Stage 3 was an insane experience for sure!
D (no additional settings)
Reasonably quick to get into higher gears but I feel that it spends too much time thinking what gear to be in, a lot of changes between 4th to 6th in normal traffic and was a little irritated as my daily commute is 90% slow traffic.
S (no additional settings)
What a transformation! Turns the car into a beast with high revving lightning fast changes! Gives you a nice taste of how the car can really perform if you wanna race around a track or if you have some spirited runs at the drags etc.
Not really aggressive in gear changes, very good and still smooth all the way from 1st to 6th and back to 1st. It likes to stay in 5th anticipating your foot to smack on the pedal.
I set up the decoupling feature after that, at first messed up cos i activated it but didn't set it to on

Even so, it didn't make much difference on a standstill. I was monitoring the fuel cc requests on Torque and it made no difference, only putting it into neutral released the pressure so maybe my car does not like the setting.
Tried shiftmap editor with relaxed mode in D and Sportive+ in S. Definitely not meant for my driving style at all.
D mode felt very lazy just like stage 1, super quick to 6th and was stubborn to move to lower gears unless i pressed more then it kicked me back into my seat.
S mode in Sportive+? A Vin REAL Diesel for sure, mental and encourages you to foot it all the time! Goes right through the rev range and refuses to shift to the next gear until it is satisfied with your foot lol.
I am not going to be driving like that regularly so I went down a notch again.
Back to stage 2 for now
@AshG108 You are correct in stage 2 as the sweet spot. Much more smoother on the drive today and I enjoyed sport mode too. Perfect balance.
I mailed XHP yesterday and the guy was very helpful with feedback on my adaptation values.
My figures
after stage 3 and playing around yesterday:
Clutch Pressure Time
A 650mbar 24ms
B 101mbar 0ms
C 424mbar -1ms
D 167mbar 0ms
E 50mbar 39ms
Feedback:
Adaptions are in the mid-range, just clutch A and E are a bit out of range. Also, the clutch A pressure of 650mbar seems too high, which could be an indicator of a leaking seal or bad solenoids.
We would recommend changing the internal seals, and solenoids with the next gearbox service to be on the safe side. You can drive like this for a long time but we would recommend to do the transmission service between 200k-220k.
I will drive it around for another few days on Stage 2 and see if the values normalize again, but it looks like the gearbox will need a short holiday at ZF in the near future.