As we've discussed before, I am 99% certain that the hot engine and glowing headers at idle (an outrageous condition in anyone's book), is due to a VERY restrictive exhaust. Gases can't get out, heat builds, pinking (det) occurs and the engine is not really very happy. Early prototypes and customer cars had much freer flowing pipes and did not have the issue - plus they were much quicker. I am certain the ECU mapping was done at that stage.
Roll on to where we are now and with uber-restrictive pipes and intake we have a situation where the engine is running far below optimum and is in need of a Stage1 kit. Personally I don't need much beyond that, as I just want an engine setup to run correctly. I think the Garage56 kit will be a revelation and I understand that the mapping in the ECU works pretty damn well with a free flowing setup. Hardly surprising really, considering when I think the mapping was originally baselined.....
It's clear that MMC are working on stage tuning kits and seem to be confident in the strength of their transmission, so I don't expect much increase in issues over what we're seeing now with BB's and Compensators. Having progressively strangled the engine since launch, it's hardly surprising that there's a good market for freeing things up again! After all, EasyJet did just the same by introducing Speedy Boarding a year or so after creating the chaos of boarding bun fights originally.
