Cats will make the car much louder.Well add 10 and 25 hp, but not very noticeable. A tune is far more effective. The cats may throw an O2 code requiring a tune anyway

 

Ah thanks Unhingd. In that case I'll go with the tune. This is all new to me, but I saw you mentioned still having the car dyno'd after tuning it. So a local shop with a dyno can test the car and tell if it's within safe limits ?

 

The reason to dyno your car is to get a before and after reading so you can see how much power you had before the work and after.
Nothing to do with safe limits, vap dont do bad maps.

 

+1. I do baseline and post mod/change testing on much of what I do to the car (including oil analysis at oil change intervals). Velocity AP was actually the second tuner I worked with. I have confirmed the results (both power and operating parameters) and the VAP tunes get the promised results within conservative (safe) parameters (A/F ratios, IAT, advance, etc.). Chris @ VAP knows what he is doing. No need to do further testing on their tunes. A number of us have confirmed that they get reproducible results.

 

Thanks guys I'm going to go for it.

 

Is the VAP tune resealable? Some tuners allow you to uninstall and then resell if you sell your car. Just leased a manual v6 convertible and already thinking about this. Also, any warranty issues? Know that is always the million dollar question, but i searched and didn't find much information. If there is a thread already, I am happy to read that instead. Just couldn't find it.

 

Always assume any ECU tune will trigger a warranty issue if detected. You're messing with one of the most fundamental parts of the motor.

Resalable? Never heard of that unless you buy a standalone ECU

 

Bought a tune from VAP for my V6S vert with automatic during their sale last year. Unfortunately got it after the car was stored for the winter. Was a nice spring day today so I took the car out of storage and installed the tune. Took about 15 minutes. A few things went on durning the tune loading process I didn't expect. The information center flashed warnings that there were several faults (brakes, sensors, etc) throughout the tune loading process and at the very end when the flasher appeared to be finishing up the windshield wipers went on momentarily, many fault messages appeared in rapid succession and some beeping occurred. Also after the tune was complete and flasher disconnected the check engine light was on. Fortunately I remembered (from downloading the original tune file) the light goes out after five engine starts - it did.

Went out for a drive to check out the effect of the tune. After the engine warmed up I did a few 0 to ??? runs and can say the car does pull better than before the tune. Before you could feel the engine running out of steam well before an up shift. Now it pulls all the way to the upshift. Also when using the paddle shifters in sport mode the shift point warning circle seemed to come on a bit later (not sure because not a good idea to stare at the tach and warning light when accelerating hard). The change is very noticeable but doesn't turn the car into a dragster but I didn't expect it to.

So far I am pleased with the purchase - it seems to perform exactly as advertised.

 

EPL tunes for audis and Cobb tunes for BMWs come with portable programmers and are resaleable. Not make or break, but just curious and a nice feature to have.

As as far as the dealer, of course if you leave the tune on and it is detected you are SOL. But what about if you flash back to stock? BMW is pretty good and as long as you flash you are usually fine. Audi is much stricter and has even flagged cars flashed back to stock. Just curious where Jaguar stands. If it has been discussed, happy to read a link.

 

Be careful!! Loading your tuned file to another F-Type will brick the ECU on that other car. It will have the wrong VIN coded in the file and will freeze the ECU.

 

I'm waiting to get my tuned file back from VAP and I have a question about the process. I noticed after using a kiwi3 for data logging and extracting my base file with the VAP handheld that I had the known issue of the car not fully powering off as signaled by the hazard light switch staying on.

I've been pulling the positive lead off the battery in the trunk for a minute or so to reset things after using the ODB port.

Once I flash the tuned file that I get from VAP will it hurt things or reverse any of the flashing process to do the battery pull technique again to reset the power issue?

 

If it didn't brick the ECU VAP warns that the flasher will definitely get bricked if the VINs don't match. Makes sense so people don't pass around tunes.

 

Disconnecting the battery has no impact on whatever tune you happen to have loaded on the car.

 

Hey Stuart I PM'd you about my order

 

Possibly as a matter of interest, the master mechanic at my dealership told me that the battery drain issue is real and that he does not need to disconnect the battery. Apparently when they install an upgrade, their software has a feature that they trigger to reset the module. He say's that not all Jaguar mechanics seem to be aware of it, but it is available to them.
Lawrence

 

That sounds plausible, as I have never heard the mechanic that has worked on my car (for both services and software updates) ever mentioning that he has had the need to disconnect the battery - and he usually tells me everything that he has done (in details). And I have never had any problems with battery drain.

 

I had a chance to install the tune on my R the other day. I haven't been able to drive much since the weather hasn't been great but I've been out to run a few errands and I agree with the others in saying that the throttle response in dynamic is better and there seems to be more power down low. Its really hard not to shoot off the line at a stop light now.

Not having to hit the eco button every time is great as well.

Also as mentioned before, after the flash was complete and I had turned off the car I went ahead and did a quick battery disconnect to reset the power module. I then went for a short drive and noticed the check engine light on as mentioned previously by someone. I'm glad it was mentioned that it goes away after you stop/start the car 5 times or so as that was my experience as well.

 

This is actually good news. That means the module is performing as designed. However, since I don't have the secret decoder software, I have to continue doing the manual reset when I diddle with the car's ECU.

 

For those of you playing with multiple tunes, I have noticed that you have to flash back to the OEM tune before flashing the next one in order for it to take effect. This has now occurred on two separate occasions. It doesn't make much sense to me, but there you have it.

 

Hi KC_Jay I'm about to use my VAP, can you explain this to me? Do I need to disconnect the battery after I download the tune to my car ? Do I need to do this whenever I bring the tune back to stock?