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."

Comments

That bowling ball! It's my wife

[Monsieur Canard]

And the coming of warmer weather is bringing in a new wave of customers to KTR, which was originally owned by Boston rocker J. Geils.

For some reason, I find that incredibly cool.

Maybe the whole purpose of these new mod chips is so drivers can make back-up copies of their cars in case they crash.

Sorry, I'll leave now.

Re:That bowling ball! It's my wife

[dr_dank]

Also, it proves that more than his memory has just been sold.

Re:That bowling ball! It's my wife

[Tackhead]

> He started out just fixing his own...then friends of his with Ferraris would ask him to tinker with theirs...one thing lead to another.

Ironic. My first "electronics" project as a child was abusing my dad's 4-track reel-to-reel tape recorder by opening it up twisting the belt around to force it to run backwards. I recorded the "strange foreign language" in J. Geils' No Anchovies Please, unhacked the tape recorder, and played the message backwards to discover the shocking secret:

"It doesn't take a genuis to tell the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad."

I've waited most of my life to use that line in context. I am complete! w00t!

Stupid question

[maan]

And what do you do when you want "normal" cruise control?

Re:Stupid question

[HungWeiLo]

Take the stick shift and:

up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, left turn signal, right turn signal, brake, gas

Re:Stupid question

[dasmegabyte]

A chip adjusts the sensitivity of the wastegate (which is electronically adjustable, yes, it's apparently a solenoid), as well as controlling the fuel-air mixture. It also increases the rev limit, not that it matters since you'll never hit it (the shift point is in the late 5000s for the 1.8T). Here's some info from a Volvo turbo page...though the effect on VW/Audi cars is a bit more spectacular (due to heavily overengineered and underspeced engines...if only the steering and stabilization systems were so trustworthy!).

The overengineered specs for the 1.8T mean HUGE boosts in engine performance can be had relatively simply. Generally, a chip in a normally aspirated car means at most 10 hp. In a turbo, it can be fairly extreme...with the Audi V6 2.7 biturbo seeing a boost of 65+ hp without adding new turbos or exhausts! VW noticed this overengineering as well (if they didn't do it on purpose) -- notice with the 1.8T that the same engine that was stock 150 hp in 1997 is now stock at 170 hp. They say it's due to DBW, but I say it's due to a better boost program.

Either way, you'd be nuts to buy the crummy 2.8 V6, which actually puts out LESS power after a boost mod than the 1.8T. And it's heavier. And it's $1800 more expensive. But I guess you get more torque under 2k, meaning you don't sound like you're gunning it all the time.

The chip is particular to the engine, but this usually amounts to being particular to model as well, because though Volkswagen uses the same basic engine, the 1.8T, on 4 models, each has a different exhaust and intake system and thus has different allowances for safe boosting.

A quick primer in speed: your engine has three main systems: air intake, combustion, and exhaust. Your car can only be as fast as the weakest of these three. Chipping takes advantage of down-speccing that goes on with the intake and the engine to reduce warranty requests -- the exhaust, at least on modern german autos, is usually good enough for up to 230-250hp. Chipping is a much more effective AND cost effective means of gaining speed out of a stock automobile than slapping on a big exhaust system or a body kit. It's why my Passat has been known to smoke Integras and Mustangs (though, to be honest, that's more likely a combination of good reflexes and shitty driving on the Ford's part).

My car...

[i.r.id10t]

... doesn't use chips you insensitive clod! (actually, it can run without any fuses installed as well...)

"Chips"

[swordboy]

They aren't really chips anymore. The "firmware" can be revised but this is getting more and more complex. Short of reverse engineering the electrical system and creating a replacement ECU, it may not be possible to do this in the near future.

There's actually a large market for programmable PnP ECUs out there.

Re:"Chips"

[pll178]

Hondata (http://www.hondata.com) has been doing this for years on Hondas/Acuras. Ever since Honda started using flashable ECUs in the most recent generation of cars, reprogramming Honda ECUs is a piece of cake. Just connect an OBDII cable to your programmer, press a button and your ECU is reflashed. One caveat is that Hondata spent a year or two decoding the fuel map codes. Unfortunately, they have to decode each model's ECU, but from what I understand, they are fairly similar (plus they have years of experience in hacking ECUs).

News?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Car chippers

[coug_]

Having owned a car with this capability in the past, I can provide some insight. The chip supplier installs 2 or more "programs" that you can switch between (stock, chipped, valet, and race gas are some of the more common programs). To switch between programs you hold down your cruise control and after a few second a light will flash on your dash X number of times letting you know which program you're switching to.

In short, your cruise control works just fine with the switchable programs.

Beware Emissions Inspection

[terraformer]

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.

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.

Re:Beware Emissions Inspection

[macrom]

It's also required if you take your car in for warranty work. My neighbor has been looking at chips for his VW 20th AE GTI, many of which can be reprogrammed with the light switch, turn indicator arm, etc. Around here most of the guys who install stuff like that on the weekends work at the VW dealership, so they'll know your car when you bring it in, but on the off chance you get a strict tech working on your car, he's not gonna like the fact you changed the engine timings and ran 104 octane racing gas through your pipes. Switching the settings back to normal and keeping everything somewhat secretive can keep the dealership from using that reason to avoid warranty work on your vehicle.

Not to mention that most of the higher performance settings can get expensive since racing gas down here in Texas can run $4-5/gallon. It may be more now that gas prices are starting to climb!

Re:Beware Emissions Inspection

[Numeric]

i have a chipped car (98 saab 900) and can pass inspection with it chipped with no problem. i live in PA where emissions are checked.

Re:Beware Emissions Inspection

[poot_rootbeer]

The point of state emissions inspections is to check if your car is running cleanly EVERY DAY, not the one day of the year that you take it in for inspection.

If you're running your car with different settings on testing day than on the other 364 days of the year, you're cheating -- and it's the environment, and all the rest of us that DO behave honestly, that suffer.

Like your Driver's Ed teacher always said, operating a motor vehicle is not a RIGHT, it's a PRIVILEGE. Treat it like one. Respect your car, respect your fellow motorists, and respect the laws that govern what's allowed on public streets.

So, how long before

[WormholeFiend]

How long before we can wi-fi-cluster cars, and let the network arrange speed and routing through congested urban areas?

I want the future now!

Expensive boondoggle.

[Hanzie]

According to the article, mod chip have two categories:

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.

----
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 :) 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.

Like our head engineers always says: It takes a lot of work to outsmart factory engineers. And several million dollars.

Re:Expensive boondoggle.

[Unnngh!]

That's not true at all. Many cars are built to handle way more HP than they come with from the factory. Why? Emissions.

You can get an extra 30-35 HP out of the Evo 8 right off the lot with a reprogramming of the ECU. Many performance cars are the same way though this is an extreme example.

My WRX has 3, count 'em, 3 catalytic converters. These are not needed, either. Many of the overseas versions come stock with one cat only. But if I take them off, I may be putting them right back on next time I have to get an emissions test.

Re:Expensive boondoggle.

[Dielectric]

Um, have you actually looked at reflashing in this millenium?

The tuners are getting very adept at reclaiming the extra power that the factory left out due to emissions and fuel quality problems. They spend days reverse engineering ECUs and trying things out on the dyno. It's very complex, but the rewards are numerous.

I have a Subaru WRX with a remapped ECU. With no other mods, I get 30 extra WHP from this. I do have to run 93 octane, but I did anyway because 89 is pure, unadulterated turpentine. The WRX is turbocharged, but interestingly enough they only increased the boost pressure by about 1PSI (from 15.1PSI max). Everything else comes from the timing and environmental correction maps. I also get slightly better gas mileage, as long as I'm not running wide open all the time.

When an engine detects knock, it will retard the ignition timing, which decreases your power output. By running better fuel and reflashing the ECU to take advantage of it, you can run hotter timing and get around in a hurry.

The Audi A4 1.8T is in a similar situation, where a chipped car will be significantly faster than it was from the factory, with no real decrease in engine life or reliability. The factories are leaving a lot on the table because they have to deal with a wide range of horrible fuels, awful drivers, and insurance companies.

Note that both of these cars are meant to be fast. Reflashing a Taurus or Civic doesn't really do crap, because they were designed to be efficient and unexciting, so there isn't much left to do but add a lot of external modifications. There are also some cars that are tuned to the ragged edge, like the Nissan 350Z. No one has managed to get significant gains without major modifications, such as forced induction.

Re:Expensive boondoggle.

[Dielectric]

False. The EVO has an extremely strong engine that can take insane boost pressures. It has a cast iron block and has been developed for many years now. 35HP is not unreasonable, and won't significantly reduce the car's life expectancy. You'd be far more likely to wrap it around a tree than blow the engine.

Those two extra cats in our WRX-es are not needed, once the engine warms up. The first cat in the pipe up to the turbo charger is just there for cold start, as is the second cat. The sucky thing is that once it warms up and they aren't needed, they still present a parasitic loss in the exhaust that hinders performance in a big way.

A VW beetle would run 11s with a JATO booster, maybe. Be reasonable here.

Self Tuner

[Fortress]

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 ;-)

My car needs to be rebooted

[heironymouscoward]

Seriously. It's flashing "Overspeed warning off" at me. But some days it says "Warning engine overheating" just as the car starts on a cold day. Or, "Immobilizer!!" when I try to start it. Then it occasionally acts normal, but switches the display from km/l to km-left-to-pump to average driving speed, randomly.

Perhaps it's because it's a French car and takes itself too seriously.

Anyhow, I'm now going to look for someone who can rechip it and give it a new personality, something a little less brie and baguette, more Yvette Lopez, "where d'ya wanna go today?"

When NOT to hack

[Ubergrendle]

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.

Re:When NOT to hack

[Dmala]

I can understand this as a hobby, but why mod your day-to-day car so heavily?

Basically, it comes down to: If you have to ask, you'll never understand.

You probably break several laws in doing so, you definitely invalidate your car lease or warranty, and you probably invalidate your insurance as well.

For the most part, modding your car is perfectly legal, as long as you use a little common sense. As long as you can meet the safety, noise, and emissions standards, you can pretty much do what you want.

Modding a leased car is unwise, unless you plan to buy the car at the end of the lease. (Actually, leasing a car is pretty unwise in the first place, but that's another discussion.)

Warranty issues are more of a grey area. Supposedly, a warranty company must prove that a modification caused the problem before the can reject a claim, but I suspect you'd have a hell of a fight if the warranty company really wants to dig in. A serious modder is most likely savvy enough to make his own repairs, and doesn't have much need for a warranty. I'm sure this is more of a problem, however, now that modding is getting more mainstream and popular.

I'm not aware of anything in auto insurance policies about modifying a car, except they will only cover original equipment unless you get a rider for aftermarket add-ons. I'm sure if they felt it was a problem, insurance companies would start checking up and cracking down on modders.

Besides, how confident are you that you'd never screw up?

Modding anything holds the same risk. Screw up overclocking your Athlon, and you could fry the chip. You just use common sense, understand the risks of what you're doing, and don't run home crying if something goes boom.

Disappointing

[kahei]

I thought a 'car chipper' would be something like a wood chipper, only *much* more ferocious.

Ah well.

That's nothing...

[Dishwasha]

My mechanic hacked my car so the left blinker blinks faster than the right. He also put in that hanging wire below the dashboard hack.

Drag Racing

[FutureShoks]

I doubt that you will find a single car at a dragstrip, either production based, "doorslammer" or a full rail which isn't controlled and tuned with a laptop in the pits nowadays.

Take Andy Robinson's doorslammer Stude for example.

Most chips are scams

[vasqzr]

Marketing, false claims, hype...

Some cars react very well to them. Many cars don't.

And if you get the wrong programming, you can ruin your car.

When they claim 50hp you might only get 15. YMMV. Literally.

DSM

[Enigma_Man]

I'm currently involved in writing assembly for my car's ECU. It's a 92 DSM Turbo AWD. The difficult thing is it's a proprietary OEM variant of a Motorola HC11, with lots of unknown opcodes, but there's a good movement to try and figure them all out. Right now, I've written a stutterbox, and other people have figured out where all of the timing, and fuel maps are, and where the variables for injector sizes are. It's pretty great. Writing assembly is fun, and ha>0ring my car is even more fun :) -Jesse

obd-2.com

[Beowulf_Boy]

www.obd-2.com

The best 120$ I ever spent.
I can now see everything happening in my car in real time, and if I get the right program and know what the hell I'm doing, I can reprogram it aswell.

lame article

[syle]

But car buffs want more horsepower and better mileage.

No, they want more horsepower. Mileage is a distant 2nd or 3rd concern. When that Civic owner throws a prefab Greddy kit onto his B18, does he care that his mileage just went from 28 to 17 mpg? Not in the least.

"Normally-aspirated" cars like the Corvette

You mean naturally aspirated? Maybe this is a regional thing, but I've never heard of N/A meaning "normally."

Pontiac Vibe, a small car that's popular with street racers. Films like "2 Fast 2 Furious" have inspired young auto enthusiasts to buy cheap "tuner cars" like the Vibe, and muscle them up.

Someone with a Vibe came into one of our local shops this weekend looking for aftermarket parts. There wasn't a single aftermarket part for it from any of their distributors. You have to go out of your way just to find intake/exhaust for those things. If they're going to use the example of a 2fast2furious car, maybe pick one people actually mod?

Windows BMW

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

While doing 60 MPH

Windows Mobile has detected unidentified hardware, and is unable to find a driver for it.

Restarting...

The similarities escape some....

[Darth_brooks]

Then there's the warranty issue. Reprogramming a car doesn't void the warranty -- unless it can be shown that a later breakdown was caused by the new software. Ford Motor Co. spokesman Glenn Ray says one buyer of a new 2003 Ford Cobra learned this the hard way. The Cobra is about as powerful a car as Ford makes, but not powerful enough for this customer. "He put a chip in it," said Ray, "and blew up the motor." The owner had over-revved the engine--something the original software would have prevented.

Somewhere right now, a Slashdot reader is saying to himself "What a dumbass."

And somewhere a Cobra owner is reading about an overclocker who cooked his Athlon and is saying to himself "What a dumbass."

YMMV.... alot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily. I am posting as AC b/c I used all my mods pts trying to dispell some really bad myhs that are being posted to this thread.

I have an 2001 Audi A4 1.8T with a GIAC ECU chip. The car passes emissions just fine, even with an aftermarket cat-back exhaust on it. The dealership just did warranty work on my car and replaced my camshaft tension adjuster. I have *NEVER* removed the chip from my car. The dealership has mentioned that they noticed it was in there and never gave me any problems (I have taken it to 2 different dealerships w/o issue).

They have to prove that the damage is done directly from your modification, as the Magnuson-Moss Act states.

bad info in that article - we use ls1edit, efilive

[Ken Williams]

that was a crap article that was poorly researched. the pros use ls1edit and efilive for tuning corvettes. hptuners just came out with similar products too. and if you are building a high HP race corvette, you piggyback the whole system with a FAST or DFI system for engine management.

i'm using ls1edit and efilive to tune my 580 HP blown c5 corvette.
http://www.kcpimp.com/cars/c5.html
htt p://www.kcpimp.com/gallery/c5
http://www.kcpimp.c om/gallery/dyno

links:
ls1edit: http://www.carputing.com/
EFILive: http://www.efilive.com/
FAST: http://www.fuelairspark.com/
DFI: http://go.mrgasket.com/
hptuners: www.hptuners.com

Regards,
kw

p.s. and only an idiot would pay $17k to replace a blown 03 cobra motor. you can get short blocks all day for well under $5k.

Not as bad as it really seems

[SharkPork]

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...

Why not?

[QuasiEvil]

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.