03 ALH chip advice

50harleyrider · Jul 15, 2014

I have upgraded to a vnt 17/22,pp764 nozzles and a pd150 intake and wanted some chip advice. I have an ecu from another 03 golf with an RC4 tune in it. Is that a good choice? Is it plug and play? I was concerned it was VIN locked but hopefully by changing the ecu ,that won't be a problem. I'm running a Malone 1.5 now in the car which I know won't let the turbo go above 19 psi. What is a good Malone tune for my setup? Better exhaust, eurojet SMIC and 3bar MAP sensor are in the works. My engine has 210k miles on it and runs good so should I beware of anything with that? A Southbend Endurance clutch setup is also coming soon. Approximately what HP and torque will I have?

kiwibru · Jul 15, 2014

RC4 is good tune. Immobilizer deleted? Malone is a good tune too. YOu should drive examples of both and see which you like (assuming a nearby example is available from a fellow owner). 165-170 hp is what I have read. Dyno would tell all or do a search for dyno results and look for comparable set up.

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 15, 2014

First, if you don't have immobilizer delete on the other ECU it won't work in your car. Second, it's important to have the air tables set up for the PD150 intake, assuming you're using the PD150 MAF and airbox. Otherwise the car will under-fuel and be laggy.

Jeff has a nice RC4+ that I have for my wagon: It runs great, is a little soft on response compared to the RC6 I had previously, but makes good power overall and provides great fuel economy. It's a 25 PSI tune, IIRC. You'll need a 3-bar MAP for that tune, and the bigger intercooler and exhaust are important.

Real numbers will probably be around 150-160 WHP, 280 torque.

50harleyrider · Jul 16, 2014

Thanks guys. The car the rc4 ecu came out of has a blown engine so I'm not sure how to verify whether it has the immobilizer delete. Any suggestions other than to plug it into my car and see if it will start? Would Jeff Robertson know if I gave him the VIN? The guy I bought it from doesn't know. He didn't do any of the mods to it and can't contact the original modder.

Fix_Until_Broke · Jul 16, 2014

Your best bet would be to contact Jeff and discuss it with him. Even better would be to send him the ECU so he can match the tune to your hardware for optimum performance and also if necessary, delete the immobilizer. Even if that costs you a few $$, then it's plug and play for your car and actually setup for your car.

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 16, 2014

Jeff will know with a customer name and/or VIN. But if it's immo delete he typically writes it on the ECU. At least he's done that on mine.

CNGVW · Jul 16, 2014

I will have to say Jeff is the best bet. I have talked with him a few times and used his ECUs.
He knows his stuff a bit hard to get a hold of some times.

I was looking for a custom ECU setup for my 99 Beetle TDI roadracer we are building. It will run on injected CNG as a duel fuel engine.
I sent out emails and calls to the top three ECU programmers here and one never got back to me, one took 3 weeks to email back and did not have much to say on CNG.

Jeff build me a ECU that has 3 different programs to dyno test my system just have to re-code it to test on the fly with the vag-com . He took a true interest in what I an doing and stepped up to the challenge.
Bob Mann

50harleyrider · Jul 16, 2014

IndigoBlueWagon said:
Jeff will know with a customer name and/or VIN. But if it's immo delete he typically writes it on the ECU. At least he's done that on mine.

I've done a couple of tunes with him too and he does like to write stuff on the case. At any rate, my mods are very similar to the car this ecu came out except I have pp764 and it had pp520. I could play with the IQ a bit and watch egt to smooth that difference out on my own. So, would I be taking any risks plugging it in to see? I figured at worse, it wouldn't start.

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 16, 2014

No harm. And I've run same tune with PP764s and PP520s. You may not like the results, but it'll work. My greater concern would be having N75 duty cycle and boost request tailored to the 17/22, especially if the donor ECU came from a car with a VNT-17.

50harleyrider · Jul 16, 2014

The turbo came out of the donor car so 17/22 all the way. It's not even close to making it's capable boost with my Malone 1.5 (19 psi ugh). One other question I had was now that my great running 210k mile ALH is modded, is there anything I should watch out for on my high mileage engine to keep it from grenading? It won't be on the track but may need to eat an occasional Honda on the street.

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 16, 2014

If you don't have boost and EGT gauges, get them. VNT-17/22s tend to carbon up in gentle driving and then overboost when you get on them, which can eventually kill your head gasket and bend rods. And with PP764s and aggressive fueling the turbo can get too hot, which isn't a good thing. Both need to be monitored.

50harleyrider · Jul 16, 2014

I have a McNally dual gauge I got from Kerma. Is below 1600F and whatever boost the RC4 is requesting good targets? I mounted the thermocouple upstream of the turbo to get useful EGTs.

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 16, 2014

Where is the probe? If it's in the center of the manifold then staying below 1600 is OK. If you used the EGR cooler port and a short probe then you'll have to keep numbers significantly lower.

50harleyrider · Jul 16, 2014

I drilled and tapped the header upstream of the turbo. The donor car had it in the egr cooler delete plate which I didn't particularly like although it did have a long thermocouple which helps. I will get actual real numbers pre-turbo.

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 16, 2014

Sounds good. I've had good luck with the long thermocouple in the EGR cooler port. The mistake is to use a short couple there.

wakdady · Jul 16, 2014

I was trying to get a quote from RocketChip but they never responded. is there a better way to reach them?

IndigoBlueWagon · Jul 16, 2014

Phone call is the best way.

50harleyrider · Jul 17, 2014

Last night I pulled the ecu out of the donor. It was painted rc3,immo delete and egr delete. I went ahead and plugged it into mine. It has nice low end and holds 22 lbs sustained boost. I'm happy with it until I get the stage 2 endurance clutch installed. It does give me these codes though and they clear but come right back: 18027 glow plug relay (J52) P-1619-35-10 Open or short to ground. 19561 valve for intake manifold flap (N239) P3105-35-10 Open or short to ground. 16764 Glow plug heater (Q6) Circuit P0380-35-00 Malfunction.

These must have tripped when I did the EGR delete although the donor ecu has it programmed. Are there some tricks I need to do with the factory wiring to eliminate these codes? I sure didn't mess with the glow plug wiring and wasn't getting any faults with the Malone 1.5 with dynamic EGR ecu.

Mrrogers1 · Jul 21, 2014

wakdady said:
I was trying to get a quote from RocketChip but they never responded. is there a better way to reach them?

Definitely call as IDParts said, Jeff is usually under/in a car doing what he loves to do, wrench and tune. Email is a luxury that he seldom has time to replay to all of.

50harleyrider said:
Last night I pulled the ecu out of the donor. It was painted rc3,immo delete and egr delete. I went ahead and plugged it into mine. It has nice low end and holds 22 lbs sustained boost. I'm happy with it until I get the stage 2 endurance clutch installed. It does give me these codes though and they clear but come right back: 18027 glow plug relay (J52) P-1619-35-10 Open or short to ground. 19561 valve for intake manifold flap (N239) P3105-35-10 Open or short to ground. 16764 Glow plug heater (Q6) Circuit P0380-35-00 Malfunction.

These must have tripped when I did the EGR delete although the donor ecu has it programmed. Are there some tricks I need to do with the factory wiring to eliminate these codes? I sure didn't mess with the glow plug wiring and wasn't getting any faults with the Malone 1.5 with dynamic EGR ecu.

Call and speak to him and looks like you are close enough to even visit him at his shop. From those error codes though, check your grounds. These cars are rather temperamental about good grounds.

Good luck

jsrmonster · Jul 22, 2014

what are the ecu pn's in vagcom? sounds like you have a immo2 ecu in an immo3 car. Just cuz the cover says one pn#, the firmware may be another.
Don't be afraid to call. I answer all my emails, but also delete 100+ a day that are spam, and don't have time to sort thru the spam folder.
Jeff ;-))

50harleyrider · Jul 23, 2014

Thanks for getting on top of this for me Jeff. As you know, mine is an '00 ecu so I'm gonna sell it to someone with an '00 ALH(or whatever years the immo 2 will work in) and get with you to get a tune matched to all my mods as soon as I verify the spare is a stock '03 ecu. Do I need to physically send the ecu to you or can I use the qloader that I bought from Tdtuning to load the tune in my BHW car or the Flashzilla bought from Malone that I loaded his 1.5 into this '03 golf? I'm a little confused on the VIN locking on the tunes.

03 ALH chip advice

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