Back in February I booked my car in with A-L Tuning to have an Eisenmann exhaust and Carbonio induction kit fitted. Mike, from A-L Tuning, said that with those changes and a live remap they could achieve a 10-15bhp increase 
. I was very sceptical, but Mike stood his ground and suggested I could get an independent dyno. By ordering the lot in one go he agreed an additional discount (which essentially got the remap for free!). So why not. My only concern at this point was their fiddling with the delivery to make it feel faster. Apparently they just needed to tell me it was (see below).
I had a look on the web for dyno people and DK Engineering came up. I'd heard of them before, and that they have a good reputation. Very good. For DKE's rolling road credentials they did the baseline power testing for the BMW Kumho Cup. There is a link at the bottom to a gallery thread I posted from my visit. The first run, before stats, was done in early March, timed to be just before the work on the car. At that point it was about 4C.
The exhaust was fitted a little while later but the wrong induction kit had been sent. So more waiting and all the time ambient temperatures rising. A-L Tuning had done the remap anyway but this would be tweaked live when induction kit eventually went on. Shocking delays from the guys shipping the induction kit, which I understand can happen. I reached the end of my teather I and demanded the shipping reference or my money back. Receiving the former I checked online and found the induction kit had shipped days rather than weeks before :x . Enough. I spoke to Mike and he has agreed a refund for the induction kit. I do believe that he was acting in good faith.
Frustrating things, I was going to get the nice carbon induction kit noise and I wasn't going to see this through. Also, in the time I had been waiting for the second dyno I had run exactly the same fuel and even kept the same wheels and tyres (which I have sold).
At the end of it all I was curious to see if there had been any difference with the exhaust and remap. Also, I just wanted to reassure myself that things were as they should be. So on Tuesday of this week I got myself down to DK Engineering for the second run – accepting that I had changed the wheels, had a full alignment and was running different fuel. Also, it was 24C.
The Dyno setup, for those unfamiliar with the process:
Somewhere back there things are being inserted into the car, actually it was a temperature probe which was eventually hung on the grill in front of the air intake.
At the front of the car is a massive fan to help with cooling and also to simulate the air flow of a moving car.
The rear wheels of the car sit on rollers, behind that the extractors. There is a sensor in the exhaust to monitor the fuelling.
The front wheels are chocked and the back is strapped down, basically to stop the car from going anywhere.
As I can’t help myself at the moment, here is the video of the day two run:
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Results
This is the HP / Fuel graph. The 005 run was from March, 007 and 008 from Tuesday - with and without the sports button pressed.
I asked if they could do a run with and without Sport on as A-L Tuning told me they'd done something special with Sport mode. Power wise it's the same, as you'd expect. I have to say though, since learning that they’d done something special the car did feel zippier, especially through third
. *placebo* I may be stupid, but at least I'm being honest about it.
This is the HP / Torque graph. I was surprised how early the max torque comes in, nice flat line too.
In rough terms:
1. The car has lost a few HP over the years. Happy with that. That is to say, its to be expected.
2. The car has not lost any HP after the exhaust and remap - this is far too common, Adrian almost seemed surprised! He told me about some of the cars people had bought in from other tuners with similar claims – including a 360 with a fancy exhaust which had lost around 40hp!
3. It doesn't really show it on the graph, but the fuelling did jump around a couple times (running very rich and lean) and it made little difference to the figures. I assume this illustrates how futile adding an induction kit and doing nothing else would be, computer takes it out.
There was a difference in barometric pressure between the two days. Adrian said that he had not adjusted the day two run figures to match day one; he hadn't done this as the automatic settings, he believes, over compensate. He did say that the figures for day two would have increased. I didn't bother with the exercise as it would have just been for vanity.
I am still curious to know what difference the induction kit would make.
Photos of the really interesting stuff...
DK Engineering - Italian Exotica!
Thanks to DK Engineering and A-L Tuning. Also, thanks to Dave, (Mr Whippy) for his help on the science stuff - especially his patience. (I am still going to get some of the GTech data up once it's through the spreadsheet).
. I was very sceptical, but Mike stood his ground and suggested I could get an independent dyno. By ordering the lot in one go he agreed an additional discount (which essentially got the remap for free!). So why not. My only concern at this point was their fiddling with the delivery to make it feel faster. Apparently they just needed to tell me it was (see below). I had a look on the web for dyno people and DK Engineering came up. I'd heard of them before, and that they have a good reputation. Very good. For DKE's rolling road credentials they did the baseline power testing for the BMW Kumho Cup. There is a link at the bottom to a gallery thread I posted from my visit. The first run, before stats, was done in early March, timed to be just before the work on the car. At that point it was about 4C.
The exhaust was fitted a little while later but the wrong induction kit had been sent. So more waiting and all the time ambient temperatures rising. A-L Tuning had done the remap anyway but this would be tweaked live when induction kit eventually went on. Shocking delays from the guys shipping the induction kit, which I understand can happen. I reached the end of my teather I and demanded the shipping reference or my money back. Receiving the former I checked online and found the induction kit had shipped days rather than weeks before :x . Enough. I spoke to Mike and he has agreed a refund for the induction kit. I do believe that he was acting in good faith.
Frustrating things, I was going to get the nice carbon induction kit noise and I wasn't going to see this through. Also, in the time I had been waiting for the second dyno I had run exactly the same fuel and even kept the same wheels and tyres (which I have sold).
At the end of it all I was curious to see if there had been any difference with the exhaust and remap. Also, I just wanted to reassure myself that things were as they should be. So on Tuesday of this week I got myself down to DK Engineering for the second run – accepting that I had changed the wheels, had a full alignment and was running different fuel. Also, it was 24C.
The Dyno setup, for those unfamiliar with the process:
Somewhere back there things are being inserted into the car, actually it was a temperature probe which was eventually hung on the grill in front of the air intake.
At the front of the car is a massive fan to help with cooling and also to simulate the air flow of a moving car.
The rear wheels of the car sit on rollers, behind that the extractors. There is a sensor in the exhaust to monitor the fuelling.
The front wheels are chocked and the back is strapped down, basically to stop the car from going anywhere.
As I can’t help myself at the moment, here is the video of the day two run:
[youtube]<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3f7-x0HlZBQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3f7-x0HlZBQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>[/youtube]
Results
This is the HP / Fuel graph. The 005 run was from March, 007 and 008 from Tuesday - with and without the sports button pressed.
I asked if they could do a run with and without Sport on as A-L Tuning told me they'd done something special with Sport mode. Power wise it's the same, as you'd expect. I have to say though, since learning that they’d done something special the car did feel zippier, especially through third
. *placebo* I may be stupid, but at least I'm being honest about it.This is the HP / Torque graph. I was surprised how early the max torque comes in, nice flat line too.
In rough terms:
1. The car has lost a few HP over the years. Happy with that. That is to say, its to be expected.
2. The car has not lost any HP after the exhaust and remap - this is far too common, Adrian almost seemed surprised! He told me about some of the cars people had bought in from other tuners with similar claims – including a 360 with a fancy exhaust which had lost around 40hp!
3. It doesn't really show it on the graph, but the fuelling did jump around a couple times (running very rich and lean) and it made little difference to the figures. I assume this illustrates how futile adding an induction kit and doing nothing else would be, computer takes it out.
There was a difference in barometric pressure between the two days. Adrian said that he had not adjusted the day two run figures to match day one; he hadn't done this as the automatic settings, he believes, over compensate. He did say that the figures for day two would have increased. I didn't bother with the exercise as it would have just been for vanity.
I am still curious to know what difference the induction kit would make.
Photos of the really interesting stuff...
DK Engineering - Italian Exotica!
Thanks to DK Engineering and A-L Tuning. Also, thanks to Dave, (Mr Whippy) for his help on the science stuff - especially his patience. (I am still going to get some of the GTech data up once it's through the spreadsheet).
