Chips and chipping, what it is and what to expect

Clearly after the delightful discussion in for sale, theres several people floating around with the wrong idea(s) about chipping, what it is and what it does.
Before we dive into a heated discussion on the matter, lets lay down a basic ground definition of what we're talking about:

Chipping is, in its essence, a remapping of the factory ecu, generally for performance goals. These are usually not user adjustable.

If anyone would like to amend that, or strike it and come up with a better one, go right ahead.

As stated earlier chipping is great... as long as its actual use is within the scope of its intended use, once you get outside that scope, unless *you* are sure of what you're doing, you're probably playing with a great deal more fire than had you simply "hacked around" the stock ecu.

How so? In general, chips employ more agressive tuning than what the factory uses, in the form of leaner air fuel ratios (sometimes, not always), more agressive ignition timing, various limit and threshold changes, most of which you won't find in the documentation (cause that'd be giving the house away for free). The best you can usually hope for are vague references to things you shouldn't do with the chip.

This is where it gets you into trouble when you start going outside the scope. I've gotta dip out and go to work, so from here I'll let someone else pick up the torch.

chips vs ms

Now I'm no genius but was intersested in the chips avaliable. I'm sure most peolpe here grasp the very basics

(if im wrong put me right, which I'm sure you will)


Chip = simple ecu upgrade giving mild performance improvement with no trouble or requiring extensive understanding of the subject

Megasquirt = Greater and more flexible upgrade giving more headaches and many hours of pissing around with a laptop.

Personally for now I'm happy with LH2.4 but may go for a chip if I can afford it when the time comes. If in a year or two I have decided that I need 300 hp I may consider megasquirt but I doubt it.

unichip

http://www.dastek.co.uk/unichip.htm

"When a car comes from the factory, it's ECU is set up with very cautious settings from the manufacturer, designed to take account of a wide variation in engineering tolerances, driving conditions and environmental factors. To fine tune each engine off the production line would take more time money and resources than makes sense for the manufacturer.

This is where the UNICHIP comes in. Using the up-to-the-minute tuning facilities of the UNICHIP we can guarantee to give you 100% of your engine's performance 100% of the time. What's more, using our unique modular design UNICHIP can control just about any performance modification you can think of, including Turbochargers, superchargers, nitrous injection, water injection, propane injection, launch control, full throttle gearchanges and much more. Check out the feature list and compare it to any other engine management upgrade - we're sure you'll be impressed."

"UNICHIP works with the vast majority of the cars on the road today. If you drive a fuel injected car, chances are we can improve its power, torque and economy with the UNICHIP."

Yeah, right. lol

"Check out the feature list below and compare it to any other engine management upgrade - we're sure you'll be impressed.

Variable valve timing adjustment
Rev limit adjustment
Boost limit & level adjustment
Dual maps for use with different fuel grades & types
Water Injection
Nitrous oxide progressive injection
Bigger/supplementary injector handling
Variable induction control
Launch control for turbo vehicles
Full throttle gear changes
Road speed limiter removal
Speedo conversion for imports
Shift light
Idle speed stabilisation"

I guess it does sound more like a piggy back chip (err box) than a reflash of factory chip. hmmm


Ooops, they have a U.S. distributor. hmmm
http://www.unichip.us/






From the U.S. site
"The Unichip is a computer that electronically resides between your car?s ECU and engine, releasing 100 percent of an engine?s untapped power. Sold worldwide for more than a decade, the Unichip is a tested and proven engine performance product used on the street, racetrack, and in off-road applications.


System Components
A Unichip installation consists of a Unichip computer module, a Plug-n-Play (PnP) wiring harness, and a performance map dyno-tuned for a specific vehicle & its components. The Unichip is a solid-state computer measuring the size and weight of a MP3 player, using multiple high-speed processors to control engine tuning & performance.

The Unichip is designed to work in virtually any vehicle ? gas or diesel, normally aspirated or forced induction, import or domestic, car, truck, or SUV."

"What is the Unichip?

The Unichip is a fully programmable engine management system which channels over 53,000 optimized fuel and ignition parameters through a vehicle?s standard Engine Control Unit (ECU) to deliver maximum power, optimized drivability, and improved fuel economy. Unichip is a Piggyback ECU, which works in harmony with the standard ECU and is compatible with OBD1 and OBD2 vehicles." UGH

linuxman51 said:

As stated earlier chipping is great... as long as its actual use is within the scope of its intended use, once you get outside that scope, unless *you* are sure of what you're doing, you're probably playing with a great deal more fire than had you simply "hacked around" the stock ecu.

How so? In general, chips employ more agressive tuning than what the factory uses, in the form of leaner air fuel ratios (sometimes, not always), more agressive ignition timing, various limit and threshold changes, most of which you won't find in the documentation (cause that'd be giving the house away for free). The best you can usually hope for are vague references to things you shouldn't do with the chip.

This is where it gets you into trouble when you start going outside the scope. I've gotta dip out and go to work, so from here I'll let someone else pick up the torch.

Click to expand...

Well, well... The chips that I sell (will be selling, actually) are programmed in a more "agressive" way if that is how you would put it.
The original chips are factory programmed to be very "forgiving" to the driver of the car.

davidmacq said:

When a car comes from the factory, it's ECU is set up with very cautious settings from the manufacturer, designed to take account of a wide variation in engineering tolerances, driving conditions and environmental factors. To fine tune each engine off the production line would take more time money and resources than makes sense for the manufacturer.

Click to expand...

This is very true, and it is programmed in a way that makes it run even if it is 20F outside and you don?t have a clue what mainetance is and how to perform it. In most cases it will not break.

The chips I sell is removing this safety net. You should have made stage 0 before installing them, always do the service within a specific interval and always listen for new, strange noises and stuff like that. If you have a poorly running car to begin with, the chances are that it will be running even worse and/or finally break down.

The chips are removing this safety net by altering the EZK ignition to be more advanced when not in boost, and retarded when in boost. The map also extends further.
The LH fuel is changed in a way that gives more fuel per unit of air entering the engine (another AFR) under boost and a good allround (fuel saving) map when driving conservative.
The map is also extended and the cuts and thresholds are gone.

The chips can easily be used for destructing an engine if you wanted to.

The chips alone can maybe give 15HP. It is when you start to raise the boost that it does it?s magic. You can do this safely and enjoy a whole lot more power due to correct AFR.
It will also be very nice to other new engine components.

Sure, except from aquiring a calibrated boost gauge for the boost setup, I should recommend everyone that buy my chips to use an AFR-gauge and have a fresh lambda-sond.
That would be the best, because in that way they can really see if their engine is feeling allright or not.

This is said in a friendly tone.
I don?t think that you are saying that these chips are bad in any way.

Nothing says lovin like in car tuning without a Laptop! You can say anything you want to about LH but it's still got a major intake restriction and an adjustment limitation. This is a performance forum, not saying a good chip isn't performance but it sure can't beat adjustments every 250 rpm based on load and temp.

linuxman51 said:

Chipping is, in its essence, a remapping of the factory ecu, generally for performance goals. These are usually not user adjustable.

As stated earlier chipping is great... as long as its actual use is within the scope of its intended use, once you get outside that scope, unless *you* are sure of what you're doing, you're probably playing with a great deal more fire than had you simply "hacked around" the stock ecu.

Click to expand...

I'd say that's chapter and fricken verse on chipping. Very well put.

Assess your goals when deciding whether or not to chip. It's cheap, and it's VERY easy...but...the compromise is that you're tied down to a certain hardware configuration. If you buy a chip for a stock B230FT, you can't fit a 19T and expect it to work correctly (or at least not to its full potential). A guy here with a T5 found that out the hard way...

Would I buy a chip for an LH2.4 B230FT (if I had one, which I probably will within the next year)? If it were mapped (and proven) to work accurately with a ported 15G (or bigger) and an A cam (or something like that), probably yes.

cheers

James

I am not saying that chipping is in anyway superior in performance to a MS setup.
Absolutely not. They give you great performance for little money and it is easy.
You can?t argue against that.

What I have found out though, is that the chips can take modifications really well.
I can take my own car for example and BDKR has got some good results with my chips and some mods as well.

Read again what I posted earlier. If you are going to do extensive modding, you have to know what you are doing.

you will learn with megasquirt, alot more then some of you seem to realize. A chip is easy. But if you want fast and easy get a mustang.

The unichip looks like a piggy back, sounds like a piggy back, acts like a piggy back...
something along the lines of the SMT-6 that ol Mr Simpson used to bomb around with. (comically enough, lh would adjust anyway and he was forever retuning, but thats another story). Piggy backs are pretty cool if one can get em to work with one's setup, something along the lines of a partially tuneable chip, if you will. The first impression I'd gotten of the unichip was that it resided inside the ecu and was just some circuitry that let you fiddle with the actual on board processor, similar to what the new hondata s300 does (which, is frickin sweet, in a honda kinda way).

I think suterman is right, everyone's got a fundamental grasp on what chips are and do, but I'm a tinkerer, I like to know more than "it simply does ______", I like to know why and how, and that usually leads to how to mess with it

Im curious tho, the chip adds fuel in boost and takes timing out? I'da thought that it at least bumps the in boost timing a bit.

I think I read where he said the EZK box timing is too aggressive at higher boost levels.

Looks like Unichip is only for newer OBDI and II cars.

linuxman51 said:

Im curious tho, the chip adds fuel in boost and takes timing out? I'da thought that it at least bumps the in boost timing a bit.

Click to expand...

Well, what it does is to use as agressive map as possible under boost and still make it at least a little bit safe.
It is more "agressive" than stock of course, it gives more power and is as advanced as it can be on a fairly stock setup. It is within a few degrees of pinging.

I have maybe not been as clear on this subject as I have to be in earlier posts.
It is completely re-mapped compared to stock. As powerful as it can be without pinging.

davidmacq said:

Looks like Unichip is only for newer OBDI and II cars.

Click to expand...

i was under the impression you could get a programmer for all the obdII cars.

As powerful as it can be without pinging.

on what gas, cam...?

i think that the market for lh chips is not large enough to support the amount of r&d that 'should' go into tuning a chip that has to work in cold, hot, humid, dry..different altitudes..

benflynn said:

i was under the impression you could get a programmer for all the obdII cars

and the timing is set to as powerful as can be without pinging

on what gas, cam...?

Click to expand...

Probably, I think the Unichip has a longer feature list than the programmers.

Doubt unichip would run on LH though. Well you'd run into problems like Kenny mentioned Eric ran into, if you did cobble it together for LH.

will 2.2 tune out the changes like 3.1?

benflynn said:

i was under the impression you could get a programmer for all the obdII cars.

As powerful as it can be without pinging.

on what gas, cam...?

i think that the market for lh chips is not large enough to support the amount of r&d that 'should' go into tuning a chip that has to work in cold, hot, humid, dry..different altitudes..

Click to expand...

It wont ping on 93 octane (US) and 14-15psi boost on T-cam.

The chips will work in many environments, but there are always exceptions of course.
The factory chips will of course work better in more extreme environment like the desert or in the rain forest of Brazil. But I guess you guys won?t drive in more extreme environments than I do, so...

It will surely work in Arizona as well as in the northern parts of Sweden in the winter.
It has worked for me in temperatures from -15C to +32C, both very humid as well as dry.

Regarding the altitude, all turbo cars has to be driven carefully when you are reaching altitudes like the ones you find in the Alps. The AMM will take care of the rest, it measures the mass of the air, not the volume.

no...it doesnt have auto-learning like 2.4 does

benflynn said:

i was under the impression you could get a programmer for all the obdII cars.

As powerful as it can be without pinging.

on what gas, cam...?

i think that the market for lh chips is not large enough to support the amount of r&d that 'should' go into tuning a chip that has to work in cold, hot, humid, dry..different altitudes..

Click to expand...

Well here's how this works, having seen the inards of the high dollar engine management systems (that on a basic level function the same as our beloved megasquirt, the devil, as always is in the details). I speak of AEM ems (Which is simply badass, theres just no two ways about that) mainly (since its about the highest dollar one to date that i've had hands on experience with), also a cursory glance at the tuning for the s300 hondata system, and to a degree the hp tuners interface to the zo6's computer...

There isnt so much a single "map" (well theres a base map that everything references from), as much as there is a map of ideal values, and then skew maps based off of the mass of air entering the engine, the knock frequency, the o2 readings, the coolant temp readings, etc.
MS (thankfully) has finally started getting better about this with the introduction of the IAT skews, it got more than a little anoying this spring to have a really bitchin tune at the 70 degree evening temps only to watch it go to **** when the day temps hit 90. With the aem there's partial throttle skews, wide open skews, vtec skews, coolant temp skews, and probably a dozen other values i've yet to find. Hondata is fairly similar in that respect, however it relies on the factory skew values, and I suspect the chips being discussed here do as well, because lets face it:
You can't have one map that works in all weather temp and altitude conditions, and have that map work remotely well. And a claim of 15-20 hp over stock is relatively easy to come by, simply by adjusting air fuels and timing... how do you think we went from 280 to 306 on sam's wagon?
Whats being talked about isnt fundamentally different, its just not hands on adjustable. The upshot is it also doesnt require your car being strapped down to a dyno to be able to measure cause and effect.

benflynn said:

will 2.2 tune out the changes like 3.1?

Click to expand...

No. 2.2 is a delightful system if one is looking to play tricks on the stock management. Its stupid in the sense that it doesnt compare past trends and look at values the engineers deem to be "ideal" and try to shoot for them regardless. It will do some closed loop narrow band adjustment, but soon as the key is off its gone, so if you're looking at doing wierd things by manipulating inputs, 2.2 would be an ideal canidate


The primary goal with the 2.4 "autolearning" feature, I suspect, has nothing to do with the evil ends the folks on tbricks are aiming for, and more to do with maintaining a spec to meet emissions needs with the various grades of fuel scattered about the globe. It also seems to only affect air/fuel, and I still think it has its boundaries regardless of what some members will say

As a neat case study, REX lies somewhere in the middle, It relies heavily on the readings from its o2 sensor and will adjust accordingly, rather rapidly I might add, but it forgets when the key goes off (at least the version in my 90 did, but boy holy **** it would lean itself out on a false 02 reading)

what kind of equip. is needed to read and reburn the lh chips?

benflynn said:

what kind of equip. is needed to read and reburn the lh chips?

Click to expand...

the info on that is a little vauge, at the very least you'd need a rom burner (~$100)