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Pastimes : Car Nut Corner: All About Cars -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WTMHouston who wrote (619)	8/18/2000 12:46:47 AM
From: SI Bob	Respond to of 5794

I don't remember which company sold me this chip but could find out pretty quickly if you're curious for that info. Basically, with a central computer controlling the operation of major systems in modern cars (fuel injection and mixture, timing, turbo boost, tranny shift points, and even valve timing in some engines), it's become possible to gain power/economy by modifying the computer's instructions. That's basically all the aftermarket chip is doing. Taking the manufacturer's somewhat conservative (in the interest of emissions, economy, safety, longevity, etc) parameters and tweaking them more toward whatever it is they want to accomplish; usually increased horsepower. For example, a lean fuel/air mixture generally gives better fuel economy, so the stock computer instructions lean that way. But a richer mixture (up to a point) will give more power, so an aftermarket chip will change the computer's instructions accordingly. A friend steered me away from a chip for my Mustang, though, and his argument made sense. He said that I run the car at full throttle the whole time I'm running it and that Ford didn't try to tweak it for economy at full throttle. I'm still learning diesels, but my understanding is that the main thing my chip is doing is increasing the turbo's boost, which pumps more fuel/air mixture into the cylinders, resulting in more boost, etc ad infinitum until the waste-gate kicks in. I don't understand how a chip can do this, though. I though turbo boost was strictly a function of exhaust flow, which to my understanding is purely mechanical. But it's doing it. We can hear the turbo spooling up higher at lower revs, and the waste-gate opens frequently. It never did before the chip. It's about time to trade in this truck and get the one I'll keep until it wears out. Going to start learning more about these diesels and finding a reputable tuner who can get the maximum torque out of it that the drivetrain can handle. I read a review this week of a Dodge diesel pickup that was making something like 740 ft lbs of torque. If memory serves, that engine makes 400 and change in stock trim. My Ford makes 500 stock, but supposedly makes 600 now. And I believe it. I'm wondering if it (the whole powertrain) can handle 800 lbs. By way of comparison, most gas-engined cars pull about 200 to 250 ft lbs of torque. I think the chip bumped horsepower up to about 260 or so. But torque is what pulls trailers up hills, and because diesels are low-revving, they never make more horsepower than torque. Mathematically impossible unless they're unusually high-revving since horsepower equals torque times revs divided by 5250, if memory serves. Bob