Hi
I'm new to this forum, but have been astounded at the knowledge that has been displayed on this site. So here goes, i've got a wee challange for you buffs out there!
I've had my S2 avant for 3 years now and I've had an annoying experience which i've gave up on and just accepted, but it started when I obtained an AMD Chip brand new from AMD despite their obvious reluctance to supply without setting it up on the rolling road. But, I thought better, because I was in Scotland and didn't think the trip down south was required due to a "specialist"
in Edinburgh claiming he could have the chip fitted there.
When I got the car back it had (in my opinion) amazing initial torque with a big fat flat spot mid range followed by power fall off at the top end.
The "specialist" was no longer interested as he had my money.
After contacting Geoff @ AMD he agreed to look at my ECU if I sent it down. So I duly did, and when it came back, the cars performance seemed to be exactly the same but not as pronounced. eg It was as though he just de-tuned it slightly, because the initial rush of torque had gone. Still had this flat spot though.
Next try, I obtained a standard ECU to try out (to make sure it wasn't something esle). WOW this thing really flew - for one day and then proceeded to start cutting out with anything more than have throttle. You had to switch off ignition to cancel this out, until next time. Turns out it was overboosting due to a faulty boost control valve
When this was replaced, (standard ECU still installed) car now had low end surge with severe drop off mid to top end. Car was not misfiring and running quite smooth, but I had to work the car to pass a Saxo VTS. So i knew this was not right, but driving the car with problems for so long I was forgetting how quick it should be.
At this point I put the AMD ECU back in and the car has better top end pulling again but there is still this tendancy to back off as the revs climb and this detectable flat spot still there mid range. With some tepid advice I now install a free flow air filter and this improves things slightly but still not right.
Last summer I decided to bite the bullet and drove down to AMD to have them investigate. I expected a rolling road set up or something, but they had the car for 3 hours. No rolling road set up was undertaken because they said they traced the fault to guess what - faulty boost valve! He replaced it with one of theirs which he said had a life time warranty and I took the car out for a test drive. It was now responding to full throttle (ie I wasn't getting the surge from small throttle openings and no more gain from full throttle) input and was very much better pulling at top end.
He also produced a graph and print out showing that in 31 degrees temp it was producing 285.5 bhp.
The car does now run much better but STILL has a flat spot most of the time but it disappears when the car is not quite warm (not that i thrash it when it's cold) and the car seems to fluctuate quite drastically depending on outside temp.
As for 285bhp? I doubt it very much. At best the cars pulls more strongly top end but you've already sacrificed all that lovely bottom end torque from the standard set-up. If I'm honest with myself, I think the car may be marginally faster than standard but it does not feel 50bhp faster that's for sure.
I'm scared stiff to re-install this other ECU in case I muck up something else again.
If anyone can make any sense at all with this ranting, then I would be delighted/grateful/ honoured to hear your opinions.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.(if you got this far)
I'm new to this forum, but have been astounded at the knowledge that has been displayed on this site. So here goes, i've got a wee challange for you buffs out there!
I've had my S2 avant for 3 years now and I've had an annoying experience which i've gave up on and just accepted, but it started when I obtained an AMD Chip brand new from AMD despite their obvious reluctance to supply without setting it up on the rolling road. But, I thought better, because I was in Scotland and didn't think the trip down south was required due to a "specialist"
in Edinburgh claiming he could have the chip fitted there.When I got the car back it had (in my opinion) amazing initial torque with a big fat flat spot mid range followed by power fall off at the top end.
The "specialist" was no longer interested as he had my money.
After contacting Geoff @ AMD he agreed to look at my ECU if I sent it down. So I duly did, and when it came back, the cars performance seemed to be exactly the same but not as pronounced. eg It was as though he just de-tuned it slightly, because the initial rush of torque had gone. Still had this flat spot though.
Next try, I obtained a standard ECU to try out (to make sure it wasn't something esle). WOW this thing really flew - for one day and then proceeded to start cutting out with anything more than have throttle. You had to switch off ignition to cancel this out, until next time. Turns out it was overboosting due to a faulty boost control valve
When this was replaced, (standard ECU still installed) car now had low end surge with severe drop off mid to top end. Car was not misfiring and running quite smooth, but I had to work the car to pass a Saxo VTS. So i knew this was not right, but driving the car with problems for so long I was forgetting how quick it should be.
At this point I put the AMD ECU back in and the car has better top end pulling again but there is still this tendancy to back off as the revs climb and this detectable flat spot still there mid range. With some tepid advice I now install a free flow air filter and this improves things slightly but still not right.
Last summer I decided to bite the bullet and drove down to AMD to have them investigate. I expected a rolling road set up or something, but they had the car for 3 hours. No rolling road set up was undertaken because they said they traced the fault to guess what - faulty boost valve! He replaced it with one of theirs which he said had a life time warranty and I took the car out for a test drive. It was now responding to full throttle (ie I wasn't getting the surge from small throttle openings and no more gain from full throttle) input and was very much better pulling at top end.
He also produced a graph and print out showing that in 31 degrees temp it was producing 285.5 bhp.
The car does now run much better but STILL has a flat spot most of the time but it disappears when the car is not quite warm (not that i thrash it when it's cold) and the car seems to fluctuate quite drastically depending on outside temp.
As for 285bhp? I doubt it very much. At best the cars pulls more strongly top end but you've already sacrificed all that lovely bottom end torque from the standard set-up. If I'm honest with myself, I think the car may be marginally faster than standard but it does not feel 50bhp faster that's for sure.
I'm scared stiff to re-install this other ECU in case I muck up something else again.
If anyone can make any sense at all with this ranting, then I would be delighted/grateful/ honoured to hear your opinions.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.(if you got this far)
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