[hughett]

Today I installed a new Racer-X performance chip and for the first few minutes the car put out a smokescreen like a car with broken oil rings. I freaked out...even at idle it put out a LOT of smoke. I had made no other changes other than the chip.

However, having first disconnected my battery, and knowing that the brains need a minute or so to “reset” I took the car for a 10 mile spin. Boy did it perform well! I'm ever a skeptic but I'm sure it was running noticeable more responsive than before. When I parked, no smoke at all.

However, after an hour I cranked it up again and there was "some smoke but not much" coming from the exhaust but not anything remotely close to what was there when I first installed the chip. So something changed. Maybe the ECU resetting on startup with the new chip's instructions?

Frankly, I love the apparent enhancement in performance this chip gave..pretty steady across the curve. However, the question remains....does the chip cause some smoking exhaust? If so, why? Does this mean I will need to change plugs more often? More carboning? Or will it eventually go away as the pipes clean out? Or is this just a characteristic of the chip?

When I chipped my 928 (Autoauthority) I didn't notice smoke but I did notice a slight increase in the smell of unburned gasoline at idle. But...on the track..the car performs like a champion. And there was no decrease in gas mileage.

I'll drive it a while and see if the smoke dissapates and check the gas mileage, otherwise I may have gotten a defective chip.

One thing is for sure though...the apparent improvement in performance is obvious. I hate to mess with that if I don't have to. Just wondering what your guys experience has been. I'm letting it sit and will crank tomorrow and see it the problem has resolved itself. If not, you're going to have a hard time convinicing me it wasn't related to the chip change.

Harvey