I finally visited German Care care here in Miami... I spoke to the guy there and he told me for $800 they remap the ecu, undetectable to the dealer, and the increase is 30 hp!!! Now ofcourse i'm damn skeptical but the guy seems extremely confident. I guess the best bet would be to dyno your car before... tell him that if the increase isn't 30hp after the mod, that you'll take your money back. It's worth a shot... 30hp for $800 isn't bad at all. I just wanted to let you guys know about it, i have no money for this anyways!!!

 

Its all in the dyno. I wouldnt mind doing it to coupe, if I could do a before/after dyno to see the hp gains. Then if not what promised I would get money back.

 

Don't fall for the dyno trick on these chips, if they claim 30hp, it's for a very short duration at the upper end of the rev range, totally impractical. Get him to show you a dyno and see if you are even getting a consistant 15hp (half his claim) across the meat of the rev range, where you drive all the time. Also if the dyno is done on an automatic, don't count any peaks caused by the torque converted during shifts. Shifts don't count because you're not accellerating during the shift. Not saying his chip is poo, just buyer beware.

 

buell is right. if it gives 30 hp at 120mph how useful is that. now if it will give the sedans a constant 10-15 increase across the board it might be worth looking into.

 

Unfortunately, it's true. Claims of 30HP on a naturally aspirated engine are almost impossible. Claims of 30HP on a 240 are impossible. GET IT IN WRITING

 

Thats funny.

 

i know that's why i'm not going for it.... but hey.... just put it on the board for everyone to see

 

i still wouldnt believe it in writing!

 

!!!30HP!!!! gain with a chip mod in the NA engine, if they can approah this gain, then MB should did a bad job in the ECU mapping!!! I THINK THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!

 

like i said... the only way would be to dyno the car before and after the mod... if they showed me some dyno sheets of a car they've done previously then maybe it would be more likely... but hey, if anyone wants to check it out, call'em and tell them they are liars, lol, German Care Care... Miami, Florida

 

Im almost 100% on sending my ECU to powerchipgroup.com in Australia. Ive spoken to Ryan Naylor, a rep for powerchip and he claims 15-20HP on my 2003 C240 6-speed. Now that's alot more reasonable then 30HP. He has also done a few in the past and was actually chipping a C240 today. This is his quote "I actually drove this car before and after the install of the chip, so i know first hand, how good it is. The throttle response is so much sharper and the mid-range is much more powerful which makes the car easier to drive. Overtaking is great and fun" And the price of AUD 990 = USD 544 is not bad. Now my car only has 200 miles. It's not even broken in yet. Does this matter if im planning on sending my ECU to get chip this week? Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

 

How long will you be without your ECU?

 

4-7 days

 

Undetectable by the dealer ? I don't know about that. Once you start messing with the ecu I am sure its not too hard to find out. Then your warranty is gone for good.

 

Usually, "undetectable by the dealer" means that they can't see the software when they scan the ECU. If the software is a chip, they can always physically look at it. I wouldn't install anything expecting it to be unnoticable. Take my girlfriend's GTI. A chip adds about 40HP and 70lbs of torque (proven). It doesn' t matter whether it's hidden when scanned. If the dealer drives it, they'll notice the increase.

 

I think their star diagnostic system would display all run time parameters that can have any effect on performance. It would probably display values that are out of limits in red. Thats how I would design their software. I do engine testing software for a living so I know how the ecus's function.

 

damn 40hp from just a chip! i know the chips do alot on VW 1.8T's but that alot. If a chip gives u more HP on a forced induction car rather than a N/A car why aren't there any good chip out for the C230 to give it such HP?

 

It is because in VW/AUDI, the ecu can control how much boost the turbo make and push into the engine, as I know so far, the AUDI 1.8T engine runs about 0.4-0.7bar as stock form(depends on model 150hp-170hp), once the car get chipped, it can manage the turbo boost up to 1.1bar. For newer models, 1.3-1.5bar is possible due to new improved turbo. On the other hand, our C230's ecu cannot control maxium boost, it can only control the fuel mixture and timing, so 8-15hp gain is the maxium of a ecu mod. Oversize crank pulley is the way to increase boost in our C230, 192hp vs 230hp, 38hp gain is not bad!!

 

HOWEVER

chip tunning usually can provide much better throttle response and responsiveness which add a lot to the enjoyment of the car

I will do chips in a hard beat if they could add 15hp to the rear wheels

chip+pulley+intercooler = 15hp+35hp+15hp = 65hp

with almost 250-260hp and almost 250-260lb/ft torque the car is a little beast

 

UD PULLEYS=13HP at the rear wheels!

 

i thought UD pulleys only for C240/C320?

 

Hopefully the UD pulley will be avilable for the M111 motor soon

 

I spoke to Ryan (Powerchip) about 2-3 months ago and was thinking of getting it chipped too...but then I asked him whether he got some kinda hard proof to backed up his claim (like dyno) and he said the claimed power gained is based on everyday drive or "buttdyno" in my language. So I didn't go ahead and I'll wait till I can see some proof.

Theres also a few companies here that do the chip aswell and they do a few dyno runs of your car during the procedure, this is what I want cos I can see real gain from dyno runs.

 

You're right, I forgot you had a coupe. Currently we aren't making UD pulleys for the 230k, as there doesn't seem to be enough demand to make them for the particular engine.

 

Now I don't know why people haven't done this, but when you get a larger crank pulley for the S/C, why not make the other plane smaller? Then you get the best of both worlds, a faster spinning s/c and slower spinning just about everything else.