[silversteed]

My ride is a 2012 Suzuki Ritz VDi-ABS. Had there been a ZDi variant when I booked the car, I would've picked it, but the pre-facelift Ritz-D came only in a VDi-ABS variant. I had received a lot of "advice" from very "informed" people that ABS was not needed, and I could use the money I save for a music system, etc. However, I had already set my priorities and thus the Ritz VDi-ABS came home in July 2012. The FIAT designed 1.3 DDiS engine is a driver's delight. The car, though a tall boy, is stable on highways. The first and second gears are not really great, but the other three are good. Added 195/60R15 Bridgestone MY-01 tyres on Neowheel alloys, this improved the road grip immensely, at the same time lowering the FE by 1-1.5kmpl.

Prologue
On a quiet evening in November, I was left with some free time and nothing to do. Earlier in the day, I had picked up my H11 HID burners. The itch began to fit them inside the fogs myself. Started taking note of my available resources and the required equipment. There it was, a big void. Since I didn't know any service centres or workshops that would be able to do it properly, I started wondering if there's anyone who can be of help. Scrolled through the contacts in my phone, and one of them suddenly brought a smile. I sent a WhatsApp message asking if Bay-6 workshop could help me out. Got the green signal. In an hour's time, my Silver Steed was in front of the Bay-6 garage. After exchanging pleasantries, we started getting our hands dirty. Though a trivial job, it took us a couple of hours to get the HIDs installed in the fogs, thanks to the many concealed mounting clips and screws for the bumper.

Biting the Bullet
Now that the job is done, we all were wondering what to do next. The odo was close to 25k. 5k overdue.Very soon, the dreaded remapping equipment was out of the bag. The Bay6 arena got hotter now. I was asked a few questions - what's my usual driving style, how fast do I drive on the highways, do I lug the engine often, etc. In a few minutes, the first map was on. The tuners were next seen zooming out. They were back soon. Something didn't seem right to them. Some changes in the map followed. The car goes out. I quipped that I don't want my car to love frequent fueling stops, nor is it a track machine ;-) Got the assurance that the map will be tailored to my needs. A few more iterations ensued. At last, they were somewhat satisfied with the map.

Initial Impressions
I was asked to drive the car. The instruction was to shift to Second quickly and then "test" the car. If it were the original, factory map, the car would take a while to pick up speed in second. To my surprise, it was pulling effortlessly from as low as 10kmph or so. There was a speedbreaker ahead, and I slowed down considerably. Usually, I have to shift down to First or else the engine might even stall at such low speeds in Second. At the same moment, I noticed a boy-racer in his Alto trying to nose his way from my left. Just to avoid getting scratched, I wanted to move a little forward and then make way for him. I just depressed the A-pedal without shifting down to First. To my amazement, the car pulled cleanly from crawling speeds. In the IRVM, I saw some smoke rising, and I experienced an aggressive yet linear acceleration. This was the best example of smoking a 'ricer boy' It had power all through 4000 rpm. I was back to Bay-6 in a few minutes, grinning ear to ear. The next run was with me riding shotgun and one of them tuners behind the wheel. He confirmed that there aren't any flat spot while the other two guys checked the smoke levels, which was assessed to be satisfactory.

The best part of this remap is the linear torque delivery. In city driving, the sudden deceleration when we release the A-pedal is now gone. With the stock map, in the First and Second gears, on easing off the A-pedal, the car used to behave as though it hit a pool of water. This is of great importance as it improved the city driveability and reduced gear shifts. In the Bay-6 terms, this is a mild remap.

More miles, more Smiles
The fuel gauge was below the quarter mark when I went to Bay6. A refill was in order in a few days, which I did. To my surprise, despite the city runs and more importantly the very very aggressive test runs for tuning, the car returned an FE of 15.xx, which is almost the same as what I get usually, with AC on and bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Took the car to the highway after a couple of weeks. Since the torque delivery is more linear, the ride is smooth. But I miss the pressing onto the seat when the turbo starts spooling. Save this trivial part, the driveability has improved by leaps and bounds. Earlier, the car would run out of breath beyond 3400-3500rpm. Now, there's enough torque and power even at 4000rpm. The car would hit high speeds, but staying there wasn't easy with the stock map. With the remap, picking up good speeds as well as cruising there is a lot easier.

Last night, I was driving to Kerala from Bangalore. I could keep up with a Ssangyong Rexton RX7 driven aggressively on NH-7. With a similar, aggressive drive, I could squeeze out only 15-ish kmpl on the stock map. However, despite the higher average speed and more high-speed bursts, the FE stands at 16.xx kmpl. I would attribute this to the lesser number of downshifts to overtake. There's always torque on demand for that quick passing on 2-lane highways.

Now the "dark" side :



Lugging and heavy acceleration results in a brief moment of soot emanating from the tail pipe. The pic above was taken after a long, fast drive.

PS: Bay6 is located on Hosa Road, opposite to SJR Verity apartments. PM me for the contact numbers, as I don't want to post cell numbers in an open forum.
PPS: I have no business interests in Bay6 Motorworks, and the remap and/or review is not sponsored by Bay6.

[F150]

Congratulations on the remap !

The most important question, whats the cost of remap ?

I am itching to go for a remap, but before that I have to dispose my RD tuning box.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by F150

Congratulations on the remap !

The most important question, whats the cost of remap ?

I am itching to go for a remap, but before that I have to dispose my RD tuning box.

Thank you. The list price for the remap is ~30k, but they do offer mouth-watering discounts. What I liked the most about their service is that any changes in the map is free for the lifetime

[silversteed]

I managed my best ever city FE- 16.54kmpl

With all the heavy traffic, I thought I would be getting a terribly low FE. Of course there were those moments when I'd smoked (literally) some pesky cabbies who kept honking while I'm waiting for the signal to turn green. I don't know whether it's the CODE6 remap , or the (unintended) change in driving style (possible, because the remap changed the power and torque delivery) that's given me this stellar FE.

Got to do a few more tankful-to-tankful FE calculations to affirm this.

Also, I got the map revised a few days ago, to reduce the smoke. Since I'm nearing the 30k service, the air filter, thanks to all the dust in the place I stay, is almost clogged and results in a bit too much smoke. Though my FE stayed put, the rear hatch door is more grey than silver. The new map doesn't smoke as much, but is very very linear and not at all aggressive. No qualms concerning performance too.

[silversteed]

Been a while since I updated here. Bay-6 now has developed a soft EGR delete - disable the EGR system to let the engine breathe clean air, without the burnt gases getting recirculated into the cylinder in the name of lowering emissions.

EGR, Exhaust Gas Recirculation is a process of injecting a part of supposedly inert exhaust gases into the intake to lower the combustion temperature and thereby avoid the production of harmful Nitrogen oxides. While this might look good at the first glance, the other side is a little dark - pun intended. When air containing less Oxygen by volume enters the combustion chamber, the injected fuel cannot burn completely, resulting in the generation of CO and unburnt carbon particles, ie., soot. While this will reduce the generation of some nitrogen oxides, I don't know how beneficial this would be if the car spews out CO which is an odourless and tasteless poisonous gas. Also more soot means more suspended particulate matter (SPM), which is again not a good idea. If the car's ECU is programmed to disable EGR at WOT (Wide open Throttle), the manufacturers do have the freedom to not inject exhaust gases at all.

That's the background. Most tuners (tooners from toonland, half-tuners and many real tuners) disable EGR in the DDiS but it'll result in the CEL remaining on all the time. This can be a problem - how do we get to know when there's some real reason for the CEL to be lit? Another option, block the EGR pipe. But this will involve a lot of hard work - so many components in the engine bay will have to be taken out, and there's also the question of reliability. You also invite the wrath of ASCs by "modifying" the car.

When Bay-6 told me about this soft EGR delete, I barged in at my first opportunity, and got it done. It's basically an ECU Map update, took just a few minutes. There's no tangible increase in power, but I might get some slight gains in FE. Haven't been able to do a proper before-after comparison, hence no figures at this moment.

Cost incurred? ZERO

[silversteed]

Oh, I missed the important point - this EGR soft delete does not result in a CEL. It's virtually undetectable

[ImprezaFan]

Just what I was looking for! So much in common between us. I too own a pre-facelift 2012 July vdi (non ABS though) silver ritz, upgraded with 195-60R15! And I too have been contemplating a soft egr delete from Code6, Cochin.
My requirements were just like yours - improve drivability and no number targets to hunt down. The tuner Mr. Jino recommended a soft egr delete plus manual boost controller (not interested in the latter). Curious to know
1. how many kms your car has clocked.
2. any reliability problems so far.
3. Any variations in engine oil degradation?
4. Has exhaust sooting reduced?
5. Any problem with getting pollution under control?
Mine is 55K kms old and waiting for 60k kms service to get the ecu remap. Literary survey gives me mixed reactions for egr delete, worst being degradation to engine components due to higher engine temperatures due to higher combustion.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by ImprezaFan

1. how many kms your car has clocked.
2. any reliability problems so far.
3. Any variations in engine oil degradation?
4. Has exhaust sooting reduced?
5. Any problem with getting pollution under control?

1. Going strong at 73k, about 48k km after the remap, as on date. Had got the EGR soft delete done at 30-something, IIRC.
2. None at all
3. No problems there. Stick to 8k km oil change intervals. I'm on the Suzuki-recommended Mobil1 mineral oil.
4. I see a small puff of smoke after maybe 80% of full throttle.
5. All PUC tests are done at a proper testing centre attached to an IOC COCO bunk. All values are well under the limits.

Mine is 55K kms old and waiting for 60k kms service to get the ecu remap. Literary survey gives me mixed reactions for egr delete, worst being degradation to engine components due to higher engine temperatures due to higher combustion.

I find the EGR-delete-raises-EGTs school of thought less convincing than the argument that it helps the engine breathe better and improves combustion. I've logged and analysed boost pressure, coolant temperature, engine load, engine speed, etc captured for thousands of km. Not even once has the coolant temperature gone above 91C, which is no different from the case before the remap.

The tuner Mr. Jino recommended a soft egr delete plus manual boost controller (not interested in the latter)

EGR-delete + MBC would give you more gains. Just that it involves time and money, since there's a lot of stuff to be taken out and put back to do a small mechanical modification, thanks to a packed engine bay

[mithun]

Congrats on the remap. Ritz is a very capable car.

Cost of the remap please?

Have you tried out Pete's tuning box ?

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by mithun

Congrats on the remap. Ritz is a very capable car

Thank you

Cost of the remap please?

Please get in touch with CODE6 directly, it's in the range of 20-30k INR

Have you tried out Pete's tuning box ?

No. I know exactly what tuning boxes do (simply put, fooling the ECU into believing the engine isn't producing enough power), and what the capability of a remap is (tweaking the map to suit my requirements).

[mithun]

Any reliable place in Kerala for Ritz remapping?

[Mistakenguy]

In Kerala, the following tuners can be approached for remaps.
1. Wolf Moto( Based at Cochin )
2. Code-6 ( I'm told they have a branch in Cochin)
3. Petes ( I wasn't really happy with their tune though)

[silversteed]

After over 80,000km of joy inside, my Ritz found a new home. The new owner is also a car enthusiast, and would take good care of the car. Had it been someone that I do not know, I had plans to revert the map to the stock one before handing over the car. But with the new owner, he get to enjoy the map too.