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Hack Your Ride
LukePieStalker writes "Monday's Boston Globe has a story on the global market for car chippers. The article describes a global subculture of "drivers who reprogram their vehicles and the companies that keep them supplied with high-performance software and silicon chips".
One nice hack: a car chipped-up for the race track can be set back to factory specs for the street simply by pushing the cruise control button."
And what do you do when you want "normal" cruise control?
We've been doing this for years. What's so special about custom chips? They've existed since cars come with electronic engine control systems.
That "nice hack" is more than just a cute little feature, it is required to pass your emissions inspection if you happen to live in places like the NE and the west coast. This is not to be confused with the saftey inspection that most states do, wlthough the emissions inspection almost always occurs at the same time.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
According to the article, mod chip have two categories:
:) demand 91 octane anyway, but that's due to engine compression issues. You don't need a chip to take advantage of premium fuel, just a good OEM computer.
Normally aspirated: Add a small bit of horsepower (normally less than you can feel in a double blind test) and lose significant mielage.
Turbocharged: turn up the boost, wear out the engine in a hurry.
What the article doesn't point out is that over-boosting your engine will cause it to wear out in a hurry. The engines in today's cars are built to handle a specific amount of power, and when the power is increased the wear on components is exponentially increased.
For those curious, our head engineer tells me that there is a cubic relation between engine RPM's and stress. Stress causes wear, and that's not a linear only relationship either.
When stress exceeds a certain value, BANG + expensive crunching noises happen.
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Back in the good old days, re-chipping your ride could actually help (though not always). However, as the engineers learned more and more, the cars got better and better. Also bear in mind, performance is very important nowadays. The factory is getting all the performance it can out of tuning cars, while keeping mielage and wear in check. Also remember that these engines were designed for performance from word one.
The only reason to start reprogramming the engine controls is when significant hardware changes have been made.
As to the "Premium Fuel" thing, I'm doubtful, since all engines i've ever worked with use knock sensors, and are always running at the ragged edge of detonation anyway. There's quite a bit more involved than just fuel octane. Different formulations of fuel from different gas companies burn differently (gas is actually about ~40 or so chemicals in a cocktail). Altitude, engine temperature, air temperature, humidity, air filter cleanliness, RPM, engine load, and spark plugs all play important roles in detonation.
Consequently, the chips are continually adjusting for all that. Supposed octane levels are just one more factor. Granted, some cars, like the Acrua NSX
Like our head engineers always says: It takes a lot of work to outsmart factory engineers. And several million dollars.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
I'm waiting for one that puts a usb port on it so I can connect the laptop and make alterations on the fly. How about having a bunch of different settings saved so that I can switch between them easily?
;-)
If you're a hardcore racer, you could have optimised settings for different humidity/temperature conditions, switchable at the touch of a key. Maybe save a set of baseline settings for each race locale and modify for the conditions on race day.
We could be about to regain the tuning freedom that went away when cars switched from carburetors to fuel injection. Everyone can benefit from this, even if you don't race. Most cars today are comprimised for green emissions, even if you live somewhere without smog tests. With a little retuning, you can have more power AND better fuel economy. (Ohh, look out for flames from the green set
I'll hack something right up until the point where my personal body is in jeopardy.
Medical instruments? Factory spec is good enough for me. Microwave? I like to keep the RADs down. Cars? I like arriving in one piece.
I can understand this as a hobby, but why mod your day-to-day car so heavily? You probably break several laws in doing so, you definitely invalidate your car lease or warranty, and you probably invalidate your insurance as well. Besides, how confident are you that you'd never screw up?
I'll take the bus thank you.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Gee, I wonder why Michigan doesn't have inspections =]
/syle
chipping a car is really not that crazy or extreme. Most cars come from the factory with "stupid-proof" setups, i.e., they run very very rich so you can't induce detonation and blow your engine easily, and they engineer in lots of understeer for safety reasons since 90% of the people on the road aren't what you'd exactly call performance oriented drivers.
chipping a car mostly involves re-doing the fuel injector maps and spark timing control for certain rpm ranges to increase torque and horsepower. This has the added benefit of also increasing fuel mileage in many cases, since it's set to be very rich from the factory. When you lean it out a little, you use less fuel, get more power, and have fun in the process.
Most factory turbo cars that I know of don't really use electronic boost control mechanisms, they actually use wastegates and compressor bypass valves to maintain boost in a mechanical/pneumatic fashion. Electronic boost controllers are pretty expensive, anyway.
but just reprogramming the existing chip in a car is nowhere near as good as installing a complete standalone Engine Management System. With an EMS like a Haltech (produced in AU, btw), for example, you can actually adjust fuel, timing, boost, etc literally on the fly, unlike a reprogrammed ODBII type computer found in most cars. This allows you to fine-tune your car for maximum efficiency or power, or whatever you're looking for. (power, of course, duh!)
You'd be really suprised how over-engineered a lot of cars are, and what they can take. Hmm.. sorta like overclocking a processor, really. If you take the proper precautions with each (better cooling, faster ram, good power supply, for the computer, or higher-octane fuel, good lubricants, and regular maintenance for the car)
So before we get our panties in a bundle and start completely ranting on the car tuner demographic (but it wouldn't really be slashdot without it) just keep in mind that it's the same sort of compulsion for car tuners as it is for overclockers, or mod-chippers, or kernel-hackers...
If you can read this, you are most likely close enough.
It's increasing complex business - I know someone that works in it - simply "rechipping" doesn't work in modern and complex engines.
...) on the principle that the makers of these devices don't want people to buy the device then try to home tune it and blow their engine up. The tuning is done inside a workshop with appropriate monitoring tools (e.g. analysers), so they can trim the tables in the software, and observe the outputs on the tools to ensure that the best results are obtained without going too far as to break the engine. Naturally, there are some people who do have their own tools and workshops and are competent do this themselves, but a lot of these modders don't.
The new devices effectively clamp around your Engine Control Unit (ECU) by intercepting it's inputs and outputs: the box modulates the signals coming to and from the real ECU: for example, the ECU will usually consider it an engine fault if (say) emission is too high, so the purpose of the device is to (a) alter the fuel mix ratio output on the one hand, but (b) fool the input back into the ECU that the emissions aren't as high as they really are. There are many variables, the ones I've seen take up to (say) 16 different variables that can be manipulated.
I'm told that the devices need to be tuned for the specific model of car, and preferably, the specific car itself: as individual cars each have different variances and tolerances within the scope of the model itself; and the tuning software isn't released to the public (even though it may escape
This definitely voids your warranty, not to mention probably breaking environmental and other regulations, if you do it to street machines. That doesn't stop some people though. (there's a good analogy here to the issue over releasing drivers for 802.11g chips: because the software in the driver is part of the overall FCC emissions approval, so altering the software potentially voids the approval of the device -- similar concept here in that manipulating your ECU voids the grounds upon which various approvals were made)
However, it also has more legitimate applicability to track machines (based on stock cars) where it's not an infringement of the regulations because these are on private raceways and with specific exclusions and so on (and, these cars are usually modded beyond the limits of the warranty in the first place).
The manufacturers are getting wiser and building in measures to defeat the devices, but it seems to make these guys money, and in the same way that you can often safely overclock your CPU, you can often do it to your engine: just need to be aware that (a) it depends on the specific car itself, (b) it doesn't always work, (c) when you do it, you're taking a lot of risk as by definition you may be working outside of the engineering tolerances/limits of the engine [unless the engineering is there, but commerical and marketing considerations limited its scope].
That car should last 200k with no problems, provided you keep up on maintenance. Use Mobil 1 synthetic, and a drain interval of 6-9000 miles. Keep the air filter clean and free. Make sure you replace your timing belt when scheduled; if that goes, so does your engine.
It's already tuned for maximum mileage and reliability. You just have to keep up your end of the bargain.
I tinker with my car all the time. Back when I had an ECU I even understood (had the firmware source, complete with symbols and comments, don't ask how...), I actually tinkered quite a bit more. Blow up the motor? Oops. Not like I haven't done that before, and there goes a Saturday down the drain changing it out. I usually have a spare engine or two sitting around, or if not I know where the junk yards are or I know how to rebuild or repair them (if possible, depends on the failure mode).
Car Lease? Warranty? What are these? I buy cars for cash (usually used, or occasionally built from 2-3 salvages) and drive the suckers into the ground, then repeat. My Blazer died at 190,000 miles (original engine, third tranny), my del Sol is still good at 160k and should live to well over 200k, and my Yukon is at 110k and is only three years old (only vehicle I've ever bought new). Yes, I drive a lot. Greatest feeling in the world to me - open road, open windows (or open top), radio cranked up, going places just to see what's over the next hill.
Also, how exactly do I invalidate my insurance? I don't carry coverage for repair on any of these, except the Yukon, and that's only because it's new enough to be worth fixing. The rest, after any wreck my insurance would have to pay to fix, I'd either cut up for scrap or fix them myself anyway. If it's the other guy's insurance, obviously I'm going to make them fix it (or just take the money and scrap the car). It's not like I'm stupid enough to ask the insurance people to fix something mechanically that's my fault through stupidity.
Chips are just a new piece of everything that's been done for years - overboring cylinders, performance cams, high flow exhausts, aftermarket blowers, etc. That said, though, chips on normally aspirated cars are usually a waste of time these days. Don't bother - work on the other upgrades instead.
Guess it all comes down to if you know what the hell you're doing, go for it. If you don't, don't be a wannabe wanker that complains when it doesn't go right.
You can get an add on kit for a truck that connects up to the sensor inputs to the engine and has a console in the car. It allows you to adjust settings on the fly but telling the sensors certain things.
Sorry, but no "button on the dashboard" is going to give you the sensitivity and responsiveness of an engine management computer which is adjusting boost, fuel, and spark timing on an indivudual, every time the engine fires, time frame.
There is a device you can by for any modern car that connects up to the adapter onder the drivers side.
Any time absolutes like "every" are tossed around, that's a clear sign that the issue is being oversimplified. Likewise, the adapter on my car is on the _passenger_ side, and it's probably using a different connector, data format, and programming language as compared to your car. There is no quick fix on this; the carmakers don't cripple their product by making it less powerful than it can reliably be. If they could get more power from a given engine so easily, they'd be doing it, to use smaller engines, to reduce weight. They're not, because there's not the ability to get "double the torque with a push of a button".