Review of TDI-Tuning.com's CRTD4 box for MK7 Golf 2.0 TDI

Update coming soon.

These tuning boxes just fool the ecu into running higher fuel pressure and possibly more boost. Their claims of increased fuel mileage are bogus, and the power gains are probably exaggerated by a factor of three. Typical placebo effect, much like the air box delete. I wouldn't waste my time with one- a real tune is far superior in every way.

I dunno about the CR versions but power boxes on the VE cars are like a cheap and dirty, almost stage 1. Increase from 90hp to 100-110hp on an old AHU. Not bad, but they are also only 50-75 bucks on the VE cars.

For that kind of money (~$400 at current exchange rate)a proper tune would be my choice. Tuning Boxes lie to the sensors to falsify input to the ECU. tunes change the demands of the ECU.

turbobrick240 said:

These tuning boxes just fool the ecu into running higher fuel pressure and possibly more boost. Their claims of increased fuel mileage are bogus, and the power gains are probably exaggerated by a factor of three. Typical placebo effect, much like the air box delete. I wouldn't waste my time with one- a real tune is far superior in every way.

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Yes they fool the ecu into running higher fuel pressure, more boost and reduce turbo lag. That's the point. I don't care about increased fuel mileage.

I'm not stupid, it's not a placebo, it does work as well as I expected.

ketchupshirt88 said:

I dunno about the CR versions but power boxes on the VE cars are like a cheap and dirty, almost stage 1. Increase from 90hp to 100-110hp on an old AHU. Not bad, but they are also only 50-75 bucks on the VE cars.
For that kind of money (~$400 at current exchange rate)a proper tune would be my choice. Tuning Boxes lie to the sensors to falsify input to the ECU. tunes change the demands of the ECU.

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You're correct you don't know about the CR verision. At least you're humble enough to admit that, unlike the the last user to comment.
When you guys try this same unit you can give your opinion. Until then you don't have to s#!t all over peoples work to show your tuning superiority.
Forums are all the same, full of haters.

Facepalm.

The ammount of max gained power by cheating the rail sensor is ~10% at tpp end. That is determined by the rail pressure sensor headroom and there is nothing a box can do if the sensor can only read 200bar above stock max pressure. Or else there is no actual controll of fuel pressure and pump will just keep on pushing max fuel without controll. In midrange you can gain more and the torque gain is better than the max power gain.

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Micah247 said:

You're correct you don't know about the CR verision. At least you're humble enough to admit that, unlike the the last user to comment.
When you guys try this same unit you can give your opinion. Until then you don't have to s#!t all over peoples work to show your tuning superiority.
Forums are all the same, full of haters.

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Sorry newb, sometimes the truth hurts.

I like how whoever fabricated their dyno graph decided that torque and power should have no correlation!

I have seen dynos from these tuning boxes and they do often improve power. Not as much as a custom tune, but an increase.

EG Golf R 300hp. Claim 370 from a tuning box, they get around 350 with them fitted.

I've seen a dyno for a Mk7 CR184 which goes to 224hp but this is done by the manufacturer of the tuning box. I can't find any independent results on the CR engine.

I think we can all agree that a proper tune is the way to go but for some people who have a new car under warranty the only way to tune is to use piggyback boxes like this..

I don't like false advertising. Their supposed dyno plot is all I need to see.

turbobrick240 said:

Sorry newb, sometimes the truth hurts.

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It's cool.
Let's go about this a different way. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I see you're from Maine. Why don't you take a break from the Arctic tundra during the one month of summer you get. Come to RI, you can drive my car. We can set it back to stock and go for a spirited drive on back roads, highway and drag strip behind the airport. Then plug in all the modules, go for the same ride again. If you still don't think there's a difference beyond a "placebo effect", I'll eat my old paper air filter.
PM if interested. The waters warm. I got a bunch of waverunners. One is a 1200CC that gets 1MPG

ketchupshirt88 said:

I dunno about the CR versions but power boxes on the VE cars are like a cheap and dirty, almost stage 1. Increase from 90hp to 100-110hp on an old AHU. Not bad, but they are also only 50-75 bucks on the VE cars.

For that kind of money (~$400 at current exchange rate)a proper tune would be my choice. Tuning Boxes lie to the sensors to falsify input to the ECU. tunes change the demands of the ECU.

Click to expand...

This post was far from sh**ting on your thread. You have a review of a product , the people who replied have seen these products for years and know what a tuning box does and doesn't do. Same with the sprint booster. Don't get so butt hurt.

Tuning boxes and Throttle position "boost" Can accomplish some "gains", but it's not going to perform the way they market it on their "technical sheet".

Micah247 said:

It's cool.
Let's go about this a different way. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I see you're from Maine. Why don't you take a break from the Arctic tundra during the one month of summer you get. Come to RI, you can drive my car. We can set it back to stock and go for a spirited drive on back roads, highway and drag strip behind the airport. Then plug in all the modules, go for the same ride again. If you still don't think there's a difference beyond a "placebo effect", I'll eat my old paper air filter.
PM if interested. The waters warm. I got a bunch of waverunners. One is a 1200CC that gets 1MPG

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Sweet, I'll make plans. I probably could have been a bit more subtle, but false advertising really irritates me. The main thing is you're happy with it . Welcome to tdiclub, you got yourself a great car.

Complete waste of money. What those type of companies do is to look for the tard in people and exploit it...................

I wouldn't go that far, I would call their claimed gains somewhat dubious but *something* is being altered to trick the ECU into making more power. Is it as much as they claim? That's the real question.

i think anytime false claims of gains are made, it brings out the worst in us. Lol.

One claim that I can 100% verify is my top speed did increase by 10 MPH.

Sheesh. When I drive through R.I. I'm lucky if I can hit 50 mph let alone 140. I was going to invite him up to maine for some dyno runs on my dime, but I value the citizenry too much for that.

turbobrick240 said:

Sheesh. When I drive through R.I. I'm lucky if I can hit 50 mph let alone 140. I was going to invite him up to maine for some dyno runs on my dime, but I value the citizenry too much for that.

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You're right, not in RI. Parts of 95S in CT at Noon can be quite open.
I finally invested in a K40 360 system. It works well, but I'm sure someone here who doesn't have the same system will disagree. lol

Ps. I would not recommend anything over 80 mph in a stock MK7, unless you upgrade brakes and suspension. The front end likes to dive and wiggle under hard braking.

So what were the new and old top speeds?

The dillema i had when i purchased my bitdi Passat 240bhp . I didn't know whether to buy one of those boxes or a custom map,i stressed for weeks lol, due to warranty etc. But hey i figured if something goes wrong with my car and they won't cover the warranty i can afford to fix it myself so i went with a tune and do not regret it. The car was transformed and would give my old 2.0T k04'd 300bhp a run for it's money if not on par with it!

If you sit with a professional and see the complexity of the MKVII programming it's easy to recognize that simply increasing a few parameters in the ECU may make the car more responsive, but it's not going to provide the same increase in all around performance that a "real" tune does. There are factors like smoke maps, EGR duty cycles, limiters, etc., that all can be manipulated with a tune that a plug-in addition cannot change.

I can personally attest that tuning a fixed MKVII makes a big difference. And driven normally a good tune doesn't seem to extract a FE penalty, at least not in my limited exposure. However, these engines have less headroom than earlier cars. The opportunity for a safe and effective increase in boost is limited, although fueling has more available range. I'm skeptical about the 198 HP figure. I think it's difficult to get more than 20-30 HP out of these cars without deleting emissions.

I'm also skeptical that the op really picked up 10 mph in top speed. Especially since the speed limiter is set at 125 mph.

If they're hitting 198bhp, I wonder how far they're letting the EGT number get skewed. Even with a downpipe, I hit the EGT limiter (that is raised to 935C) in 3rd gear on a hot day around 4200rpm. I can't imagine how quickly it'd hit with DPF still there!

Requesting more rail pressure from that fragile CP4 injector pump doesn't seem like a good idea, either.

Not afraid to eat crow.

DPF melted, EGR cooler shot, turbo has metal pieces, white smoke and limp mode. $3k+ damage.

Whoopsie!

CR190 and downpipe in your future ?
If you want a factory DPF and EGR cooler, I still have mine with 25k miles on it

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Did anyone notice the "Performance Disclaimer" at the top of this page

Sorry to hear of your misfortune, we never wanted you to lose all that for a $400 Tuning box.

It's very surprising for a tuning box to melt your dpf and chunk the turbo. Didn't think it would request that much fuel/fuel pressure.

Wish we knew what kind of EGT's and DPF temps it had been making before the failure.