Hansel's Alleged Tune Issue

another 2014 tuned not working proper

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showthread.php/610996-2014-S5-Switched-to-APR-Stage-2-Tune-Pulley-only-making-stock-power-290awhp

Claims he’s getting 28.6 PSI of boost? Or maybe 28 PSI of pressure…i.e. 14 PSI of boost. edit: he’s up at 3500 feet so does that mean around 15.6 PSI of boost?

What’s stock?

Ignition timing is funny. I believe the original B8 S4 ECUs did stuff like this…just shut it down when you made changes. I asked someone at APR about it but they didn’t seem to want to discuss. That was in like 2010 I believe.

low timing values, still having some retard, and short shifting = slow ET’s and low mph’s… Something is very different with the 14 cars…

GIAC are currently working on a 2014 car that is fact lets see what they come up with, i gonna wait for that then try to tune my car.

Folks, I’m not going to read every page of this post because I’m intimate with Hansel’s problem. I’ve got a 2014 B 8.5. For some strange reason (gremlins?) my car simply will not hold the APR Stage II tune. My car has been to the track. 1/4 mile, twice and also dynoed. The opinions are numerous, varied and some even nasty. I worked with APR sending logs and had my car re-flashed 3 times. The tune seems to disappear in the torque realm, low RPM. I’m waiting for REVO to confirm their new tune for the 8.5 ECU, DSG, and switching. I have nothing against APR and don’t recall bad mouthing them. However, I asked for some releif and despite spending considerable money helping out, VCDS, hotel rooms and 600 miles on the road, was turned down. OK, no big deal.I only wish Hansel would report his findings after his Revo tune. Thanks.

Hansel’s car was a 2010, so none of this discussion is pertinent. He never returned with anything, so it’s safe to say either APR gave him his refund with stipulation that he STFU (extremely doubtful) or he didn’t get the results he wanted.

Or as swank says “he’s just busy with life and doesn’t have time to waste on AZ” lol :o

Concur, anything is possible. Still like to hear from him!

Are you sure it ‘won’t hold the tune’? That’s a pretty funny thing to say. It’s not like the tune is an apple you put on the roof and when you drive away, it falls off. It’s burned to your ECU. Maybe what you meant to say is that the car’s safety systems are stepping in and limiting various parameters, reducing your max performance.

Everything we’ve seen shows that on the B8 S4, there are a few changes made that account for the lion’s share of performance gains vs. stock

  1. boost control - the tuners basically tell the car to NOT bleed off if pressure gets to a certain level like the stock tune. Boost bleedoff people refer to it.
    That’s working fine on all of these cars…even Hansel or the 2014 guys, based on logs. Please confirm.

  2. ignition timing - this is where something’s amiss. Both APR and GIAC tuned cars are seeing 8-9 degrees of requested ignition timing advance I believe (if I have that right). I can promise you that APR didn’t program that in the file. Or GIAC. Or Audi. That’s super low. This is where the cars appear to be missing 50 whp. We’ve seen super retardation on cars before when the safety kicks in…but I haven’t seen the car re-map ignition parameters unless it’s maybe a safe mode or limp mode. Perhaps that’s what you guys with 2014 cars are seeing.

  3. AFR - do the tuners lean out the stock AFR a bit? I imagine they must a little, but I’m not sure there’s 50 whp in it. Thus we should focus on 1 and 2

Other than that…is anyone really tearing into the driving dynamics the way a JHM tune does, or are they pretty basic with respect to throttle etc? I imagine 85% of the available power from a tune is coming from 1-3…and I get the impression the tuners are focusing there as well.

So…maybe someone can clarify. These 2014 cars seeing ‘low timing’…is it:

a) requested ignition timing advance is in the 8 or 9 degree range?
or
b) requested ignition timing advance is in the high teens like the pre-facelift tunes, but there is timing retardation stepping in to pull back a bunch of timing and put it at 8-9 degrees?

If it’s A it looks like the car has it’s own mode it is putting you in and defeating the request. If it’s B, why is it pulling sooooo much timing?

I sent my logs to Ron and several other gents as well. No one, including APR, saw any problems and APR said the tune was performing normally. As I drive down the highway my P3 gauge reads 25 degrees advancement, normal cruise. When I get on it I see it drop to 14 degrees. Bleed valve stays closed and throttle is opening all the way. Most boost I’ve seen was 15.9 psi, now, in warmer weather, about 14.9. Is the car somehow defeating the tune? Thanks.

Ed, I’d have to go back and re-read all the emails but I don’t believe that is exactly as I replied or saw the situation… You sent me three sets of logs… The first you didn’t have turbo mode or group by so there was like 4 data points with a 2+ second sampling rate… You can’t tell anything from that file… The 3rd one was just the misfire counters and didn’t show any issues really…

The 2nd one was a good log file… I noted on several points that your car shifted way early with the 1-2 occuring at as low as 5800rpm and also that after the shift there was a delay and the rpm’s kept going backwards… I only experience this when the tranny hangs up so I found that odd… I also noted your IAT’s were good as you are running the CPS but most of your runs were only into 3rd gear… Seeing 4th gear gives much better sampling and also is where you see IAT’s start to climb… Your average timing and peak timing was slightly better than other 14’s I have reviewed but not where it should be, so sorry if I wasn’t clear… On top of that you showed timing pull pretty much all through the pulls… In some cases you were making/requesting 14ish degrees but retard was over 6 and 7 in some cases… These are all happening in the “upper” rpm’s(if you can call it that since your only seeing 6300ish) and this is why the drag racing times are slow because your car is operating in these rev ranges not 2000-4000, except 1st gear…

Here is the average timing from your pulls and retard: Remember these are averages…
timing retard1 retard2
8.88 -2.71 -1.97
10.78 -.14 -1.05
10.83 -1.11 -1.03
9.51 -1.04 -1.82
8.91 -.62 -1.57

Your bypass for the most part is staying shut so the tune is doing what it should there and given conditions the boost levels were ok not great but not bad… Your air mass values were also very low but again the car is only spinning to a peak of 6300RPM… This will be fixed with the dsg tune and extra rpm’s it allows not a ram air setup, sorry that is just reality…

I believe I also noted that even after going WOT your accelerator position went down so either you let off or something is going on there… Not sure how much that impact but you went from 94 to values in the 70’s on one run… This may be nothing but I’ve never seen it on the few hundred log files I’ve looked at…

I want to see your car work, trust me and if I thought using ram air would help I’d tell you go for it… It won’t help as that is not the root problem… Sorry, if I’m sounding like a dick but you’re just not understanding… Maybe it was me and my emails which I’ll review so if I wasn’t clear I apologize… I’ll also review the logs again…

As for Hansel, it’s not the same comparison… The issues were all him and not the tune… He had/has no clue and I find it interesting that he dissappeared or now doesn’t have time like Federer suggests given how much time he had after his bad APR ET’s… My guess is daddy took the Porsche and S4… He did this same shit on the X5M forums and probably others I just got bored looking… Dude was/is a cancer to this paltform who does nothing but complain like a child…

Ron, possibly I missed something too. I certainly don’t think an inlet is going to fix my problem, for sure. I’m hanging my hopes on REVO, they’re working on it as I type? Hansel? I know nothing of him except the Audizine thread. I feel his frustration, if justified, but that’s all.
Thanks, again.

Ed, The Hansel comment was not towards you just in general…

You can go Revo but given both APR and GIAC are having problems you could be wasting money… IMO if they can’t figure it out Revo hasn’t or won’t, but I could be wrong… On this platform they rushed their original tune to market way to fast and did some scary things resulting in some very bad results… The new tune that they have subsequently put out seems good and doesn’t disregard some saftey nets so you could take a chance but I’d wait on APR… Your money though and if you do go this route I certainly look forward to seeing results and hopefully I’m wrong and they hit it out of the park!

Just get the Revo stg1+ tune and see if that fixes your problem. Will be good to see some 2014 logs on the revo flash, maybe they know something APR or GIAC doesn’t. I personally don’t care if you want to waste your money on it, I say do it!

Just log third gear from 1500 RPM…go WOT…to redline. Simple.

Fourth means you’re going 120 mph. A bit unsafe. 3rd is 90 or 100 mph depending which trans you have. Easy enough.

As for those timing values, they’re really weird.

It’s requesting 8-10 degrees, and then is retarding another 1-2 degrees off that. So you’re seeing about 6-8 degrees of ignition timing advance. That’s insane. Limp mode.

Anyone know how to get Tsivas’ logs of APR/GIAC/REVO up showing ignition timing? I looked, but they were all getting error messages on the photobucket images here and on Audizine where he posted them.

Gents, I’ve asked REVO for “some” financial assistance. Ideally dyno the car, do the REVO, dyno again. Also go back to drag strip for actual proof. If the numbers prove good REVO has an excellent advertising gimmick over it’s competitors. Uncertain if they will bite. Just got a message yesterday from them stating they are experimenting in the field in a Denver shop. Just getting the DSG tune and switching from Revo may help tremendously? I’ve not heard a peep out of APR concerning switching and also told no DSG tune for the 8.5s until next year. I’m old, I’m running out of time! Timing…simply put I don’t get it!!! Thanks.

P.S. Never grow up…it’s a waste of time!

bottom line is that if GIAC hasn’t sorted it…and APR hasn’t sorted it…you’re just going to be chasing your tail going with REVO.

Give APR some time, and kick them in the nuts for rushing product out.

This is why JHM in the 4.2 world won’t sell you anything until they test the shit out of it on a car they own. These tuners don’t own 2014 S4s, so they’re using customers as beta testers…or alpha testers really…(and it doesn’t sound like they were warned they were)

Austin claimed that they had a 2014 that was running well, he told to the PSU guy with the 13.5 sec 2014 Stg 2 + DSG that something was wrong with his car.

I’d be cautious. From what I remember REVO had blown at least one B8 motor. Anyone please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. You’ve already paid APR and I assume you’ve sent logs? Have these logs shown your car to not be producing the boost, timing and bypass the older cars experience?

Before paying for another tune I’d consider making your own thread here outline all you have done and let APR help in an open forum. It worked for a stage 2 giac guy. Since AR is a much more adult site then AZ you’ll receive much better results.

Worst case you give APR an opportunity to work for you while making sure your car isn’t experiencing any mechanical issues before you give REVO an opportunity

I reviewed the first set of psu’s logs that awe took… No turbo mode or group by and some missing fields… IMO awe should have known how to take better logs but whatever… I believe more have been taken but weren’t shared with the op… Wonder why? Something to hide?

Hyden, the new revo tune looks better based on logs… I wouldn’t make the switch like I already mentioned apr or GIAC will resolve before revo, so you’re paying more for probably similar results… I guess will see if Ed makes the change…