I suspect the 20% claim to be a slight bit optimistic , perhaps measured at the crank . What happens when the engine itself is mounted to an engine dyno is there are no parastic losses from the trans and driveline , a common marketing trick used by auto manufacturers and gadget makers alike. The "chip" is a piggyback device which connects inline and fools the ECM BY changing sensor values that the ECM uses to calculate fuel delivery and spark advance, so it's not truly a chip like when efi was kind of new and you bought an actual chip which was plugged into the board on the ecm to replace the factory piece.
What is commonly available and used now is mainly inline tuning devices.
I'm not a big fan of piggyback "tuning" devices . The attraction with them is ease of installation , relatively simple set up and quick results , the downs side can be phantom trouble codes , loss of fuel economy and the high cost. OBD 2 is more difficult than the earlier OBD 1 to tune , the earlier systems seem to accept hotrod changes more than the later OBD 2 , making plug and play devices on an OBD 2 , such as the edge , unichip and others an easy , quick way to squeeze a bit more out of an engine. OBD 1 systems can live happily without having to buy a tuner or pay for re-mapping and dyno time, as long as the engine remains naturally asperated and power adders such as a turbo , superchargers or N O2 are avoided.
The EPA has emissions laws in place to prevent tampering , not an issue in Alberta but in parts of the USA , big fines can be the result of tampering with the state of tune on a vehicle. We're lucky here and can get away with some tweaking , the moral side of it should be considered too , it's nice to have more power but is it right or is it wrong ?
Topic: a little more jhuice... (Read 3244 times)