GlowBugTDI
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2018
- Location
- Cambridge, MN
- TDI
- 2001 Beetle GLS TDI (BIODSL). 01 original Glow Bug TDI (sold)
I am creating this thread for myself and others to review a TDI enthusiast who has been tuning cars to do what the TDI life is all about. Performance, longevity, and economy. This is of course Burpod. Below I will share my experience and findings with the tuning he has done on my 01 ALH. Hopefully others of you who have had him do tuning for your vehicles can share what your experiences have been as well.
My car: I drive a 01 beetle ALH with a manual transmission. Currently I have the stock 10mm pump, Bosio PP520’s (.205), and a South Bend stg2 daily.
My Malone stage 3 tune: I drove this tune for a few years, and I liked it. It was fun, faster than stock, and smoked if I wanted it to
. While it was fun, I never got a tank over 550mi all the way to the end of the red (empty) on the bug gauge (maybe 560mi a time or two). I also couldn’t seem to get over 120mi per quarter tank on the gauge even when I tried. I will state that I never contacted Malone about this or anything, so this is just purely observation. Nothing against him and not trash talking him. I liked the tune while I had it installed.
My Experience: I first started talking with Burpod when I had an electrical issue that was causing my car alarm to set off which I ended up getting figured out. While talking with him about my car’s issue he mentioned that he could delete the IMMO and also tune it if I was interested. I initially declined as I already had a tune on the car that I liked, and I was just in an accident so I was still fixing the car and putting more money into it as it was. I also thought Yea there are people out there who “tune tdi’s” and they don’t necessarily know what they are doing or at least know what they are doing well. So not really knowing If I trusted a guy I just started talking to on the internet (
) I decided to wait and play it safe since my car’s tune had been working fine. I kept talking with him to see what exactly he did for tuning and after talking over a few days/week I started considering what he might have in store for my car. A few weeks later I was convinced to give it a try and had an Mpps cable on the way. He started off safely with the first tune he had me try. Things were dialed back and felt a bit more powerful than stock, but not as powerful as my other tune. Over the next few days I made some more log’s, and he kept sending revisions, with each being better than the last. A few logs and some revisions later and he sent me the ONE! He told me to give it a go and see how it compared to the tune that I had when we first started talking. I started the car up and drove out to the highway. As the Light turned green I rolled into first and soon as I hit 2nd I let it fly. I looked behind me and saw no smoke, I looked in front of me and saw I was already doing 75mph. I decided to race against my friends lowered 94 (96? I forget) chevy 1500. It’s a single cab 2wd with a 350 that has a slight cam and is “slightly tuned”. Regardless I stuck beside him till we hit about 65 then he pulled away decently quick. It was good enough for me and honestly I was slightly surprised I had done as well as I did considering that all I have is pp520’s and a tune. So far my mileage has been good. I have gotten several tanks around 45mpg with lots of pulls while playing around and testing different revisions. On one of that tanks that I drove nice-er for I got close to 50mpg, but I did also made some pulls and have a failing front wheel bearing. I also have a wind fairing and bars on top of the car which I’m sure kills 1-2mpg.
Burpod Tuning: First off I want to say that the work that Burpod has done for me has been nothing less than fantastic. The amount of time and energy this guy puts into his work has been amazing and is truly what you wish all customer service could be like. He is very up front, honest, and timely. In fact, I don’t think I have ever messaged him and not heard back within 30 min or so. He even walked me through unbricking my ECU after I somehow managed to lock myself out and was faced with a no start situation.
My car drives like never before. While I liked my other tune previously this one is more responsive to throttle position and cruises very well at a wide rpm range. If I’m gentle I can drive anywhere from 50-70 using about 10-15mg/stroke. At wide open throttle it’s enough speed to pass any traffic with ease and hold its own against most stock powered traffic. The power is smooth and doesn’t drop off or end before it should. With my set up I have no problem pulling to 4k+ without smoke (Probably higher, but I don’t really hit those rpm’s). Driving in adverse weather conditions is also not a hurdle. It’s like driving any other vehicle and I haven’t had any problems getting traction in rain or snowy conditions. If I punch it in a low gear heck ya it’ll spin because I asked it to and any car would that has an open diff, but if driven without asking for full throttle it will drive like any other car. I haven’t had traction issues that would be considered a tune issue and have not felt like I wasn’t in control of the car or like I was going to lose traction if I tried moving any faster than a crawl. With my set up I regularly give it 100% or so throttle in rainy conditions and have no issues making a full pull with no slippage. Driving around parking lots and in smaller areas is no issue either. The car feels stock when driving around slowly and you wouldn’t know the difference unless you asked it to show you. I never had a problem with this but know others have had problems in the past with other tuning modalities.
How Is this tuning any different? With Burpods tuning the ecu is programmed to your specific car. For those of you who know a bit about how tuning works you understand that this is the best way to get the most performance out of the car and have it dialed in well. This is because several revisions are done to the tune that allows for edits to be made, and performance to be correctly dialed in to achieve the best performance for your specific set up. This holds just as true in the diesel world as it does the gas world.
There are many factors that go into tuning each car specifically, and some of that I don’t fully comprehend at this time. I will discuss a few of them here to hopefully shed some light on a few key area’s. As previously stated, completing several revisions will allow for changes to be made to the tuning allowing the car to run as optimally as possible. Another thing that differs from other loadable tunes is the level of boost control that these tunes run. These tunes run actual boost very close/exact to requested boost depending on what is being asked of the car at that moment. In other words when requested boost calls for 1700mbar actual boost is spot on or very close to 1700mbar. In Burpods tunes boost is very controlled with minimal or no boost spikes, even when under high load/low rpm situations like in 4/5th gear. This is something that is a noticeable difference when compared to a lot of other name brand loadable tunes. He also minimizes the lag between quick shifts which is really nice.
One large area that is worth mentioning is that his tunes don’t use extra fueling to get more power. This is a large misconception one that I misunderstood when I first started talking with Burpod. I kind of assumed to a certain degree that I either needed to get more air or more fuel to make more power but that isn’t exactly the case. From what I have learned the fueling maps he creates are specific to each pump/nozzle combination matched with optimal injection timing to get the desired results. His tunes also delete the MAF sensor. Air flow can be monitored by reading boost map data so having this sensor isn’t essential. More so if the EGR is deleted as it also works to control that. One last area that really stands out is that his tuning has a lot less advance than a lot of other tunes. You would think that it would feel a lot more weak/less powerful right? I was surprised but that was actually not the case for me. The car has plenty of power. Something he has mentioned to me is that in his opinion “the timing maps of most other tunes have far too much advance in most areas which reduces torque and also harmful to the engines health”.
IQ numbers: When my car says that I’m putting out 50mg/stroke I know that it’s actually putting 50mg/stroke or at least very close to that number. Again because with custom tuning he is getting it dialed in as accurate as possible. On other tunes you can be limited from 0-50mg/stroke, but depending on pump/nozzles/in tank pump it may not actually be near 50mg even though the computer thinks that what the output is. An example of this is doing a 10mm -11mm pump swap. After installing the 11mm pump the car will give more power because it is actually fueling more then the ecu thinks. Ecu hypothetically says 30mg/stroke at x rpm, but because you have an 11mm pump now and have better flow your actually getting about 35mg/stroke at x rpm because the ecu isn’t taking into account that you have a 11mm pump. By controlling the output it allows the tuner to request more fuel when needed, and limit fuel when it isn’t so that smoke/excess EGT’s won’t be a problem.
Lastly I want to mention the amount of work and teaching that Burpod puts into not only his tunes but also his customers. He is super willing to teach and explain why he does exactly what he does. He is also very willing to walk you through things and make sure that you are happy with your vehicle’s performance. He is all about making sure these vehicles live up to their name and is what this site is all about. Performance, Longevity, and Economy.
My car: I drive a 01 beetle ALH with a manual transmission. Currently I have the stock 10mm pump, Bosio PP520’s (.205), and a South Bend stg2 daily.
My Malone stage 3 tune: I drove this tune for a few years, and I liked it. It was fun, faster than stock, and smoked if I wanted it to
. While it was fun, I never got a tank over 550mi all the way to the end of the red (empty) on the bug gauge (maybe 560mi a time or two). I also couldn’t seem to get over 120mi per quarter tank on the gauge even when I tried. I will state that I never contacted Malone about this or anything, so this is just purely observation. Nothing against him and not trash talking him. I liked the tune while I had it installed.My Experience: I first started talking with Burpod when I had an electrical issue that was causing my car alarm to set off which I ended up getting figured out. While talking with him about my car’s issue he mentioned that he could delete the IMMO and also tune it if I was interested. I initially declined as I already had a tune on the car that I liked, and I was just in an accident so I was still fixing the car and putting more money into it as it was. I also thought Yea there are people out there who “tune tdi’s” and they don’t necessarily know what they are doing or at least know what they are doing well. So not really knowing If I trusted a guy I just started talking to on the internet (
) I decided to wait and play it safe since my car’s tune had been working fine. I kept talking with him to see what exactly he did for tuning and after talking over a few days/week I started considering what he might have in store for my car. A few weeks later I was convinced to give it a try and had an Mpps cable on the way. He started off safely with the first tune he had me try. Things were dialed back and felt a bit more powerful than stock, but not as powerful as my other tune. Over the next few days I made some more log’s, and he kept sending revisions, with each being better than the last. A few logs and some revisions later and he sent me the ONE! He told me to give it a go and see how it compared to the tune that I had when we first started talking. I started the car up and drove out to the highway. As the Light turned green I rolled into first and soon as I hit 2nd I let it fly. I looked behind me and saw no smoke, I looked in front of me and saw I was already doing 75mph. I decided to race against my friends lowered 94 (96? I forget) chevy 1500. It’s a single cab 2wd with a 350 that has a slight cam and is “slightly tuned”. Regardless I stuck beside him till we hit about 65 then he pulled away decently quick. It was good enough for me and honestly I was slightly surprised I had done as well as I did considering that all I have is pp520’s and a tune. So far my mileage has been good. I have gotten several tanks around 45mpg with lots of pulls while playing around and testing different revisions. On one of that tanks that I drove nice-er for I got close to 50mpg, but I did also made some pulls and have a failing front wheel bearing. I also have a wind fairing and bars on top of the car which I’m sure kills 1-2mpg.Burpod Tuning: First off I want to say that the work that Burpod has done for me has been nothing less than fantastic. The amount of time and energy this guy puts into his work has been amazing and is truly what you wish all customer service could be like. He is very up front, honest, and timely. In fact, I don’t think I have ever messaged him and not heard back within 30 min or so. He even walked me through unbricking my ECU after I somehow managed to lock myself out and was faced with a no start situation.
My car drives like never before. While I liked my other tune previously this one is more responsive to throttle position and cruises very well at a wide rpm range. If I’m gentle I can drive anywhere from 50-70 using about 10-15mg/stroke. At wide open throttle it’s enough speed to pass any traffic with ease and hold its own against most stock powered traffic. The power is smooth and doesn’t drop off or end before it should. With my set up I have no problem pulling to 4k+ without smoke (Probably higher, but I don’t really hit those rpm’s). Driving in adverse weather conditions is also not a hurdle. It’s like driving any other vehicle and I haven’t had any problems getting traction in rain or snowy conditions. If I punch it in a low gear heck ya it’ll spin because I asked it to and any car would that has an open diff, but if driven without asking for full throttle it will drive like any other car. I haven’t had traction issues that would be considered a tune issue and have not felt like I wasn’t in control of the car or like I was going to lose traction if I tried moving any faster than a crawl. With my set up I regularly give it 100% or so throttle in rainy conditions and have no issues making a full pull with no slippage. Driving around parking lots and in smaller areas is no issue either. The car feels stock when driving around slowly and you wouldn’t know the difference unless you asked it to show you. I never had a problem with this but know others have had problems in the past with other tuning modalities.
How Is this tuning any different? With Burpods tuning the ecu is programmed to your specific car. For those of you who know a bit about how tuning works you understand that this is the best way to get the most performance out of the car and have it dialed in well. This is because several revisions are done to the tune that allows for edits to be made, and performance to be correctly dialed in to achieve the best performance for your specific set up. This holds just as true in the diesel world as it does the gas world.
There are many factors that go into tuning each car specifically, and some of that I don’t fully comprehend at this time. I will discuss a few of them here to hopefully shed some light on a few key area’s. As previously stated, completing several revisions will allow for changes to be made to the tuning allowing the car to run as optimally as possible. Another thing that differs from other loadable tunes is the level of boost control that these tunes run. These tunes run actual boost very close/exact to requested boost depending on what is being asked of the car at that moment. In other words when requested boost calls for 1700mbar actual boost is spot on or very close to 1700mbar. In Burpods tunes boost is very controlled with minimal or no boost spikes, even when under high load/low rpm situations like in 4/5th gear. This is something that is a noticeable difference when compared to a lot of other name brand loadable tunes. He also minimizes the lag between quick shifts which is really nice
.One large area that is worth mentioning is that his tunes don’t use extra fueling to get more power. This is a large misconception one that I misunderstood when I first started talking with Burpod. I kind of assumed to a certain degree that I either needed to get more air or more fuel to make more power but that isn’t exactly the case. From what I have learned the fueling maps he creates are specific to each pump/nozzle combination matched with optimal injection timing to get the desired results. His tunes also delete the MAF sensor. Air flow can be monitored by reading boost map data so having this sensor isn’t essential. More so if the EGR is deleted as it also works to control that. One last area that really stands out is that his tuning has a lot less advance than a lot of other tunes. You would think that it would feel a lot more weak/less powerful right? I was surprised but that was actually not the case for me. The car has plenty of power. Something he has mentioned to me is that in his opinion “the timing maps of most other tunes have far too much advance in most areas which reduces torque and also harmful to the engines health”.
IQ numbers: When my car says that I’m putting out 50mg/stroke I know that it’s actually putting 50mg/stroke or at least very close to that number. Again because with custom tuning he is getting it dialed in as accurate as possible. On other tunes you can be limited from 0-50mg/stroke, but depending on pump/nozzles/in tank pump it may not actually be near 50mg even though the computer thinks that what the output is. An example of this is doing a 10mm -11mm pump swap. After installing the 11mm pump the car will give more power because it is actually fueling more then the ecu thinks. Ecu hypothetically says 30mg/stroke at x rpm, but because you have an 11mm pump now and have better flow your actually getting about 35mg/stroke at x rpm because the ecu isn’t taking into account that you have a 11mm pump. By controlling the output it allows the tuner to request more fuel when needed, and limit fuel when it isn’t so that smoke/excess EGT’s won’t be a problem.
Lastly I want to mention the amount of work and teaching that Burpod puts into not only his tunes but also his customers. He is super willing to teach and explain why he does exactly what he does. He is also very willing to walk you through things and make sure that you are happy with your vehicle’s performance. He is all about making sure these vehicles live up to their name and is what this site is all about. Performance, Longevity, and Economy.
to an extent, i think most people have gained valuable understanding of their tdi and grown to have a new appreciation of it. i know i certainly have, and that would be an understatement.... but that's something i love about these things. i love driving my tdi and knowing exactly what it's doing at all times, and that's doing so with utmost efficiency. and of course having gobs of smoke-free torque if i so desire 
