A busy Stirlingshire mixed farm faced a common issue with a pair of tractors suffering power loss on the road and in the field and meant the machines were unable to deliver the required performance when it mattered.
Rather than replace them at great cost, Jim Bain and son Alastair, who farm at Lower Tarr Farm in Ruskie, west of Stirling, decided to use local engineer Neil McAllister to remap their 2021 Deutz Fahr 6165 and a 2013 Massey Ferguson 7616.
Neil offers the service as part of Avon Tuning HD’s network of authorised agents that operates nationwide, professionally applying ECU remaps to agricultural machinery, supported by the technical team at Avon’s south west base. Jim explains how the lack of power was affecting his daily tasks.
“We cart farmyard manure from Blair Drummond, which is 9 miles away and there’s substantial hills on the route, one of which is half a mile long. With a loaded 12t trailer, it takes a lot out of the tractors and the Deutz felt dead on the road. I’d be dropping down multiple gears to get up the hills and reducing forward speed by at least 10kph.”
Jim and Alastair farm 200ha of arable, including winter and spring barley, winter wheat and spring oats. The farm has grassland to provide fodder for the 80 Belgian Blue cross steers that are fattened and for grazing the 350 ewes and lambs.
Results
The 2021 Deutz Fahr has a six-cylinder, 6.1-litre Deutz engine, which from factory should deliver 165hp, plenty for Jim’s needs. However, after conversations with Neil, who is well-known locally, Jim chose to apply a stage 1 Avon Tuning HD engine remap. This would allow the torque curves to be altered for the additional 25hp to be available lower down the rev range, where the tractor really needed it.
Jim says it’s made a considerable difference to daily operation. “Since the remap, I can haul the same trailer up the same hills two powershifts higher and not need to shift up and down the gearbox as much as before. Beforehand, I would’ve been at 50kph at the start but dropped to 40kph by the top of the hill. Now, I’m consistently at 50kph all the way up.”
Jim openly says the remap won’t make him any more money, but improvements to operator comfort and having usable power and torque in the right places allows him to improve efficiency on the operations and complete jobs quicker.
“It holds in better on the steep land during field work, I’m not constantly focussed on changing powershifts to get up the hills. The power tweaks have made it easier to drive and more comfortable.”
Other jobs for the Deutz include a one pass Amazone combination drill, which Jim is now running constantly in 1000 eco PTO speed to save fuel by not revving the tractor as hard to achieve the same output. Before the remap, he would stop and swap to 1000 normal PTO speed when he required additional power, but the remap has solved this issue.
The older MF 7616 has benefited from the remapping and covers a wide range of jobs
Although Jim hasn’t noticed any saving in fuel following the remap, he says that the tractor doesn’t use any more than before, and, with jobs completed quicker, the overall effect of the remap means fuel costs are being trimmed. Neil also remapped the farm’s 2013 Massey Ferguson 7616, which Jim says carries out spraying, grassland work, and most of the ploughing, and the difference since the remap has been impressive.
“We have seen improvements on both the tractors and we wouldn’t hesitate to remap any future tractors. The overall benefits from improved operation and reduced gear changes means we are getting full performance from both machines,” concludes Jim.