UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Picked up the new car last night 51 reg 1.4 TDI SE, was reading the manual in bed and it was going on about all the functions of the car and in one part it was banging on about "do not rev the car so the rev meter goes into the red, the car is automatically limited blah blah blah"

when i was driving it last night i noticed it pulls like hell in 1st and second but when in 3rd as it goes close to red line it kinda dies a bit and looses power, as if the limiter has kicked in? so when people say they have 'chipped' their car does it mean the 'chip' takes all the VW standard crap off thus giving you more power/speed?

i know im making no sense whotsoever but hey you can't knock a man for trying!

im sure one of you gurus will fill me in....

ta

ditto
i know mine is a 1.0 but in 3rd gear it goes really slowly towards the red (as opposed to 1st and 2nd where it rockets)
my car simply won't let me go into the red (not that i really want to!)
can anyone shed light on this?
-Ben-

Yeah, you are running out of torque for that gear. Its much easier to redline in 1st or second, so you will find that the ecu has a soft limiter in these gears.

My third gear seems quite eager right up to about 6500 revs - I was making use of it today down the A49, damn 40mph club

Yes but the redline for these other cars is 5,800. I think its 6,200 for the GTi. If you think about it, the faster the engine turns the more power you get, because there are more bangs per minute! But you loose torque at silly speeds because of pumping losses etc in the inlet and the exhaust. If you have a honda you can rev it to 9k or beyond, so you get very high output, but it makes the torque really peaky, and its why you can't compare direct HP, and the rolling road output power is meaning less. The 8V and even the 16V polo engines can't breath too well above 5,000, there simply isn't the lift on the cams, but if you increase it then it suffers at the bottom. Then it becomes like a F1 car, plenty of power but its impossible to pull away using less than 10,000 RPM it just stalls! The GTi cheats by varying the valve timing and lift.

VW have always concetrated on low end torque which is what makes them nice to drive. The new Golf GTi has torque everywhere, its really a pleasure to drive. You can stick it in top gear and accelerate from 25MPH upto its top speed in ONE GEAR - what a car!

JWC wrote:VW have always concetrated on low end torque which is what makes them nice to drive. The new Golf GTi has torque everywhere, its really a pleasure to drive. You can stick it in top gear and accelerate from 25MPH upto its top speed in ONE GEAR - what a car!

I'll second that - what a car indeed a great drive if you can wheedle a test drive out of a dealer

As for the comment on the cams, a fellow Polo owner has been having some experiences of that, thread is here. Thanks JWC for another excellent post - I'm learning more about the car every time I read one of them! Nice one.

I have noticed early soft limiting on these cars in 1st and 2nd gear. Its odd, it seems to sulk when you thrape it in 1st. But as far as I'm aware there is no direct feedback to the ECU as to what gear you are in. Only road speed. So perhaps it works it out from that. Suppose its quite easy to work out from rpm what gear you are in.

....That is unless you change the wheels to 17's then you screw it all up!

Have a look for a book called modern car technology. It goes into the very latest stuff and how things like variable compression etc works. Its a really good read, and very easy to read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 51-5827645

Have fun.

thanks for replies, you have lost me a bit to be honest with all the big words!


its not a major thing really, the car is so much fun. its great when you get some git in a big car pull up to the side of you or behind at lights, just put your foot down and I loose them for a bit!!

cheers