ECU chip?

[mayPOR944]

i found a really cheap ecu chip for my n/a porsche 944 add 30 hp do you think that would make a difference and is there any bad consequences by doing this?

[porsche4life]

It won't really add 30hp....

[mayPOR944]

forgot company but supposly theres a chip in ecu and on off of mafs that gets spliced in adds 60 hp and how would these chips make a difference would u notice it?

[krystar]

it doesn't add 30hp. it doesn't add 60hp. it doesn't add 5hp.

[fmartenies]

If you are going to buy offbrand ECU chips over the internet from questionable sources, maybe you can help me get my money out of Nigeria.

[89-944NA]

I have a Joe the Plumber chip I'll sell REAL CHEAP, it adds 600hp to a 944NA. fmartenies, sounds like you bought the Obama chip. lol

mayPOR944, in all seriousness, stick to the "known" chip manufacturers: Lindsey, AutoThority, Weltmeister, etc.

[fmartenies]

I didn't see it first hand, but my cousin's friend bought a chip like that for his ricemobile and when it showed up it was obviously an old RAM chip or something similar and the company was long gone. $300 down the drain. Pretty funny unless you are him lol.

[John_AZ]

You will need the turbo fan to get the 30Hp

[petrolhead611]

To increase to speed reliably and cheaply try driving down a steep hill

[minho78]

On a NA car you might see some better throttle response, and maybe max 5hp. But not the claimed 30hp. Maybe this chip is for the 951.

Originally Posted by mayPOR944

i found a really cheap ecu chip for my n/a porsche 944 add 30 hp do you think that would make a difference and is there any bad consequences by doing this?

[M758]

Originally Posted by mayPOR944

i found a really cheap ecu chip for my n/a porsche 944 add 30 hp do you think that would make a difference and is there any bad consequences by doing this?

It will add 2 or mayby 3 hp if you are lucky.

If you are unlucky your will blow a headgasket or crack rings This rare, but I have heard of it happening.

You will need to run 91 octane or higher gas (stock can run 87 octane for all cars 2.5L 8valve cars 87 and older.).

You probably will burn more fuel so less mpg.

[flash968]

before everybody dives off the cliff about chips, chips can and do make power

that being said, they almost never make what is advertised, and there are a lot of factors involved

a normally aspirated 2.5 can expect to see 7 or 8hp with a GOOD chip, on premium fuel, assuming that the ambient temp is below 80F, and you are near sea level, with average barometric pressure and humidity - this is your best case scenario

any changes to those conditions will alter the results, and lower the results (lower ambient temp can raise the output if not accompanied by adversely affecting pressure and humidity)

other engines can see more from a chip - for example, there are a number of chips for the 968 that make between 11 and 16hp

chips for turbos make even more

[HondaDustR]

Yeah, don't even consider a generic ebay chip or equivalent. +30hp claims are a big red flag right there. The trusted brands are good and do make a difference in throttle response, part throttle, and sometimes add a couple extra hp. They also cost a couple hundred $ since they were tuned by real people that know what they're doing.

[John_AZ]

Well now you have a lot of information:

Why not learn how to DIY chip tuning:

Interest in DIY chip tuning? - Rennlist Discussion Forums

GL
John

[flash968]

lol - i've been doing this on the supercharged 968 now for a while - i've actually gotten pretty good at it (no, i will not be doing it for any other cars, or getting into business as a tuner)

but the software, hardware, and tools are fairly inexpensive - you would be looking at about $1500 for everything you need

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Don't bother.

Put the money into better tires. Or a DE course.

[flash968]

yeah - a chip by itself isn't a big gain - if you get a GOOD cold air intake, and a GOOD chip, you can generally expect about a 10% bump in total power on just about any engine - that still isn't a lot, but on the track it could be the difference between you or the other guy coming out of that corner first

but i TOTALLY agree about a DE being better at improving things more than anything else

[DannoXYZ]

Originally Posted by flash968

before everybody dives off the cliff about chips, chips can and do make power

that being said, they almost never make what is advertised, and there are a lot of factors involved

a normally aspirated 2.5 can expect to see 7 or 8hp with a GOOD chip, on premium fuel, assuming that the ambient temp is below 80F, and you are near sea level, with average barometric pressure and humidity - this is your best case scenario

Yeah? Wanna post some before & after dyno-sheets of a 944NA that'll give you 7-8hp with just a chip-swap? There's a HUGE group of guys who race 944-spec and I have yet to see a single dyno-chart that has that much gain from just a chip. And I assure you, these guys know ALL the tricks on getting more power out of a 944NA and the best bet is to install the 10.6:1 euro-pistons and shave the head LOTS to get 12:1 compression. Even then, that's only worth about 10hp. And yeah, you gotta run 98-100 octane fuel all the time.

More realistically, you can count on 3-4bhp gain with NA chip-upgrade and plan on using 91-octane full-time.

[HondaDustR]

Originally Posted by DannoXYZ

Yeah? Wanna post some before & after dyno-sheets of a 944NA that'll give you 7-8hp with just a chip-swap? There's a HUGE group of guys who race 944-spec and I have yet to see a single dyno-chart that has that much gain from just a chip. And I assure you, these guys know ALL the tricks on getting more power out of a 944NA and the best bet is to install the 10.6:1 euro-pistons and shave the head LOTS to get 12:1 compression. Even then, that's only worth about 10hp. And yeah, you gotta run 98-100 octane fuel all the time.

More realistically, you can count on 3-4bhp gain with NA chip-upgrade and plan on using 91-octane full-time.

I would bet 12:1 compression would net a bit more than 10 hp from the standard 9.5:1. Porsche gained 8 hp for the '88 model year by increasing the CR to 10.2:1.
Pelican Parts: Porsche 944 Model Specifications

I'm pretty sure it's possible to get 5 hp or slightly more with a hotter tuning like the 944MAX 93 octane tune, especially with no cat. I know the 91 octane tuning of the 944MAX is supposed to gain about 2-3 hp on the top end with an open exhaust, and mine did seem to run stronger with no cat and a higher flow muffler. Really, the whole point of a good chip is to increase the area under the curve, not just to get a couple extra hp up top to brag about. The stock part throttle maps suck compared to the 944MAX tuning. The next place to look for power in the NA is the cam, and a good tuning to go with that.

Oh, and emphasizing more than 2 things with all caps in one paragraph is kind of annoying...

[flash968]

this is what's frustrating - to say "a chip makes 8 hp" is misleading - in reality it likely makes more in some areas and less in others - people tend to focus on peak hp, and that's not necessarily the real story

there are plenty of charts out there - i'll see if i can dig them up - i have a lot more 968 charts than i do 944 charts - autothority had them up on their site for years though - weltmeister too - i'm sure the newer guys have charts too - as an example, the 944 max chip shows an AVERAGE of 5-6 gain, (their chart is on the lindsey site) - the frwilk chart (also out there on the web) shows about 6-9 gain over a pretty wide area too - i downloaded both of those

the problem is that most people don't know how to control the conditions of a dyno test - heck, most of them run on dynojets, and those things are nearly worthless

as a part of a chip shootout test i conducted for a magazine, on chips for the 968, i consulted with steve dinan, who worked on many of the earlier 944 chips, and he said the same thing about output gains - he actually wrote a 20 page paper on how most people have no clue on how to test things - there are a lot of things involved, and generally skipped, in conducting a controlled comparison test