I'd be curious what fuel was used for this test. Unfortunately, being a tuner, I'm well aware of the "tricks" that tuners can pull to increase "numbers". The easiest is to dyno a stock vehicle on 98 octane fuel, then "tune" it (read: run up the spark timing) and show huge increases in HP. Problem: You won't be running 98 octane fuel on the street in the USA. The LCD (Least Common Denominator) fuel in the USA is 91 AKI RFG-II specification gasoline. Well, there is actually something even worse, basically 91 RFG-II with extra oxygenation (yuk!) You see the same things with the new BMW M3, and people claiming that software changes are good for 30+hp, when BMW M GmBH could only get 15hp out of some $14k+ of physical engine mods in the M3 CSL. (as a note, we were able to find about 6hp on the m3 on 91AKI fuel and I danced like a fool at finding that much!) BTW, Jon (Kofod) thanks for noticing that our chips for BMW's generally produce the most (safe) power.. but we're not "a big company".. I'm one guy.. it's a one man operation, literally.. and importantly I don't advertise any HP gains because they are BS. In fact, I don't advertise at all. I'm the advertising mukyuk's worst nightmare We don't sell our products direct to customers (although that is likely to change very soon ) and Federal law prevents me from swiftly "*****-slapping" the dealers who insist on publishing numbers.. such a shame. Lastly, for you guys who want to tune your own Ferrari's.. I'm trying to have you all a Christmas Present.. but reality is that Santa Conforti might be a little late.. You'll soon be tuning your own chips for less $$$ than it costs to buy a decent upgrade currently (a lot less). Can someone explain to me why a Ferrari "chip" costs many thousands more than a BMW chip?
Hey Jim, Great to have you back on board here at F Chat. Your chip was by far the best. Dinan's chip gained 3 hp and they advertise 42. I met a guy who used to do some of the tuning at Dinan and was told that they do some of the stuff you eluded to when trying to get a high number. He said that Dinan would burn literally hundreds of chips and put them in a half dozen different engines until they got a big number. He also eluded to the gas issue (running 91 on the stock chip and then running 98 on the tuner chip). And what you eluded to about the M3 vs. the CSL is good for people to hear. I made the same arguement to some bimmer folks about my 3.5 M5 engine. As you will recall the Euro version makes 286 hp vs. the 256 made by the US spec engine. Now if a $250 chip added a whopping 48 hp (Dinan's claim) that makes BMW look pretty stupid when the spent an estimated 3-4K extra in getting the additional 30 hp on the euro engine by going to equal length headers, no catalytic converters, different schrick cams at 1K each, better pistons at $400-500 each, different cam box and so on. Add it up and BMW spent $4,000 getting an additional 30 hp out of the stock M5 motor and people think that a $250 chip will get them 50+ hp. It doesn't take a genius to figure out whose is right. I also think that people are unrelistic about what a chip should provide. Jim's chip helped my engine regain a lot of torque that was lost when I went to bigger cams and got rid of a aweful dead spot in the torque curve. The fact that Jim's chip made a significant difference in my engine which isn't anywhere near stock and probably isn't all that well suited to his chip which is tuned for a stock motor it still blew the Dinan chip away. The Dinan chip and their overpriced cam sprocket gained me 2 hp before we enlarged the motor. I am sure that Jim's chip in use with a stock engine would add a bit more than 12 hp. In any event, I am also suspect of claims for large hp gains on the newer OBDII cars. I am sure Jim can elaborate on this more but I remember a Car and Driver test with some tuner chips run on a 3 series and half the chips lost power. Anyways, nice to see you still are on this board Jim. Regards, Jon
Interesting thread and one I must have missed on my searches. It's interesting to see some low wheel BHP figures being mentioned on a standard 360. I had mine dyno'd last year as it was being recorded for a new computer game and the car measured 356.1 Bhp on one run and 358.1 Bhp on the second. This is with just a TUBI fitted. I will try and scan the printouts and post them. Would be good to see if the cat replacement pipes have made any difference.
This is only true if the cam profiles are right. Simply raising the rev limit on most cars does not gain power at all.
For what it's worth, I've spoken with Heiko a number of times while upgrading my 360 and always found him to be a very straight shooter. In my experience, he's more interested in providing Ferrari owners with accurate information than selling product, which is difficult to find. If he says so and so product does XYZ, I tend to put stock in it. Just my view. Ray
