2000 miles in..

B

benppl

Registered User
Joined
Nov 24, 2011
Messages
54
Reaction score
1
Points
6
Location
NULL
Just been to demon tweaks! Bought a bluefin remap and handheld.

Iirc should be 310+ bhp and 310 lbft would of gone Revo but there is a large price difference. I'm guessing the unit doesn't make those figures? Lol.

Revo is £599 plus £99 for the handheld
Bluefin was £364 inc handheld

I wanted a handheld for dealer visits and convenience, would of had to travel to the Revo dealer each time If the car was going for a service etc unless I spent the extra £100 for the unit.

I know Revo is a 'better map' and returns a few more horses but with £336 change in my pocket I couldn't care less tbh. I also like the warranty aspect of bluefin.

Reading the instructions I need to send my map off to bluefin and they send me a file back. They are off until Tuesday though which is a bit of a PITA!

Car is a 2011 S3 S-Tronic BE in ibis (not that the colour effects it ha)
 
Hate to tell you this but Revo is now £450 with a free SPS switch..
 
Last edited:
I know, seen that today!

Still £120 cheaper, having just bought the car and moved house and the mrs mulberry bag at Xmas... Cash is a bit tight ATM!
 
benppl said:
Readin the instructions I need to send my map off to bluefin and they send me a file back. They are off until Tuesday though which is a bit of a PITA!
Click to expand...

As soon as you connect to superchips/bluefin and upload your car's map you will receive your remap back straight away. I did mine at almost midnight and it took literally seconds to get my remap back.

When chatting to superchips the guy told me they use an auto responder which recognises your car by the map you upload and then it sends back the correct remap for your car straight away.
 
mulberry bag is pain in the wallet none of us need feel your pain dude lol
 
I fitted one about 3 weeks ago and it did the business mainly in the mid range. I also got instant response back so it must be automated as said above.
 
benppl said:
I know, seen that today!

Still £120 cheaper, having just bought the car and moved house and the mrs mulberry bag at Xmas... Cash is a bit tight ATM!
Click to expand...

should have gone to Waitrose mate...I got a bag for life for a £1 last year and its still going strong :)
 
Right.

So bluefin sent the map back within minutes... not had a chance to upload it until today...

What a flop! Its actually slower than before? Laggy and the gearbox hates it! Its also now making a weird noise on full chat..like a groaning/squeaking noise at about 4k?

FML
 
Vid one


vid two


can you guess which one is bluefin?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
they are working now lol

id say second was bluefin coz of the massive rev drop when you used launch control......

i really am tempted by an s3 now.

is the lap timer etc standard by way?
 
Last edited:
Yea lap timer standard, gutted with the bluefin :(
 
have you tried it more as a rolling in second gear then flooring it thus allowing boost/torque to peak to get a more real world feel rather than the traffic light gp.
 
benppl said:
Right.

So bluefin sent the map back within minutes... not had a chance to upload it until today...

What a flop! Its actually slower than before? Laggy and the gearbox hates it! Its also now making a weird noise on full chat..like a groaning/squeaking noise at about 4k?

FML
Click to expand...

Doesn't sound good mate. There's no way your car should be slower though. No noticeable difference maybe, but slower... nope.
Are you feeling any hestitations??

With regard to your box not liking it... did you select 'auto' when you filled in your car details on the bluefin PC software?? I'm not sure if the remap for manual and dsg are slightly different but when I spoke to superchips they did tell me to make sure I select 'auto' as my car is dsg.
Also, during the same conversation I enquired about their map for MY11 S3's as my boss is interested in getting one. The guy said their remaps work perfectly well on newer S3s.

Try switching back to stock and then switch back to the remap. And also try a battery disconnect for 20 mins to clear out all of the old stock stored values.
 
Yeah I selected the Auto selection from the drop down box.

Maybe slower is the wrong wording, it just feels laggy and handwork to use with the box.

Ill try remove and re flash it now
 
Looking at your vids it appears to me that Vid one (no. 2) is slightly quicker to 60, but there isn't a lot in it. To be honest I don't think the launch control is a good way of comparing the two - 0-60 times from a stage 1 map will improve by 3 or 4 tenths at most, and with other factors involved the change may not necessarily be noticeable. I've found that the improvement comes in the mid-range.

Regarding the auto gear changes, the only (minor) side effect I've noticed since getting the Bluefin is that sometimes there is a more of a "blip" on gear changes, so the revs don't go up quite as smoothly as before - it definitely hasn't introduced any lag on mine though. I only notice this effect when in full auto, and as I mainly drive in manual mode it doesn't bother me.

Might be worth giving it a couple of days and then go back to standard to compare?
 
sparky72 said:
Regarding the auto gear changes, the only (minor) side effect I've noticed since getting the Bluefin is that sometimes there is a more of a "blip" on gear changes, so the revs don't go up quite as smoothly as before
Click to expand...

Yep, I notice this occasionally too, but only when accelerating hard.
 
A generic map is not really going to be quicker until its been set up on the Rolling road or via a SPS switch TBH. Its ****** criminal they sell these things like this. If you go for REVO it will be set up by the installer and checked with logs to make sure its suits your engine. Some will always be lucky but the whole point of these maps is to fine tune the engine over and above the factory type generic map and fitting another generic map is really a shot in the dark.
 
Obviously I'm going to sit on the following side of the fence, being a happy bluefin owner, but trying not to be biased....

To say installing a generic type remap is a shot in the dark, selling them is criminal and that its not going to be any quicker is misleading and untrue in lots and lots of (most?) cases.
1000s of people install these maps and are totally happy with them, even if they don't always produce the results that a bespoke or specifically tweaked map will produce.

Cars come from factory with a generic map even though identical engines run slightly differently, so installing an 'improved' generic map that has been tested and designed around the same engines is, on the whole, going to give good results.
And to be honest, all stage 1 remaps are all pretty much "generic" anyway.

REVO, even though installed and checked using logs etc, frequently still have problems, so even if the initial gains are 'better' than generic remaps, something still isn't right with them because many people still have problems.
Also note that bluefin/superchips do give you the option of visiting them and having them adjust/tailor the map to your car.

So, yes the OP isn't getting what he expected from bluefin, but to purely put it down to it being a generic remap is, in my opinion, a bit of a generalisation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sparky72
Bluefin on my TDI was a piece of crap, car wasnt behaving right loosing revs on 1 gear as above movie shows and I could not justify money for the extra power you get. Felt not much faster at all tbh until I decided to deleted DPF and put in JBS map then she flied.

Each to their own but I wouldnt recommend Bluefin as a good remap, there is much more better tuners out there sorry!
 
Ads...it was gone midnight and a couple of bottles of wine later mate :)

I wrote quite a long piece on this a week or so back and the expectations of the Plug and Play age..
People expect it to work out of the box but any tuner or performance specialist will tell you they will not even consider fitting a map unless they run a fault diagnosis's first....and again after its fitted. No point in trying to map a car with an underlying fault that may well not be obvious to the owner. It is only my opinion but blue fin do not know if you drive predominately in Italy like Nige and use lower octane fuel, they don't know if you have a Cat back or a CAI or a large bore down pipe and for that reason its difficult to see how they can send you anything but a generic map.

This is what i wrote
I think what we are seeing here is something that was matter of fact 20 years ago but in these days of plug and play still leaves people baffled. All engines are different. sometimes very different. Its not unusual for a factory fresh engines to differ as much as 10% in power out put. Manufacturers spend a small fortune developing generic parts that are a compromise that allow for variation in stock engine output, the map is a great example. The map has to work at high and low altitude with different air pressures, with poor fuel or in 40c temps or in -20 as well. On top of that it has to allow the engine to pass emition tests and return the absolute best MPG it can at the same time. Air filters have to flow air in a mountain valley in Switzerland or in a sand storm in Saudi and so on. Each part rely s on the varying info or correct operation of the other parts around it in any conditions and that is the compromise the tuners try to over come to get more from the engine. Its fine tuning for the prevailing conditions.
The idea that small after market tuning houses can then produce generic parts at a fraction of the cost of original parts that simply bolt on and do a better job needs to be qualified because these parts remit is much tighter and therefore need to be matched to the individual engines in order to do their job as their flexibility has been "tuned out" in order to make them more efficient and thus do their job better..
Is this teaching people to suck eggs ? or even making sense :)
The plug and play comparison is quite good i think. You can buy an upgrade for your computer, say a new DVD drive. You install it and it works under the generic map but to get the best you need to fine tune it with a new driver. You can get several more upgrades and they work the same. Then you buy a new operating system and suddenly all you up grades need new drivers. All the parts need to fine tuned to each other again to work better than the generic plug and play of the mother board will allow.
The car is the same and while after market manufacturers like to keep the idea that their products will simply bolt on and do a better job than the original at a fraction of the cost, the truth is you may be lucky but chances are you may not. Rolling roads are not installed at tens of thousands of pounds for the local nova boys to have Saturday morning shoot outs, they are essential to record how, many different add ons are interacting with each other. Back pressures from after-market exhaust working against increased airflow from CAI's and Increased boost placing heavier loads across plugs, burn time in cylinders altered by different advance curves on ignition and a hundred other parameters that need to match in order to get optimum performance from each part.
To make matters worse people then pick and choose what parts to change rather than sticking to a tried and tested route. So one guy has a cat back non res and the next has a full decat res system..the next has a large bore down pipe as well and all three expect their parts to work out the box and give huge improvements.
My advice to anyone who wants to go tuning is speak to an expert who really knows their stuff. Follow a well trodden route if finance is not unlimited. Make sure each part has its "driver" installed but dont then forget about it. Reckon on the next part effecting the first part and resetting that again as well and so on. eventually get the whole package set up on a dyno and as S3alex says get data logs for the engine so you can see exactly how each part is interacting with the next.
Performance parts are made to have much finer parameters to work under. They get performance by focusing their operation/efficiency and thus they do not have the flexibility of generic parts hence the need to fine tune each part to its job.
As someone who is older and is old school when it comes to engine tuning it makes me a little cross that manufacturers sell these parts as "bolt on power" and even give forecasts of exactly how much you will gain !! which is nonsense in its self !! It also anoyes me how many people there are like Cheese who are left to work it all out by themselves because the after market manufacturers forgot to mention that their parts would need to be professionally set up, maybe many times as more and more parts are added.

As i said..its just a personal opinion and i am often wrong :)
 
Good post paddy. It does relate more to more in-depth and advanced tuning though, rather than a simple stage 1.
I bet even the stage 1 revo boys are in and out in half an hour with no mention of sahara deserts or anything! ;)
 
Offer must have finish at new year..was defo there on new years eve :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Kontraband
S3 problems 2200 miles in!
Replies
36
Views
3K
Kontraband
Kontraband
Aspen
549 miles in and...............
Replies
12
Views
2K
Aspen
Aspen
380BHPS4
Sachs uprated clutch fitted problems after just 2000 miles
Replies
15
Views
1K
380BHPS4
380BHPS4
C
Head gasket gone twice in 4000 miles!
Replies
0
Views
550
Carly
C
H
3 Steering Racks in under 9K miles
Replies
5
Views
955
bacardi
B
Top
Back