T reg 90bhp Passat ,100k,flat as a f***!

[Huffy]

Could I first say as a new contributer on here,its nice of you to have me!
About 18 mths ago,I bought a very tidy 90 hp Passat off a friend who had the car as a reps tool.He never "raced and rallied" it,and we thought when it had no guts on overtaking ,that perhaps it had been doddled along and nedded a good clear out ! Having had a fair few occasions to do that, it is still as flat as a fart! It was always maintained at a VW dealer and was coming up 100,000 when we had it,its 107,000 now.
Its very economical I think,does not smoke ,pulls well in 4th and fifth considering,but is not a car for getting on,as in overtaking ,gutless as hell in 2nd and 3rd!
Had considered chipping it,but not sure how,is it a possibility? or could there be another way of making her pick her feetup? Whatever the answer ,it needs to be tempered with cost to mind ,as she is not worth an awful lot,but I,d love to spice her up for a small cost!(wouldn,t we all!) Cheers all.

[adamss24]

What car you used to drive before ? A well running passat should pull right and still average 50-60 MPG. Horsepower means a higher top speed but its the torque that maters ! Chips work well and they are quite dear. Go for well established vendors PSi Motorsport, STEINBAUER, Superchips, nearly every good tuner will have a good selection. Expect between 25-30 Bhp and 40-50 Nm of torque. Remaps works nearly the same but they not transferable ! That will make a huge difference to the way you will drive. I wanna see the grin on your face ! I drive a 1998 a4 2.5 tdi quattro 6 speed and i dont get tired to drive. I always find miself taking the longest route home.

[Huffy]

Thanks Adam, Looks like a chip might be the thing,Dont suppose they are interchangeable??,I live v close to a large car breakers you see,and anything might be possible,but I realise that it might be beyond the realm of a do it yourself person.Perhaps the car neads a visit to the dealers to establish if anything else might be wrong.Cheers

[tjompen1968]

I would go to a dealer and try the same car, pretending I´m a buyer, and see if that car run better or the same...

Before buying my 1.8T i tried two from a dealer to feel how they should feel, then when trying the cars i was interested in I knew what to expect and could discard three of them before I found the one I bought.

[adamss24]

Actually they are but different BOSCH VE Injection Pumps had different conectors( some rounds ,some oval, some with 8pins and some with 10 !) so unless you are a good car electrician i would not adwise you to atempt modify or adapt the wiring as its easy to fry the ECU by that ! But if you find one that has identical conectors with yours it will be just plug and play ! If you shop on ebay you could buy a cheap OBD 2 leed+interface for 15-30 pounds and if you have a old laptop with a serial port and download the shareware version of Vag-Com you will have a scaning device just like the local garage. Then you could see if they are any fault codes in the memory so we cold talk about.

[Huffy]

Nice one Tompen, and thats a good idea adam,a friend of a friend has either the proper thing or one like you suggest(Laptop) and he is going to come around and try it. However ,getting back to the difference between the 90bhp,110 or is it 115??,and the 130 bhp models ,is it basically the same engine with ecu differnces,or are the pumps fuelled differently? Perhaps I,ll trawl the posts for more info,I expect you have all written the same before in one way or tother!!

[adamss24]

Bassically engines fitted with bigger turbos had a lower cylinder pressure to prevent detonation. Also there were few engines that had a higher pressure injection pump and some even had a bigger plunger(cars fitted with automatic gearboxes) to be able to deliver higher pressure. Mild bhp increases can be expected with just replacing the nozzles from a bigger model(2.5 tdi transporter van or 2.5 tdi v6) but if the turbo cannot hold boost it will just smoke more. If you do an engine remap that takes all the changes you made to the engine then you could expect up to 40-50 bhp increase and that is a minimum as diesel are easyer to tune than the equivalent petrol engines.

[Huffy]

Ahh, Food for thought,to answer your question above ,about what was I used to driving before,nothing more exciting than a 1.9 turbo intercooler Peugeot 306,but that was a flying machine compared to the Passat,it had loads of go in 2nd and 3rd,and you,d not hesitate to overtake,but the Vw is a down bank overtaking car with loads of clear visibility in front,or else its forget it. I have a laptop thats doing nothing much,so I,ve taken your advice,and bought a lead -with serial port?? now I wondered wether the software is XP compatible -springs to mind that perhaps it runs on 98??No problem really ,but it,ll be very interesting to try it all out,and to see how easy it is to evaluate certain things-since my mate who services the passat cant reset the service indicator on the speedo! Many thanks.

[Huffy]

Had my neighbour come around with his laptop and a full version of Vag -com.It came up with a fault code straight away-engine start immobiliser fault,but that seems strange,as the car was running at the time. Anyway ,we removed the mass air flow plug and immediately noticed a difference! He has a second hand one of the right number possibly,so we will see what develops!

[loz683]

Hi Huffy are we talking about 90bhp Tdi here? if so read my thread titled 90bhp Bora no power i htink you might find the advice useful.