Captiva V6 Tune

[brindo]

Hi, this isn’t perhaps the most appropriate forum to ask this but it’s probably where I will get the most credible answer.

We are looking to purchase a V6 Captiva but we are well aware that they are fairly poor fuel consumption wise. We live in a smallish town so not a lot of stop start city driving but do a lot of 1000 km round trips to Brisbane and back.

Does anyone know of what can be done tuning wise to improve the fuel consumption? Is there a lean cruise function that is disabled and can be safely turned back on? Not really after any horsepower gains other than maybe disabling the torque management.

Obviously don’t want to spend thousands retuning when that cash will buy more fuel than what we save. Does anyone know of someone who can do this tuning?

Thank in advance.

[The1]

will all be OBD2 so would think something like HP Tuners Software Perhapss seeing they run the alloytech?

[vlad01]

Don't they have crappy economy because they are big bulky, have poor aerodynamics and are heavy as all hell?

Some how I don't think there will be much more of an improvement but any improvement is welcome I guess.

for example, my boss has a kulger and the absolute best it can do is 10.5 L/100km and thats 3.2L V6.

I know another guy who has a cx9 and that does 18L/100km

my VP doesn't even do 10L/100km when I give it heaps around the city. the worst it gets is about 9L and the best is around 7ish L

The biggest factors is the size/shape of the car and weight. and the engine seems to not matter as much given the tune is right.


What ECU do the alloytecs run anyway?

[antus]

Bosch ME9

[vlad01]

can you even do anything with bosh ecus?

last time I looked into bosch ecu for E series falcoons there apparently wasn't anything you could do with them.

Are the newer ones any better?

[antus]

HP Tuners has some support, but doesnt support all transmissions. Ive seen WinOLS detect bosch format tables in a raw bin but it was well short of a properly defined xdf. Damn shame they didnt stick with the delphi ecus we know and love

[brindo]

I hear figures of around 21 mpg for V6 Captivas on the highway but fuel economy is very subjective. But yes they are a heavy car and driving all the wheels doesn’t help either. But I'd like to think it could be better than the old 5.0 VT wagon we are replacing. Different sized cars but simialr weights.

My understanding is the lean cruise doesn’t exist anymore due to the higher NOx levels. I was just hoping, possibly in vain, that perhaps it is hidden away in the tune somewhere but disabled. And having it active can only improve economy.

Does anyone on the forum know of anyone with Alloytech tuning experience?

[vlad01]

yes i think thats true. the cat work efficiently at 14.7 AFR so most newer cars are tuned to run 14.7 at cruise.

I saw the tables of an suby STi and a large portion of the fuel table was set at nothing but 14.7.

isn't alloytec direct injection?

if so I thought the whole benefit of direct injection was to run ultra lean burn, like 20-60 afr in light cruise.

[Holden202T]

The VE had SIDI Alloytecs (direct injection) but the VZ and early VE's are the same motor and non SIDI.

i have SOME experience with tuning alloytecs using HP Tuners, and as antus says, its far from a complete solution, it just seems alot of the stuff is not there.

there is nothing in the lean cruise tab at all, only stuff really in there is cat over temp stuff.

as far as getting more out of a captiva i wouldn't expect a lot, i've make improvements to mine as far as it feels more responsive etc but never seen much change in economy.

this all assumes the captiva runs the same computer as the commodores and is supported at all.

[ejukated]

Captivas are DI and actually a Delphi E39 ECM, all 3.0L are. 3.6L Non-DI, DI up to when they became flex fuel use Bosch ME9 varients.