superchip
 

are superchips worth havin and as anyone had one fitted and suffered any problems.

I had one fitted to my bugeye for 2 years and had no problems took it off to fit some extra mods and a tek 3 most people will tell you not to fit one I only took mine out due to what I said earlier.If you decide you want to go ahead and fit a superchip I have one if your intrested.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FIT A SUPERCHIP!!! if you care for your impreza then you should avoid this at all cost. It is cheap performance and thats it. You'll end up getting the fuel and air control out of sync and melting your pistons!! Instead of chipping get your ECU re-mapped, its reliable and you get more power... i had a mcrae impreza (215bhp standard) re-mapped and it took it to 265bhp and it was perfect. costs around £600 depending on where u get it done (prodrive charge double that). do a few mods together i.e. de-cat full exhaust system, air filter...maybe even a new fuel pump, THEN get it remapped (this ensures that the cars ecu will know whats going on and therefore will not damage it). Don't tweak anything without remapping though!!! Sure its a bit more expensive but depending on what model of scoob you have, that little lot mentioned will prob be pushing around the 280-300bhp level.

Chips are s**t stay away from them!!!

I'm sure that superchips give a warranty on engine problems after a chip fit so "they'll melt you're pistons" seems a bit harsh?

They are a reputable firm I think.

harsh but true.... all a superchip does is ignore the ecu and tells the turbo to keep boosting, which increases the air flow without increasing the fuel flow and thats it... more air means its gonna burn hotter inside and destroy internals! its as simple as that...physics states that superchips are cheap, nasty and potentially fatal for your car.

I thought superchips was basically a re-map, but more 'generic' than a custom one done soley for your particular car?

had mine superchipped and was remapped to a 22b map boost 1.3bar not full on depends who does your chippin only put it in safe hands

The Superchip for Turbo Apps is an Expensive Fuel Cut Defender (raises the fuel cut limit under Boost) & a bleed Valve (to Enable more Boost)
You can Achieve the same yourself for £100,s less if you wish to go that route, Some superchip dealers tell you its a Remap, If it does go on the rollers or the road , it is only to set the FCd & Boost levels Etc. A remap is by far the best route & not much more expensive.
Find the Little superchips black box, Open it up & have a look inside, No wisbang electronic goodies in there !! Just a varying voltage potentiometer.
Dean

DeanF

Not quite true - the superchips box (at least on the one I opened) had a zener diode and an op-amp in it as well as the potentiometer. Grand total of about £4 of components.

If it's setup properly then it does give a way of defeating the boost limit in the ECU, and raising the maximum boost, but IMHO it is way overpriced. As it removes the limit it also removes the safety factor if anything goes wrong, or if the owner decides to tweak the bleed valve.

I know of at least one car that has had one fitted for at least 45k miles with a modest boost increase, and hasn't had any problems at all.

hillywrc - For the sort of money a superchip costs new you can get much better solutions, or you could buy your own parts and build youself the equivalent for a lot less money.

Matthew, you are correct they do contain a Zener Diode, 45 pence from Maplin, But generally they raise the Boost to just within a fraction of the Factory limit, where it cuts the Fuel, Therefor within the Manufacturers limits giving a safety margin.
Anyhow , They are a Rip Off & there are better options , we can agree on that
Dean

I don't understand. How does it increase air flow without increasing the fuel flow?

It doesn't. All it does is limit the MAP voltage that is being seen by the ECU so the fuel cut isn't activated. The box I saw only had 4 wires that went to power, ground, map sensor output and map sensor input on the ECU. The wire from the MAP sensor to the ECU is cut and the box is spliced into the circuit.

I assume the limit is set at just below the level the fuel cut activates, so when the boost is above the normal maximum it is sent through to the ECU as maximum.

IMO this means the ECU will be fuelling from the limits of the map, and if the airflow exceeds what the map is setup for then the car will run weak. (But you know that anyway).

Matthew

I think the only fuelling worries are if you exceed the MAF calibration in the ECU (difficult unless you have an early MAF with TD05 I reckon), or run out of injector duty (again unlikely unless you have a big turbo/small injector combo like TD05 + 380s).

My main concern with Superchips is that the ignition timing maps are designed for lower boost levels and could do with retarding, especially so on STi engines.

The emphasis on fuelling I think is misplaced.

And the MAP sensor which is being clamped has very little to do with fuelling.

John, Since I have a UK MY05 with the early MAF, TD05 and 380's how much do you think I need to worry?

I'm using a knocklink and monitoring the lambda output and boost pressure and so far haven't seen it running at all lean. I occasionally get one green on the knocklink on acceleration, but it does light up more when lifting off abruptly from high revs. Boost holds at about 12psi, but spikes as high as 16 - I can't tell for how long as I haven't got my datalogging working yet.

Matthew

Don't think those boost levels will be a problem, but you could measure the MAF voltage, posher DVMs can measure duty cycle as well so you could tap into an injector feed. Bottom line is, if it isn't knocking and a wideband AFR says you have enough fuel then you are OK.

simple...if the turbo is boosting more, there is more air flowing through. The ecu however does not realise this and doesn't match the fuel level so it can go out of sync. They say a de-cat can have similar effects.

This is typical of the scoobynet scare mongering tactics.

I'd love to know how much you actually know about ECU's & piggy back chips.

All I'm going to say is that I've have 2 UK cars superchipped, sold both with around 32,000 miles on them and they never had any problems whatsoever.
One was an MY98 car, the other was an MY00 car.

I do understand that superchips are probably bad for imports, but on UK cars if mapped correctly by someone who knows what they're doing then they should be OK.

Plus you talk about remaps and getting you McRae remapped for £600 and Prodrive charging double?
Prodrive don't do remaps? they only sell performance packs as a complete package.

Shaun

Which sensor tells the ECU about airflow?

Which sensor are you clamping?

Well. The Superchip in most Turbo Apps is not an Ecu Nor A Piggy back unit & therefor does not get mapped at all, It is just a way of increasing Boost without inducing Fuel Cut..

You are very correct! IF MAPPED CORRECTLY then you will have no probs at all i agree. danger comes if you stick a superchip on without re-mapping it. Incidentally the prodrive performance pack includes a re-map (giving it the main power increase) and a new exhaust system thats it.

Thanks John

Time to tap into another wire I think to get the duty cycle. I've already got the MAF voltage, but I'm not doing anything with it yet. All the inputs are being fed into a PIC to allow me to display/log the data so I can get a baseline before any changes.

Matthew

A fellow microcontroller fan :D They are ace for just setting up simple logging aren't they?

The ignition trigger is usually just a 12V switched ground... no harm in making a little map of MAP vs RPM and delaying it a little ;)