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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 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.
He took a duck to the face at 250 knots.
And what do you do when you want "normal" cruise control?
... doesn't use chips you insensitive clod! (actually, it can run without any fuses installed as well...)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
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.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
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.
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.
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!
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
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?"
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I thought a 'car chipper' would be something like a wood chipper, only *much* more ferocious.
Ah well.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
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.
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
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Windows Mobile has detected unidentified hardware, and is unable to find a driver for it.
Restarting...
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."
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
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.
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.
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.
t p://www.kcpimp.com/gallery/c5c om/gallery/dyno
i'm using ls1edit and efilive to tune my 580 HP blown c5 corvette.
http://www.kcpimp.com/cars/c5.html
ht
http://www.kcpimp.
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.
-- ken williams
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.
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.