Piggy back tuning box, has anyone installed one?

[W8PMC]

Having my new car remapped Eddie. Won't be seeing the heady outputs of my F10 M5, but the gains are still impressive & should keep me happy.

It's likely Rob or Tony will be coming up, but they won't know their schedules until nearer the time. Will get the car RR'd post tune, but she'll only be 1week old so may not see peak outputs until she's got a few more miles under her belt.

My plan is to get there around midday on the 8th March & i'll be there for a good couple of hours. Be good to catch up:)

[Tadass910]

The ABT box supposedly pulls back the map if it senses anything untoward plus you have the added benefit of the warranty which albeit only applies to newly registered cars however, there is the benefit of the map being untraceable when the box has been removed which is a big plus point for a car which is still in warranty.

But still expensive thing even for a car that warranty is over, so maybe mtm cheaper

[W8PMC]

I'm in no way calling ABT's system into question, but please don't for a moment think these or any of the available Piggyback tunes as being undetectable when removed.

Yes if removed then no physical hardware is visible (but that's the same as any ECU remap), but the more clued up Mfctrs will still be able to tell if such a device has been in place as key parameters will have been altered & be outside the cars OEM setup.

It's a gamble either route & maybe i've been lucky in that i've never been questioned about the tuning on my cars (GT-R, RS's & M's), but i've also other than my C5 RS6 not had any major mechanical failures that could in any way have been attributed to a tune being present.

[Tadass910]

I'm in no way calling ABT's system into question, but please don't for a moment think these or any of the available Piggyback tunes as being undetectable when removed.

Yes if removed then no physical hardware is visible (but that's the same as any ECU remap), but the more clued up Mfctrs will still be able to tell if such a device has been in place as key parameters will have been altered & be outside the cars OEM setup.

It's a gamble either route & maybe i've been lucky in that i've never been questioned about the tuning on my cars (GT-R, RS's & M's), but i've also other than my C5 RS6 not had any major mechanical failures that could in any way have been attributed to a tune being present.

But if car has no warranty who cares then was there ABT or mtm

[MikeFish]

Audi have been known to replace engines outside of warranty. There was a B7 RS4 that had a new engine on here a year or 2 ago, all paid for by Audi. So it is still a risk even if you have no warranty.

[doodlebug]

Audi have been known to replace engines outside of warranty. There was a B7 RS4 that had a new engine on here a year or 2 ago, all paid for by Audi. So it is still a risk even if you have no warranty.

Agreed, good will is available long after the event if you've got a good history with the dealer network on servicing, and no mods, of course.

[W8PMC]

I'm in no way calling ABT's system into question, but please don't for a moment think these or any of the available Piggyback tunes as being undetectable when removed.

Yes if removed then no physical hardware is visible (but that's the same as any ECU remap), but the more clued up Mfctrs will still be able to tell if such a device has been in place as key parameters will have been altered & be outside the cars OEM setup.

It's a gamble either route & maybe i've been lucky in that i've never been questioned about the tuning on my cars (GT-R, RS's & M's), but i've also other than my C5 RS6 not had any major mechanical failures that could in any way have been attributed to a tune being present.

But if car has no warranty who cares then was there ABT or mtm

Totally agree which would then bring into question why bother going the piggyback route when established tuners have custom tuning capabilities for the car. If the driver is a perceived discreetness of the piggyback then this wouldn't apply so save thousands of ££'s & get an established ECU tune.

[rtd]

I'm in no way calling ABT's system into question, but please don't for a moment think these or any of the available Piggyback tunes as being undetectable when removed.

Yes if removed then no physical hardware is visible (but that's the same as any ECU remap), but the more clued up Mfctrs will still be able to tell if such a device has been in place as key parameters will have been altered & be outside the cars OEM setup.

It's a gamble either route & maybe i've been lucky in that i've never been questioned about the tuning on my cars (GT-R, RS's & M's), but i've also other than my C5 RS6 not had any major mechanical failures that could in any way have been attributed to a tune being present.

Wrekka who is selling his MTM box on the forum currently rejected his first C7, and they did a comprehensive trawl of his car to wriggle out of taking it back and no map was traced and car was returned.

[chunky79]

There's a DMS opening up in West Bromwich, next door to Ramus Porsche. Not sure if they are linked to the other ones?

What do you mean by 'hopefully not'?

The West Brom site must be either open or very close to opening as I'm booked in there on the 8th March. I was told by Rob that their West Brom site is by appointment only & is being manned for these appointments by the Engineers from Southampton.

Sorry Paul, my bad, my speed reading.
My reference was to the connection with Ramus rather than HO at Southampton. From what I can gather the chaps have been coming up to make sure it's nearly all set up and running.

Surely Ramus can't be that bad? They've just moved to a much bigger and better workshop and it's always silly busy.

[W8PMC]

I'm in no way calling ABT's system into question, but please don't for a moment think these or any of the available Piggyback tunes as being undetectable when removed.

Yes if removed then no physical hardware is visible (but that's the same as any ECU remap), but the more clued up Mfctrs will still be able to tell if such a device has been in place as key parameters will have been altered & be outside the cars OEM setup.

It's a gamble either route & maybe i've been lucky in that i've never been questioned about the tuning on my cars (GT-R, RS's & M's), but i've also other than my C5 RS6 not had any major mechanical failures that could in any way have been attributed to a tune being present.

Wrekka who is selling his MTM box on the forum currently rejected his first C7, and they did a comprehensive trawl of his car to wriggle out of taking it back and no map was traced and car was returned.

That may well be the case, but had they looked closely enough they would have found a trace.

Purely luck. I've had most of my previous vehicles tuned (ecu maps) & have never had an issue, but dealers have had no real reason to check for one, with perhaps the exception of my C5 RS6 which had the gearbox replaced under warranty. All I'm saying is that a piggyback setup is not obvious to spot if the device is removed, but if the parameters on the ECU (logs) are checked, an anomaly would easily be spotted.

[jipettersen]

They can detect the speed of the car. For reasons a standard car cannot go over 305 kmh if paid for. Most are on 250 kmh.
MTM can raise it to 325 kmh and then its easy to conclude the car has been tuned.

[MartayMcFly]

I don't know people still don't understand that manufacturers know if a car has been mapped, even if it's a stand-alone box. The car logs rev range, top speed, can detect non-standard fuel and boost requests etc etc etc. I know of an SQ5 that was turned down warranty work because the connectors for the tuning box had a snapped clip where it had been unplugged and the cable ties used to hold the box in place were left in place (god knows why), and a couple of people who bought cars second hand that had been mapped or over-revved by the previous owner so again warranties are void. Audi don't have to know exactly what's been done either, but any signs of tampering when they're looking for an 'out' can be enough. If you were that confident and wanted to take them to court, you'd better be 100% sure the car is and always has been exactly as it left the factory.

The ecu is smarter than you are, and when a company says it's 'warranty safe' but they're not MTM (who I think are the only factory approved tuning company), then they're lying to you or just as dumb. I'm not saying Audi will always bother to go in to that much detail investigating a car, or that they'll always refuse warranty work on a modified car, but the risk is definitely there. If tuning companies were so sure the mapping was safe then they'd offer their own warranties and cover work that Audi will no longer do.

Back on topic though, get a live remap not a box. It'll be a much better product.

[Tadass910]

Back on topic though, get a live remap not a box. It'll be a much better product.

why do u think live remap is much better product for example over ABT or MTM?

[doodlebug]

As the other two are generic maps. Having a tune for a specific car will bear better results.

[W8PMC]

As the other two are generic maps. Having a tune for a specific car will bear better results.

What he said

Cars such as these can vary quite wildly in stock outputs & i've seen everything from 570-610 for non PE (not seen alot of data on the PE but i'd guess the starting point would be higher but it wouldn't achieve much more than a non PE at the top end & unlikely a tune would exploit more from a PE than a non PE as it's a higher state of tune standard).

This also applies to similar out put vehicles such as the M5 when during a group but i organised in 2015, stock cars were often approaching 600bhp stock, although the Mfctrs state 560. The gains across the board & this included Competition variants as well as M6's again varied with the highest output from a Stage 2 being 756bhp & the lowest i think 718bhp. Now although not a huge delta, the fact all the cars were different is testament that having a map bespoke to the specific car is going to offer far better outcomes than any kind of generic tune & as far as i'm concerned is the better & safer way to proceed.