Diesil Power

digitalwolf

digitalwolf

digitalwolf

Soldato
Joined
27 Mar 2004
Posts
3,593
Location
England
Well yesterday, I went with my mate to pick up his new purchase. A 306 HDi Meridian.

He didn't want to drive it back home because he doesn't venture outside the town and the thought of the M6 is scary lol. I drove it back and whilst my Saxo would leave it for dead 0-60, in gear I reckon I'd struggle to pull away from it.

It's a really comfy car to drive. The seats are ace, they support you extremely well. The turbo kick in was a little addictive and sitting on the motorway doing 75mph at 2500 revs the engine was very quiet. The torque was a nice experience and it hardly smoked at all.

I did 120 miles in the car and I enjoyed it because it is a refined unit. Ok the interior does rattle a bit but nowhere near as badly as my Saxo.

The main question I wanted to ask was how do you drive a diesil economically? Do you shift at 2.5k? I was shifting at 2.5K but sometimes off the blocks shifting at 3.5K was needed.
 
If the turbo comes in at the same point as the Dturbo, then it's about 2.2k. For absolute best economy, it's probably best to try and stay below that point as much as possible. Too much like hard work though tbh, a HDi is still going to give decent economy however it's driven.
 
Managed to get 135 miles out of £10 of diesil whilst taking it to 4k revs every change.

I'm probably gonna go for the 3 door version of one of these around March time as the insurance is a lot cheaper than mine. It'll need remapping though :p
 
My mum has a 2L HDi 306 estate of some sort. I found it quite nice to drive but really hard to drive smoothly. The clutch seems quite snatchy and the steering is way too light. But on the motorway it's great just wafting along at low revs. Maybe hers is just knackered:D.
 
You should shift so that the next gear drops into the peak torque range - on most modern diesels that's about 1800rpm. Thats the sort of RPM you want to be cruising at - the temptation is to cruise at the lowest RPM possible without stalling, but when you then want to accelerate even slightly you're using a lot of throttle which uses more fuel.

The odd blast towards the redline won't affect the economy too much. You should accelerate up to your cruising speed briskly without being daft.
 
digitalwolf,

Thought about the 110bhp 2.0HDi Xsara? It is the same engine but with an intercooler. That can be chipped to give an extra 31bhp/62Nm which will make it quite quick and not too bad to goto from the VTR.
 
I must say the HDI doesn't have the more sudden surge when it comes on boost that the older XUDT engine does. Nice car though ;) Glad to hear a petrol lover doesn't mind them too much :p

You can get them to a reasonable power if you are willing to spend some money, derv doctor would be the way forward :)
 
If you get a panel filter + decat + remap, it ll leave your vtr for dead at 120 - 125 bhp ;)

nice cars they are, especially if you put 6 interior in them.
 
my turbo comes in about 2k. I sit at 70 @ just under 2k which is nice and economical. When i boot it it shifts! :) it really pulls through the range, from about 2k up to the redline.

I've got a mondeo ST TDCi.
 
Trojan said:
Addictive turbo kick in a 306 HDi? Lol :p
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Yes

I used to have a 206 2.0 HDi and the boost coming on was quite nice actually...

As above it was quite addictive.

Fully understand.
 
My turbo kicks in on my HDi about 2.2k rpm, thats when i tend to shift when driving normally. I find it a really nice car to drive and i think the handling is pretty good. On the motorway with a mate in his saxo vtr we were in 4th at 60 and both floored it, nobody was getting away from each other.
 
'03 Polo TDi PD100. Not hte most powerful, but can remap to something a bit silly.

The turbo kicks in at around 1600rpm, meaning it will happily torque steer if care isn't taken. It takes about 11secs to get to 60mph, but it pulls nicely in any gear above 3rd.

If driven sensibly on a motorway (i.e. 70mph) it gives about 550 miles out of a 10Gal. tank, which isn't bad.
 
Just be progressive with the gas and change long before you are "thrashing it" (tm).
I usually change at around 3000rpm depending on how and where I am driving.

The Fab is also ace on the Motoway. 2100RPM @70mph in 6th gear. Best thing is that you are right on the turbo at that point, so if you need to get away quickly, you dont have to shift down.
 
If I want to drive economically (har har), then I'll get up to speed fairly quickly and get into top gear ASAP.

If I want to accelerate i'll knock it down to the gear which will bring straight into the power band and accelerate and put into top gear again.

Of course, I don't drive like this in my crappy car, it gets hammered all the time otherwise it goes no where!
 
Greg said:
my turbo comes in about 2k. I sit at 70 @ just under 2k which is nice and economical. When i boot it it shifts! :) it really pulls through the range, from about 2k up to the redline.

I've got a mondeo ST TDCi.
Click to expand...

Have you got a Bluefin?
 
-Mike- said:
I must say the HDI doesn't have the more sudden surge when it comes on boost that the older XUDT engine does. Nice car though ;) Glad to hear a petrol lover doesn't mind them too much :p

You can get them to a reasonable power if you are willing to spend some money, derv doctor would be the way forward :)
Click to expand...

it doesn't have the surge because the whole point of it is that it feels more like a petrol and doesn't have lag.
 
I have driven both the 306 diesils, the 1.9 an the 2.0 and yes the 1.9 does have a very nice boost but the 2.0 isn't bad coming from an N/A 1.6 Petrol.

I believe a 306 will not fail it's MOT if you take the cat off due to it being diesil???
 
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