05-12-2011, 07:24 PM
A Stage 1 tune on a 306 HDi is commonly considered to be a simple re-map possibly with the addition of exhaust and induction modifications. For just the re-map you should expect around the 120bhp mark and with a couple of breathing modifications Iâ??d expect 130bhp.
Re-maps
A remap is basically an updated piece of software that is uploaded to your ECU (the engines computer brain) that alters the amount of fuel given under certain conditions. The Bocsh EDC15 that the 306 HDi uses is actually quite a complex and tuneable piece of kit so your tuner can alter the amount of fuel injected either via duration or pressure (or both) and also the advance (the amount of time it starts injecting before the piston reaches the top of the stroke) as well as a whole host of other parameters. The ECU is not however enabled to increase the boost pressure as it does not have a sensor to read the boost or anything to adjust the turbo waste gate with so a tuner who tells you their theyâ??re adjusting the boost map for more boost is either lying or doesnâ??t know what theyâ??re doing.
There are a couple of ways of getting a re-map. The cheapest is to write your own but as this is something I have never done and have no interest in I shall comment no further. The next Cheapest option is to buy a remap from one of the established tuners that float around our forums and will charge you £40-£90 for a map then you must buy a KWP2000+ or a Galleto 1260 from eBay for about £20 and use that to upload your new map onto your ECU via your OBD port (under the steering wheel). I wonâ??t go into the process of this too much as it is covered in great depth elsewhere.
The final Method of having a stage 1 re-map is to go to an established tuner such as S P Tuning or The Derv Doctor who will upload you a new map and often accompany this with before and after dyno runs so that you can see the improvement this makes. This will cost you £200 upwards. Personally I would not use a professional tuner unless they were willing to give you before and after dyno runs as its a lot of money to spend to not be happy with the end result or to go and get it dynoed elsewhere at a later date and find that your not running as much power as people using the cheaper options.
The safe limit with stage 1 maps is reckoned to be 130bhp so be very wary of anyone offering more than this figure without an intercooler as you risk damaging your engine and turbo.
The Dangers of Tuning Boxes
Tuning boxes are often sold on eBay and have even been sold by some big name companies like Ecosse the Scottish Peugeot tuners and modifiers. No matter how much marketing blah comes with it about being adjustable and the best and whatever else they say to con you into buying them they are all just resistors in a box and as such are no better than buying a 99p eBay tuning chip (read resistor). These cheap electronics cost less than £10 to make and are sold for up to £250, thatâ??s quite a mark up. All they do is plug in between the fuel rail and the ECU and alter the resistance and thus alter the fuel pressure the ECU sees so it injects more fuel. This will lead to poor fuel economy, smoke out the exhaust and excessive Exhaust Gas Temperatures (EGTs) thatâ??ll kill your turbo. The other con with tuning boxes is that they promise reasonable gains that in reality they will never make. In short if youâ??re offered a HDi tuning option that plugs permanently into wires in the engine bay then walk away, theyâ??re not worth it when a proper (safe) remap can be had from £40.
Induction (air filter) Modifications
Standard air filters and air boxes are often seen as a restriction to the air flow into your engine and when your air filter is due for a change at service time it probably is acting as a restriction. This is one of the reasons that a car that has recently been serviced will often feel more powerful and more eager to pull.
The thing is, standard HDi filters arenâ??t actually all that bad especially when theyâ??re replaced regularly. The standard filter box isnâ??t all that bad either, it does a reasonable job of preventing heat soak, has few real restrictions and also has a good feed of cold air from the front of the car. As such the best induction solution for the HDi for less than £200 is reckoned to be fitting a K&N panel filter inside the standard air box. These only cost around £35 and come with K&Ns million mile warranty. You will never need to buy another air filter as long as you own the car and bearing in mind that a standard one from Peugeot is about £12 then the K&N will have paid itself off in 3 services time. There is a guide on how to fit one of these in the HDi Service Guide.
Induction kits although offering a greater filtration area are plagued by heat soak in the 306s engine bay even with multiple cold air feeds and are best avoided because the HDi seems to be really affected by high inlet air temperatures. Inlet air temp is measured by the ECU at the MAF sensor so I guess if it gets warm then the ECU cuts the fuel.
The best option if money is no object is a fully enclosed induction kit like a Pipercross Viper or BMC CDA. These offer all the benefits of having a much larger filtering area like normal induction kits but have the bonus of being enclosed and so shielded from the power sapping heat of the engine bay.
In truth no change in air filter will see massive gains over a clean standard air filter so you really have to ask yourself is 2bhp worth £200?
Exhaust Modifications
The HDi exhaust isnâ??t all that bad as standard with its 2.25â? bore but it has 2 main restrictions, the baffled back box and the cat. These are both thought to be worth about 5bhp each with an associated increase in throttle and turbo response too on a stage 1 mapped car.
The easiest and cheapest way to remove the restriction of the cat is to remove it, smash the innards out and then bolt it back up. See HDi De-Cat Guide.
The easiest and cheapest way to remove the restriction of the back box is to replace it with another HDi exhaust centre section as the centre section is of a straight through design and so poses no real restriction. See HDi Mid Box Back Box Guide.
You can of course visit your local custom exhaust builder such as a power flow dealer who will build you a system from the turbo flange backwards to your spec giving you as many or as few silencers as you want (your required to have 1 by law) and you can also pick the diameter of exhaust pipe that you would like. The larger the pipe diameter the deeper and more burbly the sound will be. Do not accept anything smaller than the standard diameter of 2.25â? (57mm) as it will pose a restriction. In my opinion 2.5â? is the best for performance on a stage 1 or stage 2 tuned 306 HDi and also gives a good sound. It is possible to have a 3â? exhaust fitted but this could be very expensive and makes a very deep sound.
EGR and Air Dosser Disabling
The EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) valve does exactly what it says on the tin. Under light throttle cruising conditions it pumps hot exhaust gasses back into your inlet. This was supposed to reduce emissions and increase fuel economy but in reality it does neither. You can see at least a 5mpg increase at 70mph by disconnecting it. It tends to fill your inlet with soot that mixes with the oily air from the breather hose to form a thick oily gunk that builds up till the point where itâ??s reducing your air flow. It is not unknown for cars around the 100,000mile mark to have their EGR system so full of soot that the pipe is completely blocked so it effectively was not working anyway.
You can either pull the blue plug out of the back of the solenoid or remove the vacuum hose that runs between the solenoid and the valve itself. Pulling the Vacuum hose does not appear to affect the brakes and unlike unplugging the wire will not log a silent fault code in your ECU.
The more advanced method of removing this system involves having a blanking plate fitted to each manifold, removing the pipe and valve then having it completely mapped out of the ECU by your mapper so it dose not log a silent fault code.
The Air Dosser was fitted to late HDis and was meant to increase the efficiency of the EGR system by blocking the cold air flow so it sucked more exhaust. If you are removing the EGR then the air dosser has no purpose and can be disconnected in the same way as the EGR
I will find pictures on how to do this as I forgot to take pictures on my car.
Re-maps
A remap is basically an updated piece of software that is uploaded to your ECU (the engines computer brain) that alters the amount of fuel given under certain conditions. The Bocsh EDC15 that the 306 HDi uses is actually quite a complex and tuneable piece of kit so your tuner can alter the amount of fuel injected either via duration or pressure (or both) and also the advance (the amount of time it starts injecting before the piston reaches the top of the stroke) as well as a whole host of other parameters. The ECU is not however enabled to increase the boost pressure as it does not have a sensor to read the boost or anything to adjust the turbo waste gate with so a tuner who tells you their theyâ??re adjusting the boost map for more boost is either lying or doesnâ??t know what theyâ??re doing.
There are a couple of ways of getting a re-map. The cheapest is to write your own but as this is something I have never done and have no interest in I shall comment no further. The next Cheapest option is to buy a remap from one of the established tuners that float around our forums and will charge you £40-£90 for a map then you must buy a KWP2000+ or a Galleto 1260 from eBay for about £20 and use that to upload your new map onto your ECU via your OBD port (under the steering wheel). I wonâ??t go into the process of this too much as it is covered in great depth elsewhere.
The final Method of having a stage 1 re-map is to go to an established tuner such as S P Tuning or The Derv Doctor who will upload you a new map and often accompany this with before and after dyno runs so that you can see the improvement this makes. This will cost you £200 upwards. Personally I would not use a professional tuner unless they were willing to give you before and after dyno runs as its a lot of money to spend to not be happy with the end result or to go and get it dynoed elsewhere at a later date and find that your not running as much power as people using the cheaper options.
The safe limit with stage 1 maps is reckoned to be 130bhp so be very wary of anyone offering more than this figure without an intercooler as you risk damaging your engine and turbo.
The Dangers of Tuning Boxes
Tuning boxes are often sold on eBay and have even been sold by some big name companies like Ecosse the Scottish Peugeot tuners and modifiers. No matter how much marketing blah comes with it about being adjustable and the best and whatever else they say to con you into buying them they are all just resistors in a box and as such are no better than buying a 99p eBay tuning chip (read resistor). These cheap electronics cost less than £10 to make and are sold for up to £250, thatâ??s quite a mark up. All they do is plug in between the fuel rail and the ECU and alter the resistance and thus alter the fuel pressure the ECU sees so it injects more fuel. This will lead to poor fuel economy, smoke out the exhaust and excessive Exhaust Gas Temperatures (EGTs) thatâ??ll kill your turbo. The other con with tuning boxes is that they promise reasonable gains that in reality they will never make. In short if youâ??re offered a HDi tuning option that plugs permanently into wires in the engine bay then walk away, theyâ??re not worth it when a proper (safe) remap can be had from £40.
Induction (air filter) Modifications
Standard air filters and air boxes are often seen as a restriction to the air flow into your engine and when your air filter is due for a change at service time it probably is acting as a restriction. This is one of the reasons that a car that has recently been serviced will often feel more powerful and more eager to pull.
The thing is, standard HDi filters arenâ??t actually all that bad especially when theyâ??re replaced regularly. The standard filter box isnâ??t all that bad either, it does a reasonable job of preventing heat soak, has few real restrictions and also has a good feed of cold air from the front of the car. As such the best induction solution for the HDi for less than £200 is reckoned to be fitting a K&N panel filter inside the standard air box. These only cost around £35 and come with K&Ns million mile warranty. You will never need to buy another air filter as long as you own the car and bearing in mind that a standard one from Peugeot is about £12 then the K&N will have paid itself off in 3 services time. There is a guide on how to fit one of these in the HDi Service Guide.
Induction kits although offering a greater filtration area are plagued by heat soak in the 306s engine bay even with multiple cold air feeds and are best avoided because the HDi seems to be really affected by high inlet air temperatures. Inlet air temp is measured by the ECU at the MAF sensor so I guess if it gets warm then the ECU cuts the fuel.
The best option if money is no object is a fully enclosed induction kit like a Pipercross Viper or BMC CDA. These offer all the benefits of having a much larger filtering area like normal induction kits but have the bonus of being enclosed and so shielded from the power sapping heat of the engine bay.
In truth no change in air filter will see massive gains over a clean standard air filter so you really have to ask yourself is 2bhp worth £200?
Exhaust Modifications
The HDi exhaust isnâ??t all that bad as standard with its 2.25â? bore but it has 2 main restrictions, the baffled back box and the cat. These are both thought to be worth about 5bhp each with an associated increase in throttle and turbo response too on a stage 1 mapped car.
The easiest and cheapest way to remove the restriction of the cat is to remove it, smash the innards out and then bolt it back up. See HDi De-Cat Guide.
The easiest and cheapest way to remove the restriction of the back box is to replace it with another HDi exhaust centre section as the centre section is of a straight through design and so poses no real restriction. See HDi Mid Box Back Box Guide.
You can of course visit your local custom exhaust builder such as a power flow dealer who will build you a system from the turbo flange backwards to your spec giving you as many or as few silencers as you want (your required to have 1 by law) and you can also pick the diameter of exhaust pipe that you would like. The larger the pipe diameter the deeper and more burbly the sound will be. Do not accept anything smaller than the standard diameter of 2.25â? (57mm) as it will pose a restriction. In my opinion 2.5â? is the best for performance on a stage 1 or stage 2 tuned 306 HDi and also gives a good sound. It is possible to have a 3â? exhaust fitted but this could be very expensive and makes a very deep sound.
EGR and Air Dosser Disabling
The EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) valve does exactly what it says on the tin. Under light throttle cruising conditions it pumps hot exhaust gasses back into your inlet. This was supposed to reduce emissions and increase fuel economy but in reality it does neither. You can see at least a 5mpg increase at 70mph by disconnecting it. It tends to fill your inlet with soot that mixes with the oily air from the breather hose to form a thick oily gunk that builds up till the point where itâ??s reducing your air flow. It is not unknown for cars around the 100,000mile mark to have their EGR system so full of soot that the pipe is completely blocked so it effectively was not working anyway.
You can either pull the blue plug out of the back of the solenoid or remove the vacuum hose that runs between the solenoid and the valve itself. Pulling the Vacuum hose does not appear to affect the brakes and unlike unplugging the wire will not log a silent fault code in your ECU.
The more advanced method of removing this system involves having a blanking plate fitted to each manifold, removing the pipe and valve then having it completely mapped out of the ECU by your mapper so it dose not log a silent fault code.
The Air Dosser was fitted to late HDis and was meant to increase the efficiency of the EGR system by blocking the cold air flow so it sucked more exhaust. If you are removing the EGR then the air dosser has no purpose and can be disconnected in the same way as the EGR
I will find pictures on how to do this as I forgot to take pictures on my car.
![[Image: Ty8kl7b.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/Ty8kl7b.jpg)
helps me alot, i fancy a few more bhp 
![[Image: 6b0c7309-5184-463c-9f73-2a7b96601418_zpsfdf041fe.jpg]](http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t326/kent16_2008/6b0c7309-5184-463c-9f73-2a7b96601418_zpsfdf041fe.jpg)