Re: 406 Coupe performance tweaks

As you can see I'm pretty nieve , any help will be gratefully

> received. >

Sell it and get a 3.0 V6.

-- Dan

Reply to
Dan405
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From what I understand and been told... FSE Power Boost Valves work off the pressure of your petrol tank so the more petrol u have in your tank the better it is. I was going to get one of these for my 306 but was told that i have to drive around with a full tank all the darn time (weight).

Air intake sensor...never heard of this, but you could get a forced air induction filter which are quite costly. The Viper kits cost about £220 and are quite a bit more than a performance air filter at about £80. You do however expect about 10bhp increase from what i read but im sceptical.

You could chip your car cos 2 litre cars take that quite well, along with other things like bigger exhausts and fast road cams, but then you are beginning to get into real modding which means you have to know what you are doing and your emissions will suffer unless you get a chip and get your car remapped so that it passes the MOT (but only required if you put new cams in your car, not required with exhausts and filters).

Im going to try and get an engine transplant in mine cos its easier than modding mine into submission. As others say, sell it and get a

3L V6 if youre that bothered.

Scott

Reply to
scott

FSE power boost valve is a replacement fuel pressure regulator, nothing at all to do with fuel level. They claim 1.7:1 rising rate, but when I've tested them they are really 1:1. It seems the main claim is quicker response of the fuel pressure to demand (ie going wide open throttle), but I am not convinced they do anything significant apart from maybe transient response. I only use one on a modified (double factory output) turbo engine to raise the fuel pressure along with larger injectors and because the standard regulator can be overwhelmed by a high flow fuel pump.

Modifications to temperature sensors are crude devices which have no place in serious modification with a modern ECU. I won't bore you with why.

The 3L V6 is an average performer in a heavy car like the 406. 60 is about 7 seconds, 100 just over 19, top end about 145ish, there is a nice noise over

5000 RPM, and a good push at 4000 RPM. The whole power delivery falls flat on its face much after 5500 RPM. It is not very economical considering the average performance for the size of engine. Plus the extra nose weight does encourage more understeer.

If you go for mad cams you will lose idle quality and bottom end driveability, and it still won't be that quick.

Reply to
John Banks

I told you i'm very nieve, please tell me why.

I read the ad at

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( ps it takes ages to load the page ( flash )) and for such a little amount a performance of any bhp is welcome. I guess that the ' componant ' is just a resistor which sends a figure back to the ECU. Surely this cannot damage any thing . DOES this extra sparking that supercarmod mention damage the car or shorten the life of any engine part?.

I'm going to have a superchip installed next week, and put in some K & N filters

, Apparently the 406 cannot fit induction kits, Is that correct ????

but I'm toying with the Inlet AIr Temperature mod. Please tell me if it will damage any part of the engine.

I dont expect a supercharged car after such small mods but I feel that I have to do something to tide me over until I buy maybe a V6 next year

... Tony

Reply to
Tony

I'm used to a car with 356 BHP/ton but it is too focussed for a high mileage daily driver, so the Pug V6 saloon as my daily run about always feels flat, although mine is only the old 194 BHP version - the power has peaked at 5500 RPM I am afraid - pointless revving it out to 6500 RPM, but also feels torqueless when you change into the next gear. A chipped modern 6 cylinder diesel feels more potent and does far better economy, plus they actually hold their value ;) When I bought the V6 I was looking for the 136 BHP HDi but they were difficult to find and too expensive. FWIW, I far prefer the handling of the ST24, but they were also too expensive when I bought this. Ride is firmer, but steering feel and brakes are on another planet, but they are less accelerative.

Economy compared to other c.200 BHP sixes is poor - I average 25 mpg, a 540 (4.4 V8 330+lbft) will do the same on the same route with an autobox! I'll make the mpg sacrifice for the performance car, but for the 406 it does drink the stuff for its performance IMHO. The brakes and the steering feel are atrocious (yes I've done the alignment, changed the discs, pads and fluid). The ride quality is great even on 16s (std 15s on the old ones). Noise insulation is poor to average for this class of car when you consider the new price. The handling is indeed predictable, but the chassis doesn't play like a 106 or a 306 on the throttle, so the understeer is just a squealy disappointment. In the dry though if you accept the limitations it can be fun, in the wet it is a scrabbly piece of nonsense.

It is long in the tooth, but cheap motoring after all the depreciation.

Maybe the later models are in a different league?

Back to the thread though, I think it is pointless tweaking a 2.0 litre normally aspirated engine. The tiny gains you get are more than lost by the noise increase, emissions compliance if you decat it, and the factory have normally mapped the ECU quite well already so that an E-bay bolt on box is not going to improve it. Power/torque increases in strictly controlled conditions are poor.

Reply to
John Banks

Tony,save your money. Altering temperature signals to the ECU will cause compensations to be made to the ignition or fuel maps. On most average compression NA engines the ECU has been mapped by the factory to minimum timing advance for best torque or the detonation threshold under closed loop knock control, whichever is limiting for a given compression ratio and octane amongst other factors. At worst a crude device which is not mapped by RPM or load could push knock control out of limits, more likely it would result in no gain of torque or power, or gains in some areas and losses in others. It is not setup to your individual car.

Even custom ECU mapping of a NA vehicle without subtantial other changes does not usually result in more than a handful of horsepower, Superchips claims are modest but still on the optimistic side. Before/after dyno printouts mean nothing - I have run my engine on dynos twice in the same day and had errors that are well above the claims of some chip tuners for NA engines.

You can make anything fit with an induction kit, but it may draw hot air from under the bonnet and lose you power. It may change the airflow pattern over the mass airflow sensor leading to lean flat spots and loss of torque. You may gain power also. Can be unpredictable. Free breathing exhausts can be great if you hit on the right design on the right engine. Mainly they add noise rather than massive power increases.

Tuning a turbocharged engine or something with different compression, different cams, strengthened internals is a completely different ballpark. Although I sound cynical, I am only cynical about marketing ploys and tuning devices that don't work. My background is that I custom remap ECUs on turbocharged vehicles. Before that I played about with piggybacking about every signal wire you could think of with various devices to extract more power. It is a rather easier job when you have a turbo, but even then there is not usually a free lunch, and you increase lag with larger intercoolers and turbos. Higher boost has to be traded for ignition timing and cooling. Most modern turbo engines with only a chip and exhaust can achieve a safe

+20% power and perhaps more torque (unless you have something ridiculously overengineered like a Skyline, Cosworth or Porsche engine, some of the lightish pressure biturbo multicylinder VAG motors etc). 20% is a nice increase but hardly earth shattering. Gains on NA engines are far less despite some of the marketing claims.

If you must do something get a free flowing exhaust that is proven to not kill torque, with a noise level you can live with. Get some cold air induction and get the ECU CUSTOM MAPPED to your individual engine. Otherwise the gains will be trivial for the costs invovled.

Better still, save your money for a car with better performance and retain the value on your existing car.

Reply to
John Banks

Hello John,

In message , John Banks wrote (snipped some)

If Piglet were more forthcoming about the technical specs of their suspension and engines we'd both be able to determine the differences between my 2002 210 BHP V6 car and yours, but alas, they seem to think that prospective owners are only interested in the number of cup holders fitted to their cars. I know, I've tried to get information out of them. Getting blood out of stones is easier - trust me! Compared to the brochures available for the Ford Focus (my brother has just bought a new

2.0 Litre Ghia) Piglet's glossy leaflet is about as useful as the contents of a eunuch's trousers to a red-blooded young woman.

I get 26 - 27mpg. The worst I've seen is 24m mpg and that was solely down to having fun with a VW Corrado. (The Corrado lost - BTW). Best so far was 29mpg on a recent motorway cruise from Berlin to Hannover and that included a fair bit of 120mph + motoring.

That surprises me. Unless Peugeot *have* made some very major changes to the 2002 model either you have very high standards or mine are very low! . My previous car was the old 2.0 litre petrol turbo 406 (1996 model) tuned to deliver 185 BHP which I thought handled reasonably well. The V6 is not only quicker on the straights but also more composed on the twisty bits.

Which just goes to show how personal these things are. I had a 306 on loan for three weeks last year and I hated it. Yes it was nimble and reasonably quick but it wallowed and threepenny-bitted alarmingly round long fast sweeping bends that my petrol turbo simply sailed around. It also had nothing like the braking power.

You mean the V6 lump or the 406? Agreed the 406 is ageing but the main reason I bought mine was for the engine. Unless I'm very much mistaken it has a lot of potential for tuning.

210BHP from a normally aspirated 3.0 litre V6 is hardly excessive. The depreciation only hurts those who are foolish enough to buy this car new and lose nearly 40% of the value in 12 months. I bought mine for under £12,000 with 7000 miles on the clock and I consider that a bargain :-) It means that in another year's time I can spend some serious money making it into the car it should have been. It should be perfectly possible to get 280 BHP out of that lovely engine without sacrificing too much economy. Of course, that means doing things to both suspension, tyres and brakes. I'm talking to a couple of specialist tuners at the moment and they have some interesting ideas!

Only a comparison of specs would answer that and Peugeot seem reluctant to provide them. Apparently it's against EU regulations to publish engine torque and performance information. Don't laugh - this is

*exactly* what I was told by a so-called "customer service exec". When I pointed out that Ford seem to be breaking this "law" they put the phone down on me!

Agreed. Turbo charging is by far the most economical and rewarding route

- if it's done correctly.

Reply to
Derek Tree

Thanks John for the explaination. I Will not be using a IAT mod.

Iam going to have the chip done and thats all. I'll take advice at the specialist garage about fitting a induction kit but I searched on the WWW last night and didnt find anything that was ment for the 406 ( any knowledge of a kit for my engine 2.0 16V ??? ).

Many thanks for you input.

P.s Whats your thoughts on shell optimax or similar.

... Tony

n Fri, 8 Aug 2003 22:47:08 +0100, "John Banks" wrote:

Reply to
Tony

I don't know about specific products for your engine. I would not bother putting an induction kit on my V6. Optimax works if the ECU is mapped for

98+ RON petrol. Try it and see what you think. I can advance the ignition two to three degrees on a highly stressed turbo engine and gain about 2 to 3% power and torque over SUL, small gains to be sure but it is far more detonation resistant. There is perhaps a small improvement in economy.

intercoolers

ridiculously

Reply to
John Banks

I got my V6 for £7000 just over two years ago with 34000, not it is worth about £3500 tops with 67000. I tried a demo V6 coupe, and the difference was slight - it was a 2001 model - obviously the Brembos were better and it was ever so slightly stiffer and slightly quicker, but the steering feel was still poor. Get into a Ford Puma or a 1/306/205 GTi or a Mk1 Golf GTi or Clio 172 for good steering feel at a good price IMHO. My wife has a Puma, and when I drive that after a week driving the Pug I cannot believe the steering feel, the turn in, overall balance, even the brakes are far better. It will corner a known corner at 52 mph rather than 45 mph on steady throttle before it even complains, and then you can tell it was engineered to be fun doing this rather than boring. I would happily take the Puma to a trackday with only some uprated pads and brake fluid, the 406 without major suspension and brake work (coilovers and AP 4 pots) would be a brake fading understeering death trap. It is a great cruiser though which is why I keep it. However, I am slightly loath to get rid of it because every few months I have a fairly significant spend on keeping it going and then think I'm not going to sell it when I've just put xxxx on it. Then the next thing goes wrong :rolleyes: I hope yours behaves much better.

Reply to
John Banks

In message , John Banks wrote

Driving it has put a permanent grin on my face.. It makes me as happy as a Frenchman who has just invented a pair of self-removing trousers.

Reply to
Derek Tree

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