ChevyLuva3

I am mainly looking just for the Poll answers, but here I will state some background to my question. Which is the best aftermarket chip? A way to determine this is to look at how much more horsepower and torque it gives, how much more top speed is given, how much more acceleration is given, if it gets rid of rev limiters and speed limiters, and does if it does it well, how well it runs, any problems since installing it, all these different factors, to get the overall best chip.

And I am talking about ''stock aftermarket chips'' not custom aftermarket chips, I don't want to hear about custom chips, cuz of course they work better for your car, I am talking only about normal aftermarket chips!

ChevyLuva3

BTT

Zepher

iTrader: (1)

Are you talking about aftermarket off the shelf performance chips on a stock motor or modified motor?

I'll be running the stock SLP chip in highly modified TPI 5 speed T/.A and see how it runs. I'll probably run stock programming as well to see if the SLP does or does not work.

V8Astro Captain

iTrader: (1)

Hop over to the DIY PROM board and any of them will tell you that if it's not custom then it's not worth it. I have looked at what they do to the Hypertech chips, and it's hardly worth the $$. They change 4 or 5 things that aren't really gonna matter unless you NEED it.

Grim Reaper

Amen V8Astro. ChevyLuva3, you may not like it, but the truth is: None of the above - your wasting money. The only way to get the max performance is to tune it yourself.

Would you install a carb straight out of a box without so much as turning a screwdriver to it? And I won't even get into the spark advance issue (and controlling detonation) which is a major factor to obtaining max power.

Having a poll not based on fact is strictly a popularity contest - which proves nothing. I have looked "inside" most of those "off-the-shelf" eproms (plus many more) and frankly none impressed me.

A custom eprom from Ed Wright (Fastchips) based on "specs" is probably one of the better ones I have seen, along with Formato. But I have been able to tweak both of those to run even better - mostly in optimizing the spark advance again.

ChevyLuva3

Ah, like I figured "get a custom chip, normal ones dont work", I'm so tired of hearing that, and I even went out of my way to say not custom, but I still have to hear it. Also checking out the PROM section sucks, nothing but custom. They do so work!!! Or else people wouldnt buy them, I am not versing an aftermarket chip to a custom one, I am versing an aftermarket one (non custom) to a stock chip!

Here I will state a book How to tune & modify ford fuel injection, it was my bro's, its very informative for any car. This is what it states about chips, and it states that for ford Hypertech is most prominent. This is what it states:

>Alters the temperature at which the closed loop is entered (if at all)
>Decrease the amount of manifold pressure required to enter the enrichment mode
>Decrease the TP voltage needed to enter the enrichment mode
>Accelerates the timing curve based on MAP and rpm increases
>Recalibrate the activation of peripheral emission control devices such as the EGR, lock up converters, the CANP solenoid, and air pump switching.

...and the chips also take away rev limiters, speed limiters, and other such things that take away the full power of the car, this is from what I know.

So where the factory leaned towards emissions and economy compromising power, the aftermarket chip leaning towards performance. Oh, btw it states to buy a grounding strap when applying the chip, so you don't fry anything.

These chips do so work, of course custom ones work better, but for the last time, I AM NOT DISCUSSING CUSTOM CHIPS, I want to know the best overall NON CUSTOM chip, so I can decide which one to buy.

Grim Reaper

Believe what you want, but the fact is "THEY DON'T WORK AND A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY". I speak from fact, not fiction.

BTW, Hypertech DOESN'T change that much on a GM eprom for TPI cars . Decrease the fan enable/diable temps, adds a little more fuel (when most stock eproms are already too rich), lock the TCC a couple of MPHs higher and add a couple of degrees of spark advance at the mid range, but do nothing to control knock retard so it is all pulled out anyway.

I have ran BINARY COMPARES on most of those chips to the stock code and the number of changes are minimal. You can make ALL of those changes with your own eprom burning equipment in about 30 minutes. And the money you waste on those useless excuses for eproms will go a LONG WAY to pay for the equipment, which (depending on your setup) can be as cheap as $150.

There is SO MUCH MORE that you can change than just those few items you mention and THEN you'll notice some performance.

If you're going to make a decision on which eprom to purchase based on a "popularity contest", fill your boots. But your better off just saving your money if you aren't going to burn your own or order a custom eprom. And even a custom eprom is not as good as burning your own, and even more expensive than buying the equipment.

JPrevost

It sadens me to see a thirdgen owner so ignorant. Chevyluva, it's either custom or nothing. Maybe people are buying them because they are stupid. There is a higher learning as far as eproms are concerned and every person that knows something about eproms and what they can do will tell you the aftermarket is crap. Complete waste of money.
So of course their eproms work....they aren't far from stock!!! But do they do anything for the price you pay....no. If you don't want to listen to the people that KNOW A LOT ABOUT TUNING then fine, go buy your eprom and I hope you get to the track to compare the difference. You'll end up trying to sell it on e-bay for a fraction of the cost after you see no difference.
Good luck and I hope you spend your money on a nice shinny eprom. Ask the carb guys, none of them bothered with eprom burning, they all had problems and ripped out their speed density EFI systems because they didn't want to fine tune the eprom. It gets to the point where you're either a bang for buck carb guy or a perfectionist EFI freak, you can't be imbetween. Correction, you can be imbetween but that kind of owner usually gets stupid stuff like an off the shelf eprom and then ends up selling it to one of the other kinds of thirdgen owners :-)

DM91RS

I agree with Glenn and Jon. I bought a Hypercrap chip in 96 or 97 when I didn't know better. Now after listening to people like are on the DIY prom board and buying the equipment and going back and reading the HA HA performance chip that I bought it only goes to show that they are raping people.

It's so cool to change anything that you want as many times that you want but the choice is up to you.

I just would not want someone to tune my car without ever seeing it!!!

Guest

Youre missing one from your list. If you went to the tech articles (or somewheres in there) the PR chip supposedly performed the best. I had an ADS chip for a while and it only had modifications to the spark tables, but the car ran .2 faster with it at the track. The Hypercrap chip I have doesnt do much for performance, I think if I had .1 its a good day. For what you spend, honestly, its not worth it. Use the money for a tune up or something like that. There is so little thats modified in the chip, it makes me sick to think I actually paid something for one of those. I do my own now, and if I had a choice between a custom burned prom (preferably home burned) and some off the shelf chip, I'd pick mine every time. If I couldnt pick mine, I would run the factory GM chip without question.

TRAXION

ChevyLuva3,

Fact is ... people like Glenn and myself have reviewed the code of HyperTech, Jet, and ADS. We know exactly what they have changed. This is not something that we are guessing at. This is not a rumor that we are passing along. Truth is, IF (and only if) you have a stock engine then I would absolutely wager that I can ring better performance out of that engine with an AFPR and a timing gun than from using one of those chips. The book that you read is basically incorrect. True PROM burners can change everything that you just stated. But, fact of the matter is that the chips like HyperTech, Jet, and ADS do not change that many things. Its sad but true. Furthermore, you said ... "this is from what I know". You don't know until you actually review the code in the chip's image and compare it to a stock image.

Tim

MCMLXI

I purchased my hypertech chip in 1992 and don't know where my factory chip is. Is it possible to get the hypertech reprogrammed or do i have to buy a new chip? Also approximately how much do people charge to do this for you?

Guest

I'm not sure if you can reprogram the hypertech, the one I have doesnt look very user friendly. It can probably be done, but I dont plan to experiment on it. I think your chip is a few bucks more, but I just bought a new chip for a MAF car from the dealer about a month ago for 35 bucks. Not very expensive IMO.

FstBrd6point3

to get off the performance isssue, the only thing I don't like bout chips like that is you kinda do want a rev limited, maybe a lil more based on yer engine capabilities, but I don't like th idea of being able to accidentally take my motor to 8 grand (good luck). When I had my talon tsi awd(sure do miss it), that thing had no fuel cut or any kind of rev limiting device besides engine capability, and one day I took it right to 9,000 getting on the highway and it scared the **** outa me, the thing redlines at 7,000. I guess I was lucky, suppoosedly the backpressure from a turbo actualy slows the pistons down at they reach TDC do you don't stretch rods and **** BUT STILL! I like the added insurance policy

AJ_92RS

Aren't Fastchip and SuperChip "custom" chips. Don't you have to call them and tell them your mods?

I know it's not as custom as DIY, but it's gotta be better than off the shelf chips, right?

I bought a used Jet Stage 2 chip off of a guy on this website. I paid $50 to find out that it didn't do anything. It made my car drink more gas. But no SOTP diff.

But that's the only reason I bought it, cause I got it for $50. I wasn't gonna pay $150 to find out it didn't do anything that I wanted it to.

AJ

BTW, anyone wanna buy it? $50 shipped to your door.

Guest

Any custom chip you order over the phone isnt going to be ideal. I actually have one of those, I have improved on it quite a bit myself. Its not all their fault though, its pretty hard to tune an engine over the phone just like its hard to suggest how someone can fix their car on here at times. I hear that Ed at Fastchips does a decent job though. But you can mess with your own for what he charges, although getting feedback from the ECM to make sure you are doing things right will cost more.

Grim Reaper

I think Tim (Traxion) has said it best regarding "tuning and eproms" for a basically stock engine; "If you are not going to get into burning your own eproms, you are better off to use 'mechanical methods' such as an AFPR and Timing rather than buying an off-the-shelf eprom".

An interesting observation is that many of the guys responding to this post burn their own eproms AND had good success tuning by "mechanical methods" before the whole idea of burning our own eproms was some "pie in the sky dream" of some fanatics.

Of the group of guys responding to this post, I probably have the closest to a "stock engine" that also burns his own eproms (though I plan to change that this spring). But even on my 200,000 mile "basically stock engine" I was able to reap many benefits by tuning by the eprom rather than by mechanical methods. My original reason for getting into eprom burning was NOT to tune my basically stock engine, but to learn about eprom burning for the time I modified my engine. The better gas mileage, better driveability and better performance was just a welcomed "side affect". Quite frankly, I was very pleasantly surprised by the results I've obtained - they exceeded my expectations.

Some of the problems I have found on my SD car, is the stock GM eprom is far too rich and many of my friends who have MAF cars (and are still basically stock while they plan their mods) have found similar things. On my SD car I had about 20% too much fuel. Lowering fuel pressure just didn't compensate enough before I got it so low that my engine just didn't run right. Only by shortening the pulse width was I able to get the mixture right.

Also, burning my own eprom allowed me to select the Fuel Pressure I WANTED and tune the eprom accordingly. This gives me ALL the advantages of the higher fuel pressure I wanted but with the mixture correct at ALL parts of the powerband. Also, though I am currently using the stock base setting of 6*, I think there may be situations where a person may wish to run a different base. High spark advance while in "Highway Mode" is a good example. It's better for your ignition (and less prone to accidental cross-firing) to run a higher base if your spark advance is high (i.e. over 45*).

The computer-controlled distributor does not work like a "mechanical distributor". The computer-controlled distributor actually fires the spark before the rotor is positioned to the terminal. It has a certain amount of "offset" built in to try and position the rotor as close to the proper terminal as possible, but if you are running high spark advance for "Highway mode", you may need to increase the base so the rotor doesn't fire too far away from the proper terminal. But this also can cause a problem with "idle" spark advance if you just adjust the distributor without reducing the total spark advance inside the eprom. You could have a situation where the ECM is firing the spark when the rotor has gone too far past the proper terminal - if you get too crazy with the amount of base you set the distributor to.

And, lastly, Highway Mode alone is an excellent reason for people to get into eprom burning, even on their basically stock engines. The amount of gas that I currently am saving (I get just under 30 US MPGs on the highway with my L98) has already paid for my eprom burning equipement. This (invoking Highway Mode) is something I seldom see on ANY aftermarket eprom. But unless your fuel tables are fairly close to 128/128, Highway Mode won't work properly and can actually worsen your fuel economy. This fact, is probably why most aftermarket eproms DON'T have Highway Mode invoked....they know their calibration is probably not close enough to 128/128 to make Highway Mode to work properly.