I don’t see diesels mentioned – do you do them?
In a word, no. I’ve owned, driven and tested my maps on 9-3 and 9-5 4-cylinder petrols, but never had the time or owned a diesel long enough to get long-term test data whereby i’d be happy to offer them as a NoobTune product. If you have a diesel then i can highly recommend Tom at www.tpremapping.co.uk, his experience with diesels is excellent.
I don’t see 2.8V6’s mentioned – do you do them?
As above really. I’ve never owned one so i never developed the maps for them. (i refuse to pay £500+ for road tax too!)
Is it only Saab’s you remap?
Yes, just Saab’s and Saab-engined stuff e.g. Vectras, Signums, donor cars etc.
Is there a risk to my engine from remapping?
A healthy engine and all it’s hardware will cope with a remap. The only time it won’t is if it’s worn or not been looked after, but then it would be at risk of failure even without installing a remap.
A healthy B207 engine is proven safe to supply 320hp and 430nm of torque. After that the engine’s liners are susceptible to flexing and therefore cracking due to being relatively thin and unsupported in the block.
B205 engines are fine up to ~300hp and 420nm, to 400-420hp with forged pistons, and significantly more with pistons AND rods.
B235 engines are fine up to 320hp and 450nm as stock and the same as above with forged internals.
Do i need to upgrade anything for a stage 1 remap?
No. Healthy stock hardware will cope with a stage 1 remap without having to upgrade anything.
However, if any of the stock components are reaching their service limit for either age or mileage or they’re simply weak, then you may have to renew certain components if the remap shows up that weakness.
Ignition coils for example are common items that show up as being weak if they’re getting old. They deteriorate with age/mileage until they’re no longer able to supply a decent spark for a given engine load. This usually manifests itself as a misfire when on full throttle (full load) but fault-free driving when on part throttle. If a set of coils has deteriorated to the point of only being able to ignite, for example, a 175hp load but your engine is the 150hp model, then you won’t see any problems because the current maximum load doesn’t exceed the capacity of the coils, even though they’ve deteriorated significantly compared to new ones. But if you then install a stage 1 remap at 220hp you’d find that those aging coils will misfire where they didn’t previously (a set of new coils will fire a 400+hp load quite happily). This isn’t the fault of the map, it’s a weak/old component breaking down under a higher load, but some people will blame the remap because the misfires didn’t happen before it was installed.
Basically be aware that old hardware might need to be renewed after a remap if it can’t cope with the new load you’re asking from it, but, where service items are concerned, this would happen at some point anyway even without having a remap, the extra load has just brought it to light sooner.
How long would you need the ECU for if i posted it to you?
I always turn them around overnight and i use Royal Mail Special Delivery to send back on** (which i also recommend customers to do when sending due to it being a guaranteed next day service and fully tracked).
If you sent it on a Monday for example, then you’d usually have it back by Thursday. Sending on a Tuesday would return on Friday, and so on. The advantage of using RMSD is they now seem to include Saturday as a normal delivery day where the carrier i used previously didn’t.
**U.K. postcodes only, overseas POA.
Why are your maps so much cheaper than a lot of others?
Quite simply because i don’t have the costs of the others.
- I don’t buy in my maps from a tuning company, they’re written and tested by me,
- I don’t have expensive premises to pay for,
- I don’t have staff,
- I don’t have to charge VAT,
- I’m not greedy, i’m just a Saab lover who wants to help others enjoy their Saabs.
Can i have OpenSID?
If you have a 9-5 or a 2000-2002 9-3 then yes, OpenSID is usually included, it’s too useful not to.
My T8 ECU is throwing fault codes and i’ve been told i need a new one, can you repair it?
Regrettably, the answer here is that, at time of writing, T8 ECU’s cannot be repaired in the U.K., no matter what these ECU testing companies tell you. I’ve not heard of one yet that can even test them properly, let alone diagnose or replace the output stages inside the ECU that are weakened and eventually fail due to heat. The majority of testing companies only test the memory, processors and communications sections of the ECU, which very rarely fail on these. The only true way to test the parts that actually cause the problems are to put them under load e.g. on a car, that’s up to temperature (many ECU problems don’t occur until it gets hot).
Fortunately, the parts that do still work, usually allow downloading and cloning of the entire ECU/maps/settings etc to a used donor ECU, usually sourced from a breaker. Unfortunately this does mean you’re reliant on the donor ECU being fault free too, but if it’s been fully tested in a load cell or on a car then it should be o.k.
If your ECU hasn’t succombed to heat damage yet, or you’re fitting a used one because the original is failing then it may be worth considering fitting a heat-shield kit to prevent future damage.