i've had the bluefin on my 61 plate 184 se for a while now - in fact, it was my car that was used for the development on the bluefin communication handset, so i feel that i'm qualified to answer.
i wouldnt be without it - better running (smoother and quieter), better acceleration (0-62 is now 7.9 seconds, as opposed to 9.6), better economy (36-40+, as opposed to early 30's), more responsive and much less turbo lag. havent tested for top speed, but they say it will do nearly 140 !. the power kicks in earlier, and pulls like a train - it runs out of road, before running out of steam. all in all, a much better drive - it feels like the car it should have been (if you know what i mean).
during my day down at superchips, they talked me through the whole process and kept me informed. the power on the standard bluefin remap is actually cranked up till the engine management light comes on (this is at 80% of the safety level set by vauxhall). it is then turned down by another 10% and set, so basically, the engine is tuned to 70% of its capacity (in theory, another 30% is achievable before the maximum safety levels are met, but this is at the cost of driveability and economy. the 70% is well within the engines limit and spec allowed). its actually quite frightening to think of the power that the engine can actually output. the bluefin tech's also said that it was one of the most restricted yet tunable engines that they have worked on.
i've also left it on for 2 trips to the garage, and its undetectable (unless they test it on a rolling road for power). rather than a generic remap (like others), the bluefin remap actually uses your unique map. think of it like a file on your computer - instead of having the file replaced by a generic one, your file is opened, edited, and closed, with no evidence of any alterations. the settings that are altered are binary codes (just a series of 0's and 1's) and there are literally millions of them, so trawling through them and looking for alterations would be nigh on impossible for any technician or computer geek.
therefore it still contains the traceable headers such as date of build, engine and chassis number etc (which a generic one wont have).
every now and then i swap the maps over just to remind myself of the difference (you do get used to it and take it for granted) - and its like a different car - and the 184 was no slouch to start with.
i hope this info helps, but if you want to message me with a contact number, we can talk further.
steve

 

I know this is an old post, however I found it while googling about Bluefin ECU maps for Vauxhalls therefore I'm sure other people will stumble across it in the future; soI'd like to point out a huge flaw with this persons statements.
Bear in mind, I have no industry experience BUT i'm just showing you how simple it would be for a technician to check your car.

i've also left it on for 2 trips to the garage, and its undetectable (unless they test it on a rolling road for power). rather than a generic remap (like others), the bluefin remap actually uses your unique map. think of it like a file on your computer - instead of having the file replaced by a generic one, your file is opened, edited, and closed, with no evidence of any alterations. the settings that are altered are binary codes (just a series of 0's and 1's) and there are literally millions of them, so trawling through them and looking for alterations would be nigh on impossible for any technician or computer geek.
therefore it still contains the traceable headers such as date of build, engine and chassis number etc (which a generic one wont have).
steve

You say that a technician will trawl through the binary to compare the difference - that is 100% wrong. Coming from a software engineering background I can tell you it would take less than 5 seconds to compare two maps and alert the technician if there is any difference. I could write a program to do this in less than 10 minutes as all that needs doing is a simple for loop iterating through every character (or in case of a binary file, number 0 or 1) and comparing it to the standard official ECU map that should be on the engine. If any digit is incorrect you can either alert the technician there and then or continue counting the number of errors and then once through the whole file alert the technician.

Computers nowadays can compare millions of integers per second. Just to show you, I have written this SIMPLE program to generate 4,000,000 integers TWICE (this is simulating the two ECU maps in the form of binary). One called originalMap and the other newMap to simulate the original ECU map and then the Bluefin modified map. Note: I randomized ALL numbers therefore the maps are totally differnet, in the real world only a small proportion of the map would be modified - even so, this has no affect on my simulation.
Once the 4,000,000 numbers have been generated twice, I compare the difference between the two maps. If there is a difference it gets added on to a counting variable. At the end, I simply ask if the counting variable is above certain numbers and output it. I timed the whole process in nanoseconds to get the most accurate time and displayed it at the end - converted to milliseconds. 250 milliseconds is 1/4 of a second.
Oh and the timing includes generating those 8,000,000 numbers. Because it includes 8 million random number generations, the actual comparison of the binary files will be significantly less (< 15%) of the actual time.

 

Thanks Steve, that's very informative.
How much did it affect your insurance premium, if you don't mind me asking?

 

no increase in insurance premium .....

 

Nice one. I'll contact my insurance provider & if there's no or little increase then I think I'm sold!! Thanks again.

 

you cant go wrong - you have a money back guarentee for 7 days, i believe

 

Excellent. I feel like I'm driving a severely restricted car with the Antara- that's the best I can put it. It goes like stink don't get me wrong, but only if you force the issue!!

 

i know what you mean - its like you have to floor it to release the floodgates !
when you have the bluefin active, you can feel the power kick in (and it seems to keep kicking in). takes a bit to get used to from normal. once you drive it, you will realise how restricted it is, and how much the remap has released.
as for insurance, i would ask the question tentatively - remember its untraceable

 

Well........... I went for it & installed the Bluefin last Friday. If you want your Anrara to be how it should have always been then I highly recommend the Bluefin!!
I'm absolutely delighted, it's done exactly what I hoped it would do. The car is SO much better all round that I'm actually annoyed with Vauxhall for making such a poop effort in the first place! The drivability is fantastic, it "rolls" along on the road now without having to depress the pedal 6 inch, the smallest amount of throttle has you cruising like a good'un whereas before I had to depress the pedal considerably just to maintain momentum on the flat! Turbo lag is almost eliminated & the drive is much smoother. 6th gear is now like what 5th used to be pre-Bluefin! I can cruise along country B roads from 50 mph in 6th!!! Something which was impossible before. Now, when you put your foot down in 6th the turbo kicks in & you're off whereas before you'd hear a deep, labouring drone & the car would accelerate like a snail! I never got the Bluefin for extra power reasons, it was drivability for me, I just knew this engine wasn't "right". However, I have to acknowledge the power & torque increase, put your foot down now & you're pinned back in the seat! I've not done enough miles to give a true indication of economy (wife has had it most of the time) but I can only expect it to be better as you just don't have to depress the pedal anything like you used to before. Up to this point, the car can be driven more economically for sure but how much so I'll have to report back. The differences are quite subtle but make ALL the difference. No more jerkiness setting off, smooth as silk, ultra responsive, power on demand etc etc. I can't wait to give it a longer run on the motorway. Motorway before was a nightmare, constantly changing from 6th to 5th unless you floored it & had a spare half hour to wait for it to pick up- not anymore. A quick depress of the pedal in 6th, turbo kicks in Roberto is your Mother's brother! The engine now feels like it has had a massive burden lifted from it, it feels free & responsive, begging to be driven!
All in all, the best £360 I could have possibly spent on this car!! SO easy to install too!

 

glad you like it mate, i knew you would.

 

I can see where you're coming from. It's a good point.

But isn't each ECU unique to each car as it learns values and things?

Also do you think a mechanic would really bother to write a program and stuff simply to see if it was remapped?

 

I can see where you're coming from. It's a good point.

But isn't each ECU unique to each car as it learns values and things?

Also do you think a mechanic would really bother to write a program and stuff simply to see if it was remapped?

I've got no experience with cars as I meantioned before, but all the technician would need to do is select which car they are testing and that would load the manufactorer's default ECU map. I'm certain they wouldn't write a different map for every car they sell - it'll be the same map for each model / production set (e.g. Vauxhall Corsa 1.4T will have the same map, whereas a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 will have a different map).
They wouldn't need to write the code themselves as a garage which tests for these things will have it by default, or it will be monitored by the diagnostic device they use.

I'm not saying all garages will have and use this technology, i'm just showing you how simple, easy and quick it is to check.

Oh and I'm not trying to scare people away from remapping, i'd just advise you to research proprerly beforehand. I'm currently deciding whether to buy the Bluefin for my Corsa.

 

Up to you. I'd just install the map and if anything goes wrong just revert back.

 

Yeah, however if something does go wrong, and vauxhall won't cover it then i'm in a pickle!
Plus £350 quid for something I don't entirely need (mostly want) is a bit steep.

 

I wouldn't go for a map either, whilst my car is under warranty.
There again I'm happy with the standard map on my 2.0cdti.
I'm sure Vaux must tweak their software maps, as they progress over the years. To iron out any early issues.

 

Bluefin is the best £350 I ever spent regarding my Antara! It really does show what an utterly dire state of tune the car is in as standard. I remove the map & put back to standard whenever the car goes into VX for anything- this takes around 3 minutes to complete.

 

Well, 15 months down the line and the Bluefin has been great, no issues at all- apart from when I take it off for servicing etc and the car reverts back to driving like a drunken slug!!

 

Two years on and no issues or problems whatsoever, car still going great with the Bluefin remap.