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A friend has recently had his BMW 3 series re-chipped and not only has it increased his performance but he says it has improved his fuel consumption. Apparently it has not affected his warranty. I have a Honda Accord 2.0I SE VTEC and wodered if it would be an advantage to look into re-chipping and whether it is likely to give me the same benefits without affecting warranty. I would value your opinion as you always give good sound advice. Many thanks, David Marchant.
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It might not affect your warranty but it almost certainly will affect your insurance. You should certainly inform your insurer. There was a case last year where someone had a claim turned down because they had not told their insurer that they had fitted alloy wheels to their car. It clearly didn't affect the performance, presumably raised the value, a bit, but a claim was declined on the grounds of "Material changes to the vehicle"
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I look forward to being shot down in flames here....
There is no such thing as a free lunch. It may be possible for chipping to improve some aspects of performance or economy. But you can't have both at the same time (unles BMW were hopeless in designing the car in the first place).
Most people I hear talk of their chipped cars have a slight bias associated with the slimmer wallet after the chipping job.
Others know more than me on this subject and I know David Lacey has only good to report of the chipped diesels he is associated with.
Isn't the 2.0 VTEC a flyer anyway or is it low down torque you want?
David
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> (unless BMW were hopeless in designing the car in the first place).
Leaving aside the obvious comment, isn't the issue that in the UK cars are specifically tunded/programmed/chipped to perform well at certain benchmarks - for example mpg at 56mpg.
This, however, gives rise to a flat spot in its performance and harder work for the engine in acceleration.
Chipping, which frequently involves simply putting in a middle-eastern market chip, takes away this artificial flat spot.
As it makes the car more efficient, you may well find that overall both your consumption and your performance have improved, although at 56mph it will have got worse.
I had a 318is and I know it improved the performance, but it always seemed that it improved the consumption as well.
It most certainly affects your insurance, if its a lease car it will affect the lease contract as well, if its a company car it could affect your job, and on the 318is at least, it also affected the warranty.
Mark.
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Chipping improves the efficiency of the engine therefore you can EITHER have improved performance OR improved fuel consumption depending on your driving style. It is unlikely you will realise improved fuel consumption if you exploit the greater acceleration capability, however, if you use a gentle right foot, fuel consumption wil improve.
I assume that the increased performance (in terms of acceleration, etc) has a knock on effect of greater wear and tear on other components eg gearbox, suspension, brakes.
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The increase in performance/economy may also have an effect on the life of the engine. the manufacturers put a lot of time getting the right balance between these factors, and its unlikey that the chippers have the resources to measue engine wear
Adrian
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I doubt you'd gain much from chipping a recent VTEC engine - the engine management system must be pretty complex and I doubt it could be improved upon. There is one listed (+6 bhp - £165) at www.superchips.co.uk
But as the previous posters have said - you'd invalidate your lovely 3 year warranty. Not worth it.
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Hi
I'd agree with the general 'flow' here in that it isn't worth getting a car 'chipped'.
No dis-respect to any company doing the conversions, but how do they know what to change?
Essentially the method of working out timing, injector values and so on are based on multi-dimensional 'maps' called 'calibrations' within an ECU.
For example if you are at X revs with Y load on the engine, the ECU looks at a table of values and works out what value of ignition timing to fire.
'Tweaking' the map values so more fuel is injected may give improved performance, but the general 'strategy' of the ECU software can't be known to these companies. Obviously BMW are not going to release how their engine controllers work to the world!
There are a whole host of ECU features such as overfueling on warm up to keep the catalyst happy and playing with ignition retardation during gear changes on automatic gearboxes. How the ECU handles these things can only be known to the vehicle manufactuer.
As to whether the ECU's are 'tuned' to give good mpg at 56mph, there may be some truth. Car manufactuer's may 'play' with the calibrations to get good test figures, but standard production cars will have calibration maps without any tuning. Fuel consumptions test are now done at varying speed so it's probably not worth trying to fix the results.
Andrew
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Do a search on 'TuningBox' and see my comments on my chipped Rover 45 Diesel (Now sold!! Doh!)
New one ordered for next Tuesday, it will recieve the same treatment after the 1000 mile running in period.
Rgds
David
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Ah at last another TuningBox fan!!
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Jonathon,
I think you know what jocum is but just in case......
A northern expression which covers pretty well anything in liquid form which is a little suspicious.
For example the water treatment shylocks used to have us adding another chemical to feed water for steam systems every time they visited with an explanation which suggested the end of the world would occur if we didn't use it. SO we bought it and added more jocum into the water.
Or Doctor Good selling his cure all from the back of a wagon in the old wild west. That was jocum!!!!
I can sell you some Jonathon, I'm sure you won't be dissapointed.
Alvin
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Are you trying to get my car stoned?
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I read a article in a mtoring magazine where a man was saying how well the performance on his car increases after an oil change,,,
I think the performance of chipped cars relates to how we used to fit a different air cleaner to our Minis (chrome plated with a piece of foam in it) and marvel at the increase in performance. Of course all that was happening was that we used to press the accelerator harder.
The best replacement to up your performance is to fit a weaker return spring to the accelerator cable and it feels like 30BHP has been added to your car.
Another one is empty a bottle of jocum into your tank and marvel at the difference you feel and your fuel gauge needle never seems to go down.
All these tips come free of charge and with an absolute guarentee of satisfaction. If required I can produce testimonials from hundreds of satisfied (and naive) customers.
Alvin
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Anything a programmer can make, a hacker can break (into)!
I's well within the chippers' capabilities to de-code an ECU program, and then tweak it without the constraints normally applied, eg to cope with poor-quality fuel in, say, E Europe. So they CAN customise your car's performance, within reason & at a price, of course.
The Tuning Box on my Tdi has transformed the mid-range torque & flexibility. The consumption is just as bad, but no worse :-(
It has not improved the low-speed flat-spot, and the greater power makes smooth progress in traffic a BIT more tricky.
Their motto is "More Power - More Fun!". I'd go along with that!
My insurance loading, with Ford Insure was 20% - BUT most well-known companies didn't want to know when I said it was modified.
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Alvin
Please advise on what Jocum is. I'm intrigued.
Jonathan
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I know what jollope is but I've never heard of Jocum. Probably some weird high-octane brew methinks
David
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too many jo* words
David please advise too.
Thanks
Jonathan
I was considering getting my mx6 chipped, but for 6 extra hp for £165, I would rather fit a nitro.
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Alvin, chipping the ecu works. It is not a magical widget or potion just plain engine tuning. There is no mystery. The question is "is it worth doing"?
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Chip tuning can make a significant difference. It all depends on the engine in question. BBR have achieved notable gains in top end power on older V-TEC engines as fitted to the CRX, but the one i raced down some b-roads still had little power below 5k rpm. If the car was mine, i would just get it set-up by a good technician on a rolling road. If you want a serious power gain, you will need to take the head off and send it to a specialist engine tuner. I do not know what potential power gains are possible from this engine.
Engines which do not have mapped ingnition or fuelling like the VAG 16v engines fitted to mk.2 golfs etc, can show significant improvements in power throughtout the rev range when fitted with devices that allow fuel and ignition to be mapped. However , i doubt the more modern cars that you guys are lucky enought to drive will benifit that much from having the fuelling and ignition tweaked. Manufacturers spend thousands developing their fuel maps. It would be a real achievement to significantly improve on them. However, many tuners suggest these maps are created to allow the engine to run without performance loss in the worst possible situation, ie the air-filter resembles a piece of charcoal, engine oil is degraded, and poor quality petrol is used. I dont think you will find much power.
The power output of forced induction engines can be increased hugely with chip tuning. Basically the chip just increases boost pressure, and alters the fuel and ignition maps to cope with this additional boost. However, if you run a turbo at higher boost, it will not last as long. One can increase the boost pressure on many cars by fitting a bleed valve. Im my limited experience boost pressure increases of up to 10% are ok. This is a much cheaper alternative than fitting a chip. The Superchips product for an 854 series Volvo 850 turbo increases the boost pressure all the way up to 1 bar, which in my opinion is too much. It cost over three hundred quid, and cannot be re-mapped to take account of later modifications. More power can be achieved on Turbo cars by fitting a water injection kit such as Aquamist. A friend achieved 20bhp on his mk.2 Golf 16v Turbo after fitting one, along with a big increase in torque. I have no experience of fitting one to a deisel engine though- has anyone else here had any experiences with chargo cooling on a turbo diesel?
Ben
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