Is a bigger FMIC a must with stock turbo boost increase?

[karp]

There’s also a well-respected guy from the HP Tuners world who tunes Ecoboost engines. Their ECU tuning device only costs $299. Of course you have to pay him to tune your car, but it opens the doors for a longer term modification plan and saves a few bucks over the AccessPort.

https://www.fingertuning.com/
https://www.hptuners.com/products/

 

[Clint Beastwood]

Are guys like Dizzy any more concerned with your car's longevity than RaceChip is? ?

Yes, they are. A year after buying my dizzy tune I emailed jason about some part throttle negative corrections and he’ll send me a new map backing off timing in the midrange and review my data logs.

I got the same (but slower) response from stratified about a similar issue.

You have already decided what you are going to do so just go do it, you aren’t going to convince anyone that it’s a good idea, so just go for it and see what happens. Worst case you get your money back on the race chip, right? Nothing worse than that can possibly happen. :|

You need to make informed decisions rather than making a statement and working from a position to rationalize your statement. It’s fine to hypothesize, as long as you do adequate research and are comfortable with both the conclusions and repercussions. You might save a few dollars now and be fine long term. You might save a few dollars now and burn a hole in your cylinder 4 piston. Who knows? We would all recommend doing prior mods to make your decision as safe as possible, I.e. bigger intercooler before the chip, but you will do what you will do.

At the end of the day, racechip is not a “tuner”, they just modify sensor values to trick your car into pushing more boost and timing. It’d probably be fine in europe where it’s cool and they get a better cooling system and their fuel is better, but I’d be much more hesitant to run it on a 100 degree day on 91 octane poopy summer gas (I don’t know if other states change gas formulation for the summer or not, but our summer gas here sucks).


Just... be safe, do supporting/safety mods *before* adding power. Also, drive the car stock for a while, as you’ll get a better idea of what mods you’ll actually want long term and you’ll appreciate them more after living with the car stock. Personally, I probably wouldn’t have done an ecu tune if the stock throttle mapping were better and the car had no rev hang. I wanted a more enjoyable ride, additional power came with the quality of life mods I did. At the end of the day a Camry v6 is still going to be faster than your FiST. A chip/tune isn’t going to change that, so enjoy it for what it is and don’t rush into things. Good decisions are rarely made quickly.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

Actually Jason is in fact he actually made a post about it in his tuning thread.
All tuners are concerned about preserve the longevity of your engine as its their reputation on the line. If you car goes boom under their tune well thats bad publicity . If several peoples cars go boom well then that tuner usually winds up not being able to sell tunes anymore.
So your reasoning above falls short.

Also a lot of us have been tuning cars longer than you have . I used to work with an Apexi PowerFC handheld ECU tuner on Japanese cars that allowed a lot of parameters to be modded.
We could tune it ourselves or take it to a tuner who knew PowerFC’s well. The other one was a Haltech. This was before Cobb was in the game with their access port. Aka Pre OBDII.

It seems like you really don’t want to follow advice you only want validation that your chip idea is sound. Like has been said already lots more experience people than you have here chiming in and the overwhelming consensus is forgot the chip use the money to get an AP and call it a day.
I would listen and learn if I was in your shoes. We are not in europe we are the in the U.S. our tuning options are pretty wide open with an AP as there are a good amount of good tuners to choose from.
Take advantage of that instead of throwing your money down a closed door hole.

So why are tuners worried about their rep but other companies are not? They are all in business to make money and if they offer garbage products and services, they won't be in business long. Im not saying anything bad about tuners, im simply wondering why you don't extend the same to this company? I mean they give a 1 month return window, surely they have confidence their products work well right?

And im following the advice of everybody here when it comes to my plans, i'm just also doing one other mod that may get replaced later. Who knows, having somebody here who uses a RaceChip on a FIST offering first hand info might help a lot of people here who are looking for a "boost" to HP but don't want to get into real tuning for whatever reason. You would think that would be something people here are happy to have, more info on more products right?

Right now nobody in this conversation has actually used a RaceChip, it's all speculation. Aren't you happy somebody can actually offer first hand info so any conversation in the future can be more than just speculation?

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

Yes, they are. A year after buying my dizzy tune I emailed jason about some part throttle negative corrections and he’ll send me a new map backing off timing in the midrange and review my data logs.

I got the same (but slower) response from stratified about a similar issue.

You have already decided what you are going to do so just go do it, you aren’t going to convince anyone that it’s a good idea, so just go for it and see what happens. Worst case you get your money back on the race chip, right? Nothing worse than that can possibly happen. :|

You need to make informed decisions rather than making a statement and working from a position to rationalize your statement. It’s fine to hypothesize, as long as you do adequate research and are comfortable with both the conclusions and repercussions. You might save a few dollars now and be fine long term. You might save a few dollars now and burn a hole in your cylinder 4 piston. Who knows? We would all recommend doing prior mods to make your decision as safe as possible, I.e. bigger intercooler before the chip, but you will do what you will do.

At the end of the day, racechip is not a “tuner”, they just modify sensor values to trick your car into pushing more boost and timing. It’d probably be fine in europe where it’s cool and they get a better cooling system and their fuel is better, but I’d be much more hesitant to run it on a 100 degree day on 91 octane poopy summer gas (I don’t know if other states change gas formulation for the summer or not, but our summer gas here sucks).


Just... be safe, do supporting/safety mods *before* adding power. Also, drive the car stock for a while, as you’ll get a better idea of what mods you’ll actually want long term and you’ll appreciate them more after living with the car stock. Personally, I probably wouldn’t have done an ecu tune if the stock throttle mapping were better and the car had no rev hang. I wanted a more enjoyable ride, additional power came with the quality of life mods I did. At the end of the day a Camry v6 is still going to be faster than your FiST. A chip/tune isn’t going to change that, so enjoy it for what it is and don’t rush into things. Good decisions are rarely made quickly.

I don't really disagree with anything you said, all sound advice. I have put over 6k miles on it so far, all stock other than the CAI and lowering springs. This thread wasn't to convince anybody, it was just to discuss this particular product and have an active thread to report my findings in the next week. Im just gonna offer the truth and people can make of it what they will.

I just like to discuss things, anything, the truth will stand on it's own merit, as they say. At one point nobody had used typical tuning and plenty of people said that wasn't safe, some still do. But some of us consumers took a chance and it worked out apparently.

Technically we don't know for SURE what will happen but i have watched dozens of videos and read even more discussions about RaceChip specifically, from people who have used them. None of them mentioned burning up any pistons. So im looking forward to testing this out and letting everybody know how it works.

 

[danbfree]

Yes in another thread i think i posted a link to a conversation a couple years old. He predicted the boost module he was testing would only hold the extra boost for a moment because the module only tied into the turbo boost pressure sensor, while the manifold pressure sensor still showed the true value and the ECU would only be fooled for a moment.

He was partially right. It did adjust the boost back down but if i remember, it was good for several seconds each time you engage boost. So if you are just burning through gears accelerating, it worked ok. By accounts i have seen, the RaceChip version bypasses this thanks to the manifold pressure sensor.

And yes the warranty is a concern too. Im at 32k miles so i wouldn't mind taking advantage of that a bit longer while still getting a good bump in HP.

So sounds like it goes along with how boost is on the stock tune anyway, you get 15 seconds at a time of overboost, and gear shifts count as starting over so it doesn't really ever come up.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

So sounds like it goes along with how boost is on the stock tune anyway, you get 15 seconds at a time of overboost, and gear shifts count as starting over so it doesn't really ever come up.

Ill try to find the thread (there's a link to it in one of my recent threads) but he made it sound much shorter. Im assuming it resets every time boost is vented so in theory yes in use it's probably similar.

 

[danbfree]

Yes, they are. A year after buying my dizzy tune I emailed jason about some part throttle negative corrections and he’ll send me a new map backing off timing in the midrange and review my data logs.

I got the same (but slower) response from stratified about a similar issue.

You have already decided what you are going to do so just go do it, you aren’t going to convince anyone that it’s a good idea, so just go for it and see what happens. Worst case you get your money back on the race chip, right? Nothing worse than that can possibly happen. :|

You need to make informed decisions rather than making a statement and working from a position to rationalize your statement. It’s fine to hypothesize, as long as you do adequate research and are comfortable with both the conclusions and repercussions. You might save a few dollars now and be fine long term. You might save a few dollars now and burn a hole in your cylinder 4 piston. Who knows? We would all recommend doing prior mods to make your decision as safe as possible, I.e. bigger intercooler before the chip, but you will do what you will do.

At the end of the day, racechip is not a “tuner”, they just modify sensor values to trick your car into pushing more boost and timing. It’d probably be fine in europe where it’s cool and they get a better cooling system and their fuel is better, but I’d be much more hesitant to run it on a 100 degree day on 91 octane poopy summer gas (I don’t know if other states change gas formulation for the summer or not, but our summer gas here sucks).


Just... be safe, do supporting/safety mods *before* adding power. Also, drive the car stock for a while, as you’ll get a better idea of what mods you’ll actually want long term and you’ll appreciate them more after living with the car stock. Personally, I probably wouldn’t have done an ecu tune if the stock throttle mapping were better and the car had no rev hang. I wanted a more enjoyable ride, additional power came with the quality of life mods I did. At the end of the day a Camry v6 is still going to be faster than your FiST. A chip/tune isn’t going to change that, so enjoy it for what it is and don’t rush into things. Good decisions are rarely made quickly.

Not to go too far off-topic, but I'm curious about creeping little negative corrections after a year... I've heard that's one main reason that some people recommend changing the spark plugs every 15k or less, just a thought... and you are spot on with the rest. Try the OTS Stage 1/2 and watch your charge (not intake) temps when using a stock IC... If you live/have a lifestyle where you aren't stuck in stop and go in high heat, only want to do a little pull here or there AND you can keep your charge temps under 100 to start with, then a pull or 2 at a time is likely OK, especially if you can keep moving and get those charge temps back down to 100 before trying another pull again. With my e30 tune, which we all agree is pretty much maxing out the power on a stock turbo, I do exactly just this... Now, I'm finally going to be in position to finally upgrade my intercooler too, but you see all the mods I've done already, they all have contributed to enjoying my car/been great supporting mods in enjoying my car more than I have missed having an upgraded IC. I have a shit ton of fun on e30, I don't care that I can't race with pull after pull in the summer heat, that's not my thing anyway.

 

[Clint Beastwood]

Not to go too far off-topic, but I'm curious about creeping little negative corrections after a year... I've heard that's one main reason that some people recommend changing the spark plugs every 15k or less, just a thought... and you are spot on with the rest. Try the OTS Stage 1/2 and watch your charge (not intake) temps when using a stock IC... If you live/have a lifestyle where you aren't stuck in stop and go in high heat, only want to do a little pull here or there AND you can keep your charge temps under 100 to start with, then a pull or 2 at a time is likely OK, especially if you can keep moving and get those charge temps back down to 100 before trying another pull again. With my e30 tune, which we all agree is pretty much maxing out the power on a stock turbo, I do exactly just this... Now, I'm finally going to be in position to finally upgrade my intercooler too, but you see all the mods I've done already, they all have contributed to enjoying my car/been great supporting mods in enjoying my car more than I have missed having an upgraded IC. I have a shit ton of fun on e30, I don't care that I can't race with pull after pull in the summer heat, that's not my thing anyway.

My plugs looked pretty beat after 12k miles (pics in my negative corrections thread) so I swapped em anyways. I was still getting little negative corrections here and there at part throttle/low boost. Jason said it might be because I tend to torque through the 3000 rpm range coming out of a corner instead of downshifting. I was getting the same corrections on cobb S0, S1 tunes, so I guessed it's probably our summer formulation gas. Once I added 1.5 gallons of e85 to a full tank I haven't seen any corrections. We're still expecting temps to go up another 15-20 degrees (105-107f ambient) so I'll probably back off to cobb S0 at that time. I don't drive super aggressively anyways, I only got a tune because it got rid of the rev hang and changed the throttle mapping. And pops

 

[danbfree]

My plugs looked pretty beat after 12k miles (pics in my negative corrections thread) so I swapped em anyways. I was still getting little negative corrections here and there at part throttle/low boost. Jason said it might be because I tend to torque through the 3000 rpm range coming out of a corner instead of downshifting. I was getting the same corrections on cobb S0, S1 tunes, so I guessed it's probably our summer formulation gas. Once I added 1.5 gallons of e85 to a full tank I haven't seen any corrections. We're still expecting temps to go up another 15-20 degrees (105-107f ambient) so I'll probably back off to cobb S0 at that time. I don't drive super aggressively anyways, I only got a tune because it got rid of the rev hang and changed the throttle mapping. And pops

Oh, yes, Cali 91 octane fuel SUCKS in the summer, seems like it more like 90 octane at that point, I got corrections when I used my 91 Strat tune when I drove down there and I wasn't getting them running a 93 tune on our fuel labelled only as 92 up here, so go figure... And heck yeah, even for those not running a tune at all, even stock, the best thing you can do if living where there is poor 91 octane premium is add 1.5 gallons of e85, you'll at least max out the stock tune able to use up to 93 octane, I couldn't imagine how slow a FiST would be on a stock tune with 91 summer gas in Cali!

And man, you guys have e85 around pretty good down there and it's CHEAP, I'd literally run e30 every tank I could even if you don't want the power. It just keeps the car feeling "right" with all the heat and you don't get that summer boggy heat soaked feeling. Did this when it was about 90 in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago, just kept the car actually decently responsive without having to actually feather the throttle between too much and too little and just suck down more pump fuel anyway, just a thought...

 

[Dpro]

Oh, yes, Cali 91 octane fuel SUCKS in the summer, seems like it more like 90 octane at that point, I got corrections when I used my 91 Strat tune when I drove down there and I wasn't getting them running a 93 tune on our fuel labelled only as 92 up here, so go figure... And heck yeah, even for those not running a tune at all, even stock, the best thing you can do if living where there is poor 91 octane premium is add 1.5 gallons of e85, you'll at least max out the stock tune able to use up to 93 octane, I couldn't imagine how slow a FiST would be on a stock tune with 91 summer gas in Cali!

And man, you guys have e85 around pretty good down there and it's CHEAP, I'd literally run e30 every tank I could even if you don't want the power. It just keeps the car feeling "right" with all the heat and you don't get that summer boggy heat soaked feeling. Did this when it was about 90 in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago, just kept the car actually decently responsive without having to actually feather the throttle between too much and too little and just suck down more pump fuel anyway, just a thought...

I think cheap its relative. Local E30 is now just over a $3 a gallon. I do not consider that cheap. Lol Hell premium at its cheapest is still $3.39 at certain Costco’s if you are willing to travel. So ya gas is not cheap here and neither is E30.

 

[danbfree]

I think cheap its relative. Local E30 is now just over a $3 a gallon. I do not consider that cheap. Lol Hell premium at its cheapest is still $3.39 at certain Costco’s if you are willing to travel. So ya gas is not cheap here and neither is E30.

Wow, in Vacaville, e85 was $2.19 and the Cra-Premium was $3.99 on the same pump, so it's a no brainer when the difference is that significant.... Here e85 is $3.49 and Costco premium only $3.05... still drive 30 minutes out of the way to get e85 that expensive, just don't like driving without it! LOL

 

[Spork1569]

Oh, yes, Cali 91 octane fuel SUCKS in the summer, seems like it more like 90 octane at that point, I got corrections when I used my 91 Strat tune when I drove down there and I wasn't getting them running a 93 tune on our fuel labelled only as 92 up here, so go figure... And heck yeah, even for those not running a tune at all, even stock, the best thing you can do if living where there is poor 91 octane premium is add 1.5 gallons of e85, you'll at least max out the stock tune able to use up to 93 octane, I couldn't imagine how slow a FiST would be on a stock tune with 91 summer gas in Cali!

And man, you guys have e85 around pretty good down there and it's CHEAP, I'd literally run e30 every tank I could even if you don't want the power. It just keeps the car feeling "right" with all the heat and you don't get that summer boggy heat soaked feeling. Did this when it was about 90 in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago, just kept the car actually decently responsive without having to actually feather the throttle between too much and too little and just suck down more pump fuel anyway, just a thought...

Well since gas is terrible regardless right now, guess it's time to try out an E-30 tune.

 

[Dpro]

Wow, in Vacaville, e85 was $2.19 and the Cra-Premium was $3.99 on the same pump, so it's a no brainer when the difference is that significant.... Here e85 is $3.49 and Costco premium only $3.05... still drive 30 minutes out of the way to get e85 that expensive, just don't like driving without it! LOL

Lol ya dude thats Vacaville last time I checked most people did not want to go to Vacaville. Oh you do realize there is a major prison there?
Ya Vacaville not high on California destination points.

 

[danbfree]

Lol ya dude thats Vacaville last time I checked most people did not want to go to Vacaville. Oh you do realize there is a major prison there?
Ya Vacaville not high on California destination points.

Just saying, it's right between Sacramento and San Francisco and has typical Cali 91 gas. Other times I've checked gas price charts down south too (we usually fly to see our SoCal family) e85 was easily more than a $1/gallon less, but it's worth it even if it's the same price. Wasn't trying to get into some off topic discussion of best vacay destinations, I'm talking about the real world and where people live man, including some family I have in Sacramento proper and Vacaville, which actually is pretty nice, The prison you speak (Solano) of has a Vacaville address but is the opposite side of town from the decent areas, it's really not bad actually.

 

[Mikey456]

Oh, yes, Cali 91 octane fuel SUCKS in the summer, seems like it more like 90 octane at that point, I got corrections when I used my 91 Strat tune when I drove down there and I wasn't getting them running a 93 tune on our fuel labelled only as 92 up here, so go figure... And heck yeah, even for those not running a tune at all, even stock, the best thing you can do if living where there is poor 91 octane premium is add 1.5 gallons of e85, you'll at least max out the stock tune able to use up to 93 octane, I couldn't imagine how slow a FiST would be on a stock tune with 91 summer gas in Cali!

And man, you guys have e85 around pretty good down there and it's CHEAP, I'd literally run e30 every tank I could even if you don't want the power. It just keeps the car feeling "right" with all the heat and you don't get that summer boggy heat soaked feeling. Did this when it was about 90 in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago, just kept the car actually decently responsive without having to actually feather the throttle between too much and too little and just suck down more pump fuel anyway, just a thought...

For my area I have easier access to “race” fuel. Not tuned yet, but thinking about a Stage 1 OTS.

 

[danbfree]

For my area I have easier access to “race” fuel. Not tuned yet, but thinking about a Stage 1 OTS.

Hmmm, with e85, the cooling effect of ethanol itself is half the equation of how aggressive you can tune, on top of the actual octane when used as a fuel. I think ultimately a proper race gas tune would likely be pretty close to an e30 tune, but couldn't tell you for sure, it's just unfortunately not available as an inexpensive flash option, I think some tuners may have it available as an add on fuel though.