Freelander 1 Td4 remaps

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300bhp/ton

300bhp/ton

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Probably covered many times before.

Any first hand experience on remapping an FL1 with the BMW Td4 engine? Assume it should react the same as any other TD, with good gains to be had. Anyone do bigger intercoolers for them?
 
300bhp/ton said:
Anyone do bigger intercoolers for them?
Click to expand...

A bigger intercooler only makes a difference, once the boost pressure outstrips the factory coolers ability to reduce the intake temperature.
I'd go with a remap first, and see if there's an issue with excessive intake temperature after that. ;)
 
Nodge68 said:
A bigger intercooler only makes a difference, once the boost pressure outstrips the factory coolers ability to reduce the intake temperature.
I'd go with a remap first, and see if there's an issue with excessive intake temperature after that. ;)
Click to expand...
Thanks, although respectfully I'd disagree. Have tuned lots of diesels and bigger intercoolers have always made a difference. Often even without doing anything else to the vehicle. A custom remap would also need mods like bigger intercooler to be in place before hand, to enable the best tune.
 
TTT

Odd, I'd have thought there would have been more activity on this. Lots of Freelander owners here. And remapping/tuning seems such common place on a Defender/Disco. Wonder why it seems so far and few between for the Freelander?
 
https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-ro...freelander-today.199594/page-591#post-5306988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for various reasons .. i chose a mobile re-mapper ..
but ..
i rekon it's better to have it custom re-mapped on a rolling road
with an outfit who can provide exact details of the various changes .. if one has questions to ask
```````````````
i've not yet calculated mpg ..
```````````````````````````````````````````
[ edit to add ] .. as for uprated intercoolers ..
thought about it when i first got my td4
but after monitoring the air temps whilst driving
i decided it weren't needed .. in my case
[ i.e. pre. remap .. but with the ron-box set at max. ]

what did improve drivability .. were ..
deleting the egr .. and ..
modding the air intake tract
[ see lz. link in my sig.
[ as muddymods do kits .. be pics in that thread
preferably .. i'd insulate the ducting against engine bay heat
````````````````````````````````````````````````````
a straight thru exhaust back-box .. as well
[ every little bit helps ;-]
 
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GrumpyGel said:
Maybe they prefer to use their money for more productive things than making (more) smoke and knackering their engine.

That's my take on it.
Click to expand...
How/why do you think they knacker engines ffs. Engine tuning has being going on as long as engines have existed. In fact many car makers simply make lower output variants by mapping them differently. Seriously there is over 100 years worth of proof of tuning engines.
 
300bhp/ton said:
How/why do you think they knacker engines ffs. Engine tuning has being going on as long as engines have existed. In fact many car makers simply make lower output variants by mapping them differently. Seriously there is over 100 years worth of proof of tuning engines.
Click to expand...
You can take out the smoke map and eek every last mm3 of oxygen out of the cylinder - and a few more that just gets pumped out the back as smoke. The smoke map was there for a reason.

You might get fed up with putting your foot to the floor and realising that the rev/speed map is limiting power, so remove that - but its there to protect the engine at lower revs. If you can beef up the bottom end to cope with bigger low rev bangs, then fine - but how many do when they have a remap? Better to be in the correct gear, or if you can remap the gearbox if its an auto.

I fail to see as well how you can get better MPG. The power you get out of a diesel is directly proportionate to the volume of diesel you pump in. Are you going to adjust the throttle map so it injects less fuel? You'll simply press the throttle further to get the same power and use the same fuel. Alternatively, don't get a remap and don't press the throttle so far. Or sort out the problems that do impact MPG.
 
300bhp/ton said:
TTT

Odd, I'd have thought there would have been more activity on this. Lots of Freelander owners here. And remapping/tuning seems such common place on a Defender/Disco. Wonder why it seems so far and few between for the Freelander?
Click to expand...

I'm all for tuning, and I agree that there is an almost fuddy duddy spirit in here, which is quite disenheartening TBH. On the other hand we have some parts of the membership such as myself who throw all the toys at it, including a hybrid turbo. (I rebuilt my GT1749v as a GT1752v) We've also @Diesel Do who has a company, "MuddyMods" making mods for the hippo, including sports exhausts, induciton kits, improved intake ducting etc.

However I'd counsel you to tread lightly with the tuning on the freelander, as I've been informed that the freelander has some inherent design limitations. One such limitation is the "TD4" M47R (R for Rover variant) has a weaker crank than BMW's regular M47 engines. Also, it appears that the Jatco JF506E autobox is pretty close to it's torque design rating / limit on TD4 in standard tune. I've seen one dude on here with a snapped crank, and know of someone else who had auto box problems and reckons their autobox was torched by a tuning box turned all the way up. But that being said, you've got to ask yourself, what age and condition was the box in before the tuning box and this failure?

There appears to be some misunderstanding on the benefits of a larger intercooler, as well as allowing better cooling supporting higher boost pressures by means of dissipating the associated increase in charge temperatures, the lager volume is less restrictive and as such allows the intercooler to flow better, increasing the width of the torqueband, improving throttle response, etc. These improvements will also benefit from the fact that the original intercooler will by now be ~15-20 years old and internally clegged up with oil gunge as well as coated externally with a nice layer of insulating corrosion.

IMHO the freelander seems to have a decent enough map at the bottom end, but it looks to me as if it's been mapped to fall off a cliff at the top end, and I'd reckon a good map would enhance it nicely. I've not yet mapped mine as like every tuning project you need to get the fundamentals right, and mine is lame, lots of smoke minimal poke, but not a boost leak. I suspect I've not got a good seal on the injectors from some previous trauma/work, but our hippo is the third car in our household and as such a back burner project, so I'm not in a hurry to investigate it. However, I will get around to it and slap an intercooler, muddymods turbo ducting and a map on it.
 
Jayridium said:
I'm all for tuning, and I agree that there is an almost fuddy duddy spirit in here, which is quite disenheartening TBH. On the other hand we have some parts of the membership such as myself who throw all the toys at it, including a hybrid turbo. (I rebuilt my GT1749v as a GT1752v) We've also @Diesel Do who has a company, "MuddyMods" making mods for the hippo, including sports exhausts, induciton kits, improved intake ducting etc.

However I'd counsel you to tread lightly with the tuning on the freelander, as I've been informed that the freelander has some inherent design limitations. One such limitation is the "TD4" M47R (R for Rover variant) has a weaker crank than BMW's regular M47 engines. Also, it appears that the Jatco JF506E autobox is pretty close to it's torque design rating / limit on TD4 in standard tune. I've seen one dude on here with a snapped crank, and know of someone else who had auto box problems and reckons their autobox was torched by a tuning box turned all the way up. But that being said, you've got to ask yourself, what age and condition was the box in before the tuning box and this failure?

There appears to be some misunderstanding on the benefits of a larger intercooler, as well as allowing better cooling supporting higher boost pressures by means of dissipating the associated increase in charge temperatures, the lager volume is less restrictive and as such allows the intercooler to flow better, increasing the width of the torqueband, improving throttle response, etc. These improvements will also benefit from the fact that the original intercooler will by now be ~15-20 years old and internally clegged up with oil gunge as well as coated externally with a nice layer of insulating corrosion.

IMHO the freelander seems to have a decent enough map at the bottom end, but it looks to me as if it's been mapped to fall off a cliff at the top end, and I'd reckon a good map would enhance it nicely. I've not yet mapped mine as like every tuning project you need to get the fundamentals right, and mine is lame, lots of smoke minimal poke, but not a boost leak. I suspect I've not got a good seal on the injectors from some previous trauma/work, but our hippo is the third car in our household and as such a back burner project, so I'm not in a hurry to investigate it. However, I will get around to it and slap an intercooler, muddymods turbo ducting and a map on it.
Click to expand...
The TD4 is a good setup in Freelander, but it could be a lot better.

I don't understand why they put the inferior crank in it - was it just cost, or did they not expect people to tune them like people might expect a Beemer saloon to be? Can the 'standard' crank from a BMW engine be used in the Freelander engine, or the whole lump used?

The gearboxes appear a right dogs dinner. The manual Getrag unit appears fine, but the clutches wear out really quickly. If the clutch doesn't, the slave will and so you still have the big job of box off and a new clutch anyway. The auto boxes appear nice units, but as you say, there are so many reports of them needing rebuilds - clutches and all sorts simply wearing out. I'm also alarmed at the number of wiring/solenoid faults we see with the TD4 Jatco box.

It all appears to be rather "on the limit".
 
300bhp/ton said:
Have tuned lots of diesels and bigger intercoolers have always made a difference.
Click to expand...

I don't mind a difference of opinion, that's what life is all about. ;)

However I don't agree you'll see worthwhile gains from a bigger intercooler on the stand map. A diesel is throttled by fuel, not air, so simply getting more air in, won't give any worthwhile power gains, unless you're overcoming some inherent air restriction, and going to add more fuel burn in the increased air.

The BMW M47 is capable of some pretty significant power outputs, with the correct mapping and mods. However the Freelander engine is an M47R (R stands for Rover), which isn't as strong as the BMW version. The crankshaft is cast iron, and very badly cast at that, which means it's likely to fail if power is taken too high. Rover limited the torque output of this engine in the MGZT CDTI to 300Nm and 130 BHP, as it wanted to reduce the chances of engine failure in the warranty period.

Also when tuning the Freelander TD4, you have to consider the gearbox, especially if it's an auto. The Jatco jf506e has a maximum torque capacity of just 300Nm, which isn't much, and is easy to exceed with normal tuning. I found this out first hand, and trashed the torque converter first, then the 3rd gear clutch pack failed, so it's a week transmission, which doesn't tolerate overloads well.

300bhp/ton said:
And remapping/tuning seems such common place on a Defender/Disco.
Click to expand...
A because they're intently underpowered to start with, and B because the diesel engines are able to take power increase without busting something. ;)
Jayridium said:
I'm all for tuning, and I agree that there is an almost fuddy duddy spirit in here, which is quite disenheartening TBH.
Click to expand...
Not fuddy duddy really, I had mine tweaked until the box shat itself, I even fixed the initial box issue, only for another box component to fail just weeks later. :(

I don't believe the Freelander is that under powered in standard trim, and it's definitely faster than the suspension and brakes can deal with, so that's where I'd start if I was to get another FL, which I'm still thinking about doing at some point.

The FL2 is in a different league altogether, it's definitely faster, but the main reason it's faster from A to B is the suspension and brakes, which are well able to take the increased performance the vehicle is capable of.
 
GrumpyGel said:
You can take out the smoke map and eek every last mm3 of oxygen out of the cylinder - and a few more that just gets pumped out the back as smoke. The smoke map was there for a reason.

You might get fed up with putting your foot to the floor and realising that the rev/speed map is limiting power, so remove that - but its there to protect the engine at lower revs. If you can beef up the bottom end to cope with bigger low rev bangs, then fine - but how many do when they have a remap? Better to be in the correct gear, or if you can remap the gearbox if its an auto.

I fail to see as well how you can get better MPG. The power you get out of a diesel is directly proportionate to the volume of diesel you pump in. Are you going to adjust the throttle map so it injects less fuel? You'll simply press the throttle further to get the same power and use the same fuel. Alternatively, don't get a remap and don't press the throttle so far. Or sort out the problems that do impact MPG.
Click to expand...
Sorry, what do you mean by 'smoke map'?

MPG not really an issue. I have a 4.6 V8 Range Rover. The FL will always win that battle.
 
Nodge68 said:
I don't mind a difference of opinion, that's what life is all about. ;)

However I don't agree you'll see worthwhile gains from a bigger intercooler on the stand map.
Click to expand...
But I'm talking about a map regardless.... and unless the Freelander has just about the best stock intercooler, which would be odd considering the shortcomings you site below. Then generally a larger or better IC would still bring benefits. Or at lest they seem to on pretty much any other diesel vehicle in the motoring world. So I'm not sure why the FL would not follow suit.



Nodge68 said:
A diesel is throttled by fuel, not air, so simply getting more air in, won't give any worthwhile power gains, unless you're overcoming some inherent air restriction, and going to add more fuel burn in the increased air.
Click to expand...
Flow restrictions and charge density. And as said hence the title of this thread. Looking for remaps anyway. Currently running a Ronbox and aftermarket MAF.

Nodge68 said:
The BMW M47 is capable of some pretty significant power outputs, with the correct mapping and mods. However the Freelander engine is an M47R (R stands for Rover), which isn't as strong as the BMW version. The crankshaft is cast iron, and very badly cast at that, which means it's likely to fail if power is taken too high.
Click to expand...
This is good info thanks. Is there a known limit? How often does this happen. If I'm honest I'd not heard of this before, not saying it doesn't happen. But if common I'd have thought there would be more threads on here and other places about it.

Nodge68 said:
Also when tuning the Freelander TD4, you have to consider the gearbox, especially if it's an auto.
Click to expand...
Tis a manual. :)
 
Jayridium said:
I'm all for tuning, and I agree that there is an almost fuddy duddy spirit in here, which is quite disenheartening TBH. On the other hand we have some parts of the membership such as myself who throw all the toys at it, including a hybrid turbo. (I rebuilt my GT1749v as a GT1752v) We've also @Diesel Do who has a company, "MuddyMods" making mods for the hippo, including sports exhausts, induciton kits, improved intake ducting etc.

However I'd counsel you to tread lightly with the tuning on the freelander, as I've been informed that the freelander has some inherent design limitations. One such limitation is the "TD4" M47R (R for Rover variant) has a weaker crank than BMW's regular M47 engines. Also, it appears that the Jatco JF506E autobox is pretty close to it's torque design rating / limit on TD4 in standard tune. I've seen one dude on here with a snapped crank, and know of someone else who had auto box problems and reckons their autobox was torched by a tuning box turned all the way up. But that being said, you've got to ask yourself, what age and condition was the box in before the tuning box and this failure?

There appears to be some misunderstanding on the benefits of a larger intercooler, as well as allowing better cooling supporting higher boost pressures by means of dissipating the associated increase in charge temperatures, the lager volume is less restrictive and as such allows the intercooler to flow better, increasing the width of the torqueband, improving throttle response, etc. These improvements will also benefit from the fact that the original intercooler will by now be ~15-20 years old and internally clegged up with oil gunge as well as coated externally with a nice layer of insulating corrosion.

IMHO the freelander seems to have a decent enough map at the bottom end, but it looks to me as if it's been mapped to fall off a cliff at the top end, and I'd reckon a good map would enhance it nicely. I've not yet mapped mine as like every tuning project you need to get the fundamentals right, and mine is lame, lots of smoke minimal poke, but not a boost leak. I suspect I've not got a good seal on the injectors from some previous trauma/work, but our hippo is the third car in our household and as such a back burner project, so I'm not in a hurry to investigate it. However, I will get around to it and slap an intercooler, muddymods turbo ducting and a map on it.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

Was hoping to get some 1st hand feedback on people who had remapped them. When you Google it, there seems to be lots of 'generic' mappers like Celtic tuning. Who seem to claim to remap every vehicle under the Sun. Not saying they can't, but you know the saying, if it sounds too good....

I know people who have had remaps from Alive tuning, but not on an FL1. They don't even list them :( I did email and ask. But got no reply.

Basically I was hoping not to be a path finder and that a few people might say. I got this remap 5 years ago and been really pleased with it. Just like all the Td6 L322 owners, despite the gearbox issues they have.

I'm not afraid of tuning or mods. In fact most of the vehicles I own or have owned are modded....
 
300bhp/ton said:
Sorry, what do you mean by 'smoke map'?
Click to expand...

The Smoke map is an emissions doodad programmed into the EDC. Basically it measures the air throughput of the engine using the MAF, then limits the amount of fuel in line with the air available to burn the fuel. By doing this, it limits black smoke output (hence smoke map), so cleaning up the exhaust.
If you want big power, the smoke map needs mapping out, as it will always limit fuel throughput, and so limit power.

300bhp/ton said:
Flow restrictions and charge density. And as said hence the title of this thread. Looking for remaps anyway. Currently running a Ronbox and aftermarket MAF.
Click to expand...
If you're already running a Synergy, then you will see an improvement with a bigger IC. You'll see an even larger improvement if you replace the back box with a straight through pipe,
20161205_092916.jpg
and bash the guts out the CAT. ;)
300bhp/ton said:
But I'm talking about a map regardless.... and unless the Freelander has just about the best stock intercooler, which would be odd considering the shortcomings. So I'm not sure why the FL would not follow.


This is good info thanks. Is there a known limit? How often does this happen. If I'm honest I'd not heard of this before, not saying it doesn't happen. But if common I'd have thought there would be more threads on here and other places about it.


Tis a manual. :)
Click to expand...

The M47R intake system is a bigger restriction then the IC, so that's the place to start, or you could just fit it all the intake improvements at the same time.
The intake trunking kinda undoes any cooling by the IC, as it's long, black and winding. So that needs to be silver in colour, preferably alloy, and ideally thermally insulated from the engine bay heat.
The stock air filter is OK, and of sufficient area to not limit flow.

Crank failure does happen, not too often, but often enough for it to be noted. It's not like the D3/4 DTV6, which breaks them for fun.

The manual is a bit stronger than the auto, but not super strong. I think its torque limit is something like 340Nm, which is enough to see it survive 170ish BHP.

;)
 
Nodge68 said:
Not fuddy duddy really, I had mine tweaked until the box shat itself, I even fixed the initial box issue, only for another box component to fail just weeks later. :(
Click to expand...
I wasn't referring to you as a fuddy duddy... you were the autobox failure :)

Nodge68 said:
If you're already running a Synergy, then you will see an improvement with a bigger IC. You'll see an even larger improvement if you replace the back box with a straight through pipe, View attachment 262983 and bash the guts out the CAT. ;)
Click to expand...
Ghetto decat, tuning box, home-brew straight through...That's definitely not fuddy duddyness on the previous vehicle.
GrumpyGel said:
The TD4 is a good setup in Freelander, but it could be a lot better.

I don't understand why they put the inferior crank in it - was it just cost, or did they not expect people to tune them like people might expect a Beemer saloon to be? Can the 'standard' crank from a BMW engine be used in the Freelander engine, or the whole lump used?

The gearboxes appear a right dogs dinner. The manual Getrag unit appears fine, but the clutches wear out really quickly. If the clutch doesn't, the slave will and so you still have the big job of box off and a new clutch anyway. The auto boxes appear nice units, but as you say, there are so many reports of them needing rebuilds - clutches and all sorts simply wearing out. I'm also alarmed at the number of wiring/solenoid faults we see with the TD4 Jatco box.

It all appears to be rather "on the limit".
Click to expand...
I'm half toying with the idea of dropping a BMW engine out of an e46 / e90 320d, or similar vintage 5 series models into mine, if only I was certain the bellhousing would marry up to the hippo auto box? But yeah, it seems strange to make a new inferior part exclusively for the R variant rather than just roll with what they had in the BMW engines. Transmissions again, seems needlessly limited, then again,
300bhp/ton said:
Sorry, what do you mean by 'smoke map'?

MPG not really an issue. I have a 4.6 V8 Range Rover. The FL will always win that battle.
Click to expand...
In an enginemap it's a common misconception that it's one spreasheet with values for fueling, but there are in actual multiple tables referred to simultaneously, some of which conflict with each other. For example, if the drivers wish/demand map calls for ALL THE POWAH!!!, but the engine is stone cold the ECU will restrict the amount of fuel delivered to the engine. Off the top of my head, exscluding timinmg considerations, just sticking to the fuel dosages, I can think of the following maps, Drivers Wish/Demand map,Inlet Manifold Absolute Pressure map,Torque limiting maps.

It will always be the lowest value of those maps that is used to decide how much fuel to inject through injector pulse width values contained therein.

Things like timing and boost pressure can also be contained within the map, so it would be possible to increase the boostpressure at lower rpms to give the enigne more bottom end torque, thus improving fuel economy. To give it more power, you need to increase fuelling as well as boost, perfectly doable in software. Push too far with the boost demands and the turbo will overspeed and fail, push too far with the fuel dosages and you will start "rollin coal", find a sweetspot with a good mixture of air and fuel that's way out of tolerance and you might blow the headgasket as combustion pressures, manifold pressure x compression ratio x thermal expansion of air fuel, will be so high that the head bolt's cannot cope.

A good map will be set to the limit of the vehicle as a whole, sure it's at the limits, but safe limits. Smoke map will be set to a point just before the smoke happens, drivers demand will be set with an overview of air supply / pressure, boost will be set with an eye charge temps etc. Similar to how you'd tweak the delivery screw and the boost compnstion devices on an injection pump to the point it starts getting smoky then back it off half a turn or so.

What you need to beware of is that a lot of the remap franchises simply arbitrarily up the smoke and torque limit maps and increase the bottom end turbo boost pressure maps, it's little more than reading the tables out of the ECU into a file, applying a forumla to a spreadsheet and pasting it back into the ROM file and uploading it via OBDII/bootstrapping. So in essence a lot of the remaps out there are little more than a tuning box / "Evry mod" (link) applied in software. Those hardware hacks hoodwink the ECU into altering it's behaviour by skewing the values it sees from different sensors, the basic remaps just skew the output values directly.

The hippo is old enough that AFIK it's ECU can be OBD2 programmed, newer cars not so much. Depending on how much you know just now, how much you are willing to learn, and how much fun you have tinkering with this sort of stuff, I'd say it'd be worth spending the price of a remap on a kess v2 clone and having a play with remapping your own hippo. If you are interested in learning about it I'll look up some tutorials for you? I've got a Kess V2 (clone), and done a couple of remaps on other cars, just not the hippo for reasons mentioned earlier.
 
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