ARES Tuning Limited

ARES Tuning Limited Ares Tuning LTD specialising in MQB tuning, upgrades, built engines & repairs

Really don’t know what to say about this one! 😂😂😂
30/04/2026

Really don’t know what to say about this one! 😂😂😂

2019 DNU OPF Cupra unfortunately came in with catastrophic damage.. extremely low miles too!I’ve said this before, but a...
17/04/2026

2019 DNU OPF Cupra unfortunately came in with catastrophic damage.. extremely low miles too!

I’ve said this before, but a very common denominator is their Continental injectors - we can see cylinder 2 has melted the side of the piston before it subsequently seized in the bore and the rod exited the block 🙈

About my 6th GPF engine with this damage - all around 40k miles

Anyways, replacement block, crankshaft, oil pump and lower girdle with sump - and the engine was rebuilt. Luckily his head and camshafts where undamaged

Few weeks later he is now back on the road with fresh injectors! And a fresh new engine…

😎👌🏻

MK7.5 GTI in after being plagued with Smokey hot starts! Another customer that had been around the garages being told to...
17/04/2026

MK7.5 GTI in after being plagued with Smokey hot starts!

Another customer that had been around the garages being told to change this and change that - one garage telling him “get a new engine the oil rings have gone!” 🙈

Diagnosed this from a video he sent, despite what you may be told - these engines do suffer from stem seal failure! Especially, it seems between 2017-2019 vehicles, these are most common to see the stem seals failing (DJH and DLB engines)

Head removed, stripped back - look at the state of those seals! Once we removed the valve retainers three of the valves simply fell out! Possibly one of the worst examples we’ve seen

Head cleaned back, skimmed and washed, valves cleaned back and lapped back in, new stem seals fitted

New head gasket, head bolts, vac pump gasket and a billet coolant outlet vent

Timing chain checked and found well within tolerance - although a rusty crank pulley was replaced, new lower timing cover…. And?

No more Smokey start ups!

Needs a new engine? Christ on a bike…. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Another recommendation from Rtech! Audi S3 8V misfiring severely on cylinder 2, this would get worse at the engine seen ...
16/04/2026

Another recommendation from Rtech!

Audi S3 8V misfiring severely on cylinder 2, this would get worse at the engine seen heat and particularly high in the rpm it would misfire

No codes or faults however! But not something I haven’t seen before..

Usual checks and data logging before the borescope came out and confirmed my suspison..

Carbon build up! Excessive burnt carbon - particularly on the exhaust valves, this is where his issue lay. We can see the valve seat has burnt and has uneven surface and colour across the seat as does the back of the sealing face of the valve, very deeply pitted seating face so these valves where for the bin

Just take a look at his top chain guide bolt though! Was nearly completely backed out! Lucky….

Head came off, stripped down, cleaned and skimmed, replacement exhaust valves lapped back in, intake valves cleaned back, new stem seals and all rebuilt.

New head gasket and head bolts, new vac pump gasket and the main drive timing chain replaced for good measure.

Complete with new direct injectors and we now have no misfires on idle or at the top!

They were in a bit of a state those exhaust valves! At some point this head has been replaced, lots of FIPG sealant on the rocker cover and a distinctive “X3” marker pen on the sealing face of the head

Anyways, back to Rtech she goes! 👌🏻😎

Ryan’s Cupra in this week! Another very interesting one this… came on the back of a truck severely misfiring on idle, bu...
10/04/2026

Ryan’s Cupra in this week!

Another very interesting one this… came on the back of a truck severely misfiring on idle, burbling on decel, smoking extensively out of the exhaust.

lots of various faults for lambda, misfires, Hyde cylinder and rich codes - it’s been to a lot of garages with no joy on a solution, so sleeves where rolled up!

Was quite testing this one!

Firstly, TMAP readings where everywhere - so a replacement TMAP was fitted which then stabilised, diagnostics points out a stretched timing chain, so we started there - as you can see his tensioner had extended extensively, so new timing chains tensioners and guides sorted. Somewhat to be expected as the vehicle had hit 94k miles

Spark plugs 1&4 were heavily sooted up indicating a rich condition, to which we removed the injectors to have a look - not in a great condition! So new injectors fitted, whilst we where there we walnut blasted the soiled intake valves back to like new

All back together… idling almost perfect now, almost…. However!

Rich on idle fault code still present, along with lambda sensor 1 negative lead open circuit. It was clear a new lambda had been fitted previously, but we have plenty here at the unit so a replacement was installed an all was then well

So! Off to Unicorn for tuning as he originally wanted a stage 1 tune at another garage but received it back still misfiring, so it was flashed back to stock… or was it??

GTI performance software had been flashed on the ECU, which will run - but it is quite different to Cupra software! That doesn’t help

Rick flashed a stock Cupra 280 file on and began work tuning, and all was going fine until intake temps rose above 40c and then “BING” management light and a rich condition fault code, along with a negative lead open circuit lambda fault

So tuning was halted, and back to the unit

Sure enough, lambda was sooted up as was cylinder 1 & 4 plug - was it wiring to the lambda? This was checked previously at the plug and connector, and the loom was untouched.. so what was occurring?

Looking at the fault logs present and previous there was a smoking gun, 41c! As soon as the intake temps hit 41c the faults would occur and the lambda negative would short out. This was obviously because the lambda was contaminating until it no longer gave the ECU is 0.2-0.9v signal

So what happen to air as it warms? It becomes less dense, less oxygen rich meaning less fuel is needed to target its AFR - so something wasn’t either being fed back to the ECU correctly or something wasn’t performing as the ECU was asking…

Hmm…. I’d previously checked the oil for signs of fuel contamination as a leaking high pressure pump will cause rich condition codes, but oil was fine, but let’s just look at the regulator duty

Sure enough, as soon as it hit 41c on intake temps that regulator pegged at 89.99% so wiring was then checked.. and there I found the 5v TMAP signal wire with a corroded break - but still some continuity to actually feedback something! 🙈

Wiring repaired, replacement high pressure pump for good measure.. lambda cleaned up

Perfect. Good idling for over an hour, logging all good and a good kicking up the road and it’s now moving like it should!

Ryan can finally enjoy his car again 😎👌🏻

Thank god it’s Friday…..

Always awesome to have nice messages about work!We built this engine in January this year after a very unfortunate situa...
26/03/2026

Always awesome to have nice messages about work!

We built this engine in January this year after a very unfortunate situation this customer had

We received the engine in three boxes as someone had taken it apart previously but it was left in that state

Unfortunately it had suffered a catastrophic failure in such a way that most of his parts where unusable

We made a start rebuilding and replacing what was needed and then the car was dropped off with us

Back on the road all fresh and smooth!

But thank you for the message! It really goes a long way ❤️

Tom’s track weapon came in to us with milky coolant! We built this engine back in 2024, it has seen hundreds of laps at ...
26/03/2026

Tom’s track weapon came in to us with milky coolant!

We built this engine back in 2024, it has seen hundreds of laps at the ring, donnington and spar etc

He was sure the head gasket had failed, I was very sure it hadn’t - it sports ARP2000 head studs and we’ve never had or seen a failure, engine was running fine, no smoke or misfires

I was certain the issue was his oil cooler, but this oil cooler had only 2k miles

So a complete coolant strip down was done, his main radiator removed and 8 hot kettles flushed out the horrible milky residue - whenever oil contaminates the cooling system it is a bad day! It takes a considerable amount of time to ensure everything is flushed out

Oil cooler was removed and in the housing we found a crack on the gasket seat - and his oil cooler had of course failed

Didn’t end there though! His thermostat had unfortunately caught the brunt and was subsequently replaced

So! Oil and coolant sorted… he also complained of a gearbox fault as temps got towards 80c, this is typical of a failed mechatronic unable to hold pressure. Mech unit was cloned to a replacement and reinstalled to the gearbox with adaptations carried out

Now? It’s back ready for the track once again 💪🏻😎

Another recommendation from Rtech! (Commission is in the post 😂)Poor guy had been from one “specialist” to another spend...
26/03/2026

Another recommendation from Rtech! (Commission is in the post 😂)

Poor guy had been from one “specialist” to another spending ££££’s with no repair or soloution

Vehicle was misfiring from cold, better as it warmed but then would chug constantly with a really strong fuel odour - once warm low oil pressure on idle to top it off!

We fist checked oil pressure and found it on its arse at below 0.5bar once at 85c oil temps, very rough on revving so straight away could tell the balance shafts where not timed properly

We found exhaust cam timing was incorrect, so timing side was stripped down to which we found a stretched chain aswell as incorrectly set timing. Balance shafts timed correctly, replacement main drive chain fitted. Cambridge replaced and Buckets of sealant found around the old timing cover so sump was removed and a terrible amount of sealant removed from the oil pickup, new lower timing cover installed

Fault codes for lambda - running rich on idle, and also running lean on idle… now, it cannot be both! Unless… the lambda or the wiring was at fault

Someone had crimp repaired both lambda plugs - this is a big no no where lambdas are concerned, they operate using resistance signals to feedback to the ECU, crimp joints adversely effect resistance in this circuit

Both lambda plugs and wiring was removed from the ECU and a new un-molsetered replacement was wired in direct from the ECU pins to the lambda sockets

And 8hrs later?

Perfectly running engine with no faults, rough running, misfires or oil pressure lights!

He’ll be pleased come collection! 😎👌🏻

Not always fun fun fun! Another beautiful Lamborghini Huracan in for an oil service and a diagnosis and repair for a man...
25/02/2026

Not always fun fun fun!

Another beautiful Lamborghini Huracan in for an oil service and a diagnosis and repair for a management light.. a secondary air injection fault

Now Lamborghini will typically charge £1500 for an oil service.. to which sounds silly, however these run the glorious 5.2L V10 engine which has a dry sump, not your simple drop the oil and replace the filter!

8 drain plugs systematically are removed, 8 aluminium washers required for replacement (I won’t tell you how much 8 of those where 🙈)

Filter replaced, and then a very particular filling method.

Pressure sensor bank 2 for secondary injection reporting implausible signal - this system is used to heat the cats up come cold starts, not a major issue but who wants to drive a Huracan with and engine management light?!

Live data shown a static pressure reading as soon as the ignition was on - this can only be a faulty sensor so a relatively easy diag

Not the easiest engine bays to work on, I was tempted to mission impossible dangle myself on cables down to the bay to save my back 😂

Pressure sensor is located deep down the rear of the engine and quite tricky to remove, this engine bay sports forged carbon trim so that was very carefully removed before deep diving in!

All sorted, No more management light and Jack my lad got his much picture to show his friends 😎👌🏻

Marks extremely clean CZGB RS3 8V came in after a referral from Kolatech after they diagnosed this RS3 with the dreaded ...
25/02/2026

Marks extremely clean CZGB RS3 8V came in after a referral from Kolatech after they diagnosed this RS3 with the dreaded stem seals failure… excessive oil consumption and Smokey startups!

Bang on the money! Sure enough the exhaust seals fell off

Extremely carbon saturated valves too - cylinder head removed, stripped down, valves cleaned back, head cleaned and skimmed, valves lapped back in, new head gasket and head bolts, new latest revision injectors, all new gaskets and of course… fresh stem seals!

We also carried out the annoying selector micro switch issue repair, repaired his N/S exhaust valve and by his request raised the rear suspension by 5mm

All now fresh and smokeless! 😎👌🏻

Alim’s S3 8V Saloon came in after a recommendation from Rtech He had recently purchased a rebuilt engine and after takin...
25/02/2026

Alim’s S3 8V Saloon came in after a recommendation from Rtech

He had recently purchased a rebuilt engine and after taking it to Rtech the team noticed something wasn’t right with it…

We inspected it before it came off the truck and diagnosed it with a span bearing.. oil filter saturated with bearing material 🙈

Alim opted for a full built ported engine comprised of;

Wossner 83mm Pistons
ZRP rifle drilled conrods
ACL bearings
OEM colour specified Main bearings
ARP headstuds
Replacement OEM crankshaft
Ported intake and exhaust cylinder head
Supertech valvetrain

After 500miles he took it to Unicorn Motor Developments where it made an astonishing 590bhp on his TTV5 with just octane booster! (No methanol needed here)

Rick however conscious of his DQ250 gearbox capped the final torque and figure at a healthy 577bhp & 495ft/lb

Fantastic results! 😎👌🏻

Address

Unit 2 City Metals, Saltney
Chester
CH48RW

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when ARES Tuning Limited posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to ARES Tuning Limited:

Shortcuts

Share

Category