The VelocityAP tune is loaded and I have had a few good runs to acclimate the engine. What I have noticed so far:

1st gear pulls really strong with alot of the lag time gone. There is still a half second before the car releases the toque and gets moving, but once it does, it pushes you into the seat pretty good. Much better response time than before..like night and day. I wish first gear was longer, because the drop into second yields a big dip before the power comes back about a third of the way into the gear. Third is tight and probably my favorite because there is strong torque in that gear, but not long enough. Under WOT it goes into fourth a bit too early. By the time the car hits fifth and onwards, you are already breaching 130 or more and it will keep pulling you over into the higher threshold of the speedo. Beautiful feeling from an adrenaline rush perspective.

Overall, the guys know their business!! I would recommend their tune and I feel that I have a few people to thank for guiding me into their camp (unhingd, Stmcknig, Oz,XFR).

Now, it's on to the dyno for actual numbers. The guys at EuroCahrged won't be available until late March so it will be a few weeks. Gives me plenty of time to contemplate the lower pulley Stage II kit.

I am pretty sure the car is comfortably in the sub 5 second (feels like a 4.5...which would be like my mirror ...except in the 40) times for 0-60mph.

 

WHAT IS THE tuners HP numbers? from identical cars like yours? seat of the pants is pretty subjective even for the same person... i had my Stype R and my XF s/c at the same time for awhile... both felt fast to me but at the time there was a 70 hp difference ... did you look at Eurocharged numbers as well? thx

 

VAP claim 416 HP, see here: Jaguar F-Type V6 Base Supercharged ECU Tune
Yes, that is for the base V6 F-Type, but it's the exact same motor.
And seeing as the stock output is 340 PS not 340 HP, the 416 HP figure quoted is likely to be closer to 410 HP. But still a damn good bang for your buck increase.
And it's not just about the max power figure, the increase in both power and torque "under the curve" from anything over 1,500 RPM is substantial.
I have this same tune on my F-Type S, and although the increase in power and torque is not as dramatic as that on the base F-Type it is still very noticeable and welcome.

 

yes i agree, very cheap for adding that much HP

 

I've not installed a Varex, but what do you need..just power hot on ignition?

That thick cable you pointed out in your pics, you sure that's not positive feed(even though you see the black color)? Most thick gauge cables to fuse boxes are power/positive and the ecu ground the circuit or a grounding stud. Very rare cables to a fusebox of that size are for ground/negative(unless it's a short ground cable to reach metal and another cable for power). Do you have a DVOM/Multimeter to verify?

 

I actually ended up piggy backing the F36 fuse and grounding directly to the battery ground terminal. The manual states the F36 fuse is 10A. However, the fuse kept blowing. I went into the dealership and asked my service advisor about it. He said to bump up the fuse size until it doesn't blow. He also mentioned that none of the fuse terminals in the trunk were constant powered.

In the end, I had to bump up to 15A fuses in the F36 slot. However, the varex control module is constantly on (the green light never goes off, even when car is off) so that means it was always drawing power.

A few days later, I noticed that I was getting oil level warnings. My experience with Jags told me that the battery was the culprit.

Sure enough, I unplugged the Varex module and have had no issues since.

In order to please the leggy blonde, I will simply plug the Varex module in when she is in the car so I can control the butterfly valve and at all other times it stays open.

Took out a 2016 M3 yesterday. Twice went from stop sign to stop sign and I took him both times. We were talking afterwards and he asked who the tuners were and asked if they serviced BMW's ...lol..

It feels good to hold my own on the streets. I live in an area where it is not uncommon to see exotics on a daily basis, and M's, RS7's and AMG's are everywhere. Before the tune, the Jag was not even in the game. Now, it has a brute-ish quality to it that is pure joy

 

So a couple of things - bear in mind that the fuses in the trunk may not power off until either the car is locked or a few minutes after. Certainly the aux power sockets in the centre console were like that and stayed live for about ten minutes before shutting off.

It's been a while but I seem to recall that the red light on the module indicates power, the green light indicates power to the motor. This should only be on for a few seconds to open or close the valve(s). If you are seeing continuous green, suggests a short in the wiring somewhere and I recall some of the other Varex guys (not just Jag) suggested that fuses being blown indicated the motors staying energised way longer than needed. I don't know that I would trust the "keep increasing the fuse until it stops blowing" as sound advice...

I think my XFR had a power accessory socket in the trunk too so you could rig up a way to plug it into that when needed or there have been a couple of forum threads where the radio remote was replaced with a hard wired double pole momentary switch bypassing the module completely. I guess if you really wanted to go all out you could use the weight detection switch in the passenger seat to close the valve to quiet mode only when you were carrying the leggy blonde ;-)

Agreed, the tune is verrrrry nice.

 

Brilliant !!! The weight detection switch would be a great way to go !!!

The red light indicates the button was pressed. The green light indicates there is juice to the module and motors. When I press the buttons, red light flashes and flaps open/close. But the green light stays on all the time. I will plug it in tonight and check it after an hour to verify if it ever goes off, but I think I checked it after 20 minutes and it was still on.

I think I will probably just reattach the cig lighter plug back onto the wiring harness and slide it under the carpet to the rear cig lighter socket. While my car was in the shop it was discovered that even though I do not have folding rear seats, the car was equiped with the latches. They attached a release lever and looks stock. Now I have folding rear seats !!! except that the rear panel is not made for folding rear seats, so I need to find a upholstery shop that can cut the panel or figure out a way to make it work.

I am just so pleased with the sound that I don't want to ride with it closed. I tried it and it felt weird to have the power and not the sound...lol...

 

OK maybe I'm red green colour blind and have a lousy memory for what light did what.

Honest Officer I thought the lights were still green ;-)

Sound and speed need to go together which is why I find Tesla unnerving....

 

So you've bypassed the battery monitor by making a circuit from a live fuse to direct battery ground at the battery ground terminal?

If I'm understanding what you wrote, then it's something I would highly recommend against..wouldn't be surprised if you start having battery issues due to the battery monitor not being able to read correctly and also causing a drain of at least 10-20mA while engine is off, on it's own..plus the usual vehicle drain of 30-50mA..not looking good.

A 19$ multimeter can solve all your issues and this can all be done in minutes to figure out whats active only on ignition and whats giving a good ground.

Also to get the correct fuse amp, bumping up the fuse till it doesn't pop is another one of those things that just shakes my head..Take your bypass motor, measure the resistance through the motor. Now take the resistance and do ohms law. You just found the amperage of the motor, but your not done yet. The motor will have a amperage spike on start up, so you take the amperage and multiple by 130%. NOW you can take this number and add it to the fuse you slotted.

Even better would be to take the ignition feed going into the fusebox and crimp in a inline fuse to make your own circuit(you already figured out the amperage of the solo fuse for this circuit previously, if it's 8amp then bump to 10 being 8amp does not exist). Run this to a 4 pin Bosch type relay, feed in the ground of chassis and live at all times batt voltage...Now you've just created your very own dedicated SAFE circuit that will not interfere with anything else, and the leggy blond will think your a genius!! It's a Win-Win!!

 

OK..will be in Round Rock at 10:00 AM today to dyno the car with the tune and other mods. Finally will be able to see what the actual gains are. I should probably get some sleep now. Leaving at 6:00 AM for Round Rock to avoid traffic. The ride back is always more fun...lol

In regards to the Varex, I left the 15AMP fuse in and have not had a problem with it since. Seems to hold, and I don't think the added flow will cause any damage in case of spikes. 5Amps is really not that much of a difference.

 

I can't say that I am disappointed with the results. What confuses me is when I look at the before and after dyno numbers. I got 350 WHP with the tune and all the other mods, but the baseline was 329 WHP on a stock engine. That is only a 20 WHP increase. Not much considering that there is much more airflow going in now.

However, when you look at it from another angle the numbers seem to be about right. First I have the 340 BHP version of the engine. So...assuming a 15% drivetrain loss, the base line should read about 289 WHP. If I compare the current tuned output of 350 WHP, I can say that I have a pretty healthy bump of 60 WHP...which is nothing to cry about and right in line with the claimed 416 BHP numbers given by VAP.

The AFR was running at 10.6...so I was told. Apparently that is leaving alot of power on the table, and I am thinking of having a new tuning file sent to adjust it to 11.7...

...I also expected to get SOME HP out the TCP intake, K&N filters and freeflow exhaust. Instead, I got more supercharger whine and a bad *** sounding car...I can live with that....

...Given the data available, if I were to add the lower crank pulley which would raise the claimed output to 450 BHP and assuming a 15% drive train loss, that would add 32 WHP to the car putting me at about 382 WHP, which is right around where the
F Types have gotten with the tune/pulley combo.

The biggest disappointment is the torque actually went down considerably. I would like to know why that is...any ideas??? comments and input is welcome since I am not sure that my logic is sound

 

A quick comparison of the before and after seems to show no increase in power until around 4500 when the new tune seems to fill in that dip in power shown in the original. Most of the other tunes that have been posted show fairly dramatic increases lower down the rev range as well as at the top end.

 

agreed. I am not knocking the tune at all, but it does not show HP benefit until around 5K RPM. I dont see where the torque increase is at any point in the chart. According to the charts, the car was pulling harder stock than after the tune, which defeats my primary reason for purchasing. It is weird though because I know that when I drove the stock tune, the car did not pull as hard as it does now, but the dyno numbers show the opposite !!!

 

Did you run with the exhaust open? There was a guy awhile back that saw slower 1/4 times and/or decrease in power (I cant remember which right now) with an intake, washable filters and an open exhaust. The intake and filters pretty much just get you a different sound on these cars. I would bet the dissappointing dyno run is due to the exhaust not being restrictive enough, reducing back pressure too much.

 

Exhaust was open....I don't think that accounts for the zero increase in torque...If anything it may account for the drop in torque from the stock numbers, but I have taken a look at several dyno charts from the F Types and their torque numbers were impressive with the tune.

 

Yeah the low end torque increase is the reason I want the VAP tune when my warranty expires. Did you dyno as soon as you uploaded the tune or did you drive around for awhile first. Haven't some people said it feels a little weak at first but once everything else adjusts it feels great?

 

No..I dyno'ed almost two months after the upload. It has had plenty of time to stick.

 

One thing we've figured out with the Bosch Jag PCM's, the adaptions when learned can either improve or reduce power. It really depends on how the clients drive with the vehicle and the area being driven in (constant highway versus constant city). We don't have a set guide to do that will dial in the fastest/best adaptions but this is also one of the reason most manufactures recommend a break-in period.

You ever notice when you bring your car to the dealer for a MIL light issue, they do wtv is needed and clear the fault..you get your car back and WOW, feels like it has more power? That's because the adaptions are all cleared out..

Whenever dynoing these cars, we suggest to clear out the adaptions, easiest way is done by flashing back the stock file, then do the stock base run. After, flash the mod file and do the run. This will make a apples-to-apples comparison that does not involve LT Fuel trims or any other adaptions that might improve/reduce performance that will not make a perfect comparison.

It may sound hard to believe or screwed up in theory, but it's what we've figured out doing numerous dyno sessions. We actually had a F-Type S in house to dyno, this engine was 495ps(488bhp) stock. We did our normal 5.0L Stg1 tune and saw an astonishing 160ps! That bumped us well over 650bhp on just a tune...we loved the numbers and were able to back this up all day long, just it didn't seem legit to us. So what we did is check all our log data and that's when we noticed an issue with the adaptions. So we flashed back stock to wipe out the stock adaptions and re-run the stock run, that's when our stock run bumped up 50ps on just an adaptions clear. We did our mod run again and the same overlayed results of the previous mod runs were a mirror image. This now put us near our claim of 605bhp on the 5.0L..(ever see some companies quote 650bhp..now you know why)

Now I know these are results and examples from a 5.0L F-Type, but the theory is the same with the 3.0L. Most ppl drive normal on the stock file, then when the mod file is loaded, their MPG's become horrible, and it's only due to a weird right foot that increased in weight over night! Just this right foot is now changing the adaptions that are no longer a mirror image to the stock run, making for an unfair disadvantage/advantage. Don't forget, we're looking to take the difference in increased power to figure out what the new bhp will be.

Example 1 causing an issue: Mod file is flashed to car, ran for 3 months and adaptions learn in, car is dynoed with mod file on car, then flashed to stock in dyno session to do the base run. The base run will be higher because the adaptions are not learned on the stock run. The mod run will most probably be lower do to adaptions learned and the stock file will be higher in power. Making an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Example 2 causing an issue: Stock file is run since build and then dynoed. Vehicle leaves shop and mod file is flashed, then ran 4 months to learn in adaptions, but car was now driven with a heavy right foot, then dynoed. The comparison will be of an apples-to-oranges because the mod file did not have the same driven practice to learn it's adaptions, hindering the power comparison.

Now all the above has not been proven in a lab under years of research with engineers studying this theory of stock versus VAP file..LOL.....it's strictly just our findings in what we've noticed on our end.

As for the AFR being on the rich side. Yes, we do that intentionally. It's actually bumped up from the stock file slightly but will still break into the 10.X:1 ratio versus some tuners that will set a 11.8:1 ratio with eye's closed. We had done some testing on catalyst units we made to match the OEM heat ratings along with our tuning file in test modes, we ran different AFR ratio's to see what is best to be a "safe file". We noticed running 11.8:1 on WOT was melting the brick on track, we ended up scrapping that catalyst unit. That's when we knew a safe AFR was needed and our "to-be at the time in testing" high flow 200 cell pipes needed to run a much higher spec heat rating to avoid any issues that could rise on a stock unit.

We do run a richer AFR to avoid issues on the stock catalysts. If a client upgrades the catalysts, then I can then up the AFR if desired by the client. Now our testing was in a track environment and with a driver that could probably burn a hole in the piston with a stock file. If your not going on the track and/or don't plan to drive like our "stig", then we can run a 11.5-11.8:1 AFR. We could probably even run a 11.8:1 on the track with the stock bricks, just we like to make sure our clients run in safe limits on our files. That's unless a request is given otherwise for a file purchased to run 11.5-11.8, then we can do that too!

 

Hi Stuart

So are you advising the adaptions are reset when reverting back to the stock for dealership visits ? I'm guessing the 24 hour window before the mod gets reapplied isn't going to be a big deal as long as the dealer doesn't spot something odd when doing a test drive...

-- Stuart