So who has a custom chip by Steve W?
 

+ or -

i purchased one about six months ago and am happy that i did. the chip does what its supposed to and steve made the entire process painless and educational.

no regrets.

So what does your butt dyno say? Any other mods to the car?

i also installed a fabsped pre-muffler and steve factored that in to the settings on the chip. my butt says, "more low end torque. the power seems to come in a little earlier now...around 3500 rpm as opposed to 4500-5000." there is no noticable change in gas milege, steve told me that most of the change was with the "full throttle" settings. so when your just tooting around town at part throttle you wont burn up extra gas.

What are the potential gains (HP, torque) with Steve W's chip. Was considering one for my 3.2
Is it Calif smog legal?
Easy install?

thanks
mike
'86 coupe

i dont know what the actual gains are, havn't had it dynoed. i just passed a smog test with the chip and the pre-muffler installed. i know the pre-muffler is not legal because i had to remove the catalytic converter to install it. i dont know about the chip though...they will never see it anyway. the pre-muffler looks just like a catalytic converter so it fooled the technician. easy install on the chip. i just had to remove the front seat, remove the motronic box, pull out the old chip, push in the new one and put everything back. i was done in an hour.

Z,
Your car passed Calif smog with fake Catalytic? Isn't this unusual? Not the visual inspection, but the emissions test also?

Any other Calif residents have experience with mods, eg chips, exhausts, catalytic removal, etc?

Or maybe i should just go to Z's smog test station:)

Thanks
Mike

i read a post on this board from another member that had the same setup and he passed with no problems. so i took mine down to my local shop and paid for the pre-test just to make sure. it was just fine so we ran the actual test.

about visual inspection, i have NEVER seen a tech actual look at anything on ANY of my cars. they always just hook up the sensors and turn on computer, and take my money.