Performance Chips

I have been looking at performance chips promising more horsepower and
better fuel economy. Prices range from $4 to over $400. Many are no-name
items sold on e-bay and some are well know names like Conforti and Dinan.
Does anyone have any first hand experience with these chips. Do they
actually work? If so, which is best?

I put a bavauto chip in mine -- It does feel different driving it. Not faster,
really; but like the car is "lighter" (735i) definately peppy-er now...
According to them it remaps the entire throttle -- as I understand it; dinan
maps WOT (80% - 100%) but don't quote me on that at all!

For kicks I bought a $25 chip off ebay -- put it on. put the original chip in -
put the 25 back on -- but my bavauto on.

the 25 chip did feel different that stock, but not as much as the bav auto.

I'd guess the 25 chip guys bought (or borrowed) a real chip, used an eprom
burner they had work and burned a bunch of copies; stuck their own label on it &
figured they'd make a few bucks. (don't quote me)

The one I bought had outragous claims that just couldn't be true "40 hp gain"
and also claimed they developed the fuel mapping themselves. but it did do
something.

I gave the chip to a friend, who put it in; took it out & tossed it. he wasn't
willing to risk damage to his baby with a no-name chip -- I would stick with
brand / respected names.

On Sun, 4 Jun 2006 23:02:04 -0700, "ETW" > wrote:

>I have been looking at performance chips promising more horsepower and
>better fuel economy. Prices range from $4 to over $400. Many are no-name
>items sold on e-bay and some are well know names like Conforti and Dinan.
>Does anyone have any first hand experience with these chips. Do they
>actually work? If so, which is best?
>


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"ETW" > wrote in message
...
>I have been looking at performance chips promising more horsepower and
>better fuel economy. Prices range from $4 to over $400. Many are no-name
>items sold on e-bay and some are well know names like Conforti and Dinan.
>Does anyone have any first hand experience with these chips. Do they
>actually work? If so, which is best?

You may get a slight horsepower increase in the newer cars or a significant
increase on the earlier cars. Rev limiter is usually bumped a couple 100
RPM. The top speed limiter is disabled. With the electronic throttle cars,
the throttle response is quickened. I don't think you'll see a fuel economy
improvement.

R / John

John Carrier wrote:
> "ETW" > wrote in message
> ...
>> I have been looking at performance chips promising more horsepower and
>> better fuel economy. Prices range from $4 to over $400. Many are no-name
>> items sold on e-bay and some are well know names like Conforti and Dinan.
>> Does anyone have any first hand experience with these chips. Do they
>> actually work? If so, which is best?
>
> You may get a slight horsepower increase in the newer cars or a significant
> increase on the earlier cars. Rev limiter is usually bumped a couple 100
> RPM. The top speed limiter is disabled. With the electronic throttle cars,
> the throttle response is quickened. I don't think you'll see a fuel economy
> improvement.

I recently red that over time, the OBD2 system eventually overrides the
custom programming to get the car back to the design parameters. I
believe this happened with my wife's VW turbo. After about a year we
could hardly tell the difference between chip mode and stock.
Anyone else heard of this?

"Rex B" > wrote
> John Carrier wrote:
>> You may get a slight horsepower increase in the newer cars or a
>> significant increase on the earlier cars. Rev limiter is usually bumped
>> a couple 100 RPM. The top speed limiter is disabled. With the
>> electronic throttle cars, the throttle response is quickened. I don't
>> think you'll see a fuel economy improvement.
>
> I recently red that over time, the OBD2 system eventually overrides the
> custom programming to get the car back to the design parameters. I
> believe this happened with my wife's VW turbo. After about a year we
> could hardly tell the difference between chip mode and stock.
> Anyone else heard of this?

As a programmer, that's bull****. The chip has the fuel/ignition map
that is used to run the engine, which can't be changed by OBD2, nor
would OBD2 know what the "design params" are in the first place.

FloydR

Floyd Rogers wrote:
> "Rex B" > wrote
>
>>John Carrier wrote:
>>
>>>You may get a slight horsepower increase in the newer cars or a
>>>significant increase on the earlier cars. Rev limiter is usually bumped
>>>a couple 100 RPM. The top speed limiter is disabled. With the
>>>electronic throttle cars, the throttle response is quickened. I don't
>>>think you'll see a fuel economy improvement.
>>
>>I recently red that over time, the OBD2 system eventually overrides the
>>custom programming to get the car back to the design parameters. I
>>believe this happened with my wife's VW turbo. After about a year we
>>could hardly tell the difference between chip mode and stock.
>> Anyone else heard of this?
>
>
> As a programmer, that's bull****. The chip has the fuel/ignition map
> that is used to run the engine, which can't be changed by OBD2, nor
> would OBD2 know what the "design params" are in the first place.

Yeah, I'd bet mnoney that what got reprogrammed over that year's time
was Rex's remembery of what it used to feel like...

--
-Fred W

Fred W wrote:
> Floyd Rogers wrote:
>> "Rex B" > wrote
>>
>>> John Carrier wrote:
>>>
>>>> You may get a slight horsepower increase in the newer cars or a
>>>> significant increase on the earlier cars. Rev limiter is usually
>>>> bumped a couple 100 RPM. The top speed limiter is disabled. With
>>>> the electronic throttle cars, the throttle response is quickened. I
>>>> don't think you'll see a fuel economy improvement.
>>>
>>> I recently red that over time, the OBD2 system eventually overrides
>>> the custom programming to get the car back to the design parameters.
>>> I believe this happened with my wife's VW turbo. After about a year
>>> we could hardly tell the difference between chip mode and stock.
>>> Anyone else heard of this?
>>
>>
>> As a programmer, that's bull****. The chip has the fuel/ignition map
>> that is used to run the engine, which can't be changed by OBD2, nor
>> would OBD2 know what the "design params" are in the first place.
>
> Yeah, I'd bet mnoney that what got reprogrammed over that year's time
> was Rex's remembery of what it used to feel like...

That could well be. I attributed it to degradation of performance due
to the accumulating miles.

But some of those chip upgrades are piggy-backed onto the stock chip, or
attached via the diag connector, so it's conceivable that could be
happening with some designs. On the VW the CPU chip was unsoldered and
replaced, so that should kill any chance of it there.

Floyd Rogers wrote:
>
> As a programmer, that's bull****. The chip has the fuel/ignition map
> that is used to run the engine, which can't be changed by OBD2, nor
> would OBD2 know what the "design params" are in the first place.

I think the fuel map is used under normal operating conditions, but it
could be overridden by emissions code based on what the O2 sensor, for
example, is saying. That map is ignored, for example, in WOT
conditions. In any case, it's not an unreasonable theory to think that
something in the engine management code could override the fuel map.

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:55:15 -0400, Nobody Important
> wrote:

>Floyd Rogers wrote:
>>
>> As a programmer, that's bull****. The chip has the fuel/ignition map
>> that is used to run the engine, which can't be changed by OBD2, nor
>> would OBD2 know what the "design params" are in the first place.
>
>I think the fuel map is used under normal operating conditions, but it
>could be overridden by emissions code based on what the O2 sensor, for
>example, is saying. That map is ignored, for example, in WOT
>conditions. In any case, it's not an unreasonable theory to think that
>something in the engine management code could override the fuel map.

Indeed, the rom-based maps are never ignored, as invoking such behavior would
overly complicate the entire engine management system. The values that the
maps cough up at any given moment are based on primary inputs such as throttle
position sensor, MAF, etc. Those values are then further adjusted based on
other real-time inputs such as you mentioned (o2 sensors, knock sensors,
torque sensors, etc).

"Performance chips" modify the base maps and rely on the ECU operating code to
account for the real-time environment...

Cheers

Rex B wrote:
>
> Fred W wrote:
>> Floyd Rogers wrote:
>>> "Rex B" > wrote
>>>
>>>> John Carrier wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> You may get a slight horsepower increase in the newer cars or a
>>>>> significant increase on the earlier cars. Rev limiter is usually
>>>>> bumped a couple 100 RPM. The top speed limiter is disabled. With
>>>>> the electronic throttle cars, the throttle response is quickened.
>>>>> I don't think you'll see a fuel economy improvement.
>>>>
>>>> I recently red that over time, the OBD2 system eventually overrides
>>>> the custom programming to get the car back to the design
>>>> parameters. I believe this happened with my wife's VW turbo. After
>>>> about a year we could hardly tell the difference between chip mode
>>>> and stock.
>>>> Anyone else heard of this?
>>>
>>>
>>> As a programmer, that's bull****. The chip has the fuel/ignition map
>>> that is used to run the engine, which can't be changed by OBD2, nor
>>> would OBD2 know what the "design params" are in the first place.
>>
>> Yeah, I'd bet mnoney that what got reprogrammed over that year's time
>> was Rex's remembery of what it used to feel like...
>
> That could well be. I attributed it to degradation of performance due
> to the accumulating miles.

On re-reading that, I could be describing the car or the writer.
Works either way