02-18-2011, 10:38 PM
I first want to stop and thank durtkillon for volunteering his car for the tuning, and for stepping up and risking the damage. It took some guts to do it. He installed his kit and towed the car all the way from New Mexico to here for the tuning. We had a great time and successfully accomplished our tasks.
The Tiptronic tuning is done!
I learned a lot about the Tiptronic in this process. It is a whole lot smarter than we generally give it credit for being. People slag the Tip al the time, but I have to tell you that I am now thoroughly impressed. It took us 2 days, and there was a lot of tuning that had to be done, even though we had the programming for the 6 speed kit. The Tiptronic needs different things in tuning, and it took a while to work all of that out.
That being said, I suspected that the Tip would benefit from the supercharger, and I was right. It really wakes up. It behaves like a completely different car. This is not unexpected, as the 6 speed did much the same thing when the supercharger was added, but in the tip, the effect seems to be magnified.
The transmission behaves very well, and shifts smoothly and solidly. It drops down nicely when asked, and performs quite well. The bottom line is that the car now feels like a big V6 or small V8 in there. No shocker since it has that much torque. In manual mode it is a real animal.
A word of caution, you absolutely need to have a transmission in good running condition, fluid recently changed, and a fresh flex dampener. The increased loads the supercharger adds will destroy a weak or poorly serviced transmission.
You will need to relearn how to drive the car. Basically the transmission computer thinks you are driving harder and does a couple ofthings.
Remember that the Tiptronic is adaptive, and responds based on how you drive. Well, with all the extra power and acceleration, it thinks you are driving in a manner that dictates a higher program level. It jumps you up into the next program or two right away. This is a good thing.
The other thing that happens is that the Tiptronic itself has built in protections that prevent you from exceeding the limitations of the transmission. This is also a good thing. What this means is that you cannot get to redline in a free spin, and will find it hard to get there at all. In fact, the transmission computer gets into the game and limits you pretty early. It does this to prevent over running the transmission, and to keep the clutches and such intact.
This is not all that different for maximum acceleration achievement than stock. If you look at the stock acceleration graph, you will see that they were shifting at about 5600 from 1[sup]st[/sup] gear. The difference is that because the acceleration is so much better in 2[sup]nd [/sup]that the transmission applies the same protections there as well. We have not been able to find a road where we could go fast enough to see if it did it in 3[sup]rd[/sup] or not.
Where this becomes a problem is that there is so much power that you can create a situation where it drops down into 1[sup]st[/sup] gear, and revs right straight to the fuel cutout. This can be a bit disconcerting at first. You will quickly learn how to drive around it, but it will scare you the first time it happens. Basically you will likely start using the Tip mode more, so as to control that. This is also a good thing.
There is a possibility you could creep up on redline if you accelerated slowly enough, but we did not test this, as obviously if the computer is smart enough to limit things so as to prevent damage, we were not going to try to get around it, as bad things were certain to happen.
So, the effective redline is just below 6k rpm. The good news is that the gearing in the Tip is such that we are pretty sure that once you get used to the idea that the torque curve all starts 1500 rpm lower than it did before, and gives you so much more beyond what you had, that you will never hit that point anyway. That's right, you now have the same amount of torque that you once had at the stock peak of 4200, but now down around 2700, and it just keeps going up all the way to 4600.
In the end, you will find yourself driving in taller gearsthan before, and at lower rpms.
Here are some shots for fun.
durtkillon on his knees preparing the car for tuning:
sensor in place and all set:
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]
after we were done:
and the piece de resistance:
The Tiptronic tuning is done!
I learned a lot about the Tiptronic in this process. It is a whole lot smarter than we generally give it credit for being. People slag the Tip al the time, but I have to tell you that I am now thoroughly impressed. It took us 2 days, and there was a lot of tuning that had to be done, even though we had the programming for the 6 speed kit. The Tiptronic needs different things in tuning, and it took a while to work all of that out.
That being said, I suspected that the Tip would benefit from the supercharger, and I was right. It really wakes up. It behaves like a completely different car. This is not unexpected, as the 6 speed did much the same thing when the supercharger was added, but in the tip, the effect seems to be magnified.
The transmission behaves very well, and shifts smoothly and solidly. It drops down nicely when asked, and performs quite well. The bottom line is that the car now feels like a big V6 or small V8 in there. No shocker since it has that much torque. In manual mode it is a real animal.
A word of caution, you absolutely need to have a transmission in good running condition, fluid recently changed, and a fresh flex dampener. The increased loads the supercharger adds will destroy a weak or poorly serviced transmission.
You will need to relearn how to drive the car. Basically the transmission computer thinks you are driving harder and does a couple ofthings.
Remember that the Tiptronic is adaptive, and responds based on how you drive. Well, with all the extra power and acceleration, it thinks you are driving in a manner that dictates a higher program level. It jumps you up into the next program or two right away. This is a good thing.
The other thing that happens is that the Tiptronic itself has built in protections that prevent you from exceeding the limitations of the transmission. This is also a good thing. What this means is that you cannot get to redline in a free spin, and will find it hard to get there at all. In fact, the transmission computer gets into the game and limits you pretty early. It does this to prevent over running the transmission, and to keep the clutches and such intact.
This is not all that different for maximum acceleration achievement than stock. If you look at the stock acceleration graph, you will see that they were shifting at about 5600 from 1[sup]st[/sup] gear. The difference is that because the acceleration is so much better in 2[sup]nd [/sup]that the transmission applies the same protections there as well. We have not been able to find a road where we could go fast enough to see if it did it in 3[sup]rd[/sup] or not.
Where this becomes a problem is that there is so much power that you can create a situation where it drops down into 1[sup]st[/sup] gear, and revs right straight to the fuel cutout. This can be a bit disconcerting at first. You will quickly learn how to drive around it, but it will scare you the first time it happens. Basically you will likely start using the Tip mode more, so as to control that. This is also a good thing.
There is a possibility you could creep up on redline if you accelerated slowly enough, but we did not test this, as obviously if the computer is smart enough to limit things so as to prevent damage, we were not going to try to get around it, as bad things were certain to happen.
So, the effective redline is just below 6k rpm. The good news is that the gearing in the Tip is such that we are pretty sure that once you get used to the idea that the torque curve all starts 1500 rpm lower than it did before, and gives you so much more beyond what you had, that you will never hit that point anyway. That's right, you now have the same amount of torque that you once had at the stock peak of 4200, but now down around 2700, and it just keeps going up all the way to 4600.
In the end, you will find yourself driving in taller gearsthan before, and at lower rpms.
Here are some shots for fun.
durtkillon on his knees preparing the car for tuning:
sensor in place and all set:
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]
after we were done:
and the piece de resistance:
94 Midnight Metallic Blue Cab Porsche 968 w/deviating cashmere/black interior and WAY too many mods to list - thanks to eric for creating www.968forums.com
"It isn't nearly as expensive to do it right as it is to do it wrong."
(This post was last modified: 02-18-2011, 11:01 PM by flash.)
