Choons vs Chips.
Discussion
Take a standard turbocharged performance car along the lines of a Mini Cooper s, Fiesta ST, BMW, or Subaru Imprezza and subject it to sufficient conventional tuning (eg modified induction, injectors, gas flowed manifold, sports exhaust etc etc) to gain 30-50BHP and you'll find yourseld writing a cheque to the likes of JCW, Mountune, Alpina, Hartge, AC Snitzer, Pro-Drive or Austec for an awful lot of money.
Take the re-map route and it seems a few hundred quid is all it seems to take for a FIAT Punto Multijet 130 Sporting to give a Bugatti Veyron a run for its money.
Exaggeration aside, could someone clever explain to the layman how differently two identical cars with the same power output, one expensively tuned, the other cheaply chipped would feel if driven back to back. I have a feeling it would be down to factors such as ability to rev, crispness of throttle response, flatness of torque curves and the like that would make the difference but I'd love to hear more in detail.
Take the re-map route and it seems a few hundred quid is all it seems to take for a FIAT Punto Multijet 130 Sporting to give a Bugatti Veyron a run for its money.
Exaggeration aside, could someone clever explain to the layman how differently two identical cars with the same power output, one expensively tuned, the other cheaply chipped would feel if driven back to back. I have a feeling it would be down to factors such as ability to rev, crispness of throttle response, flatness of torque curves and the like that would make the difference but I'd love to hear more in detail.
What you're paying for is keeping the warranty. Take a 6 month old Focus ST to Ford with a warranty issue and, Mountuned, no problem. Take the same car with the same issue in with a fat Airtek intercooler and a Dreamscience map and they'll laugh at you until you burst into tears.
Simon.
Simon.
ferrariF50lover said:
What you're paying for is keeping the warranty. Take a 6 month old Focus ST to Ford with a warranty issue and, Mountuned, no problem. Take the same car with the same issue in with a fat Airtek intercooler and a Dreamscience map and they'll laugh at you until you burst into tears.
Simon.
Not in every case. Maybe in the case of Ford but not across the board Simon.
I'm no expert, but until one comes along...
Chiptuning is a generic map developed for that particular engine / turbo / ECU combo. It is not fine tuned to your specific car i.e. any other modifications which may have been made, subtle differences in the engine characteristics from one supposedly 'identical' engine to the next, even the type of fuel in the tank. The result will be gains across the board but the map won't have been optimised for your specific car. Usually this is fine, but because there is normally no rolling road / lambda / AFR testing afterwards, the map remains somewhat of a mystery. Is the engine leaning out at certain revs? Is the power band flat and smooth? is the power gain what you were promised by the provider of the chip? As with most things, there are good chip tuners with satisfied customers and there are opportunist journeymen who see it as quick and easy money.
Of course, the same applies to a proper rolling road remap- it depends on the operator. But with a rolling road map you get a tailored map which compliments any other modifications and is tested and proven afterwards to ensure that the map is 'safe' for the engine. Often for this reason the result is more power, better delivery, better fuel economy, and more confidence that the car is running correctly.
Chiptuning is a generic map developed for that particular engine / turbo / ECU combo. It is not fine tuned to your specific car i.e. any other modifications which may have been made, subtle differences in the engine characteristics from one supposedly 'identical' engine to the next, even the type of fuel in the tank. The result will be gains across the board but the map won't have been optimised for your specific car. Usually this is fine, but because there is normally no rolling road / lambda / AFR testing afterwards, the map remains somewhat of a mystery. Is the engine leaning out at certain revs? Is the power band flat and smooth? is the power gain what you were promised by the provider of the chip? As with most things, there are good chip tuners with satisfied customers and there are opportunist journeymen who see it as quick and easy money.
Of course, the same applies to a proper rolling road remap- it depends on the operator. But with a rolling road map you get a tailored map which compliments any other modifications and is tested and proven afterwards to ensure that the map is 'safe' for the engine. Often for this reason the result is more power, better delivery, better fuel economy, and more confidence that the car is running correctly.
It all depends on the slack left in the engine, if your engine is in a high state of tune to start with then chipping it could cause things to pop, say take a top power Mitsubishi Evo or Subaru Imprezza all the components are likely to be at their limits of design so adding another 30bhp may mean stronger components. Where as something like a VAG 1.9 diesel engine probably only needs a chip to release the extra power as it isn't at its limits of design
craigjm said:
ferrariF50lover said:
What you're paying for is keeping the warranty. Take a 6 month old Focus ST to Ford with a warranty issue and, Mountuned, no problem. Take the same car with the same issue in with a fat Airtek intercooler and a Dreamscience map and they'll laugh at you until you burst into tears.
Simon.
Not in every case. Maybe in the case of Ford but not across the board Simon.
Depends on how good the engine was to start with, I chipped my Saab 9-3 Aero to 247 bhp, it made it noiceably faster but it then started to slip the clutch and for a while it would stutter on boost (Gapping the plugs sorted that), it was not far off my 350Z in straight line speed but not a nice engine, 350 is much nicer but has minimal cheap BHP available.
Basically I reckon its best to buy something designed for a power level from the outset but am not averse to releasing a few bhp via a chip on Turbo cars, N/A tuning is generally dissapointing and expensive, engine swaps are where it at.
The best examples of chiptunign are ones where the manufacturer offers more than one state of tune, there is a Saab diesel that comes as 130, 160 and 180 versions, all the same unit just different maps, the 130 bhp will take the same remap as the 180 so will go from 130 bhp to 210 bhp, another 80 bhp (thought the rest may not cope as has smaller brakes). The early Minis, the Cooper and Mini One had the same engine, just the one had 90 bhp and the cooper 115, no turbo but the 90 bhp was hamstrung from the factory, so a remap gives you back what BMW took away, plus perhaps a couple extra.
So, all depends on the car in question/
Basically I reckon its best to buy something designed for a power level from the outset but am not averse to releasing a few bhp via a chip on Turbo cars, N/A tuning is generally dissapointing and expensive, engine swaps are where it at.
The best examples of chiptunign are ones where the manufacturer offers more than one state of tune, there is a Saab diesel that comes as 130, 160 and 180 versions, all the same unit just different maps, the 130 bhp will take the same remap as the 180 so will go from 130 bhp to 210 bhp, another 80 bhp (thought the rest may not cope as has smaller brakes). The early Minis, the Cooper and Mini One had the same engine, just the one had 90 bhp and the cooper 115, no turbo but the 90 bhp was hamstrung from the factory, so a remap gives you back what BMW took away, plus perhaps a couple extra.
So, all depends on the car in question/
trickywoo said:
Anything with a turbo is going to be easier and cheaper to get power out of than N/A.
Except the OP's question explicitly refers to hardware work on a turbocharged car, versus software work on the same car.Simply, the map will take "better" advantage of the hardware that's there. The limitations of that hardware will still apply. Change the hardware, and you can then build a map that'll take advantage of that bigger/better hardware. There's little point in changing the hardware without also remapping to suit that hardware, though.
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