Going back and forth between different chipper, I finally decided to go w/ Upsolute for chipping my ECU. I did pay a visit to Powerchip office in Santa Monitor. Joe at Powerchip is extremly nice. The Powerchip office is very nice: an entire floor of a very nice building (corner of Ocean & Wilshire), overlooking Santa Monica beach & west LA. The office of Upsolute is about ...20 square feet . Well, it's a coner of Lanny garage.

But that's one of the reason I went with Upsolute. I figure 1/2 of $850 that PC charge probably going to rent. With that in mind, $420/installed deal from Upsolute at that point make more sense to me. With the 30 days no question money back guarantee, there's not much to lose. SpeedTunning would have been nice at $300, but I don't feel comfortable sending my ECU back and forth.

Chip went to Lanny (Upsolute) last week for reading, got a call from him on Thur that image is done modding, schedule for Sat morning programming.

Once done, Lanny told me that it would take up to two week for the adaptive to work well w/ the ECU, and I would see the difference. However, pulling out of his garage, it take a min to realize the difference. Car accelerate and pull much more smooth. And accelerating at any speed is immediate & smooth. Getting in 71 freeway, hitting the accelerating at normal pace, next thing I know, my car hit 100 mhp. It would have been around 80-85 w/ that pace before the mod.

Since it's hot in SoCal, and there's not much else to do, around 4:00 pm I asked my wife if she want to go to Vegas for a dinner at Belagio, and I could stress test the car too. Off we went. The car really pull on the freeway. The torque feel is amazing. It remind me of my old SL500 rather than the BMW E39. Going from stop is not brisky as Bimmer 540, but accelerating on the roll, especially at high speed, is strong & confident.

Along the way, I did several run on the 100-120 mph. The combination of Bilstein HD, Goodyear F1, and Upsolute chip give the car an awesome drive & handling . At one point, I did 140 mph against a new Acura TL (guess they removed the speed limiter), and the pedal is not even floor yet !!!. Shopping for couple hours at the outlet, got to Vegas around 9:00 pm. Finished dinner at 11:00 pm, walked around for an hour, and got in the car around 12:00 am midnight to back to OC. It's 106F degree at midnight in Vegas !!!

The trip back even better. The LS projectors have no problem beaming up the whole road. It's the first time I take the car w/ this new headlight for long trip. In SoCal, most of the road and freeway have always been bright & well lid, so I can't tell much the power of the light. But on the dark highway 15, the light really put out a show: super bright and wide. Put other car w/ OEM xenon to humble.

Since the road is open, bright light beam, and with V1 on, I did 100-110 mhp on average. Car really pull. I have no idea what's the real hp & torque gain is, but my & my wife buttdyno could really feel the difference in engine pull. The torque curve must be shifted to the left, since car pull nicely at any rpm.

With 600 miles (and 30 hours) since having the ECU chipped so far, so far I am very happy with it. Probably won't waste $100 for the dyno run for exact number of hp & torque gain. As long as my butt and foot are happy with the driving, I'm cool with that. One thing that I don't need dyno run to tell is that the torque curve must have been shifted for lower rpm (like having a good V8), remind me of my old SL500.

Would I do it again for $400 ? yep, $500 ? yep. $600 ? yep. $850 ? gotta think about it.

Got about 2 mpg gain so far (with AC on fulltime) since chipped, but too early to tell. My Green air filter will be in on Tue, will see if car get even any better.

Btw, Lanny have a fulltime job (teaching at college). He's only do this as side job, so reaching him during business hour might be hard, but off-hour contact is easy. And don't bother to contact him through that 1(800) number from the website, since it's a hub number (they take msg and relay back). If anyone interest, PM me, I can provide his cel number.

Have no idea how the Powerchip experience would be like, but I'm happy with the Upsolute experience, and that's all mater to me

Since I'm an initial customer for the W210 V6, hopefully future W210 customers won't have to wait for the program to be written.

 

Hey Zam whats up, if you could get me intouch with your chip installer that would be great. That was a great write up, and hope you had fun in Vegas.

 

The $30 buffet at Bellagio is so good :d

 

shut your pie hole, j/k...........whats the deal you don't have pics of your new rims?

zam get a dyno on that thing........i would like to see some numbers

 

sounds awesome,

More torque and better fuel economy?
What's to think about.

Can he do a 96 W210 as well?

 

Mike

It's $35 now . Worth every penny: good service, good food quality, great desert. Too bad that I went up there in short, so couldn't get into any club.

Alex

I didn't do dyno before chipping, so dyno now won't show much. And I think dyno only show hp and torque gain, but it doesn't reflect how the hp and torque gain would come at lower rpm & rate of torque gain per rpm change (need a complex graph to reflect that). The cheaper and easier way to tell that is through a buttdyno . The TL no doubt has more hp and torque than my W210, but you probably need to red line the car to get that peak number. Mine ? probably between 3500-4500rpm, which is why I could outrun it from 100mhp up.

J.

I think they can tune any Benz (except AMG non supercharge, since they say there's not much juice to squeze out of already well tuned non super charge AMG engine). But since yours is an I6, you probably have to wait a week or so.


One thing about Upsolute is that their program is only good if you keep the engine stock (except for like air filter change), if you do the ECU mod along w/ pulley kit, header change, or super charge, the gain will be vanished, since the ECU program is for OEM engine setting. But I expect most of us don't intend to upgrade engine mechanically.

Btw, Lanny cel phone is (909) 576-1603. His personal email is hpiracer@verizon.net, don't bother with the 800 number and email from upsolute website, it's a joke.

 

hey zam i sent u a pm...

 

Huy,

Nice testimonial on the Upsolute chipset, as I stated on one of your previous thread I had my E430 done approx. 4.5 years ago and it seems apparent that Upsolute has appropriately improved the tuned file on the 430s. I'm glad to hear your having a blast with the extra grunt...dollar per HP, you made a wise choice!

Funny you mention the Sin City...I just arrived back this evening, took the C6 for some desert fun and had the HUD at 173 mph. If you liked the Bellagio buffet, you must like the Wynn's buffet at the same price Also, always a nice treat to visit the Ferrari showroom!!! $260K for the yellow F430... OUCH!

 

Rich

Will definitely try the Winn next time. I think just the $10 visit to the Ferrari showroom probably worth the trip to Vegas. Saw an Enzo on the street once (driven by some kid in his teen, w/ dad by side), but definitely want to see it up close.

Just have the Green Air filter kit installed two days ago, and I'm happy to report that car drive even better. A budy of mine has a W210 E430, we tested both car, and mine outgun his !!. Sadly, my W210 now drive and handle much better than my W211 !!!. Car red line easily and torque feel is quite immense. Beside the Bilstein, I think this is the most worthy spend on car. Pedal is a bit firmer, but that's just give more cause to hard foot it . Hopefully I can get off this racing mod quick, since it's not good for gas mileage. The ECU & filter enhancement help to improve gas mileage (around 10%) when driven moderately & part throtle, but keep slamming the acelerator as I've done lately cause the car to suck gas like crazy, and you know how gas price is, especially w/ my fill up twice/week.

Red an article on MT lastnight about the Vette Z06. It's crazy. Even in stock form, it could do low 11s and only behind the Enzo in 0-60. With some mod, it could race F1 car

140mph already feel good, can't imagine how 170-200mph go. Too bad we don't have autobann here.