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Hack Your Car
gurps_npc writes "The New York Times has this story about hacking your car's chip. You can get significant horse power and torque boosts (+18 horsepower and +70 foot pounds of torque in the given example), as well as improve (or decrease) fuel efficency. The car companies do not like (surprise surprise) people personalizing their vehicle's programming and warn of burning out your engine with bad code, and voiding your warranty."
That doesn't cover damage you cause by dicking with the computer.
And when your engine wears out sooner, it's not hard to argue that the changes you made to the computer caused it, if those changes pushed the engine harder than normal.
That act is mostly applied to replacement parts, not performance tweaks, especially potentially damaging ones.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Altering Your Engine With New Chips
:P
Hooray, I get to be a whore today!
SIGFEH
NY Times Partner link (no reg required)
Answer:
First up: I didn't say that drop-in Electronic Control Unit (ECU) upgrades for otherwise stock vehicles were outright fraud, though some companies in that market have certainly been snake oil merchants. I just said that a drop in chip isn't likely to be good value compared with various actual mechanical upgrades. Powerchip, like various other chip vendors, will charge you several hundred Australian bucks for a new chip.
Now that I've said that, dig this.
A while after I put my piece on ECU chips up on the Web, one Wayne Besanko of Powerchip contacted me.
He did not offer any independent evidence to support Powerchip's claims. Nor did he point out anything I'd said that was wrong.
Instead, he offered me money, plane tickets and accommodation if I'd travel to Powerchip's HQ and write a "white paper" on Powerchip's products.
He didn't say "here's a bucket of cash, if you write what we say", but our correspondence led me to the firm belief that, um, only one viewpoint on their products would be acceptable, were I to take up the offer.
So there's that.
And, again, as I write this, I remain unaware of any proper independent testing that indicates that these pricey drop-in ECU chips are good value, compared with a variety of actual mechanical modifications.
Sure, you can get a bit more juice from a stock engine by goosing up the ECU programming; drop-in chips from reputable companies like Powerchip don't generally do nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if there were quite a few cars, particularly turbo diesels, that have sub-optimal stock ECU programming, leaning further towards the "green" end of the scale and away from the "performance" end than their owners would choose, given the option.
The particular oddities of individual engines (in high performance cars, at least) may also benefit significantly from custom-tuned ECU maps, even if you aren't going for new cams, an after-market turbo, blah blah blah.
But drop-in chips aren't tuned for individual engines. They're one-size-fits-all. If you want a chip that fits your car's engine in particular, you have to go to a speed shop that'll test your engine and blow an EPROM to suit.
In the vast majority of cars, I think it's quite sensible to say that if you aren't making significant mechanical modifications to your engine, then the money you'd spend on a "hot chip" would be better put towards those modifications (or, you know, spent on the rent or something, but we're not talking about sensible life choices here). I think that even something as simple as a less restrictive air filter is likely to give you more horsepower per dollar than a hot chip.
Even Powerchip themselves admit (or, at least, did admit at the time I corresponded with Wayne; I haven't groveled through their specs lately) that a 15% power and torque gain from a plain chip swap is unusually high. Figures closer to, or below, 10% are common. Some people would question even that - but even if you get a whole
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Nothing protects you if you take a sledgehammer to the roof of your car. That's excessively stupid and definitely part of "normal use" so void goes your warranty.
You're okay to get your oil change at Jiffy Lube or your repair part from another maker who tries to duplicate the specs. But, that so isn't what's going on here...
It's generally not the "code" that's being hacked, but the data lookup tables. Sure, you could rewrite your engine's algorithms and maybe add some features, but all most people do is edit the fuel map to richen the air/fuel mixture and balance the mechanical mods they've made (exhausts, air inlet, etc).
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Generally speaking with regard to modded ECU's, what is usually being changed is the Open-loop fuel delivery and ignition maps. No programming changes, just tweaking a few values to better match the particular car when accelerating. When you car is cruising, the fuel and ignition map values are adjusted by feedback from the EGO (Exhaust Gas Oxygen) and knock sensors, to have the engine run at near stoichiometric. Even the aftermarket ECUs have fixed programming code, just adjustable maps and feature triggers (e.g. water injection, VVTi Cam control, turbo waste gate control, traction control igntion or fuel cut). But tuning the fuel and ignition maps does take a lot of time.
I didn't read the article so it's not 100% clear what there doing but this doesn't seem knew. Changing these settings can cause the engine to die prematurely. While you may be able to reprogram the chip back to factory specs before you get it repaired it's still illegal and immoral. While that Act can protect you in many cases it can be very difficult to prove someone tampered with the engine computers while they can still cause damage. Thus leaving the car companies to hold the bag while you get to screw with settings you may know nothing about. Honestly I can understand that if the change you made didn't damage your car good, but if it did then the reponsibility is on you to fix it, even if you can catch the dealer on a technicality. Being that they can't prove it. This is almost the opposite of the RIAA lawsuits. The car owners are proected even if they did something to cause the damage because there is no proof. Where as the RIAA is lawsuit crazy without concrete proof that any damages occured. This is the horrid state of affairs our government is in. While the DMCA and the powers the RIAA has in the court room suck, it's not fair to car manufacturers who get held liable for some people's deliberate damage to the car. Note: I am not really using "you" to refer to jargoone, merely as a tool for someone who is doing this to their car. Also I do think we should have right to modify these settings, I also don't want to see the car manufacturers to be forced into RIAA tactics to protect there profits.
-NiPs
with many of these chip mods, your car will no longer pass emissions inspections.
A car engine is a complex, finely tuned piece of equipment where every variable is carefully thought through - and tested the hell out of over several years by their engineers.
You can't expect to go modifying things willy-nilly and expect only gains without losses in other areas - particularly environmental and reliability. This is especially true where you're modifying things like engine tables.
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The Magnusson Moss Warranty Act covers "aftermarket" parts. Aftermarket means, 3rd party, non-dealer, OEM REPLACEMENT parts. This does not include non-OEM replacement parts. OEM replacement parts are manufactured to the same specifications as the original equipment. A new computer chip, supercharger, or new suspension setup are not OEM parts. Now there is a small caveat to all this. If you install a suspension in your car, it voids the warranty on suspension items, but not on drivetrain, etc. If damage can be traced back to one of these tuner parts, you can sure as hell be guaranteed that the dealer will not cover this, and your warranty is voided for that portion of the car.
Ever wonder why, year after year, vehicles seem to "gain" HP with the same stock engine? That's because PCMs (power control modules) are programmed to artificially hinder a vehicle's performance. By tweaking timing parameters, shift points, etc., manufacturers can "gain" HP year after year without having to retool for engine modifications.
/. nor the NYTimes to be premier source of automotive knowledge.
Chip/PCM programmers operate by simply modifying the same tables as the manufacturer modifies when they want more HP for marketing purposes. It should be no surprise that the manufacturers are dead set against this.
As for emissions, the new engines and computer systems monitor all aspects of the emissions system. Many states simply plug into the OBD-II computer for later-model vehicles and check to make sure no "fault" codes are set -- that's the extent of "emissions testing." To make an assertion that any modification to the PCM will cause emissions to increase is simply showing one's ignorance as to how today's vehicles operate.
BTW, the OBD-II interface and protocol is an open protocol, available at cost from the SAE. There's nothing "secret" about how these PCMs operate. Of course, I wouldn't consider
That's why most serious tuners buy a good used car (preferably driven by grandma) or someone who totaled it and build from there after the warrenty doesn't matter much anymore. Then you can change all the parts you want, and build it to extremes. Both of these reduce the initial investment leaving a whole lot more for aftermarket parts. Note, that in anything other than a deisel (which are currently designed for fuel economy not performance) the gains from just a chip are usually smaller (10%-20% more HP and Torque). Although a turbo gas engine, combined with a better flowing intake and exhaust can see a whole lot more. Most of the engine damage is caused by people too much compression on too lean mixture with low octane fuel, causing detonation. Learn a little about how to prevent this and you probably will not burn out an engine.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
The truth is that turbocharged cars can benefit greatly from aftermarket ECUs, or "chipped" stock ECUs. There are lots of options out there, and gains of 80HP just from a chip are not unheard.
I have verified these claims myself using my own car and the local 4WD dyno. In the case of my car, the tuner claimed a 57 crank HP improvement, and an extra 93ftlbs (also measured at the crank). What I found is that these numbers are, in fact, conservative. I have the dyno plots on my computer and would be more than happy to post them if any critics or skeptics want to be shot down.
Just like with overclocking CPUs there's two failure modes here:
Engine go boom now. Kind of like having a loose heatsink on an Athlon. The only way to get 100 more hp from just software is if you have a turbo engine with an electronic wastegate. You could tell the computer to crank up the boost without beefing up other parts of the engine, but that's a recipe for a french fried engine.
Accelerated mechanical wear. Kind of like electromigration on an overclocked CPU. Metal fatigue and mechanical wear are gradual processes, and drivetrain parts are designed with a lot of headroom so it won't break right away when you up the power. However, even with a stock engine, parts can wear out very fast if you drive foot to the floor all the time. One big problem is CV joints on a powerful front drive car. Take it easy in first gear where the torque multiplication is the greatest, and your car will thank you.
That's why he said "TRYING to do it". There's noting interesting in the PSU anyway. Maybe you want to add a clear window, or add a different fan, but that's it. You have to want to die if you want a PSU to kill you. (i.e. plug it in and lick the capacitors. But if you want to do that, go ahead. Save the oxygen for other people :) /. journal afterwards :)
BTW, If you're chaning the fan or something, unplug the PSU from the wall, turn on the computer, THEN take the PSU out. That should discharge the caps. Also, when working with high voltage, keep one hand behind your back. If you can only touch things with one hand, current can't go through your heart. So you may get burned, but at least you can write a nice
My other car is first.
The thing is, the VW/Audi 1.8T engine that is to commonly boosted to heck has a cast-iron Diesel block and forged steel crankshaft. Diesel setups are very strong to deal with the high torque, and the RPM limiting factor of Diesels is combustion expansion rate. So running a 1.8T at boost pressures up to 18 psi with gasoline isn't much different stress-wise than a normally-running Diesel. In short: the 1.8T is fricken' strong. This is a common trait amongst most turboed engines.
For those of you who are surprised, let me tell you have people have been tweaking chips for a good number of years. You can get aftermarket chips for pretty much any sports (and not so sports) car. However, the biggest gains are achieved only when you combine an upgraded chip with a number of performance parts such as headers, exhausts, turboes and superchargers. If you do not understand how cars work and have not done any performance tuning, you might be better off by going back to hacking your Linux box.
First of all, there are no cheap power gains. Just replacing a chip will not turn your grocery-getter into a Porsche. Secondly, if you do get enough extra ponies, you will have to upgrade your suspension and brakes; otherwise, I will see you in a telephone pole around the corner. Finally, not every engine can hanle a lot of horsepower, that is, even if you do upgrade everything but leave the block in a stock condition, you will have a greater chance of blowing it.
Normally, you would install any performance parts that you have and then tune the chip so it is optimized for your configuration. Is the chip worth the money by itself? Unless your car has forced induction it is; otherwise, it is a waste. Normally, you have to do a combination of things in order to get a significant increase in power. For example, Stage 1 upgrades include getting a new ECU and increasing pressure in your turbos, Stage 2 would require an additional part, usually an exhaust. Stage 3 may require changing your turbos or getting some upgrades for them; by the time you get to this point, you will notice the impact on your wallet. This varies from car to car, my knowledge is based on what I know about Nissan 300ZX and Subaru WRX.
If you do not have turbos or a blower, there is nothing much your chip can do, but void the warranty.
Also, when you get the stats, make sure that you understand them correctly. Ten extra horses to the flywheel are not equal to the ten extra horses to the wheels. If you are still nutty about all this, take a look what you can do to Subaru WRX, Audi (turboed models) and Corvettes. The latter do not have forced induction but are proven to be very nice when it comes to updated ECUs along with some performance parts. P.S.: Yeah, if you feel like replying back to me and telling that your Honda does wonders with upgraded chips and how it can beat anything on the road. Do not bother, please. I have been there and done that.
"Toyota, have done away with removable memory chips altogether. That has the e-mechanics shifting strategies, either by downloading new software directly into the computer's hard drive"
I hope not, I remember the Top Gear episode where Clarkson tried (and failed) to trash an old Toyota pickup. Imagine if a cars engine management computer used a hard disk, run over the first pothole in the road and it'd be ruined (although it certainly brings a whole new meaning to the term "harddrive crash")
Let me tell you a true story:
The 2002 MINI Cooper S (a **GREAT** car BTW) was delivered with Engine management (ECU) software V1.3.0. It worked fine.
The 2003 MINI Cooper S was delivered with ECU software V1.3.2. We believe the changes were to accomodate the Diesel version of the MINI that was due to appear in Europe - but there may have been other changes too.
v1.3.2 worked well - EXCEPT when the high ambient temperatures of a Texas summer combined with 'Reformulated Gasoline' (not sold in all US States - and not seen in Europe). With that combination of conditions, the car would roll forwards 10 feet and stall if you accellerated moderatly hard from a standing start. This came to be known as 'the stumbles'. When it strikes, it can actually be quite dangerous because you could in all likelyhood be stalled out right in front of an oncoming vehicle.
Both ECU electronics and engine mechanics are IDENTICAL between the 2002 and 2003 models - so this had to be a software bug.
It took a LONG time to figure out why some cars were stumbling. The owners' clubs first noticed that only 2003 cars did it - then we discovered this was only happening in the summer - and only in Texas and (IIRC) Florida - but then we heard that it wasn't happening in New Mexico. So we initially ruled out the 'high temperature' theory. However, New Mexico doesn't have reformulated gas.
So when we realised that reformulated Gas is sold in Texas and Florida - but not in New Mexico, we thought that might be the issue...but then we found that it didn't happen in New York (reformulated gas - but no high temperatures).
The whole thing was also confused by the fact that the MINI's ECU has adaptive software. When we had a few days of cool temperatures, the problem DIDN'T go away - and you had to run three tankfuls of non-reformulated gas through the car before the ECU would un-learn the stumble.
It's a tribute to the 'community' spirit of MINI owners (and lots of long threads on several mailing lists) that we ever figured out WTF was happening to our cars at all.
It took six months to pursuade BMW/MINI that there was truly a problem (by which time temperatures had dropped and we couldn't reproduce the problem) - and another 6 months for them to fix it and get a software upgrade out.
Meanwhile, the 2002 MINI's were still running V1.3.0 just fine in all temperatures and all gasoline types - and 2003 MINI's were stumbling all over the place.
Owners of 2003 machines were begging the dealerships to downgrade their cars back to the 2002 code - but dealerships were either unable or unwilling to do that - we're still not quite sure why - but it's likely that the security system in the MINI's ECU somehow prevents that.
This is a CLASSIC case where we'd have *killed* to have an OpenSource solution so we could fix the problem ourselves...either by simply reprogramming our 2003 cars with 2002 software (kindly donated by a 2002 owner)...or by doing a 'diff' and figuring out what was actually wrong.
Even without the source code, it would have been possible to do a binary dump from one car to another - but for the fact that these ECU's are protected by a barrage of 'challenge/response' tests (the details of which are a closely guarded secret). If your laptop fails to provide the correct response to the challenge, the car literally shuts down all software functions for THREE HOURS!! This effectively foils any effort to do a trial-and-error test to reverse-engineer the challenge/response system.
So - whilst it MIGHT be dangerous to allow people to randomly hack their cars, there are also dangers in preventing them from doing so.
www.sjbaker.org
There are a lot of "open source" fuel injection computers out there (ignition too). If your really interested in making more power and hacking, join on to one of these projects. Perhaps someday someone will make an aftermarket odd fire ignition computer that I can program. In the mean time, check out these projects
MegaSquirt Electronic Fuel Injection Computer
Electronic fuel injection 11
PowerPC fuel injection
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
First off, chipping cars generally doesnt produce big gains EXCEPT with factory turbo cars.
This is because the pressure produced with the turbo is often controlled by a the computer, and altering the settings will raise the amount of air and fuel and thus the horsepower. Since modern turbos usually have fairly large air pumping capacity, the gains are quite large. A great example is the SRT4- the first 2 (warrantied!) factory upgrade stages are just a comptuer and injector swap which raises the boost. They massively overbuilt the drivetrain anticipating that people would engage in such acts.
This usually produces big gains in power, but can cause problems in two cases:
1) The turbo is very small compared to the engine and the turbo has to be overspun to produce a gain in power. This has been a big problem for the v6 twin turbo audi S4 and the 1.8T powered VW/Audi cars. They use extremely undersized turbos (to reduce lag) but this makes them very frail at high boost levels. This is why audi is going to a non-turbo V8 for the next version of the S4. Warranty claims are very hard to deny if the factory chip is swapped back in and the only damage is a pair of failed turbos. Its obvious what happened, but impossible to prove, especially when so many people are reporting these "random failures."
2) The engine internals or drivetrain are too frail. This tends to be far less common (since these parts are usually overengineered), but it does happen, especially on AWD turbo cars with decent sized turbos, like the AWD DSMs from the mid-early 90s (eclipse/laser/etc). These accidents tend to be very expensive, so the dealerships are usually a bit more careful about springing for warranty work. Often the damning evidence is the massively upgraded clutch which sent the power to the transmission, or the poorly tuned engine which melted a piston top or a valve.
On a car that isnt a factory turbo, all you can do is advance timing and adjust fuel delivery. Timing advance usually yields a little power but fuel delivery only yields power if the stock configuration is extremely rich (like on the Sentra Spec-V) or if the engine's volumetric efficiency is changed (cams/turbo/supercharger/etc added).
This second use is usually what a computer change is used for on a n/a car.
18 horsepower = 13.5Kw
70 foot pounds = 95 Newton metres
Aftermarket is not OEM.
OEM Service parts are made to origional manufacturing specs.
Aftermarket parts can be made by Joe in his garage.
The warranty acts basically say that if you use components of the proper class, it won't void your warranty.
This means you don't need to use GM motor oil in your car, but you DO have to use the proper SAE grade motor oil.
You don't have to use the same brand of shocks, tires, spark plugs etc, but they have to be of the same type.
Think of it like memory modules, you can put any DDR module in a DDR motherboard, and not void your warranty, but if you were force a 30pin sim in there and fry it, the manufacturer could void the warranty because you used it in an improper manner.
Good thing I don't pay your electric bill... Remember, power (watts)=voltage*current(amps). So, if you've got 5kv*even 1 A, you've got 5000 watts of power.
As an aside - I work at a radio station. Our main transmitter has a forward power output of 4.2 kW. And we're a big station (translates to 7.2 kW TPO and 40 kW ERP). If your Tivo was consuming 5 kW of power, you'd need close to 2-3 tons of air conditioning, just to cool your living room.
Tivos are solid-state devices (plus the hard drive, but still) - high voltage, low current. If it were high current, think of all those traces on the PC board that would burn up.
Incidentally, television picture tubes, as mentioned by others, are at very high voltages... but very low current. We're talking milliamps here. Again, our backup transmitter is a tube transmitter - 7.2 kV plate voltage, but only 384 mA plate current.
-T
Aftermarket != OEM Replacement part
Aftermarket == non OEM
OEM == Original Equipment Mfgr.
Aftermarket parts are, by definition, non OEM. Generally they are of less cost. My experiance is with powertrain aftermarket parts has been good. I just did a tune up and used aftermarkets and have been doing so for years.
On the otherhand, when it comes to the body parts (fenders, hoods, etc) stay away from the aftermarket. The parts are shiat, do not always align, rust quicker and are quite shoddy. Granted, if the car is a old, I will use aftermarket because I cannot justify the cost. If it is a late model, and need body work, you can damn well bet I will insist on OEM
n.b. My father was in the auto body repair biz, and my grandfather was a mechanic. The shop was 300 ft from the house, so I lived, ate, breathed fixing cars. While I am not an expert, I do know what I am talking about in this area.
As always there are exceptions to the rule.
By tweaking fuel/air mixtures and ignition timing, the two main adjustable performance variables without removing or replacing parts, you are also drastically changing combustion byproducts. The ability of vehicles to meet emissions standards is largely dependent on the fine tuning the engine computer provides. The computer monitors exhaust gas composition, intake air volume, engine temp, air temp, throttle position, RPM, barometric pressure, etc. and mixes the optimum fuel/air ratio to minimize emissions for a given performance curve. You aren't just voiding the warranty by tweaking, you are violating federal air quality laws. Some don't care about the air they breath, but they might care about dying. (See next point)
A finer point is the consideration of incomplete combustion. There is an inverse relationship between performance and fuel efficiency. Where does all that extra fuel go to eak out that last bit of horsepower? It exits the combustion chamber in the form of partially combusted hydrocarbons (HC's) and CO. It takes too long to burn fuel completely to CO2 and H20 in a high performance envelope, so it is wasted and accounted as the cost of performance. Normally the HC's and CO exit the exhaust into the air in a off-street high performance vehicle. In a street production vehicle there is a catalytic converter between the exhaust manifold and the air. It is designed to clean up any residual uncombusted byproducts, normally a small % and runs around 1000-1500 degrees in temp, but it has heat shielding/insulation to protect the vehicle. If you changed the exhaust, through tweaking for performance, to release a higher percentage of HC's and CO, the catalytic converter will convert it to CO2 and H20. The problem is that there is much more combustion to complete and the cat's temp will rise drastically. Then your car catches on fire.
You might think this is a rare event, but it happens occasionally when engines are poorly tuned or leaking oil fumes in the exhaust and aren't checked out for emissions. Part of an emissions test involves analyzing exhaust gases prior to entering the cat. Converters are so efficient at finishing combustion that they can mask oil burning and overly rich mixtures.
I have seen several cars burn up this way. The funniest/most ironic happened to a police car. The police department was pulling strings with the emissions department and getting rubber stamped emissions stickers for their cruiser fleet without actually running the tests. One hot summer day a cruiser melted by the side of the road and started a moderate grass fire. It was determined through mechanic logs that the car had been using much more oil recently, but nothing was done to figure out why - just kept adding oil. All that oil was burning in the cat and eventually the heat shielding burned through and the car ignited.
Just like overclocking, you gotta do something about the excess heat. The tweakers might want to remove the cat (a violation of federal law) or keep a fire extinguisher in the car and the fire department on speed dial.
I used to turn wrenches for a living before going to med school.
Goals for 2011: 1. Stop plate tectonics. 2. Prevent animal predation. 3. End supernovae now. 4. Rid the world of evil.
In most modern normally aspirated vehicles ECU modifications do very little (we are talking 10% max) to performance unless the volumetric efficiency of the car is altered first by improving breathing (air filter, intake manifold, throttle body, inlet cam etc), improved exhaust (extractors, free flowing exhaust) or increasing the engine's ability to rev (blueprinting, valve train etc etc). Once these things have been done it is often vital that ECU mods are done to ensure that air/fuel mixtures remain with safe range (not too lean for petrol engines and not to rich for diesels).
On the flip side we have the behaviour of the stock ECU on many of the more sophisticated modern vehicles: particularly those that have low emissions status. Often traditional mods will not improve performance at all or only for a little while. For example, before the Subaru Impreza WRX was released in the US, a typical first modification was turbo or cat back exhaust. This had the effect of improving flow and also increased boost because the boost control was open loop (no feedback). The new GDB Impreza WRX is no where near as easy to modify. The ECU has closed loop control and will also retard timing to bring power down to stock levels. Another vehicle that does something similar are the LS1 V8 equipped Holden Commodores that we have here in Australia (the four door equivalent of the new Pontiac GTO). These use some form of torque modelling such that any modification will give a short performance boost but within days the ECU will bring torque back to stock levels.
In short, ECU modification is generally something that is done at the same time as other, more physical modifications.
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.
I suppose this could make sense with a turbo engine (more gas AND more air), but more gas by itself will just cause horrible emissions and, if anything, a low operating temp. A rich mixture does not fully burn, and indeed ends up cooling the engine some. A lean mixture will burn up an engine. A rich mixture will just smell bad and piss off the EPA.
(Perhaps inevitably, the hacker culture has also produced automotive pirates who buy legitimate chips from makers then copy the programming onto blank chips, selling the results at sharp discounts.)
Need I say anything? "Hacker culture" != "Pirate". Grr.
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 into the computer's hard drive...
Hard Drive? In my car? From the factory? Think not.
Not entirely true. Cars are tuned for fuel efficiency. Thats because the manufacturers have to have an average fuel efficiency, and these days they got lots of trouble making up for the SUVs...
So you can get more horses if you sacrifice efficiency. Note also, the Dodge viper and the Dodge RAM shared versions of the same V12 engine. One tuned for high horses, other tuned for high torque.
You will not be wearing out your car with the modifications these controllers allow. You are just adjusting variables that the OEMs already have there.
If they allows this off the line, the govt would probably force them to figure it into their average fuel economy. There are no "underclocked" cars.
The only thing OEMs don't want is you diagnosing your car, or any repair shops fixing them. The dealerships push the OEMs hard on that aspect.
Your criteria for leaving it to the professionals is pretty much the same as my own. However, I have more balls than brains, so I often attempt to do many things I shouldn't. Only once, however, have I had to take it apart and put it back together again after I thought it was done.
The key to amature mechanics is to know someone very good who is willing to teach you what you need to know. Shortly after buying my car I went on the search for a mechanic who would not only maintain my car, but teach me what I needed to know to do the job myself. Sunday afternoon, I replace the sway bar links in the front and the pitman arms in the back. Hopefully this will tighten up the last things on my suspension and it will be good as new again.
As for what I drive, a 1988 BMW 535is. If you're in the Dallas area, and drive a BMW or Mercedes that is out of warranty, forget the dealer, take it to Carlton's Autohaus. He's behind the Ti campus at 635 and 75. He's great to deal with, knows these cars backwards and forwards, and is willing to teach you what you need to know. Nicest guy you will ever meet too.
I feel kind of bad now that I have moved out of my apartment and into a house with a garage and can work on my own car again. I've given that guy a ton of business in the first 6 months I've owned the car.
Rich
For those of you with a BMW, Bavarian Autosport sells pre-modded chips that are tuned to specific models of BMWs.
BMW and a company called Dinan have been doing this for years, with an added twist. As long as Dinan modifies the computer, the change is covered by your BMW warranty. I had this done to a Z3 2.5i, and it was quite an improvement. The software is tuned to match their performance products. For example: With a Dinan exhaust, cold air intake, and throttle body, they offer a Stage III software download. The process is quite simple. They use a small (old school) HP PDA (the ones that looked like tiny brown laptops) and some kind of a serial connection to program the computer. It's pretty slick. Also they (Dinan) offer automatic transmission software upgrades.
"So you can get more horses if you sacrifice efficiency. Note also, the Dodge viper and the Dodge RAM shared versions of the same V12 engine. One tuned for high horses, other tuned for high torque."
Something else to keep in mind before making this assertion is that while the engines might be the same design, the implementations on other aspects might be wholly different. Specifically, Chrysler has a habit of using cast crankshafts in some applications and forged ones in others. The Cylinder Heads on the truck engine were probably not the same as the ones on the Viper's version. If different pistons were used, I wouldn't be surprised to find the viper using H-Beam rods with the truck using I-Beam rods, even if they are the exact same length. Pistons would probably be different too, so that the compression on the Viper is naturally higher than it can be in the truck.
So, while the LA-Derived V-10 might have the same block castings, dimensions, and some components, I wouldn't be surprised if the really important stuff is so different as to make it hard to make a stock truck engine turn a Viper's performance without risking ruining the engine.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
No 300hp+ cars from the factory
Infiniti FX45: 315HP
The motorcycle I bought many many years ago (90' FZR1000) runs a 10.5 sec quater mile @ 135 mph. STOCK. Off the show room floor.
I bought it for $4-5000 (can't remember) used. And it gets on average 35-50 MPG (depending on how I drive it).
Once again FUCK YOU DODGE (aka Daimler Chrysler)
Rodger
Who will guard the guards?
Courtesy the AC in case anyone missed it: "Subaru WRX STi has 300hp"
Actually it's closer to 320 but what makes it to the ground is less (yeah an AWD drivetrain is lossy). They don't sell this model in Japan, it's an American market only car, which is unusual for Subaru. The WRX STi there gets smaller displacement to fit with the World Rally rules (2.0 liters of displacement only). Ours is a 2.5 liter IIRC...and the main reason they pulled this rabbit out of the hat is to beat Mitsubishi's EVO8.
You might have seen people selling on eBay a miracle chip which can unleash around 20BHP from your engine, and yet this wonder chip only costs like $5.
Its basically a resistor you are buying, and you are expected to solder it into your ECU, tricking the car into thinking its running in cold start mode the whole time.. so more fuel is injected into the engine hence making it a little more powerful.
But obviously you don't want to be doing it.. if you are going to get your car chipped do it at a garage who run your car on a rolling road and work out a custom map for you. $500 or so for a rechip would be nothing compared to the damage that one of those $5 resistors would do over time.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Hacking a car and getting an extra 5% power out of it has as much point as hacking a bus to get an extra 5%. Ooh, the zero to sixty time goes from 5.4 to 5.2 seconds. Big... fucking... deal... If you want speed do it properly in the first place.
k eI D=83
Acceleration = Force/Mass
Get rid of all that extra, unnecessary mass.
Today's sports motorcycle weighs 175kg and produce 135kW. They rev to 16,000 rpm, do 0-60mph in under 3 seconds, 90+mph in first gear, 180mph in top. And you can buy one for $8,000.
THAT's how you go fast. Gravity and the size of your bollocks are the limiting factors.
Alternatively you put an insanely large engine in the thing, like this:
http://www.triumph.co.uk/site/bikes/page.cfm?Bi
Compared to bikes, this fucking about with a car to try make it go faster is utterly pointless. Even when you've done it you might as well be driving a bus for all the difference it makes.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
From Title 42, Chapter 85, Sub-chapter II, Part A, Sec 7524.a of The Clean Air Act
See for the full text of The Clean Air Act.
http://www.epa.gov/region5/defs/html/caa.ht
Goals for 2011: 1. Stop plate tectonics. 2. Prevent animal predation. 3. End supernovae now. 4. Rid the world of evil.