C5 2009 1.6HDi Race Chip

[evio101]

Hi all,
My first new topic on here but hopefully one that people might have experience with. I have had my C5 for 12 months having moved from an IS250. Love the car, had the drivers window regulator fail and warantee replaced but overall a superb motor. So good infact I have invested in a couple of areas, new tyres and brakes all round (ebc and falken) and have bought a race chip to give the engine a bit more oomph. When I ordered the chip the manufacturer warned me that it was very difficult to get to the CR electronics interface on this engine and they could provide fitting at a reasonable fee. The cynic in me see this as a link sell, however before I confirm the order I was hoping someone had tried a similar procedure or worked on the same area of the engine. Without the instructions I'm not sure which harness they want to link into so a bit of advice on that would be good too. The chip is from racechips.de.

Thanks in advance

Gareth

[SaabC5]

Gareth when you say "chip" do you mean an actual circuitboard chip or a tuning box with associated wiring loom?

[Citroenmad]

I would not bother with a chip, a custom remap is what you want. Generic remaps are ok but I would only get a custom one, if your trying for more performance you might as well do it properly.

[evio101]

I guess tuning box is the better description, it's an inline wiring loom. Took a punt and bought it anyway, was a 6/10 on difficulty to fit (i.e. 6 out of 10 scraped knuckles) had to remove airbox assembly so I could get to the end of the CR which is at the bottom of the right hand side of the engine. Result is staggering, fitted it this afternoon and took it out for a spin, over 20 miles economy is up around 10% and performance noticeably better, 100mph in 4th with more to go. I'd say it's around 140 BHP with the K&N filter (based on experience of owning a range of motors from 80 -200 hp). Agreed a full ECU remap would have wrung more out of the engine but I wasn't looking for total performance, just a bit more oomph which this has certainly done and it's about £400 cheaper . Thanks for the input.

[Citroenmad]

A good result then!

You might well have something near a 30bhp increase overstandard, most tuning boxes say something like 15-25bhp increase, with a K&N, you might have gained a couple perhaps. I bet it does go a good bit better

You can get custom remaps from around £300, mor eif you go to somewhere with a rolling road and get a fully tuned custom map. The ones I mentioned are based upon the cars ECU data, the date is taken off, analysed and programmed to match that data. They can program it to be a full performance remap or a mixture of performance, economy and longevity. I think this is the route ill be going for my C5 before long.