performance chips
 

Any bod know of chips for Dodge cars, and or,Chevy trucks?:cool:

Dodge cars

Chevy trucks

No idea about the quality of these chips. I just did a Yahoo search.

does a chip actually hurt the car in any way? Like make the fuel to rich, etc?

A chip usually just improves the vehicle's fuel management and sometimes will modestly increase the rev limit on the car. It won't hurt the car.

From the research I have made about these things, I think your money is better spent on other things. When designing an auto ECM you bet they put some money into designing the optimum fuel-management tables for their cars and trucks.

Chips to manage an aftermarket turbo or even exhaust, now thats a different story.

Believe it or not, I've actually seen chips out there that were basically neutralized by the cars engine management system. Often, chips may lean the fuel mixture out a bit and increase timing. In some instances though, this can lead to detonation or knock, in which the computer will only richen the mixture and retard the timing, basically undoing what the chip was intended to do.

It IS possible for chips to cause damage, in that they may cause detonation if your octane level is too low. Even if they do work, the power gains are minimal, and the money can be put to much better use, i.e intake and exhaust.

I've got an FVD performance chip in my 928. I haven't had it dyno'ed with the chip, but I can easily tell the difference. On the same on-ramp to the highway, before the chip I'd hit about 70 before making it onto the highway. Now I'm north of 80mph and have to slow down once I get on!

Aside from improving the fuel management, my rev limit was raisd from 6000 rpm to 6200 rpm. I'm still not sure if that makes any difference since I believe max horsepower for each gear occurs in the mid-5000 range. The extra rpm limit may increase top end, but I'm not about to try to top 160mph any time soon.

Have you checked out SuperChips.com

Some of the trucks I see at work use thier products.

be careful!
 

Be VERY VERY careful with performance chips. Ask if they custom make chips based on your specific car, do NOT just send in for a chip that's "calibrated to your car model's specs".

Every engine on every model car will run a little bit differently. A car running in Colorado will behave differently from a car in massachusetts, be it temperature, altitude, or humidity.

Even cars in the same area will run differently, most ecu's learn based on how the driver drives, and things like timing and fuel management vary from car to car. That's the point of an ecu, it adjusts randomly to always give the best performance and reliability.

A generically calibrated performance chip cannot gauge how your individual car performs just because it worked well with their test model. Your car should be taken into whatever chip upgrading shop you choose and be dyno tested to optimize performance.

I've read too many articles and forum posts where people have tested so called performance chips and actually found out that they LOST performance instead of gaining!

most cars can run on 87 and up. Most chips utilize 91 octane and higher. So a chip makes use of better gas. The downside, you cannot use anything less than 91 with most chips without hurting your engine. also, although you may not cause damage, you may voide your warranty.

The first thing you need to do if find a tuner. Then, talk to them about what they can do for your car. I would never put a generic or "company" programmed chip into a car without checking the reading (i.e. a/f ratios, timing, etc).

I currently have a Tweeker on my Cobra with a custom tune. My tuner actually gets in the car with his laptop while another person drives around at various speeds and types of accelleration. This is the only true way to know if a chip is safe for your car.

I would suggest doing a few inexpensive mods such as a less restrictive intake or a higher flowing exhaust (not a fart pipe!).

Be careful when messing with your tune. Dealerships can read codes out of the computer showing that the ship has been tampered with even if you have the original computer in the car when you take it in for service.