Tomgc61

Tomgc61

Member
I have a very good low mileage completely standard 2003 td5. It hums along nicely but there are aspects of the performance I would love to improve most of all not having to really boot it to get any sort of acceleration.

My local independent is not a fan of any of the obvious changes thinking that they ultimately have a cost implication of engine imbalance and wear. I know this topic has been covered on many occasions but I's be interested to know from others what the experience is particularly if anybody has categorical information about the MOT and the non cat down pipe and the EGR removal.

Be interested to hear if anybody has done the various mods and then wished they'd left well alone!
 
The simplest / cheapest mod. you can do to TD5 to potentially get a small power / torque gain is to adjust the turbo wastegate actuator rod to increase the boost pressure slightly. The standard set-up is perhaps conservatively set so that they didn't have to any fine tuning in the factory when new.
The engine senses boost pressure & will go into "limp home" mode if the boost reaches more than 1.38bar (I think that's the value), but standard set up is often set via the actuator rod to just under 1.3bar from cars I've seen - leaving a small "free" tuning opportunity.

EGR removal might give a small performance upgrade if your current egr is faulty / leaking.
On our td5, removing it made no difference I could detect.

After that an ECU upgrade to increase fuelling is definitely a useful mod, without any adverse side effects if carried out by someone who knows what they're doing. If carried badly, your engine will overheat badly, smoke badly enough to fail an MOT or even kill the engine.
I & many others have been running ecu mods for 50,000 miles + / many years without problems
 
Hi Paul - thanks for that. Interesting that you note the EGR deletion is of very little use if the standard set up is in good fettle. Do you have anybody you know in the West Mids to do the Turbo boost pressure?
 
Tuning engines is nothing new. Those who are against it, don't usually have any logic, rational or evidence to support their position. They simply don't like it and never will.

The easiest gains are a remap. Lots of options here from many companies. No other changes needed and you will see gains, significant ones.

EGR and de-cat are not really gains tbh and the latter is somewhat pointless unless you are chasing every pony. EGR will only impact performance if it isn't working correctly.

Other standard tuning mods will help if you want to spend a bit more money. Such as improved breathing via free flow exhaust systems, induction and a bigger intercooler.

The Td5 is a lovely engine, but it isn't anything unique and will respond in the same way as any other engine to the same mods.
 
As has already been suggested, the nicest way of getting the "something extra" out of the Td5 engine would be a remap of the ECU. DO NOT opt for those "bolt-on, go faster" boxes, all they will probably do is increase your fuel bill.
Many owners here on the forum have had good results from Mike at Dynachip, and he'll come to you to do the remap.
 
I would still junk the egr as I don't want dirty second-hand air with no oxygen going into my engine at any time plus the standard egr pipe blocks off half the air flow so fit a straight inlet instead, just look how much of the inlet is blocked by the egr compared to an aftermarket straight inlet
nice and smooth.jpg
dirty old egr.png
 
Not sure how it would reduce low down torque in anyway what so ever.

Frees up the air intake and allows the air to flow with much less restriction. Overall generally helps the turbo to spool faster and the engine to breath better.

I noticed my turbo spooled up much quicker with a straight 4" intake to the wing instead of the std LR intake system.
 
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