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Hack Your Car

Posted by michael on from the pistons-exiting-through-hood dept.

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."

3 of 838 comments (clear)

  1. Mod Chips for cars by justMichael · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Have been available for years..

    This is not news.

  2. Re:I dont think I would hack my car by Emor+dNilapasi · · Score: 0, Redundant

    True, but you'll want to die if you screw up your Tivo. :)

  3. ... and this is news??? by yzquxnet · · Score: 3, Redundant

    Car tuners have been doing this since the advent of ECU controlled cars... I wouldn't even consider this hacking because it so common. Any reputable car shop can reflash your cars ECU and reprogram a variety of variable from fuel tables, transmission shifts, timing, etc. if it's in the ECU it can be reprogrammed.

    Also... on a vehicle from the factory with no aftermarket parts don't expect drastic gains, unless your vehicle is equiped with forced induction and the ECU has the ability to control the wastegate. IE. You're not going to get 50hp by 'hacking' your hondas ECU. More likely you'll get 5-10hp... even then it's usually a trade off of having to use higher octane fuel.

    I had my cars ECU reflashed to take advantage of higher octane fuel (increased timing) and recieved 13 rwhp and 15 rwlb/ft.