Well, I drove down to the lesser portion of Jersey today, to see the Absolute peoples. I met Ed (njpaprikac230, I think) - really nice color in the flesh. It goes from orange to deep red, depending on the light, and happily doesn't ever have a pinkish tinge (unlike the matchstick red of gtis).

OK, back to the chip. They had a program already available. Unfortunately for Ed, it was for version 2 of the ecu. He's got version 3 (or 3.0, if using MS speak [or would that be MB XP?]), so they took his data, and will send to Austria to get worked on. In the meantime, Ed's going to get a dyno done on the stock ecu, so that we'll be able to see his gains upon re-chipping.

Funny thing is that I have version 2, so I could have gotten mine chipped right there. Being the spineless jellyfish that I am, I didn't. I'm still a little worried about the warranty, and I'd prefer that Ed be the gineau pig (sp?). Though, if his dyno shows the goods, it'll be pretty hard to not just do it.

Thanks to John for answering all of our silly questions, and Andy (regional mgr) as well, though he drives a GTI and is from NH, so he really doesn't count.

BTW: they don't have a switchable one for our cars yet, though if I do go with their chip, I might be interested in being the test case for that.

 

hehe more lambs to the slaughter!!! anyone else have some risky mod for their couope we can get tom and ed to do for us???

greg

 

HEY, NO STEALING MY THUNDER TOMMY!!!

Well, since SOMEONE beat me to it, tommy basically said it all. As far as the ECU revisions go, his car has a build date of 08/01, and has the version 2 ECU. Mine has a build date of 12/01 and has the version 3 ECU. They both had the same serial number(?), but there is a (2) or (3) after it. We briefly thought about swapping ECU's, but didn't want to risk it, especially since the car has the fiber optic network in it. Don't know if the component codes (radio, CD changer, etc.) are stored in the ECU, so we decided to play it safe. The hardest part of the whole thing for John(Achille) and Andy(Smith) was opening up the ECU case. After about 15-20 minutes vigorous prying using different tools, they finally found the perfect one that was sitting right in front of them all along . After that is was just a matter of removing the stock chip from the board, placing it in their chip reader/writer, and downloading the stock file to a file saved on their laptop. Then they just soldered the cip back to the board, closed the ECU case, popped it back into the car, and there were no problems. One thing to mention is that after this was done, since the battery was disconnected, there are a few procedures you have to do to resynchronize some of the cars features, like the express down windows and express open sunroof, ESP, etc. It's all in the owners manual, but if you didn't know to expect it you might be caught off guard. All in all it was a good and informative experience, and John and Andy were very knowledgeable about their product and cars in general, which is ALWAYS a reassuring thing.

So, I'll go get the baseline dyno run, and then hopefully within a week my new, tweaked ECU code will be back from Austria, and I'll have the chipped dyno run done. I'll have the shop do a run without the shift points to post up here, so it will be easier for everyone to compare. Good things are afoot, methinks .

It was cool to meet tommy, and put a face to the name. His car's color was also nice in person. From certain angles in the light it looked purple in places. But I think he got the police package on his car, because he had some big BLACK wheels on his car, not the nice and sexy C7 wheels that I did .

OK folks, that's it for now. I'll keep you all in the loop with what's going on. Talk to you later.

Ed

 

tommy, ed, thanks for coming down, wish more could have made it, but we learned a great deal and was great talking to you guys. Looks like we still need a ver (1) but we have seen the (2) and the (3). Tommy.......your chip is waaaaiiiiitttingggg!!! Just kidding. Anyway, Ed, file went out this morning and we put a rush on it. When you go to a shop for the dyno explain that you want two runs. I would prefer to see a 3rd gear pull only, but see what you can get.

Thanks again guys, he go easy on Andy and his GTI/ NH thing!

to all: my email is jachille@upsolute.com, incase you have a specific question and I do not find it here, still new sorry.