Building new car, worth the trouble to go to Digifant?

[JOESELLSVW]

I have a stripped tub of a nice clean '87 Golf that I'll be using as my new race car. Since the car is down to the bare essentials, I've got the opportunity to swap harnesses out and use Digifant instead of the CIS. I have a complete Digi motor and wiring harness. What do you guys think? It's a lot of work, is the possibility of chipping the ECU worth it? JOE

[Vantage #51]

We have 3 CIs cars and one Digi, the digi is every bit as strong as the others, and one of the cars, cis ,did really well at ARRC.
There is just different tuning that can be done, the digi is easier to map the fuel.
Just one guy's opinion.

[tschwenke]

We have two CIS-E cars. A few dyno pulls and you can have the AF ratio set. The only thing negative I have ever heard about the Digi is the mass air flow sensor and vibration (Stu mentioned this to me, but it was a quick comment about 2-3 years ago). But you would have to let Colin or the Bildon guys answer that since they actually have them.

[p.keane]

We have a '92 digi and a '86 CIS-E in the yard and if I was ever dumb enough to build another ITB car, I think I would go with the '92. I believe that someone will come up with the right computer peices to make the Digi's better cars than the CIS-E. This is coming from a guy that never really liked CIS-E and I always thought that I could have got more out of my Golf with a regular CIS system.

[wvonkessler]

Bildon has a Digi "Racing" ECU for $200.00 that they claim fixes all the problems with the system.

Wilson

[Bill Miller]

I've seen both the Bildon cars run, and they're both strong. It's certainly easy enough for them to have built CIS-E cars vs. digi car. Bill's pretty convinced that the digi cars will make more power.

------------------
MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI
SCCA 279608

[tschwenke]

I would say use whatever you feel comfortable with. All these systems are capable of delivering enough fuel and can be dialed in with either a chip or some dyno time. Even with a Digi I think that having the cabability to flash a chip would be good because I don't think that one map would work for all cars. It would get you close but if you are looking at the n'th degree then it might be off. Both of our CIS-E cars had to be played with to get similar EGT's/Air Fuel..

So the question is does a Digi make more power because of the mechanicals or the fuel injection system? (hint: my answer is in the first paragraph)

I assume that the "fixes all the problems" is just the fuel and timing. If the mass airflow sensor goes bad then what does the ECU do - limp home mode? What does it do with a disconnected knock? Do you run knock?

[WannaBITB]

I have a CWS chip in my 89 Golf Digi, and that chip has worked wonders for me on the autoX tracks. I could actually feel the added power, and best of all it removed that annoying off-throttle injector shutdown. Some guys suggest running the MAF from a California only car, because it has a different resistance value, and allows more air or something like that, I'm not sure of the science behind it. Anyway, that CWS chip was the best $100 and 15 minutes of installation time I've ever spent.

[Bill Miller]

I've heard that the CA. only cars are the ones to get. Something different about the setup.

------------------
MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI
SCCA 279608

[WannaBITB]

Do you mean the suspension setup or the intake/ecu, etc.?

[Bildon]

He most likely meant the ECU. They're different alright. They did not use Digifant 2.

We like Digifant X. A) because it's chipable and auto-corrects for engine and weather changes and because it powered our 2 cars to a 1-2 finish in this year's NYSRRC championship.





------------------
Bill Sulouff - Bildon Motorsport
Volkswagen Racing Equipment