ECU remap advice please

[TurboBen]

After owning my S3 for a year now, I couldn't hold off the mods any longer. Got some great deals in the Black Friday sales, and now I'm ready for an ECU remap.

I'm not sure which way to go though. I have the 25% discount voucher from Revo, but my local dealer doesn't have a rolling road, which puts me off. I'm also wanting a DSG tune, and Revo's is not ready yet, though I've been told it will be soon.

APR are another option, but it's much more expensive. They do have the DSG tune released though.

I'm also considering a custom remap. I contacted Rick at Unicorn, and he said that a custom map could be made to remove the overrun cut off, to get the pops and crackles similar to the RS3 and AMG. He didn't seem keen on the idea though. He said the cat will get hot and it won't sound the same because of the exhaust design. I'd really like to give it a try, but Rick has not responded to any further querys since then.

Can anyone recommend another tuner that could do a custom remap? Preferably North East, but I'm prepared to travel to get it done.

 

[desertstorm]

Rick is your best bet for a really quick reliable car, He will get the most out of the engine set up and it will be reliable.
Rick knows what he is doing and if he says it's not a good idea then you can be sure it's not. He doesn't want you having to replace the cat in a few months time when it's ******. Any time you get an amount of unburnt fuel in the cat the temperatures increase rapidly and this causes the rare metals in the catalytic convertor to be vapourised, go a bit further you can get meltdown of the ceramic substrate.
The last thing Rick wants is an unhappy customer with a damaged engine potentially bad mouthing him because the engine was damaged due to the tune he put on it.
http://www.vipermotorsports.com/abo...what-causes-catalytic-converters-to-fail.aspx
Other tuners may not be so fussy and they will take your money and give you a car that farts and pops. It probably won't be as nice to drive and as powerful as a car tuned by RIck and it won't be as reliable either.

 

[SJ43]

I echo the above comments. I had my car tuned by Rik and asked him the same question and he advised against it, I still thoroughly recommend you stick with him and I'm pretty certain he can do your dsg map too as he's done them on Golf 7R's.
He also has a dyno that gives more realistic readings than many dyno's around the UK. My car ran 210bhp on a dyno at a local tuner to me that was apparently 'really accurate' and often tune a lot of high end cars but when I got my car mapped at Unicorn it was actually 192bhp.

 

[aussieR]

From reading numerous reviews i would say Rick is your best bet. Gets great results, custom tune, does a DSG tune combo only $200 more I believe so almost works out same price as APR ecu tune.

I think many get the TT inlet and stage 1 tune getting 375hp and over 400lbs on his (accurate) dyno.