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PERFORMANCE CHIPS +60 HORSE POWER?

3K views 9 replies 3 participants last post by  uberspeed 
#1 ·
I WAS WONDERING IF ALL THE TALK ABOUT CHIPS THAT ADD +60 HORSE POWER LIKE ON EBAY OR WHATEVER... ARE THEY TRUE? SOUNDS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE. WILL THEY HARM MY CAR? DOES ANYBODY KNOW?
 
#3 ·
I'll chime in.
"Chips" were/are usually for turbo or supercharged cars; and they used to be chips, actually a daughterboard with a chip on top that modified all sorts of things in your cars engine management. In my old VW for example, it would reprogram spark timing, ignition, boost, etc and squeeze more out of the vehicle. Chips haven't been common for a while, companies such as APR and GIAC have been using empty memory space on the Motronic to write their software, but people still call them chips. My ecu had an APR reflash and it was amazing. Couple it with some other mods and it really kicked! Check out www.vwvortex.com forums and APR and GIAC for a bit of info.
Let's go to a NA (naturally aspirated) vehicle and a chip or reprogram of engine variables isn't going to get you much. VW folks that "chipped" with non turbo engines used to see maybe 8-12HP and any gains that minimal you need to look at the power curve and see if you're gaining HP by moving the curve up and losing any torque. In small engines (4 cyl) such as ours losing torque is bad ;) Hence why I tend to laugh at the Honduh boys that put these fartcan exhausts on and lose backpressure which they need to produce what little torque they had in the first place with their little engines. In a turbo or supercharged vehicle you do want to get heat away from the engine quickly (avoid heatsoak) and even then you don't want to do a test pipe and dump it all openly unless your engine has a lot of torque and you can afford to lose some for high rpm range hp.
I'll stop rambling now... hope this helped in some way.
 
#5 ·
uberspeed said:
I'll chime in.
"Chips" were/are usually for turbo or supercharged cars; and they used to be chips, actually a daughterboard with a chip on top that modified all sorts of things in your cars engine management. In my old VW for example, it would reprogram spark timing, ignition, boost, etc and squeeze more out of the vehicle. Chips haven't been common for a while, companies such as APR and GIAC have been using empty memory space on the Motronic to write their software, but people still call them chips. My ecu had an APR reflash and it was amazing. Couple it with some other mods and it really kicked! Check out www.vwvortex.com forums and APR and GIAC for a bit of info.
Let's go to a NA (naturally aspirated) vehicle and a chip or reprogram of engine variables isn't going to get you much. VW folks that "chipped" with non turbo engines used to see maybe 8-12HP and any gains that minimal you need to look at the power curve and see if you're gaining HP by moving the curve up and losing any torque. In small engines (4 cyl) such as ours losing torque is bad ;) Hence why I tend to laugh at the Honduh boys that put these fartcan exhausts on and lose backpressure which they need to produce what little torque they had in the first place with their little engines. In a turbo or supercharged vehicle you do want to get heat away from the engine quickly (avoid heatsoak) and even then you don't want to do a test pipe and dump it all openly unless your engine has a lot of torque and you can afford to lose some for high rpm range hp.
I'll stop rambling now... hope this helped in some way.
Kool! The chips on eBay sounded too good to be true. Thanks uberspeed!
 
#7 ·
Wow. Yeah I was in the off road scene prior to my xB. My previous car was a 97 Mitsubishi Montero 4x4 with tons of aftermarket stuff. And gave me 3 speeding tickets. I rolled it and ended up in the hospital for 2 days. So Im going to the "tuner" scene. I guess we can call it that. Staying away from trails from now on. I love my xB. Its like a canvas waiting to be modified.
 
#10 ·
sonicmyk said:
Holy cow!! All those on one car?
And more, list is outdated but I no longer have it so I didn't bother to update it. I had 260 to the wheels, I had to change the motor mounts due to wheel hop and still had to feather the clutch like a monster to launch right from a dig. Traction was an issue but I learned to cope with it and still got off the line well.
However :naughty: if someone made the mistake of taunting me once I was in 2nd or 3rd gear :pokey: (huge mistake) someone in say a heavy mustang, riced out honda or even a 3 series bmw owner suffering from delusions of grandeur (save for the M3) they were getting spanked shortly thereafter. :rofl: I never picked a race, but I certainly ended many and pissed off plenty of people. VAG turbo engines respond extremely well to modifications. sigh I do miss it, but don't miss the tickets or costs of fighting them off.
Right now I would love to have my 1.8t in the Gen 1 xB body with the Gen 2 xB safety features, or their new 2.0t [yummy]
 
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