I got a site called performancechipsdirect.com and found a chip there, does anyone use one and if so please give me feedback on it...and how hard is it to install? thanks

 

edit- tried to post the pic of the thing, but its not letting me. Basically its just a dial with 2 wires coming out of each end, intended to be spliced inline with your factory IAT sensor.


This falls under the category of an "IAT spoof", basically its a gimmicky piece of junk sold by many ebay vendors, and tweaked by many others.

The same effect can be had with a $.50 resistor (well in this case a $3 potentiometer)- without spending tons of extra money- because that is all these units really are at their core.

Here is basically how they work- your IAT (intake air temperature) sensor measures the temperature of air coming into the intake (used to compensate for someone driving a car in Alaska vs Arizona). What these 'IAT spoof's do is replace or tap into the stock IAT sensor, and show a resistance to the pcm that tricks the pcm into thinking that it is very cold outside. The big thing they are going for here is the fact that you have a spark modifer table (which is usually 0, but can add timing in cold weather and pull timing in hot weather)- so when you trick the pcm into thinking its very cold, it adds a couple degrees of extra timing.

The other side effect is the fact that colder air is also more dense- so the pcm starts adding a modifier to the fuel table to add more fuel. The problem with this is, you don't need more fuel- the engine is tuned to run a certain way, and adding extra fuel will just make your fuel trims go crazy until they compensate and bring fueling back to where it should be (because the air is not really as cold as your sensor says, it is actually less dense so the pcm is now over-fueling, and running rich)- but the pcm will tune that change back out with the fuel trims to get you back to where you were when you started.

Now you may ask- is there any benefit? Well, on a conservative NA engine (ie not some specialized, high compression vehicle)- a couple of extra degrees of timing could add a little bit of power. However, if you're already at the limit on your timing- a little extra timing could make the engine knock (it will sense that and automatically scale back)- so ideally you'd run higher octane gas just to make sure that you aren't shooting yourself in the foot by having the pcm sense KR, and pull all the timing you just added with your new mod.

Is it worth it? A box like you posted- no, they're for suckers. However, this can be done with just a simple 30 cent resistor from radio shack (search online for approximate resistance to temperature tables, I know they've been posted on clubgp.com before)- and buy a resistor thats at the very coldest end of that band. That way you'll get the same gains for practically no money.

Personally, I wouldn't bother- if you want more timing, and better fueling- either pay for a custom tune or buy a canned pcm from one of the vendors. These IAT spoofs just separate suckers from their money.

 

hopefully u have that rant saved sumwhere chad and jsut copied and pasted it

 

nope... just bored

 

chad get bored and write me a rant like that in my thread :P