Spider® - Range Rover TDV8 UK

 

Owners of the Range Rover Sport TDV8 will know what I mean when I talk about the huge “Land Rover Approved” flat spot that exists whenever you try pulling away quickly from a junction. There you are sat at the junction wondering whether to pull out or not, you put your foot to the floor and nothing much happens until you hit 40mph. Given the torque figures quoted for this engine I was always surprised at this lack of initial acceleration but put it down to the weight of the car and the auto gearbox.

After becoming more and more frustrated I started looking at diesel tuning boxes and soon discovered that not all tuning boxes are equal or that all tuning companies are exactly truthful with their claims. I’ve been around V8 engines for years and so when a petrol head friend of mine also mentioned he was looking at the Spider I decided I’d give them a call.

Next day I was outside their offices watching their technician as he fitted the Spider and explained everything to me. It’s worth noting that the materials used in the manufacture of the Spider give it a very professional appearance and the ability to self-calibrate takes a lot of worry out of using a tuning box. As for fitting, this has got to be about the simplest fit of any tuning device I’ve ever seen, 10 minutes to fit, explain, and self-calibrate before we went on a test drive. Pulling out of the car park it was evident that something was very different and when I put my foot down there was no flat spot, no hesitation, just a seamless wave of torque. I was actually smiling within 2 minutes of having the Spider fitted.

The Spider has now done about 1000 miles and I’ve had no issues at all with it and I’ve had time to play around with the settings. The two adjustments that can be made are for power and the rpm range, this is done by moving the appropriate jumper to one of the nine different settings. The Spider came set up using the mid-point settings and to be honest I would have been more than happy to leave the settings at the factory standards, but if it can be adjusted then why not adjust it.

First adjustment was to move the rpm jumper along one position, this means the engine can develop more power higher in the rpm range. Results were good but only really noticeable at higher speeds.

Second adjustment was to move the power jumper to the maximum setting. This time the car felt like it had a huge increase in bottom end torque but the ECU went into limp home mode when it hit 3200rpm. No problem, stop the car, turn the engine off, restart and all was fine. I turned the engine off again and after waiting for 2 minutes moved the power jumper back one setting.

A quick run showed that this combination of settings was giving excellent bottom end torque and enough power to overtake very quickly. Having driven the Supercharged Range Rover Sport I would estimate that the TDV8 was now as quick off the mark and probably quicker in the mid and upper ranges.

The final adjustment that day was to move the rpm jumper to the maximum setting but again the car went into limp home mode. I reset the rpm back down one position to number 6 and put the power back on the maximum setting. Although the car didn’t go into limp home mode this combination of settings gave the car a slightly over fuelled feeling so both power and rpm were reset to the previous settings.

Since then I have tried using the lower settings and while the car still feels more responsive than standard it doesn’t push you back in the seat like it will on the higher settings so I’ve left my Spider set on the following, rpm = setting 7, power = setting 8.

Fuel economy was never good, my mpg always seemed stuck around 20mpg so I expected the Spider to do further damage to this already lowly figure especially given that the engine is now so responsive to the throttle. Well, a recent 400 mile high speed dash saw the car return an average of 31.2mpg. Even with a mix of driving conditions I am now seeing 28mpg.

So what about the down sides? The arrangement of the adjustment pins means that you cannot have both power and rpm on the same setting, for example if you have the power set at position 8 then the rpm must be set to another position other than number 8. No big deal but does mean there is a slight compromise in the adjustments available.

To finish it’s worth noting that I recently had the car serviced after removing the Spider and had no issues with the service centre at all. It appears that the Spider leaves no trace at all when removed.

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