Hi everybody, registering from the Netherlands here.
My name is Tijn, 27yrs old and I have been working on VW vans for the last 5 years or so. My first one was a '82 2.0 CU aircooled flat 4, which was ok but needed a lot of maintainance. I drove the bus for about 70.000kms and then I bought my second bus. Same model but one year older with the same engine but this one was defective. I sold the engine and bought a 1994 2.0 8v from a Golf MK3 which I converted into the van (accompanied by some other improvements like welding the body, new suspension and 4x disk brake conversion, spraypainting, poptop etc etc).
The headlights I designed myself and are made from clear glass headlights off a golf MK2, universal H1 HID projectors with 6000k Xenon and the rings off a BMW x5. Another project I am working on right now is this:
An upgrade for my upgraded brakes
But that has nothing to do with ecu's and tuning so here is my story:
The 2.0 was running fine, but I was looking for the extra bump. I think it is around 120-125hp with the current software, stock 115. I was building a new 2.0 8v, with a different camshaft and stainless exhaust manifold but then I stumbeled over a 1.8t AEB engine for a few euros
Bought it, and now it is waiting in my garage for the next level conversion. I am always into learning and understanding the way my engines work, so this is why I registered here: I like to read about tuning (especially turbo'd engines) and think it is cool to run personal tunes on stock ecu systems. The only reason why I would buy a standalone system is because my primary fuel is LPG and the timing and fueling could be adressed on 2 levels. But first I would like to learn about my M3.8 (?) ecu that is with the AEB.
I registered on the chiptuners.org forum and did some posts overthere, but there is not many replies and it feels that forum is flooded with people registering with the message "I want to learn chiptuning, to tune my own car not for professional give me all the info please" and the more serious people just not responding anymore
Ok about the engine:
stock turbo, stock fueling, double sidemount IC (due to engine in the back)
I am building a full 3" stainless turbo back exhaust without a catalytic converter.
I have replaced the flywheel for a solid mass with new 228mm sachs clutch.
I have made an adapterplate to fit the gearbox flipped upside down to the engine to have 5 gears to the front and 1 rear in my van (engine is behind gearbox) and this is already finished.
The oil filter support is swapped for a straight one, now clearing the adaptor plate
I bought one chip off ebay
to test it (resocket in ecu, seller promised 196hp/279Nm @ 1.3bar peak) (this triggered a few replies in chiptuners.org though haha) but I am currently trying to read the files to see what the tuner has changed. I do not have a plc44 reader yet, so I am only just looking in the ori files I found of chiptuners. My main problem is understanding the values (or axis, I see the numbers but dont know if were talking RPM, load, temp, Inj times etc), so that is what I will be trying to find on this forum first. When I have my ECU socketed it will be at least easy to swap chips during tests.
Goals are around 200CHP on stock turbo, if I get used to that I am interested in porting the turbo and building my own hybrid. Final goal for this build lies around 250WHP.
Well thats about it, hope I can learn some 100110011000100101011100110 here