunc

They do and I dont believe anyone would disagree re mtm. But these are not 'custom' and IMHO that has to be superior. Even more so if you have changed air filters/air boxes, exhaust systems, lost cats etc etc as generics will not be able to take these into account.

[DuncS3]

Dont disagree, custom map should be prefererable - thats why I put 'stage 1' in the text, ie chip only.

Dunc

[Dippy]

"Customisation" merely means making changes from the standard map to suit a specific car. Therefore by definition a remap that has just had a bit of tweaking based on a RR run is custom.

Of course I readily accept that MORE customisation is possible by taking the car onto the road...

[S2tuner]

Dippy, a real custom remap involves a real-time emulator to be plugged into the car, to be able to make changes to the SW when it needs it, where it needs it. A car put an RR with just chip reloads/reflashes is no custom remap IMHO.

HTH,

Mihnea

[Greg_S]

i dont have any experience of their work personally but i know a couple of people on s2forum have used chipqwizards who do custom remapsfor allsorts of cars.

They way I have understood it with the REVO maps is that you plug a box into the OBD socket and select a map which it loads straight to the ECU there by having a generic remap. That may have come from a custom map on one particular car. Correct me if im wrong since ive never used REVO because I have an S2.

[Dippy]

Dippy, a real custom remap involves a real-time emulator to be plugged into the car, to be able to make changes to the SW when it needs it, where it needs it. A car put an RR with just chip reloads/reflashes is no custom remap IMHO.

HTH,

Mihnea

Hi Mihnea,

I think you missed my point slightly. I was merely trying to point out that the word "custom" refers to the activity of tailoring a remap to a specific car. My remap is NOT an 'off-the shelf' standard AmD one because it has had the fuelling adjusted for my specific set-up. According to the English language this makes it custom, no matter what you or anyone else think.

As I noted, what you describe is an advanced form of customisation. I'm sure you agree that it is not appropriate to all cars/customers, whereas my custome remap is more appropriate for my 'milder' tuning.

[GlynRS2]

Just to add my 2p again:
In the past I have used some of the other tuners mentioned in this thread and also had a generic chip at one time (although not in my RS2). My experience of the various options has been:
1) that the generic chip was pretty rough,
2) custom tuning on a rolling road very good and not comparable with a generic chip at all
3) that full custom tuning with a real time emulator on the road is in a completely diffrent league.
The car is in real driving conditions with proper and realistic airflow through all the intercooler, rads and air intake. Also like I said before you know exactly what you are getting and are able to feel the changes as they are made and have them tailored to your preferences.
Another point that has not been mentioned before is that for MRC to do option 3 was actually significantly less money than going for option 2 at the majority of tuners.
To my logic and understanding it is clear that option 3 is superior to option 2 which is still massively superior to option 1. Do you really want to trust your pride and joy to a cheap generic chip bought off Ebay which throws off loads of error codes on the OBD?
All I would say in conclusion is that if you are considering any sort of chip tuning on your car make sure that you speak to Mihnea at MRC first and get a quote. At the end of the day it is your choice, your car and your money. Personally I have been very impressed with Mihnea's work and all the crew at MRC and strongly recommend them, as would every other person I know who has used them. If you have not used them I am not sure how you can make a judgement?

[bobjebb]

Glyn where did you get the work done if Minhea's not in the UK? I'd be more than happy to take the MRC route if it's convenient geographically. But I aint going to Belgium...

Minhea - I sent you a PM

Ta

[GlynRS2]

Mihnea, is often in the UK.
I guess he may have gone back home now, but here was here last week and weekend.
MRC are soon to set up with there own premises in the UK, so should not be a problem.

[alastairg]

Mihnea is now in the UK. MRC are setting up at a UK base soon. So no worries. The main reason I had the RS2 done as Belgium is a bit far for follow up !

[S2tuner]

Dippy, ok, but for me custom means custom, i.e. emulator on, wideband O2 on, EGT on, datalogger on (not VAG-com but a real datalogger that logs 40+ different variables at 15 samples/sec) and adjusting every parameter to each particular engine. If I get a car, put it on a dyno and add for instance 5% more fuel to it at certain revs, I won't call that real custom work. For me it's either all or nothing, if it ain't done real-time, then it ain't custom.

This all started very easily for me, at that time (3 years ago) I had done a few dozens of standard S2s with "generic-ish" chips and they all performed fine. I then had an RS2-spec S2 and tried to do it the same way, i.e. approximately tweak the fuelling for the larger injectors, more advance at WOT (mild), RS2-like boost curve, and the car ran like a bag of nuts. At that point, I understood that simple settings won't work, even through 15 different chip changes, because as long as you don't have a real-time emulator on the ECU, you can only guess what's happening in the ECU. Honestly, an S2 is much harder to map than an RS4 or a TDI for instance. I am sure I could teach my wife the logics of ME7.x and she could do good RS4 maps with no emulator, but I'm also sure that even after explaining to her the easy logics of an ancient S2's M2.3.2 ECU, she still couldn't do any good S2 maps without getting through the emulator step.

So yes, in a certain way, a custom remap on a relatively new car is not always necessary, and some cars will never really require it, but honestly, my point is that I always take each car as a new start and I never try to make my life easy by saying "oh, I know how this works, I've done it already a dozen of times" and not bother...

As an example, to date, I have done 32 different RS2s, ranging from 350-ish HP mild stage 1 to 480+HP, yet when Glyn came over last saturday (his was the last one I did), I didn't just say "oh, you'll be alright with the chips from the previous RS2 that I've done" and I did it again from scratch. By doing so, I can honestly say that all RS2's that I've tuned reacted differently to similar boost curves/profiles.

The same applies for 2.7Ts and 1.8Ts. It's not because the settings I've used on one car worked fine that they are going to work the same in the next car. Then, if I know it's not going to be perfect, why bodge the job and not bother? I'd rather be happy with all the cars that I do, rather than say "yeah, not too happy about it but the customer will be ok and it'll be fine and it won't blow up"... Point is that if I am not happy with one car, I'll work on it until I'm 100% satisfied with the result, until then, I just won't stop. Ask people with whom I've spent dozens of hours ensuring every parameter was set right until I was totally happy with it, although the owner was happy already a couple of hours before I was and couldn't really tell a big difference between what they had when they got happy and what they had when I was happy.


HTH,


Mihnea

Dippy, a real custom remap involves a real-time emulator to be plugged into the car, to be able to make changes to the SW when it needs it, where it needs it. A car put an RR with just chip reloads/reflashes is no custom remap IMHO.

HTH,

Mihnea

Hi Mihnea,

I think you missed my point slightly. I was merely trying to point out that the word "custom" refers to the activity of tailoring a remap to a specific car. My remap is NOT an 'off-the shelf' standard AmD one because it has had the fuelling adjusted for my specific set-up. According to the English language this makes it custom, no matter what you or anyone else think.

As I noted, what you describe is an advanced form of customisation. I'm sure you agree that it is not appropriate to all cars/customers, whereas my custome remap is more appropriate for my 'milder' tuning.