performance chips?

[aa2033]

a friend of mine bought one of those performance chips for like 25 bucks, and he said he couldn't really tell the difference. he has a 00 accord, 2.2L 4 banger.

do these things actually work? i've googled some responses, but just curious on your views

[v1user]

My dad used to have a diesel excursion. When he put it on the MPG went up, the speed limiter was removed at 92 and the truck hit 100 and he started frying transmissions. I think it costed a couple hundred bucks. 25 sounds to good to be true. Not worth it IMO just because of the tranny cooking issue.

[The Chariot]

There is no such thing as a $25 chip. What your friend bought is a con/ripoff that's been around the net for 10 years or so. Basically, a 10 cent resistor in a fancy plastic box to make it look expensive, which tricks the PCM into thinking the temp is different, and richening up the fuel mixture. Not only is it useless, but most the time does nothing for power and can result in bad fuel economy and under the right conditions, piston wash.

Real chips and tuners cost quite a bit more. There are ways to properly program vehicles without ruining transmissions. As a matter of fact, there's plenty that can be done to increase clutch/band life.... but most people buy off the shelf tuners, or buy from so-called custom tuners who are just giving them a canned tune (in the industry we call these "tooners" rather than tuners). A good, reputable tuner... is worth every penny.

[Capid1]

a friend of mine bought one of those performance chips for like 25 bucks, and he said he couldn't really tell the difference. he has a 00 accord, 2.2L 4 banger.

do these things actually work? i've googled some responses, but just curious on your views

What kind of car do you have?

[aa2033]

a friend of mine bought one of those performance chips for like 25 bucks, and he said he couldn't really tell the difference. he has a 00 accord, 2.2L 4 banger.

do these things actually work? i've googled some responses, but just curious on your views

What kind of car do you have?

mines a 99 camry, also 2.2L 4 cyl.

i'm not planning on buying one of these chips though.

[fire65]

Agree, for 25 you know in your heart you are getting screwed when you buy it. I had the hyper-tech on my last truck, but it reprogrammed the computer, no chip involved. Good thing was you could always revert to factory settings, cost 325 for a 96 gmc pickup, but they won't run but 98 without it.

[Capid1]

With a N/A motor there is only so much to be had out of the reprogramming. Once you get into Turbo/supercharged motors it becomes a different game.

[The Chariot]

With a N/A motor there is only so much to be had out of the reprogramming. Once you get into Turbo/supercharged motors it becomes a different game.

Oh yeah....

[Cauhauna]

With a N/A motor there is only so much to be had out of the reprogramming. Once you get into Turbo/supercharged motors it becomes a different game.

I entered the thread to say this exact thing. Let me reinforce. If the car is N/A, not much gain to be had from a chip, unless it's something like remove the speed limiter or changing shift points in the automatic tranny

Vehicles with forced induction, though, can see significant gains from these products. Price range of $300-$500 or so.

[The Chariot]

The thing about blanket generalizations is that in many cases they are wrong. For instance, both the 2004-2008 and 2009-2010 F150 5.4L F150 will see gains in excess of 25 HP in the hands of a good tuner. On the flip side, the Hemi Ram trucks don't gain all that much in comparison. Additionally, drive by wire systems usually see a significant reduction in throttle delay. There are many cases where you don't see huge power increases, especially with weenie engines, but many larger displacement engines yield a pretty good kick in the pants with *proper* custom tuning (not an off the shelf tuner). All depends on what is done, how its done and which calibration the OEM has in the vehicle (power output can vary tremendously and in some cases there are literally hundreds of OEM calibrations for a particular model). I've picked up north of 45 ft/lbs in some NA Mustang applications (track tunes, street is less but still signifcant). 2009-2010 F150s, with good tuning, can literally pick up close to 1.5 seconds in the quarter mile on N/A applications since the OEM transmission and engine strategies on these F150s are designed more for "truck use" and leave a lot on the table, more than just about any NA I've seen.