RHD V6 Activa numbers go up by 1

citrov6 · Unread post by **citrov6** » 11 Aug 2009, 09:27

when they do the conversions do they use a v6 chassis or the small one. i don't know if activas also share the wider body of the v6

Sid_the_Squid · Unread post by **Sid_the_Squid** » 11 Aug 2009, 10:16

From what I understand by talking to B&L they take an Activa, whip out the old engine and gearbox, putting a pug 406 V6 lump with attached gearbox straight in. Which is why to do this swap they say you must have two cars, not one car with a spare engine.

Don't take this as absolute truth though I might be mistaken.

addo · Unread post by **addo** » 11 Aug 2009, 10:28

Just addressing a couple of different posters here - John (XMExclusive) is right about Hydractive ECUs being the same regardless of body style - checking by part number is an easy way to verify. Putting an XM Hydractive ECU in the Xantia, however, might be an interesting experiment!

On a Xantia estate the rear cylinder has a 40mm bore vs 30mm for the sedans IIRC. This, combined with the increased rear corner sphere pressures, creates a massive extra amount of initial hardness.

Activa bodies - they are regular sedan bodies; the rear subframe mainly differs in its equipment with bearing cradles for the relocated antiroll bar. The body's front inner "skeleton" is from memory basically the same for V6 and turbo fours; it has a little extra clearance in the engine bay, towards where regular models have the horns mounted.

V6s were all Hydractive, and thus have larger front struts and stronger strut tops from the start - modifying the nearside strut antiroll bar drop link bracket or replacing the strut with a genuine Activa V6 one, is the main issue here.

The BIG snag with an Activa conversion, is there's no way it can be done in an afternoon. Both subframes need dropping to allow fitment of the tubes and return lines. Engine out, would make it even more straightforward.

I would be highly surprised if a UK DIY'er with good skills couldn't pull it off (V6 Activa) for about £1K or less, and be done over four or five weekends.

DickieG · Unread post by **DickieG** » 11 Aug 2009, 11:29

addo wrote:Just addressing a couple of different posters here - John (XMExclusive) is right about Hydractive ECUs being the same regardless of body style - checking by part number is an easy way to verify. Putting an XM Hydractive ECU in the Xantia, however, might be an interesting experiment!

That's not entirely true on the basis that whilst Hydractive ECU's are the same between saloon and estate, series 1 ECU's and series 2 are not compatible due to the different diagnosis protocols used. In addition comparing part numbers is a waste of time because the ECU's are supplied blank from Citroën and programmed on the car via a Lexia.

The only way you can find out whether an ECU is from an XM or a Xantia is to plug it into a Lexia/Proxia/ELIT to read it, Vince can tell us all about that one because his car came with an XM ECU when I plugged in my ELIT at the DS rally!

citrov6 · Unread post by **citrov6** » 11 Aug 2009, 20:21

thanks addo, that would certainly be an interesting thing to follow. i think some clubs have that where the club as a whole work on a car project like this whenever they have time. an activa v6 would be a fun one. sorry thinking out loud

citrov6 · Unread post by **citrov6** » 11 Aug 2009, 20:27

V6Activa wrote:Hi Jim

Has anyone on the forum power chipped the PSA 194bhp V6? Venturi extracted a comfortable 300bhp from the engine.

Dominic

i think extracting this sort of power is not a problem, its expensive and you have to have a lot of gears to make use of it, needs more like the clio v6 setup.

for most of us we have the auto and we need the torque at the low end with gears 1-4 50mph, 90mph, 135mph, 150+mph... but with a 5 speed close box that would be a lot of fun on the track and autobahn

Sid_the_Squid · Unread post by **Sid_the_Squid** » 12 Aug 2009, 11:29

Doing a bit more research on this, seems the 4HP20 can take a max of 330nm of torque*, getting 300bhp from the V6 @6000rpm would put the peak torque at approx 355.63nm**..

Its even worse if its 300bhp at 5500..

Seems mild tuning is the only viable option on an automatic.
According to this page http://www.myweb.com.au/citroen/xantia_v6_engine.htm the engine makes its peak bhp at 5500rpm, based on this assumption, the most bhp you could hope to get from a V6 auto without destroying your box would be aprox 255.. still a very noticeable improvement, not sure if you can get those figs without forced induction?

*Source 4HP20 training manual

**Source http://www.dragtimes.com/horsepower-tor ... ate+Torque
and http://www.mr2ownersclub.com/converter.htm

citrov6 · Unread post by **citrov6** » 12 Aug 2009, 13:07

to achieve that sort of power it would be more like 7500rpm, don't think we'd get near 300bhp at 6000rpm without turbo's. power band would probably be 6000-7500rpm, it wouldn't be much fun on an auto box. don't know what sort of numbers we can achieve. your right it would be a bit of pointless effort on an autobox we'd be held back quite a lot

i'd like to try a rolling road though see what the xantia has now, what do they knock of 2-3% a year in performance? i forget but that seems a bit extreme. i'm sure mine will be putting out 180bhp at least even with wear and tear

XantiaMan · Unread post by **XantiaMan** » 12 Aug 2009, 13:10

Engines can often make more power than standard if well maintained.

Sid_the_Squid · Unread post by **Sid_the_Squid** » 12 Aug 2009, 13:28

I would have though if you maintain your engine it should not suffer from power drop off, I would imagine that involves replacing items which would not normally like injectors or coil packs which would of course wear slightly still being within tolerances but not optimum.

Each car is of course slightly different, so I guess power figures will vary a little between cars even at standard.

The 194bhp is at the flywheel right? Sadly on our autos the box will sap a whole load of that, I think I read its about 15% on a manual box, so suspect an auto to sap a whole lot more.

I agree a couple of Dyno runs would be interesting.

citrov6 · Unread post by **citrov6** » 12 Aug 2009, 13:51

yes, i haven't been to one before, looks interesting though. for now, until i read more about arranging rolling road sessions, i think i am going to do santa pod that might be a good indication of what the cars do. there are some 1/4 mile times printed with the car data IIRC

ACTIVE8 · Unread post by **ACTIVE8** » 12 Aug 2009, 20:29

Sid_the_Squid wrote:From what I understand by talking to B&L they take an Activa, whip out the old engine and gearbox, putting a pug 406 V6 lump with attached gearbox straight in. Which is why to do this swap they say you must have two cars, not one car with a spare engine.

Don't take this as absolute truth though I might be mistaken.

That is apparently the way it's done!

ACTIVE8 · Unread post by **ACTIVE8** » 12 Aug 2009, 20:52

V6Activa wrote:Bonjour

I thought that forum members may like to know that there is now a 4th rhd V6 Activa...

BL Autos have just built the car for one of their own team.

There is also IMHO another of their Xantia conversions worthy of note. A 2.0 Turbo estate was converted a few years back to manual V6 Exclusive. I had the privilege of owning that car for a year or so. The current owner has made a number of mods to the car, the latest and for me the most interesting, is a higher 5th gear ratio giving much lower revs than previously.

Theoretically, what was previously 90mph in 5th would now be 110mph in 5th at the same revs, but of course one would have to go to Germany and find a derestricted autobahn to confirm this... However the motivation for this change was to improve fuel economy at UK mway speeds

Pleased to hear there are more about!

citrov6 · Unread post by **citrov6** » 13 Aug 2009, 14:10

V6Activa wrote:
Has anyone on the forum power chipped the PSA 194bhp V6?

i was thinking about this and actually i don't know anyone who has. i went a step further and emailed a company selling OBDII products and they say there is no product available for our cars.

which is quite odd, as i see on quite a lot of forums people are talking about kwp2000 and with software they are able to adjust parameters on their own car.

v6's run a bosch 7.0(i think) ecu which is quite common, all vag use them.

though i must say when i read data with china made lexia the ecu seems to compensate for whatever your doing. putting in tesco 99 puts the timing advance up lots automatically.

though the duty cycle of the injectors seem to have a lot more in them with the right cams they could be put to work if the correct software is known.

unfortunately software is not my strong point or i would look into

Unread post by **CitroJim** » 14 Aug 2009, 07:55

citrov6 wrote: which is quite odd, as i see on quite a lot of forums people are talking about kwp2000 and with software they are able to adjust parameters on their own car.

v6's run a bosch 7.0(i think) ecu which is quite common, all vag use them.

Although it's a Bosch MP7.0, once again being Citroen/Peugeot, it runs it's own unique protocol when communicating with the diagnostic socket which is incompatible with any known ELM-based OBDII reader. We're back to using a Lexia or a Lexia to read the thing. Unfortunately, the Lexia offers no scope for looking at the maps inside the ECU or changing them

It would need a pretty switched-on person to do this, firstly to decode the communications protocols used and then to work out what to modify once access to the ECU is achieved.

If you're really serious about this, I reckon it would be best to abandon the stock ECU and look at something like a Megasquirt although I'm not sure they are intended to fuel and fire a V6..

Could be interesting though.

It could be that the majority think the ES9J4 is plenty powerful enough as it is and as Sid points out, the autobox is the limiting factor.

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RHD V6 Activa numbers go up by 1

Re: RHD V6 Activa numbers go up by 1