Sad day......Audi TT -> TDI "ran away"..........

[Windex]

You've always struck me as better than that, Windex. If you're happy with your tune from BigTuneCo., say so, and enjoy your ride.
No need to denigrate the efforts of someone else here who's gone through a LOT of effort to not only learn for himself, but then help share that knowledge not just with posts, but by actually providing tunes and following up with numerous updates and tweaks based on feedback.

I've got nothing against Burpod or his tunes. I object to fear mongering - the implication that his competitor's tunes are inferior in too many posts, without any objective evidence shown.

There is a fine line between promoting what one believes to be a superior product (It may well be) and turning off a large part the very customer base you wish to sell to. As above, this counterproductive marketing strategy has given many a vendor a hard lesson here over the years.

Pejorative comments contribute nothing.

On this we 100% agree

 

[Genesis]

Turbos have a "safe operation zone" which is defined by RPM, airflow and boost along with temperature. Manufacturers provide this. Remain within it and things are generally good. Violate any of those parameters and you might or might get away with it; there IS some safety margin in their design, but its not indefinite.

If whatever you do with a tune violates one or more of those parameters on a regular operational basis you're asking for trouble, and when trouble comes in a turbocharger it frequently does so with a catastrophic failure. Such is the nature of something spinning at 100,000 RPM when things go bad.

If there is objective evidence that said limits are being violated in some regime of operation of a machine, then there is.

 

[P2B]

I've got nothing against Burpod or his tunes. I object to fear mongering - the implication that his competitor's tunes are inferior in too many posts, without any objective evidence shown.

Given Burpod is not a vendor, does he actually have competitors?

I agree that objective evidence appears to be absent from this discussion.

 

[Judson]

If he’s not a vendor, why is he selling tunes? Afaik Burpod intends to or is sell. Am I wrong here?

My only objection has been that he has ascribed, both to me and on these forums, vnt17s dying due to Malone tunes despite Malone tunes working well for thousands of people over millions of miles. As I have repeatedly stated, I have no problem with anyone trying to do better.

I’ve been on these forums a long time. We are very blessed to have the vendors we do have. Let’s be grateful for those still around!

 

[burpod]

If he’s not a vendor, why is he selling tunes? Afaik Burpod intends to sell. Am I wrong here?

My only objection has been that he has ascribed, both to me and on these forums, vnt17s dying due to Malone tunes despite Malone tunes working well for thousands of people over millions of miles. As I have repeatedly stated, I have no problem with anyone trying to do better.

I’ve been on these forums a long time. We are very blessed to have vendors we do have. Let’s be grateful for those still around!

i didn't really want to have to comment any more in here, but feel i should say something...

you make it sound like i'm out there hocking my wares out on the street corner, and fearmongering for no reason other than to bash others and promote myself - nothing could be farther from the truth. like i've made clear to everyone i've talked to, and in many posts as well, i'm a tdi enthusiast 100% first and foremost, thru and thru. had no plans a couple years to be tuning for anyone except myself and maybe friends/family, if i were even to be successful at that. at the time, had never ran a malone tune in my life (had a few other flavors over the years), had nothing against the guy or knew anything about him.

as for me, i'm not a business nor do i advertise "wares to sell". i'm a tdi freak who happened to get into tuning and have become very passionate about it.. and have been obssessed with tdi's since i got my first one ~19 yrs ago. i've spent a huge amount of time helping people for "nothing" and with new knowledge i've gained over the last 2.5+ years i feel i have something important to contribute. people who don't know me probably severely underestimate the amount of time and effort i've put into this, and to the depths which i've gone down the rabbit hole... time which i really probably should have been investing in finishing my home renovations and other things like making money, family time, etc. it's a little insulting when, after all this time/effort on my own dime/time, i am thrown insults such as the above comments. through lots of testing, expirementing, brain-wracking, speeding tickets, burned up tires, i've come to some conclusions/opinions on many other tunes that are not very favorable - and i would like to share what i have learned with other tdi lovers, and it's because i love these engines/cars, not trying to hock my sh*t and make a few measly bucks. would have made far, far more money working at dunkin donuts down the street. if you don't want to hear it, that's fine, and you can disagree and refuse to think there's anything wrong with what has "been working for millions of miles on thousands of cars". one thing i've found in this, in talking to large numbers of people... that there are actually more problems than you might realize. many people just don't post about it and chalk it up to the price to pay for "pushing the hardware"....

as for you, i offered to help figure out why you had blown not only 2 turbos, but 3, or maybe 4, i can't remember. now you have a 1752vrk which can handle way more boost than your current fueling can really even put out. i spent a good amount of time communicating, asking questions, going over logs you took, determining that the tune(s) were calling for too much boost for your altitudes (IMO) + over-boosting on top of that iirc.. gave you opinions on how i thought the tune was running and that the car could be running much better than you think. i also offered to re-tune you and see what a "better" tune could feel like, for FREE. and that if you were absolutely ecstatic about the results, then you could give me something... some people have asked me to tune for them and wanted to pay me up front and i always decline. i don't ask for anything until we are both happy with how the car runs.

finally, and i've said this countless times over, mostly to people i "work with", that this is a continual learning process. never once have i said what i think i am doing is 100% perfect. always various things and little subtleties to figure out....

as far as talking about evidence, unless you are fully aware of how all the "tuning" works, maps etc. there's not much i can really give other than what i can fit in a basic post best i can. i'd have to spend a solid 2 weeks working on a 30+ page document to put together all this stuff, something which i want to do, but simply don't have the time to do.. i do plan on writing some shorter, basic documents in the near future that should be very interesting

 

[Nuje]

If he’s not a vendor, why is he selling tunes? Afaik Burpod intends to or is sell. Am I wrong here?

In short, yes - you're wrong here.
At no time has @burpod ever asked me for money, and from the sounds of it from other people to whom he's provided tunes, he isn't asking any of them for money either.
(Edit: I've found out this isn't entirely accurate; he is taking taking payments, now, but only after both sides are satisfied with the results; I'm not sure that's "vending", but no one else on this site provides me with something at zero cost up front, forgoing payment until I've tested it out and am completely happy with it.)

Backstory:
I saw a thread he either started or became very active in, where he'd decided to dig in and figure out this whole tuning thing - as many people here, the dude is curious; and couple that with some computer fluency, he went at it.

As he was figuring things out, I pm'd him, offered to be a de facto beta-tester....and that's the extent of it. As he gave me tunes and looked at what I was currently running, he asked questions. I asked questions. His answers made a lot of sense.
(e.g., Why is the tune for my 10mm IP / .216 nozzles have the same mapping as a friend's car who has 11mm IP and .230 nozzles? Vastly different hardware....shouldn't the Stage 3 for each be different?)
(Spoiler: Yes, they should.)

And then the repercussions of what undue stresses the motor undergoes when the tune isn't a bespoke fit for the hardware - that made sense to me as well. And like I've mentioned before - I'd always been told that one had to live with smoke (which is unburnt fuel) if you wanted zoom....his tunes manage to do turn that notion on its head.

So - draw your own conclusions.

Now, I have sent him some money because he's put literally hundreds times more time and effort into tuning my car than any tuner ever has before. Feel like a schlub for not offering the guy at some token of appreciation.
Has he asked for it? Never.
Does he expect anything? Sure doesn't feel like it.

And sure, part of that was him learning what works best with what hardware; but then also a lot of it is just being someone who strives for perfection (that's my take on his action) as opposed to tossing out a generic "one size fits all....kinda.....well, good enough".

The guy is working to build a (much) better mousetrap - and letting people test it out for him and giving feedback.

 

[Judson]

I’ve “blown” two vnt17s back to back during WOT runs at not even 24psi. At the time I thought it was a bad n75. This thread has me thinking otherwise. I had a very old and used vnt15 that my mechanic had sitting around put in along with a milder tune to tide me over. It lasted just my gtd1752 was put in. That turbo has been working perfectly ever since, with a tune that maxes at 28psi. Yes, malone stage 5, which lots of people run without any trouble.

burpod - the first thing you said was that it’s the tune, then you kept also sending me emails suggesting the malone tune was going to destroy my turbo. Yes, classic fearmongering and I called you out on it and you STILL don’t get it. And yes you also were hoping to be paid if things worked out and I was satisfied. Basically you blew it with me by attempting to manipulate my decision through fear. I am a 25+ year cybersecurity expert; I know what social engineering is….

diagnosing root cause is HARD. Forums members with a way more experience than I can attest that ascribing just a tune to a blown turbo is jumping to conclusions. It immediately skips over a very large number of other possibilities!

It is entirely likely you are excellent at what you do, which makes it really sad that you can’t stop trashing malone. If you finally get what I’m saying, and you apologize, I’ll drop this and encourage others to seek you out. We need good tuners. Jeff at Rocketchip is gone, and we have Kerma and Malone left. We NEED these vendors and we need you or someone like you to raise the bar if you can.

Malone and others have been around a long time providing a great service to what is honestly a pretty small community in the grand scheme of things. Again, be thankful and grateful.

 

[Genesis]

Objectively if turbochargers are blowing up in less than 200,000 miles or so they're being mistreated in some way. There are a lot of ways you can mistreat one (shutting it down hot, boost leaks that result in overspeeds which the ECU cannot detect as it has only indirect measurement of the shaft speed, excessive EGTs, oiling problems, etc.) but that is reality. The folks who make turbos all produce a nice area "chart" of the safe operating regime for same, along with "do not exceed" parameters. Remain within the lines and they last a VERY long time. Violate any of them and.... not so much.

Manufacturers go to a lot of trouble to stay inside the "safe" lines as they really don't like warranty claims.

Do those who tune? I don't know. Without actual measurements neither do you. But empirically if you're blowing up turbochargers you're doing it wrong in some way, absent buying garbage (e.g. Chinese) turbos in the first place, which most people probably are not.

 

[Judson]

I should add: I believe Burpod’s intentions are good and he really does want to help.
So I’m done for now. Ymmv, imho, .02.

 

[GlowBugTDI]

I'm not going to write a 2pg writeup but if you have been led to believe your whole life that something is a certain way how would you led to believe that something different is true or possible? I know objective evidence goes a long way and I wouldn't disregard that, but how else would any of you be convinced that something different could be true or better?
Example: You go to your doctors office with a problem. There the doctors give you a diagnosis and tell you that there is very little they can do for your condition but they will do what they can. They tell you that they are able to help you manage your symptoms, but that is about as good as it will get for you. Unfortunately, you still experience side effects and some symptoms (or slightly alleviated) due to your condition. After 5 years the treatment/management is still the same and your not doing any differently. You have reached a point were you want to see if there is anything else out there to help manage your symptoms. You start seeing other practitioners and after several times of hearing the same thing you meet one that says he can decrease your symptoms more and most likely resolve your condition. Would you believe him? Would you try it? Say what you will a lot of people wouldn't because they have been told so many times the same thing. I Know of story after story and case after case where this has happened and the Dr. had to work hard to convince the patient that there is more out there for them. The mind is a beautiful thing, but so many people can get so stuck in their mindset that what they have can't be fixed and that they are stuck that way for life that they aren't willing to try anything else. They often times think that someone is just trying to get more money out of them.
What burpod is doing here is obviously (at least to me) not trying to become a millionaire. I know of several other no name tuners who require payment before the tuning. Him offering to help resolve issues without payment first is bold to me. You have no idea how often he has to prove himself to people because he isn't a name brand tuner. It's not wrong to be skeptical, but but hard to say something about someone when you don't know what they are actually able to do.
I had a Malone tune for several years and I liked that tune. It was fun, but what burpod has shown me has won me over.
What I have noticed is a increasing number of people with stg 4 and higher tunes with large number of issues. I have no objective data, but something that I have noticed and have become increasingly aware of.

 

[Johhny04]

This post has drifted out on a tangent......I hope the OP comes back and provides us an update on his car.

 

[Shenandoah]

Folks,

I'm still here. I want to say a couple of things. I really like this forum because there are so many knowledgeable people that devote a lot of their time to help folks out. I'm out in the Shenandoah Valley, a very rural area. Years ago I attend the TDIFest was in Northern Virginia. I had a great time. I got to meet many of the vendors and other folks that have posted on here for years. I have always tried to help out when I can and post things that have worked for me.

It looks like this thread kind of veered off track on tuning. My opinion on tuning is you are taking a risk. VW/Audi developed the standard "tune" for their vehicles. They have time, money, resources. Other folks try to improve on what VW/Audi has come up with. Is one tune better than the other? Are mistakes made sometimes with tunes? How would you know? Most of us who have our cars tuned rely on what the tuner provides. It's almost like a black box. Yes, you can monitor boost and other parameters using VCDS, but you really don't know what all your tune affects.

My first tune was on my 2005 New Beetle. Jeff "Rocketchip" tuned that with his RC 1+, a mild tune. I drove up to his place in PA and he tuned my Beetle. He pulled the ECU, put it on his bench and tuned it. Then we went for a test drive and ran some logs with VCDS. He then modified a couple things and another test drive. My Beetle is an absolute blast to drive. Unfortunately it's off the road due to electrical problems (which I'll diagnose/fix this summer).

My Audi TT -> TDI is my favorite TDI. I have always like the TT body style and wish they had a diesel. I found my TT in 2016 and paid $1000 for it. It had a bad 1.8l where the timing belt had slipped. When I bought it, the odometer showed 182,000 miles. You can track down the post on my TDI conversion here.

Currently I'm deciding what to do next. From what I can tell the engine did not suffer catastrophic damage when the turbo shaft snapped. As to what caused the problem, that is the challenge. I might put in a standard ECU and one of the spare VNT15 I have just to make sure the car starts and runs fine. I am a little reluctant to run my current tuned ECU as I'm not sure how it would work with a VNT15 instead of a VNT17? I definitely will get my Audi TT -> TDI back on the road, just not sure what path I'll take.

I'll keep everyone posted on the progress. Thanks!

Eric

 

[KrashDH]

I have always like the TT body style and wish they had a diesel. I found my TT in 2016 and paid $1000 for it.

I'm in the same boat as you. I'd really like. Mk1 TT. Always have my eyes open for one

 

[burpod]

I’ve “blown” two vnt17s back to back during WOT runs at not even 24psi. At the time I thought it was a bad n75. This thread has me thinking otherwise. I had a very old and used vnt15 that my mechanic had sitting around put in along with a milder tune to tide me over. It lasted just my gtd1752 was put in. That turbo has been working perfectly ever since, with a tune that maxes at 28psi. Yes, malone stage 5, which lots of people run without any trouble.

burpod - the first thing you said was that it’s the tune, then you kept also sending me emails suggesting the malone tune was going to destroy my turbo. Yes, classic fearmongering and I called you out on it and you STILL don’t get it. And yes you also were hoping to be paid if things worked out and I was satisfied. Basically you blew it with me by attempting to manipulate my decision through fear. I am a 25+ year cybersecurity expert; I know what social engineering is….

diagnosing root cause is HARD. Forums members with a way more experience than I can attest that ascribing just a tune to a blown turbo is jumping to conclusions. It immediately skips over a very large number of other possibilities!

It is entirely likely you are excellent at what you do, which makes it really sad that you can’t stop trashing malone. If you finally get what I’m saying, and you apologize, I’ll drop this and encourage others to seek you out. We need good tuners. Jeff at Rocketchip is gone, and we have Kerma and Malone left. We NEED these vendors and we need you or someone like you to raise the bar if you can.

Malone and others have been around a long time providing a great service to what is honestly a pretty small community in the grand scheme of things. Again, be thankful and grateful.

yes i was fearmongering. lol.. you blew 3 turbos. so i was mistaken as to which ones exactly. but 2 new nt17s and then i'm not sure who thought it was a good idea to run the "stage4" on a vnt15 at your altitude, but for anyone who knows anything, that was pretty much guaranteed to blow up immediately doing a WOT to 4000rpm, which it of course did. yet you're somehow thinking i was fearmongering? after seeing some of your logs i told you the tune was running too much boost for your altitude. no leeway for overboost.

diagnosing root cause is very hard, you literally have no idea. you've not logged much except for the most basic 011 boost log, but really haveno idea how to interpret the data other than see if target boost tracks with spec. boost log is only the tip of the iceberg. all the real problems have nothing to do with that.

the fueling you are running has no need for 28psi FWIW. you've got 10mm + .215s, thats pretty weak fueling. needs about 25psi max for sane injection durations.. for your altitude you usually drive in, its' good to oversize the turbo, which is exactly what i would suggest, although a hair bigger wouldn't hurt. at 28psi for your altitude iirc you're living on the edge if you're trying to push 28psi at 3000+ rpm. good luck with that. not too much leeway there ontop of other issues.

malone has been here a long time giving out the same tune to everyone. the tune you're running in your 1752vrk 10mm .215s "stage4" is guaranteed to be the same exact tune as someone with 10mm/.205s vnt17 or 11mm/.205s 1752 gtb or 11mm/.230s/ + 1752. i've read in over 3 dozen malone tunes from all kinds of setups. every single tune gets the same maps, the only difference is literally how much the boost map is fudged up (stage 3, 4, 5) - barring a few very minor variations i've seen (probably some fudging because of someone complaining).

 

[3L3M3NT]

If you haven't decided on a turbo yet, I'd recommend upgrading to at least a GTD1752VRK.
Some helpful threads.
https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.ph...on-on-a-plug-play-turbo-1-9-alh.484977/page-2
https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?threads/gtd1752vrk.497265/

GTD1752VRK Turbos:
https://gottuned.com/product/gtd175...verted-and-welded-onto-stock-1-6-1-9-2-0-tdi/
https://performancetdi.com/shop/gtd1752vrk-turbo-upgrade-tdi/
https://muchboost.com/product/bille...nverted-with-welded-1-6-1-9-2-0-tdi-manifold/
https://en.powertdi.pl/turbina-gtd1752vrk-do-19-20-tdi-na-moce-220-km,18591
https://machgrade.com/product/gtd17...verted-and-welded-onto-stock-1-6-1-9-2-0-tdi/

GTD1756VRK Turbos:
https://mecevo.com/parts/garrett_turbo_gtd1756vrk_with_billet_compressor_wheel.html
https://gottuned.com/product/gtd175...nverted-and-welded-onto-stock-1-6-1-9-2-0tdi/

Otherwise if you're looking to make a bit more power, you could consider one of these turbos.
https://machgrade.com/product/gtd20...illet-turbo-upgrade-with-1-9-2-0tdi-manifold/
https://performancetdi.com/shop/gtd2060vz-turbo-upgrade-tdi/
https://gottuned.com/product/gtd206...illet-turbo-upgrade-with-1-9-2-0tdi-manifold/

https://gottuned.com/product/gtb206...m-converted-and-welded-onto-stock-1-9-2-0tdi/

https://gottuned.com/product/gtb226...m-converted-and-welded-onto-stock-1-9-2-0tdi/

https://en.powertdi.pl/turbo-gtd2263vz-for-19-20-tdi-to-360-hp

Good luck with your decision and I hope everything is ok with the engine.

 

[Shenandoah]

Folks,

I'm back on the road in the Audi TT -> TDI. I'll update my first post this weekend when I have time to sit down and write up all I've done. Stay tuned................

Eric

 

[Bob S.]

Eric, Great news. One of these days we are going to have to have another GTG!

 

[Shenandoah]

Folks,

Here’s an update on the Audi TT → TDI:

After running a compression test on the engine with good numbers, I was initially going to install another VNT-17 turbo. I received some feedback from several members here on the forum and I eventually decided to go with a GT1856 and .260 injectors from XmanTurbos. I also ordered a 4-bar MAP. I ordered the parts on a Thursday and they were at my house on Monday. Super fast shipping. I also ordered a new exhaust manifold gasket, oil return line gasket, intake manifold gasket, etc.

Putting everything back together went smoothly. I had to order some silicon adapters to get everything connected, but didn’t run into any issues. When I first did the conversion on the Audi TT, I used the plastic solid pipe that connects in between the intercooler and the turbo. With the new GT1856 I used the Audi TT metal “pancake” pipe (same as the 1.8T VW I think). I was able to connect to the turbo by using part of the Audi TT boost pipe, an aluminum adapter pipe and a silicon 90. It fits great and doesn’t rub anywhere (engine or axle).

Cleaned the intercooler and all the intake piping. I’m using a PD150 intake with the metal turbo inlet pipe. I also have a PD150 top for the airbox to match to the PD150 turbo inlet pipe. I took an old MAP from a 2.0l gas and cut it off so it did not extend in to the air path and installed that (I’m not running a MAP with the current tune) on the airbox top.

Once everything was back together……….the BIG test……….will it run…...Started it up and it ran fine. I installed a lift pump last year, so I didn’t have to bleed the injectors to get it to start. Drove up and down the road and OH MAN…...you would think I was fumigating for misquitoes! Once the car got up to temperature the oil in the exhaust started to burn off. Wow…..if someone was behind me and I really got on it, they would not be able to see. Most of the oil burned off after about 20 miles, but it really took about 100 miles to completely burn it out of the exhaust.

NOW for the fun part. Burpod reached out to me about helping me fine tune the Audi TT → TDI. He was super knowledgeable and sent me a ton of useful information. He drafted up an initial tune for my current setup: GT1856, .260 nozzles/injectors, 4 bar MAP. While installing the first tune it loaded about halfway, then I got an error message. I thought I bricked the ECU. I tried reloading the tune and the second time it loaded fine. Talk about being stressful………..

Drove the car up and down the road and ran some logs. Car really ran great. I was very reluctant to “get on it” as I didn’t want to blow a brand new turbo. Sent the logs to Burpod and he made some adjustments and sent another tune to load. Did this over the next couple of weeks: small changes based on the logs but each one seemed to run better! Drove up to Ohio in July and got 54 mpg running 75mph on the turnpike with the A/C on. EXCELLENT! And the car ran and performed great.

Burpod continues to “fine tune” the tune for the Audi TT → TDI. I will say that I have been super busy this past month and haven’t had time to really test and run some logs for the latest tune, but it’s on my list of things to do in August. As it stands right now the car runs great. WAY better than it ever has.

I really appreciate the help from the folks here on the forum and Burpod for making my TT run even better!!!

Eric

 

[burpod]

will only get better. i'm really hoping more for 60mpg @ 75mph with AC on at least in a little TT we shall see what we can get out of it. getting those mpg's shouldn't really have any affect on your "power", it's a very separate area. definitely plenty of room to have your cake and eat it too....

 

[PakProtector]

Turbos have a "safe operation zone" which is defined by RPM, airflow and boost along with temperature. Manufacturers provide this. Remain within it and things are generally good. Violate any of those parameters and you might or might get away with it; there IS some safety margin in their design, but its not indefinite.

Like Garrett? Have yet to see a GTD-series compressor map. For sure the makers of machined-from-billet compressor wheels don't provide maps.

For wee liddle turbo's like these, the upper speed limit is closer to 200k rpm than 100k...and the force fatiguing the shaft goes by the square of rpm.
cheers,
Douglas