Anyone have experience of those 'plug in' performance boost kits on diesels? Supposed to increase power output on the 90hdi Peugeot/Citroen lump up to
It is - but if you let your insurance company know that you have modified your car (which you are required to do under the terms of your policy), then you will find that there is a hefty increase in your premium. I own a Rover 75 diesel and MG-Rover offer a dealer installed upgrade from
119 bhp to 130 bhp. Even though this is an 'official' MG-Rover upgrade, my existing insurer would not wish to continue insuring me if I had it done, and other insurers have quoted huge increases in premiums. Ludicrously, you can now buy the Rover 75 CDT as a CDTi which has this modification done 'in-factory' and the insurance grouping is the same for both cars! My existing insurer acknowledges this discrepancy but state that they consider any change to an existing vehicle to be a 'modification'.Kev
They work really well, and you'll find the higher output engine a bit of a joy. A chipped 90 producing 110 PS performs just as a 110 does, and is usually enough for people to buy the 110 and chip that . . . :)
There may be a hefty increase, there may not be.
They're quite right, of course, daft as it sounds. We've told our insurers of every single detail change from factory specification after an argument, so now whenever the air freshener gets replaced, they get told about it.
But it's good advice - tell them!
You should also consider uprating other bits and pieces, since the acceleration advantages the chipped 110 would have over the 90 are quite significant, but to be fair the car should be more than up to the task of handling it. This, of course, assumes you don't use all of the power and torque all of the time on the twisties! ;)
What dervy says is quite right in pure power figures, although the chipped
90 doesnt quite give the torque of the factory 110 due to the lack of intercooling. If you habitually used all the performance and/or towed with the chipped 90 sans intercooler I would be slightly worried about long term headgasket lifespan, which is the first thing that goes when you increase combustion temps.PSA fitted the 110 with an intercooler for good reason; they would have saved themsevles £££££££'s in build costs by not fitting the intercooler if the 90 engine was capable of 110 purely through software.
Tim..
The HDI 110 is more economical than the 90 but this might be because of the higher compression ratio or the intercooler a combination of the two.
-- James
Compression ratio is the same. Increase in economy comes mainly from increase in thermal efficiency due to the intercooler. (yes mapping is slightly different between them too, but its not the main reason)
Tim..
I'd argue that the HDI 90 is more economical in real life. We can get 55mpg+ easily on a run in the Picasso, whereas high 40's in the C5 HDI 110. The car weighs more, but even when driven by the same person, it uses a lot more than the 1mpg less it is supposed to do.
I think it is due to the intercooler and that you can actually burn a lot more fuel too easily. The 110 has far more acceleration and pulls from lower speeds in each gear.
Ben
I could be wrong about this, I have seen the HDI 90 as having a compression ratios of both values, although the HDI 110 always seems to be quoted at
18.0:1-- Jammes
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