Altering your engine with chips [news article]

[MD1075]

(Source) - http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5159075.html?tag=nefd_hed

When Scott Farrell, a Coast Guard instructor in Newport News, Va., wanted a big power boost for his 1998 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, he didn't lower the suspension, install a hot camshaft or add a free-flow exhaust.

Instead, he had a business card-size electronic part installed--a so-called "performance chip" designed to reprogram the car's engine control module to provide more horsepower. "It was a night-and-day difference," he said.

Farrell is just one of an increasing number of car owners using computer chips or software downloads to get better performance from their cars. E-mechanics are reprogramming systems to overwrite factory settings and take advantage of higher-octane gasoline. That allows advanced timing, increased power and sometimes even better mileage. Steve Dinan, founder of Dinan, a maker of high-performance parts for BMWs, said he now sells more than $1 million worth of chips annually--a significant share of what he estimates is a $20 million market.

But hacking your car's electronic brain isn't always as easy as it sounds. Installing a new chip can be a daunting job for the owner who tries to do it himself. Garage operators across the country say they are seeing more cars with burned-out engines, partly because reprogrammed chips sometimes supply too much fuel and allow turbo pressure to exceed recommended limits. And even if the engine seems to be running better, it could be running dirtier and might not pass some states' emissions tests.

Spencer Cox, the owner of Speedsport Tuning in Norwalk, Conn., said he had recently towed in a Porsche 944 Turbo with $7,000 in engine damage. The owner had "bought a chip and other performance goodies online and installed them himself," Cox said. "For a week, he had a big smile on his face, because he gained 40 horsepower. But then it all blew up. It happens all the time."

And in many cases, hacking the engine can void the warranty, leaving owners to pay for expensive repairs on their own.

Until the late 1970s, a car's fuel-and-air mixture was regulated by the carburetor, a relatively simple device as old as the automobile itself. But today's fuel injection systems are controlled by increasingly powerful onboard computers that regulate combustion efficiency, govern fuel economy and regulate emissions to federal and state standards. In most cases, when setting up a vehicle's computer, carmakers choose conservative settings that will allow the greatest gas mileage and cut down on maintenance problems but will not always deliver the to-the-limits performance owners want.

That makes the chips easy prey to laptop-equipped hackers and Internet entrepreneurs who promise to "put horsepower and torque increases at your fingertips," as the DiabloSport Predator describes it. Ranging from $200 to $500, these devices include install-it-yourself chips, handheld gadgets that let owners dial in their preferred specs and computer downloads of performance-enhancing software. (Perhaps inevitably, the hacker culture has also produced automotive pirates who buy legitimate chips from makers and then copy the programming onto blank chips, selling the results at sharp discounts.)

Playing e-mechanic is not necessarily for the novice. To get better performance out of his 1992 BMW 325i, Chris Cagnolatti of Long Beach, Calif., paid $125 for an Active Autowerke chip and then spent "two stressful days and nights of blood, sweat and tears working on a $1,000 computer module," before he had it installed. The result: excellent "bang for the buck," he said, but he doesn't know the actual amount of his power gain. Still not satisfied, Cagnolatti is now on his third software package and is eyeing a device for BMWs that plugs into the car's diagnostic port "and uploads the new software in less than a minute," he said.

Partly to combat hackers, many carmakers are using encrypted chips in new models or, like Toyota, have done away with removable memory chips altogether. That has the e-mechanics shifting strategies, either by downloading new software directly onto the computer's hard drive or by attaching separate electronic devices that piggyback on the factory-installed control module and overriding it. Some of these devices alter the "rev limiter," which prevents engine speed from zooming beyond the red line or remove the speed governor that limits top-end performance.

Don Jolley, a production manager at Bully Dog Technologies in Aberdeen, Idaho, which makes performance parts for trucks and sells more than 1,000 chips a month, compares some overenthusiastic e-mechanics to the rock musicians in the movie "This Is Spinal Tap," who buy custom-made amplifiers, because they go up to "11" instead of the usual "10." "They think if a little power is good, then a lot must be great," Jolley said.

Then there is the warranty issue. "We don't advocate the use of third-party components like performance chips, because it means we lose control of the process," says Kevin McCormick, the manager of sales and service communications for DaimlerChrysler. "We don't know the standards to which other manufacturers are building their products."

Indeed, some performance buffs adopt a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude regarding their warranties and reinstall stock equipment before every dealer visit. Others wait until the warranty is about to run out before changing the chips.

"It definitely creates a concern with new cars," said Shaun Blanco, high-performance manager at Newins Bayshore Ford in Bay Shore, N.Y. "Do you really want to pay $25,000 for a new Mustang, which comes with a three-year, 36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, and run the risk of having Ford drop you like a bad habit?" (Some chip makers, like Dinan, offer their own warranties.)

Peter Cheuk of Daly City, Calif., is a computer technician, so installing his Upsolute chip wasn't a big deal. And he gained 18 horsepower and 70 foot pounds of torque in his modestly powered turbodiesel 1998 Volkswagen Jetta TDI. Still, he plans to return to the stock chip. He said the problem was that, because he now drives faster, he lost 10 miles a gallon in fuel economy and, even worse, is now trailed by clouds of black smoke. "But if it wasn't for the smoke, I'd be happy with it," he said.

[Garak]

If only it were that simple for my car.
Not one piece of computer controlled anything on mine, and I love it.

Interesting stuff though. A friend of mine at school put a different chip in his Ford Ranger.

[JMEaT]

Most of those performance chips are scams.

[Admiral LSD]

This isn't exactly anything new either, "hot chips" have been around almost as long as computer controlled engine management...

[kurupt]

yeah, every respectable ricer has a chip!!1

[Mobius]

Yep, my RX-7 is chipped.

[Tricord]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Garak:
<b> If only it were that simple for my car.
Not one piece of computer controlled anything on mine, and I love it.</b></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I'll second that. The only piece of electronics in my cars are a digital clock (which was optional, but standard on six-cylinders).
My fuel injection system (K-jet) is completely mechanically operated and vacuum regulated. It can't really be tuned, but it works best when left stock. If you want more juice, you need bigger injectors and a bigger fuel distributor. Simple

[KompresZor]

<font face="Arial" size="3">Garage operators across the country say they are seeing more cars with burned-out engines, partly because reprogrammed chips sometimes supply too much fuel and allow turbo pressure to exceed recommended limits.</font>

LOL... You can't burn up an engine by supplying it with too much fuel. I'll admit to much boost can do really bad things to your engine, but to much fuel will just make it a slug. I'm thinking itâ??s more like to little fuel.
Here is the problem, if you adjust an engines air/fuel ratio so that it makes the most possible horsepower it will burn the tops out of the pistons. Of course the manufactures err on the side of rich/safe so you can gain a little horsepower by leaning the engine out. The closer you are to that magic number the smaller the margin of error is and the more accurate your sensors must be in reporting information back to the computer. One little error on the sensor side and youâ??ll be getting to spend some quality time with the tow-truck driver. Iâ??m willing to bet that in an attempt to wring out the last little bit of horsepower some of these guys are getting a little to close to that magic number. Just so they can say our chip makes 4 more horsepower then their chip.

[roid]

i'm with tricord etc on this one. i prefer cars to be simple because then i can fix them.

otherwise it's a freaking DELL car, know what i mean?

so yeah, i love old diesels. no chips, minimal electronics, no radio (no working radio ). near EMP proof.
*can* run on pure vegetable oil (or hot pig fat!)

on teh topic of chips though, i remember reading an article written by this guy who has is an oldtimer in the car chip industry. in his personal cars he generally has an open laptop on the passenger seat. quite interesting seeing the difference in expectations fro his point of view compared to his boss's point of view on "what chips are for".

if anyone has a link to it, i'm sure others will be appreciative of the read.