************************************************************UPDATE JUNE 2022**********************************************************************
ProBoost will no longer be offering UK buyers the option to buy a remapped ECU direct from them in Germany. I will now be the only source for UK FSI owners to purchase one of these units
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Good evening all
I’m now officially an FSI owner and as with my other projects, upon purchase I immediately started looking at ways to improve it.
My biggest concern with owning an FSI were the well documented running issues. My research in this area led me to a post back in 2018 on this forum with mention of a remap being used by the German forum that eliminated a lot of the issues associated with the FSI.
The journey of this remap started in 2015 when the German club a2-freun.de approached an established tuning company in Germany called Pro Boost. Prior to being approached by the Club, Pro Boost had not heard of the FSI engine fitted in the A2 or of the problems associated with it.
The FSI runs in 2 settings, stratified and homogenous. A video explaining this process is available here
Pro Boost did some initial research on a used ECU and then agreed to take in a member’s car from the club to develop software that eliminated as many of the associated problems as possible. The software was ready by June 2016. At that stage they offered 2 stages of remap:
Stage 1 –
Shutting off the stratified injection, running homogenous mode only
Egr valve permanently closed to prevent clogging the intake side of the engine
Swirl flaps always in the open position to prevent seizing of the mechanism
Deactivation of the NOx catalyst and sensor. With the car not running in lean stratified mode anymore, they are no longer needed.
Reduction of the coolant temperature from 105-100c to 90-96c to prevent the plastic coolant pipes from cracking.
Stage 2 was planned to gain additional torque and power. It contained stage 1 options plus
Optimised camshaft maps
Optimised ignition angles
Testing of the stage 1 map went well with great results reported, but with the use of the stage 2 settings, a number of cars were experiencing issues with knock and the cars were then retarding the ignition to prevent this. This was found to be as a result of the age of the injectors on certain cars and so stage 2 was shelved. The successful optimised camshaft mapping was retained however and added to stage one.
So there is now only one remap and it has the following features –
Shutting off the stratified injection, running homogenous mode only
EGR valve permanently closed to prevent clogging the intake side of the engine
Swirl flaps always in the open position to prevent seizing of the mechanism
Deactivation of the NOx catalyst and sensor.
With the car not running in lean stratified mode anymore, they are no longer needed.
Reduction of the coolant temperature from 105-100c to 90-96c to prevent the plastic coolant pipes from cracking
Optimised camshaft maps
The mapping process adjusts the settings within the ECU so that no engine management light will be triggered by the settings it runs. The engine management light will however still be triggered by other engine faults it identifies. In essence, you won’t lose the functionality of the EML system.
Whilst performance gains will be experienced due to the flaps running fully open and camshaft modifications, this map is marketed more as a preventative measure to improve the longevity of the FSI and make the ownership experience less of a gauntlet.
The process for purchasing the map would be as follows:
I will order a stock of ECU’s from Pro Boost (I’m hoping for around 4 at a time).
You can place an order for an ECU from me and it will get sent out to you by courier.
You will fit the re-mapped ECU to your car and send your current ECU back to me.
In order for this process to work, the remapped ECU being sent to you will need to have an unlocked immobiliser so that it can be plug and play into your car with no coding required. This will mean that the immobiliser will no longer be active on your car. I accept that this is a downside, but it is the only way the service can be offered and I’m hoping that the benefits you receive from fitting will outweigh this issue.
************************* Update 4.6.2020, Tom
@timmus has offered to re-instate the immobiliser function on a remapped ECU free of charge at his home, or for a 'time' payment whilst on a tour***************************************************
I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on FSI’s and indeed I am just starting out on my FSI journey, but I do know that the German owners club do not suffer fools and will only use the best products. Pro Boost are also an established German tuner who have a lot of experience mapping all makes and models of car (
https://www.facebook.com/ProBoostEngineering/). This map has also been run by members of the German club for around 3 and a half years now with no issues reported.
I am in touch with Adrian from Pro Boost, so if anyone has more technical questions they want answered in regard to the map, then please just ask and I’ll pass the message back.
I plan to run a copy of the map once received and will report back my findings on its use.
If you would like to purchase the remap, please either reply here or send me a PM.
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