Verb04

Has anyone PowerChipped their 1.8L C230K sedan? They claim 19HP with a 93 Octain Chip. Is this true? Has anyone chipped theirs yet?
Thanks

breastroker

Talk to Joel Ayson
Mercedes-Benz Power Consultant
Powerchip Inc

I asked them if they have sold any for the M271 1.8 liter supercharged engine, and to supply a name for me to call. His reply was they don't give out that information. I can accept that up to a point. I get the impression that they really don't want their chip dynoed or tested independently.

Heck, they might have just put it into level 3 power mode. Your ECU is on the side of the engine unlike the 2.3 liter engines.

I really would like that 19 HP and could afford to put 93 in it even though 93 is impossible to get in California. You have to add 3 gallons of 100 octane or use an octane booster.

Outland

An Octane chip eh...um yeah right.

Should sell that in SoCal.

Verb04

They also offer a 91 Octain chip for you guys in Cali. The gains are a little lower. I think 2-3 Hp lower. Not much.

DCXdynodog

Unless MB is really bad at calibration there isn't 19 HP to be had with 2 octane difference, just not there. 7 HP yes, 9? maybe, 19...nope.

jpb5151

Just out of curiosity, anyone know how much harder our 1.8 can be pushed before it blows up? Our sales rep once told us that it probably had the capacity to do 200 hp. ??

czachari

As a matter of fact, it's all I use. Also, these engines are strong.
The Audi 1.8T easily make 225hp chipped. I used to own (long time ago ) a turbo eclipse that made 230-240 just by upping the boost. Don't forget that you're not always driving with high-boost only when it's needed.


CZ


p.s. There's a new chip company for the Audi A4 1.8T that claims that they flash your chip through the OBDII port with a laptop. No need to remove anything. Where's our OBDII port?

Matt230K

It's right by the hood release. There's a little door under there that opens up. I think it's just to the right of the hood release.

trench

Personally, I'm always a bit wary of the claims by chip companies. If it were that easy to wring that much extra power out of an otherwise unmodified motor, I think MB with their huge team of engineers would probably do it - the marketplace is so competitive that every extra horse counts.

Now that said, I'd expect maybe a couple of horses with the "93" chip as the stock programming is set for 91 octane fuel. But I'm skeptical about any claims for a "91" chip, but since they claim a fair amount of power gain with this chip, makes the claims for the "93" chip somewhat dubious.

I do beleive that having a chip mod on a car with a pulley or other engine modification can provide more power. Since something mechanical was changed, changing the fuel mapping, etc. with the chip can find more power as the old program isn't taking the added boost into account.

Also, the situation for turbocharged cars is different, as boost can be increased by altering the timing of the electronic wastegate. But with a supercharger there's no way to add boost without changing something mechanical to increase the supercharger RPM.

Cheers, BT

Verb04

Some chips for 1.8T engine give out over 50HP, And about 10-15HP for most N/A engines. So I think that a gain of 19HP for a 93 octane chip on a 1.8K is reasonable. I know Upsolute claims 40HP on the 2.3K engines. So 19HP on the 1.8K in my eyes is believable.

trench

As I said, turbo engines are a completely different animal, so chipping is a valid option. For NA motors, I've seen chips with a 10-20 hp gain for a car that is runs on 87 octane being remapped to run on 91 or 93 octane. But never on a car that runs on 91 from the start. With a supercharger, unless you do something mechanical to the engine to change the boost level, I would only expect minimal gains from going from 91 to 93.

By the way, Upsolute chips are crap. Independent dynos posted on here showed a big horsepower spike about 250 RPM from redline (where it's pretty much useless), the rest of the time it wasn't that great, often even below the stock power curves.

Caveat emptor, BT

Buellwinkle

OK, sounds like a plan, afterall, Upsolute gives you a 30 day money back guarantee. So get the chip, do before and after dynos and let us know, we wait with baited breath.

I do believe that on a pullied 2.3L there is power to had only because you altered the boost and that affects a/f, timing and such that can be tweaked to take advantage of this additional boost. Heck I would be happy with 12 honest, verifiable ponies with 91 octane California watered down, summer grade, super oxygenated fuel....

eason

The 1.8T chip changes the boost setting, that's why it can have a gain of appox 50hp.

czachari

There's not valve that let's the boost bleed if there's too much like on turbo motors? ( Or is there no chance of that ever happening so that's why they don't have such an animal ).


CZ

Outland

Eason was referring to the AUDI 1.8 TURBO motor, not the 1.8L M271 mill used in the 03 C230. There is no such 'animal' in a supercharged engine.

I'd like to believe there is 19HP hiding in there...and maybe there is. You do have to pull the timing back to keep detonation at bay with a supercharged engine, and honest to goodness 93 Octane would allow you to advance the ignition more than 91 Octane. Like BW said, get a before and after dyno...if it didn't do ****, well, you get your money back.

trench

The bypass valve on the MB superchargers works differently. It's not designed to bleed off excess boost, like a turbocharger blow-off valve. The bypass valve in the MB is opened when the engine isn't under load, since the supercharger no longer has to work to compress air, the motor doesn't have to use power to turn it (so it essentially spins free and isn't forcing air into the motor). All of this is done to improve fuel economy

Example: cruising down the highway the motor doesn't have to use that much power to maintain speed (maybe about 20-25 hp to overcome drag). If the bypass were inactivated the supercharger would be compressing air, now if 20-25 hp is all that is required for cruising, you now have to add the power it takes to motor to spin the supercharger in there as well. Under these condtitions it will cost maybe 30-35 hp of overall output to go the same speed (20-25 to overcome the air resistance and maintain speed + 10 or so horsepower to compress air). By reducing the amount of power the engine has to put out, fuel mileage is improved. Floor the accelerator to pass a truck, the bypass snaps closed and full power is restored.

Pretty clever system, really.

We also know the bypass valve isn't used to "bleed off excess boost" because then all of the people who've added pullies to their cars wouldn't have seen any power gains as the valve would have opened and bleed off the excess air, since no one who's added a pulley has altered the way the bypass works. So there are no gains to be had by altering how the bypass functions. The only way to increase boost is by mechanically changing the speed at which the supercharger spins in relation to engine speed.

Cheers, BT

DCXdynodog

There is approx. 6 lb-ft of torque gain by using 2 octane #'s higher (93 vs 91) fuel and the extra ignition advance which can be run with it if the engine is calibrated correctly to begin with.

6 lb-ft * 6000 rpm / 5252 rpm = 6.85 HP

czachari

First, good answer on the BP valve. Now, why do all tuners make you change the crank pulley instead of the obvious SC pulley? Also, are the SC gears driven directly from the SC pulley or is there some gearing in between that we may be able to change?


CZ

Matt230K

Well, on your 2003, there are no pullies yet. But on the 2002, the crank pulley is much easier to change than the SC pulley. And, according to Kleemann, the SC pulley cannot be made any smaller because there is no room for it to be smaller.

Buellwinkle

Even if you could change the gearing internally or the s/c pulley to make it spin faster, many believe that at the 11 PSI that s/c is putting out there's no room left for growth and spinning it faster would just generate more heat and friction. What you need is to lose the s/c and get a small turbo like a Mitsubishi 16g and get 15 PSI in there for some measurable power. Another solution is to go with a more effecient s/c and Kleemann worked on that for a while but don't know if he's still doing anything with it. The best solution is to trade it on a C320 or C32 which I wish they had last year even though it's slower than my C230. Lastly is an engine swap for the C32 or C320 engine.

trench

Buell and Matt essentially answered these. To clarify Matt's supercharger pulley answer: the reason for no SC pulley is that the nose of the supercharger actually sticks into the SC pulley, so there is no physically way to make it smaller. Even if there were no supercharger nose clearance issues, there is some question if there would be problems with belt slippage with the reduced surface area.

Cheers, BT

breastroker

I believe that a properly designed larger intercooler, a better muffler and cool air inlet will alow the 2003 M271 1.8 liter enging to produce more power. Only after these things are done would I go with a chip. There are modifications that can make the stock supercharger more efficient and probably be cheaper to do than other modifications. This could include teflon tipping the rotors, better clearances etc. Basically hot rodding the supercharger, something americans do well.

The stock exhaust system is very nicely done, seems larger pipe from the exhaust manifold when we compared it to Buels 2002 engine. Very gentile bends although I have a resonator I would like to get rid of. The only restriction is the stock muffler. Generally if it is too quiet it is also restrictive. I would be very cautious on Supersprint. I would only go with inlet pipe diameter as large as the stock 2003 or larger. Fortunately Supersprint lists optional larger inlet pipe!

It appears the IC is the same from 2003 to 2003. What was barely adequate for the 5.5 psi boost of the 2002 is NOT large enough for the 11 psi boost of the 2003 engine. I am thinking of a 26 inch core three inches deep. Cast end caps with larger 55 or 60 mm silicon rubber instead of the 50 mm stock inlet and outlet.
The goal would be to cut the stock delta P across the piping and the IC from aprox. 1.2 psi to 0.3 or less. This can be done, and is done on many systems for Supras and WRXs. That alone would allow remapping of the ECU and gain about 30-40 HP!!!! And the engine would actually last as long as stock with the cooler intake air charge!

Bring on the 330 BMW's

czachari

First, Buell, I despise V6 engines and the C320 I drove last week did not impress me. I like the SC 4 banger feel.

Any idea on who makes the SC and whether they make similar models that can handle more airflow that can be bolt-on replacements?


CZ

jpb5151

This would really be feasible (i know nothing about souping up engines)? I'd save up $$$ to get it done, no question. Out of curiosity, what would the gas mileage probably be after this?

czachari

So the IC was doing 5.5 for 2.3L vs 11 for 1.8L so the increased load on the IC is not as dramatic as it sounds. What do you think?


CZ