Welcome to another brutally honest review on products for our beloved Mk7 GTI's. As a precursor, I am running Neuspeed RSe10's and could not be happier with the wheels, but that's a story for another day.
Goal here was to add an analog boost gauge to my car to and leverage the P3Cars vent gauge's ability to read analog boost. I LOVE my P3Cars gauge and have been running for months.
I wanted analog boost pressure in real time because I've added a BMS JB1 to my car and was seeing ECU boost via the P3Cars gauge - I wanted to see manifold boost with the JB1 versus ECU boost.
Long story short, I needed a boost tap so I turned to a trusted source - Neuspeed. I bought this: http://www.neuspeed.com/491096-neuspeed-boost-tap.html, and bought it from them directly. Packaging was beautiful, and shipping was ridiculously fast.
When the P3Cars analog add-on arrived (oh looks it's so CUTE and TINY!!!) with the 42 Draft Designs boost hose kit (awesome bit of kit) came, I watched the DAP video about how to get something through the firewall here:
https://youtu.be/j_DoT6AGn8E
Worked great. Yanked the battery, found the grommet from the inside, poked a wire hanger through, attached the boost hose with tape, pulled it back through.
After I got the hose run, the P3Cars analog add on was installed, got it all nice and pretty in the engine bay, then unplugged the sensor on top of the manifold, screwed the Neuspeed part in, put the stock sensor back on top of the new part with the supplied screw, plugged my boost hose in, calibrated my P3Cars and BAM, real boost at the manifold! w00t!
Holy crapola. 28-30+ PSI @ WOT with the JB1 set to Map1? Um.....not good?
The issues I have with the boost tap are two-fold: it's affecting air intake temperature and acting as a heat sink. The intake manifold is plastic, the Neuspeed part is aluminum. It gets so hot you can't touch it. In addition, it doesn't provide a path for the air to move over the stock sensor and that affects the ECU's read on actual air intake temps.
These two factors resulted in air intake temp readings that were WAY too high - ambient in the high 70's to mid 80's, with the Forge Twintercooler I've installed and the stock sensor in the stock location I was seeing 10-15 degrees over ambient at WOT. That's a good result.
With the Neuspeed not having a path internally for the air coming into the manifold to flow over the stock sensor AND acting as a heat sink, I was seeing temps of 90+ degrees over ambient.
With the JB1 set to Map0 (pass-through) the car threw multiple EPC's, VCDS revealed that the engine was overboosting. A lot. Max as read on the P3Cars analog gauge was 31.8 PSI. Yikes.
So I pulled it, replaced it with the APR Boost Tap found here: https://www.goapr.com/products/boost_tap_20t_ea888_gen3.html and the following has resulted:
1 - Air intake temps are reading correctly, 10-12 over ambient at WOT with the Twintercooler
2 - The car isn't throwing EPC / overboost after repeated attempts to make it go crazy with JB1 in Map0 (passthrough).
3 - JB1 is back to a conservative Map 6 setting, testing is continuing, but I'm a LOT happier now. Car's pulling like a freight train and max boost I've seen with conservative JB1 settings is 24-25.
4 - The brass "pill" I installed in the boost hose (came with the APR Boost Tap) stopped the WOT P3Cars analog plug-in buzzing.
So long story short:
Build Quality: 10/10 - typical Neuspeed, great quality and machining
Instructions: 10/10 - typical of Neuspeed, great instructions
Packaging: 9/10 - two parts, plastic sleeve sealed with parts separated, would have liked to see bubble wrapping inside the inner box but I'm NITPICKING and I know it.
Shipping: 11/10 - OMG fast shipping!!!
Functionality: 2/10 - It WORKS in the sense that it gives boost readings (also made the P3Cars analog gauge buzz at WOT like crazy) -but- the part acted as a heatsink and didn't give the stock sensor a path for airflow through said sensor. Those design "flaws" caused the motor to think intake temps were super high and ask the turbo for more boost to make the targeted power. This resulted in EPC lights and overboost errors as seen in VCDS.
TL;DR
It worked, but caused EPC/overboost problems. Removed it, and consider the part as $$$ wasted. The APR tap plugs into another closed port (kit includes a tool to broach an opening) on the intake manifold and does not interfere with the intake air temp readings.
Goal here was to add an analog boost gauge to my car to and leverage the P3Cars vent gauge's ability to read analog boost. I LOVE my P3Cars gauge and have been running for months.
I wanted analog boost pressure in real time because I've added a BMS JB1 to my car and was seeing ECU boost via the P3Cars gauge - I wanted to see manifold boost with the JB1 versus ECU boost.
Long story short, I needed a boost tap so I turned to a trusted source - Neuspeed. I bought this: http://www.neuspeed.com/491096-neuspeed-boost-tap.html, and bought it from them directly. Packaging was beautiful, and shipping was ridiculously fast.
When the P3Cars analog add-on arrived (oh looks it's so CUTE and TINY!!!) with the 42 Draft Designs boost hose kit (awesome bit of kit) came, I watched the DAP video about how to get something through the firewall here:
https://youtu.be/j_DoT6AGn8E
Worked great. Yanked the battery, found the grommet from the inside, poked a wire hanger through, attached the boost hose with tape, pulled it back through.
After I got the hose run, the P3Cars analog add on was installed, got it all nice and pretty in the engine bay, then unplugged the sensor on top of the manifold, screwed the Neuspeed part in, put the stock sensor back on top of the new part with the supplied screw, plugged my boost hose in, calibrated my P3Cars and BAM, real boost at the manifold! w00t!
Holy crapola. 28-30+ PSI @ WOT with the JB1 set to Map1? Um.....not good?
The issues I have with the boost tap are two-fold: it's affecting air intake temperature and acting as a heat sink. The intake manifold is plastic, the Neuspeed part is aluminum. It gets so hot you can't touch it. In addition, it doesn't provide a path for the air to move over the stock sensor and that affects the ECU's read on actual air intake temps.
These two factors resulted in air intake temp readings that were WAY too high - ambient in the high 70's to mid 80's, with the Forge Twintercooler I've installed and the stock sensor in the stock location I was seeing 10-15 degrees over ambient at WOT. That's a good result.
With the Neuspeed not having a path internally for the air coming into the manifold to flow over the stock sensor AND acting as a heat sink, I was seeing temps of 90+ degrees over ambient.
With the JB1 set to Map0 (pass-through) the car threw multiple EPC's, VCDS revealed that the engine was overboosting. A lot. Max as read on the P3Cars analog gauge was 31.8 PSI. Yikes.
So I pulled it, replaced it with the APR Boost Tap found here: https://www.goapr.com/products/boost_tap_20t_ea888_gen3.html and the following has resulted:
1 - Air intake temps are reading correctly, 10-12 over ambient at WOT with the Twintercooler
2 - The car isn't throwing EPC / overboost after repeated attempts to make it go crazy with JB1 in Map0 (passthrough).
3 - JB1 is back to a conservative Map 6 setting, testing is continuing, but I'm a LOT happier now. Car's pulling like a freight train and max boost I've seen with conservative JB1 settings is 24-25.
4 - The brass "pill" I installed in the boost hose (came with the APR Boost Tap) stopped the WOT P3Cars analog plug-in buzzing.
So long story short:
Build Quality: 10/10 - typical Neuspeed, great quality and machining
Instructions: 10/10 - typical of Neuspeed, great instructions
Packaging: 9/10 - two parts, plastic sleeve sealed with parts separated, would have liked to see bubble wrapping inside the inner box but I'm NITPICKING and I know it.
Shipping: 11/10 - OMG fast shipping!!!
Functionality: 2/10 - It WORKS in the sense that it gives boost readings (also made the P3Cars analog gauge buzz at WOT like crazy) -but- the part acted as a heatsink and didn't give the stock sensor a path for airflow through said sensor. Those design "flaws" caused the motor to think intake temps were super high and ask the turbo for more boost to make the targeted power. This resulted in EPC lights and overboost errors as seen in VCDS.
TL;DR
It worked, but caused EPC/overboost problems. Removed it, and consider the part as $$$ wasted. The APR tap plugs into another closed port (kit includes a tool to broach an opening) on the intake manifold and does not interfere with the intake air temp readings.
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