We love our Volkswagen Golf GTI. A lot. It’s even more awesome though, now that Revo has fettled our ECU.
[Not a valid template]I’ll make no bones about saying I love Volkswagen. It all started when I was 17 and a VW was the first car I had the pleasure of cutting my teeth on. Back then it was a 1200cc Volkswagen Beetle, a super-slow rot box, painted in a lairy Porsche blue, with the then-ubiquitous Ford Escort seats and a set of Centerline alloys. My time with that first Bug stimulated a love affair with the brand, and to be honest all VAG brands, that has lasted through to today.
After a couple of other old rot boxes, I made the jump into a car that had legendary status. A Mk2 16V GTI. It was a stunning Pearl Grey number, clean, original and generally lovely. I immediately fell into the tuning trap though and what followed was a full overhaul of the suspension including a set of coil-overs and some proper fast road bushes. The stock exhaust was ditched and as an extra to aid in the breathing, an old school K&N filter was dropped in at the business end. The little MK2 had gone from being a showroom fresh car to a back country weapon that sounded epic. Simple and easy.
Now fast forward 10-plus years and I found myself hankering after another Golf GTI. The Mk6 was long in the tooth and news of the MK7 was already out on the news wires, but that didn’t bother me. I liked the Mk6 and had a plan – revive that simple old-school tuner flavour as a grown-up. Turbo power meant I had an extra move on hand this time; the ability to liberate trapped power in the drive train and give the GTI a proper dose of extra shove.
After a long chat with Motaz at Parc Ferme, the decision was made. I’d scoop up some H&R springs, some nice alloys to lose the stock visual and then get the boost game on.
Step up Revo Technik. Revo was founded in 2002 and was the industry pioneer in delivering switchable ECU remaps via the OBDII port, specifically with a focus on the VAG family and latterly Ford models, mainly Focus STs and RSs. We settled initially on the Stage 1 set-up as the car would be running daily duties along with the school runs, with my good lady wife behind the wheel. No torque steering monster here please, just a proper jump in power and all the reliability of the stock set-up. The starting point was as the book says – 211bhp. After 45 mins and a quick test drive, Motaz handed me the keys to a car that now rocked 260bhp. We’ll have some of that, thank you very much.
Along with the increase in power and improved throttle response, the electronic speed limiter has now gone and the redline is increased to 7000rpm. You’ll have to take my word for it; the car plain shifts. Keeping a Porsche 993RS honest at full chat is testament to that. But what of a map designed and engineered in Europe working in this region? You’ll notice in the images above that 47c temps are the norm in the summer. Well, it’s quite simple. The maps are always updated by Revo HQ and Motaz does testing in the region for new maps to ensure they work in our conditions (temperature, fuel quality etc).
The man knows what he is doing, having represented Revo since 2008 in the UAE under his previous company of TAM Auto Engineering. Now with Parc Ferme Workshop, he’s the official representative for Revo Technik, Eurojet Racing and STaSIS Engineering in the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and KSA, and having performed over 170 Revo tunes, I’m more than happy about the support he offers.
So what did this simple boost in power set me back? The Stage 1 tune was 1950AED ($530), and took a little less than an hour to complete. That timeframe is dependent on the car having no faults of course. However as the car had less than 5000kms on the clock, all was good from my end.
If you have a turbo motor andRevo has the tune, what are you waiting for?
