....I was wondering; do most people go from standard boost to Unichip with (boost) controller and hence higher boost....therefore most of the benfit felt comes from increased boost rather than the mapping. What do you think?

 

Boost - the standard Jecs does a pretty good job of mapping. There may be a slight improvement by better mapping at standard boost levels as the car runs a little rich (non-STi anyway).

The real benefit will come from higher boost levels with 'appropriate' ignition advance and fueling.

Needless to say, Unichip is not the only way to do this. With a Unichip you will need a boost controller to effectively raise boost, ideally one that enables you to tailor the boost profile, i.e. rolling it off a little at higher revs to save the Turbo. Link, Motec and others will have this ability built into the ECU which replaces the standard.

Trout