To our valued customers:
It has come to our attention some believe another tuner has participated in a tuning exercise, with APR, on a Golf R with an APR Stage III GTX Turbocharger System including their intake manifold. However, this is not correct. The company acted independently from APR and has no affiliation with our company.
The APR Stage III GTX Turbocharger System for the Golf R platform has been a wild success across the world with hundreds of units sold to date. The kit currently holds all Golf R quarter mile records with times as quick as 10.5; a vast improvement over the next closest competitor. APR’s incredible staff of more than 20 electrical, mechanical and calibration engineers have continued to enhance the product many years after it’s initial release to ensure customers across the globe continue to to have the best experience possible.
With owning an APR Stage III GTX Turbocharger System, customers not only have access to APR’s incredible engineering knowledge bank and continued updates, but APR’s world renowned technical support hotline from a company that has a bright future and plans to be here for many years to come. Furthermore, many of APR’s customers also have taken advantage of APR Mobile, APR EMCS Program switching, APR Launch Limiter and APR No Lift Shift, all of which are collectively not available once leaving the APR ecosphere.
APR’s engineers have continued to tweak the system to perfection, and have found the limits of safety, and beyond, making the results shared by the other company a cause for extreme skepticism. Without a larger turbo, or higher octane race fuel, a healthy Golf R simply cannot make an additional 50 HP and 50 FT-LBS of torque as it’s physically impossible unless the vehicle was down on power due to a hardware issue. Upon further investigation, APR discovered the customer indicated a common hardware issue with the vehicle prior to sending it to the other tuner to have it dynoed, diagnosed, and fixed. This issue was related to a common fault in the factory PCV or positive crank ventilation system, which left undiagnosed, will produce less than advertised results, and thus the reason why the company was able to make more power after fixing the issue.
This company went on to make further false claims about the APR fueling system. One such claim was about the duty cycle seen on the injectors. First, direct injection injectors do not operate off a “duty cycle” because it’s not possible to spray them throughout a complete engine cycle. Saying that they are running at 100% is clearly meant to make it sound unsafe when in reality the injectors are off for the majority of the combustion and exhaust stroke leaving them plenty of time to “rest”. It is true that the OEM injectors do not have much headroom left but simply looking at injector on-time only tells a fraction of the story because of the changes APR can make to the starting and ending angles of the injection window. This window is not measurable with off the shelf data logging tools, but is with APR’s proprietary ECUx Explorer data logging suite. The APR System includes a 155 bar rail pressure relief valve, which potentially unknown to the other tuner, increases headroom in the factory fueling system as the factory rail pressure relief valve tends to prematurely open at far lower pressure levels. It’s worth mentioning that APR has successfully run 190bar of rail pressure on this exact engine in the British Touring Car Championship and neither the stock injectors or APR fuel pump had an issue doing so. Lastly, APR uses the OEM Bosch HDEV1 injectors because they were correctly designed for this engine. The other tuner has opted for Hitachi RS4 injectors that typically results in a host of less than ideal operating conditions due to their incompatibility. While we applaud their efforts to improve the fueling system, they unfortunately took a step backwards, using outdated methods from more than a half a decade ago.
To run boost pressure levels necessary to achieve the power levels seen with the APR Stage III GTX Turbocharger System, many proprietary code level changes must be made to accurately control boost pressure above hardcoded limits within the ECU. APR’s electrical engineers spent months redesigning the factory code to work above these levels, which was, and continues to be a feat not often seen elsewhere in this industry. Many tuners must resort to tricks to make the system run. While this can produce results, it’s not ideal and often means poor or unsafe behavior in extreme conditions, especially with the removal of safety measures. As noted in photos of the final product, the factory MAF or Mass Airflow Sensor, a critical part in the Bosch MED 9 engine management system, was left unplugged, further lending credence to the use of unsafe ‘tricks’ to make power.
In conclusion, APR has not worked with any other tuner on the Golf R Stage III GTX Turbocharger system and does not support any other tuners hardware or software. The system is currently maxed out and will not make an additional 50 HP / 40 FT-LBS of torque through tuning / hardware boltons without the use of a larger turbocharger and or higher octane race fuel. Purchase of the other tuning companies ~$3000 w/ install downgrade to the APR Stage GTX Turbocharger system will result in the loss of APR Mobile, APR EMCS Program Switching, APR Launch Limiter and APR No Lift Shift as these items are not compatible without the use of an APR ECU Upgrade. Lastly, APR’s world renowned tech support will be unable to diagnose any issues with the system.
We thank you for your continued support. Go APR!
eace:
