So now that APR has released the new ECU/TCU tunes I figured I’d give my impressions of them…
ECU Tune:
Car – 2010 Audi S4 with DSG… “Power” mods are APR ECU tune, APR pulley, APR CPS, APR TCU tune, 034 HFC’s, Miltek non-res exhaust, custom intake, and LW brakes and 19 inch wheels. I have other mods like sways, AK, tranny mount, etc but those aren’t power mods…
I believe APR is calling this v3, so that is the term I’ll use. I’ve had their v1, v2, a few beta tunes, and now v3. There is little doubt in my mind that this tune is much stronger than the others while maintaining all safety measures that I’ve seen on other tunes from APR and the other tuning company’s after Revo fixed their initial glory tunes. I’ve logged my drag passes and many street runs and even some normal driving over the last few weeks. I’ve also talked to some of the guys at APR who made the tune.
My car is coupled with the TCU tune and that is the only way I can compare since I didn’t get this and then the TCU tune, so I want to make that clear since it’s truly not apples to apples. The best metric from a performance standpoint that I can point people to(please please don’t ask me about dyno #’s) is that I consistently picked up 1-2mph at the dragstrip in varying conditions of as low as 400-500 DA to over 2000 DA. Since I’ve logged probably 200 passes I have a good sample size to compare to. My car with a shitty launch now has the record for highest trap speed at 120.86, backed up by a 120.53 and this was set at a 400-500DA, so it’s not like it was a -1000+ DA…
The timing is slightly higher then I’ve seen before, I still need to run some basic statistical analysis on my logs to get exact numbers but I’d say it’s probably 1-2 degrees more of timing across the board by just doing a quick review and memory of studying logs over the years. The bypass still stays shut most of the time but the car is not asking for an unrealistic limit so it does bypass boost on occasion, IE it still has the safety parameters built in. MAF values seem about the same, as they should at this point. I have ran some hard runs and have only gotten a couple misfires and just so everyone knows that isn’t uncommon on this car, you just don’t want several hundred in a pass, trust me someone has found that out the hard way. Lol The car definitely shows less timing retard then the previous tune which, along with the additional timing, is where we are seeing the power improvement. I also think the car adjusts quicker if that makes sense. Before I’d see some timing pull and it would go on for a few seconds before subsiding now it happens and then seems to get back in line sooner.
Normal Driving is as good as ever and actually even better with the TCU tune but I’ll go more into that on the TCU section.
Questions, ask away and I’ll do my best to answer, share logs, videos or even take a logs of something else you’d like to review.
I’ll have the TCU part up tonight or Sat. morning… Thanks Ron
TCU Tune:
Normal driving – Interestingly enough the car has really improved in this area, I never thought it was bad in the first place and if you drive in manual mode you can drive around some of the quirks. The tune makes it even smoother and really improves this area. For example, most have experienced the 2nd to 1st rough downshift when coming to a stop, well I tried multiple times and I can’t make it happen anymore. If you don’t manually shift to first the car will wait until it’s stopped or very damn close before shifting to 1st which is what I think eliminates the clunk people have felt. The shifts also don’t feel as jerky when shifting in normal driving and are much smoother. Behavior seems the same in auto mode and it shifts quickly if you’re not on the gas which is good as it won’t kill fuel economy for those that care about that. Not really much else to say here and remember I don’t daily this car so I am not as knowledgeable in this area but to me it’s better all around. Also, I know I have the 2010 DSG which may or may not be inferior to the newer, obviously Audi has learned some things so it’s probably not as good but I’ve really never had issues with how the car drove so this is just a nice to have improvement. I know Sean recently posted some of the differences on the tranny in their release thread.
Spirited driving in manual mode – This is pretty much how I drive on the street and I think it’s one of the areas we all care about. First thing I know everyone wants and I can confirm that you get is a choice of, auto up shifting in manual mode or not. I selected to not have the car shift automatically when in manual mode and sure enough it will bounce of the limiter, that is the 7200 limiter on the 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5 the 1-2 still happens automatically to protect the car. To me this isn’t a key feature but I selected it to more or less test and confirm and sure enough it doesn’t auto shift. In auto mode it obviously still does. You have to be careful as with the new ecu tune the revs rise very fast and you need to be on the ball shifting or your nailing the limiter. As I just mentioned the redline is now 7200RPM so you get that little extra per gear, which is nice and now I am going through the traps right as I shift into 5th gear but my testing hasn’t gone so well(more on that later). The speed of the shifts was extremely fast stock and is obviously as fast or faster but I honestly can’t tell since we’re talking milliseconds. I can say that the shifts feel crisper and the clutches are more immediate when they grab. Also, I never really had the issue in manual mode of the car shifting itself under light/med throttle but I can assure you it doesn’t shift now until you tell it to!
Drag racing in auto mode – This is pretty much why I wanted this for years… I’ve been able to cut very low 1.6 to high 1.6 60’s consistently on this car launching off idle which honestly is pretty impressive for the weight and power. So I was very anxious to test this part of the tune… I’ll cover LC first and remember I have a 2010 so have never used it… Also, I know it was mentioned that someone thought my old launch technique counted as a launch on the LC counter but on my 2010 none of them counted not that it matters since there is now a 3,000 limit so I should be good for a year or two Lol So I tried LC a few times on the street and had a few issues, most of which I thought were my timing and technique. Traded some emails and got some feedback from APR and then tried a few more and got what appeared to be a successful attempt? Went to the strip and couldn’t get LC to work. IMO it’s the 3 stage limiter or my driving… The tcu seems to get confused after hitting target RPM and then dumping the brake and going WOT as it appears to stay in LC mode and then jump to the next target RPM before finally going but very weakly. I have some vids I can share if anyone is interested. The car also had some issues mid track with a hang-up in shifting and then bouncing off the limiter on the 4-5 shift… Sent everything to APR and they reviewed the logs and vids and made a change as what they described to me(again I’m not a tuner so this will be dumbed down) to lower the disengagement point of LC based on accelerator position. IE they thought even though I was flooring the car it wasn’t leaving LC mode and thus going to the next launch point… Remember there are 3 launch points and you choose them based on throttle position with the lowest one being selected at around 50% pedal travel, the second one at full pedal but not activating the kickdown switch, and the third by putting the pedal to the floor. Personally, I’d prefer to just one or be able to select via vagcom, the cruise stalk or something else. I think this is going to mess a lot of people up quite honestly. So tested that on the street and got a good launch… Back to the strip and I couldn’t get it to work again… However, there were no other issues, IE no mid track hang-ups or bouncing off the limiter so those were all resolved, which I was happy about as I knew we were making progress… Again, I was/am still not sure this is my driving, the car, or tune. Unfortunately, it seems with the tcu tune on my car I can no longer use the smash and go technique as the car tries to enter LC mode and just doesn’t launch hard. So sent APR everything and got another flash… Tested some things for them in addition to LC and it seemed to work much better. So back to the strip. First pass was the only pass I was even able to activate LC and as you can see from the vid I posted the car revs and then goes a few feet before truly launching so the 60’s, 330’s, and 1/8th are very slow. The good news is again there were/are no other issues. The car pulls very hard on the back half of the track which is evident by it trapping over 120.5 twice and high 119’s twice. The 3 other passes I made that night I just couldn’t get LC to activate and I’m not sure why? I’ve talked to a few others and they’ve mentioned even with stock LC sometimes it just doesn’t want to go into the mode to activate it. After the one pass I tried it on the return road and it seemed to work fine. Another point to mention is that when the car goes into LC mode APR has activated an AMAX(think that is the term) program that basically takes the timing retard and boost dump away during shifts and there is no “fart” sound on shifts. It is more of a seamless shift almost cvt like, it’s hard to describe. It’s a very cool feature actually. So the plan is to flash again Monday/Tuesday and hit the strip Wed. APR is going to disable LC but enable AMAX in auto mode so I will get to use my old launch technique to make sure I can reproduce my older results and then have the benefit of the AMAX shifting. I’ll update the post once I have more results. I will say again I’m not sure if it’s me, the car, or the tcu tune but APR is 100% committed to make it work.
Overall, I like the dsg tune especially when driving in manual mode as it is much improved over what was already a good setup. The disappointment so far has obviously been LC and for me that is what I was looking forward to the most in addition to the extra RPM for drag racing. I’ll be satisfied w/o LC if I can keep the AMAX mode and do the smash and go method like I used to. However, I know APR wants the LC to work so we will flash again no matter the results and continue to test the LC.
Again, let me know if you guys have any questions and I’ll be glad to answer. I’d like to once again thank Sean, Eric, Tom, Joel, and Arin at APR for letting me test this out on my car and working with me on a regular basis to make this happen. I’ll be providing them with some additional feedback as I get more seat time and the revised file. GO APR!