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

[danbfree]

I see ty. Yea i won't be doing that. In fact i just looked it up and there isn't even an E85 station in my town lol. There is one in the next town about 10 miles away but im also a fill up anywhere between 1/3 and 2/3 tank so it's just not for me.

10 miles away is nothing... I drive into crazy downtown traffic 30 minutes each way to get e85, it makes THAT much of a difference I don't want to drive the car without it if I don't have to,. At 1/3 of a tank you just use 2 gallons and the rest premium, it's not rocket science man, don't over think it, it's that easy. For your first tank as long as there is room for 3 gallons, you just add the 3 gallons of e85 and top off with premium... so 1/8 of tank left and refilling use 2.75 or so, does NOT have to be exact and e85 is cheap, go a little over if you want, the tune totally adjusts... So just saying, don't knock it til you try it, it's super easy and REALLY makes the power you want, you will be addicted! LOL You just make sure you have both e30 and 93 tunes on your AP so you can switch around when you need to.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

And if your live where there is e85 around, you WILL end up using it, or you simply don't care about performance, lol, it makes THAT much of a difference. OP shouldn't knock what he has no idea about, doesn't even require any pre mixing, you literally just put 3 gallons of e85 per full tank and it actually makes the car feel quick and fun... Now if your don't have e85 around, that's another story!

Im curious why can't you use a full tank of it? Will that give even better power?

 

[danbfree]

Has anyone tried running both to see if the effect stacks? My intuition says one would take precedence over the other if running both an AP and Delta module.

Nooo, you never do both as it WILL stack and blow your engine or turbo. The boost module tricks the car into thinking it's making 4 less psi than it really is and an AP tune already has all the boost your engine can take.

 

[danbfree]

Im curious why can't you use a full tank of it? Will that give even better power?

If you could or it made more power then we would but no, anything past e30 already doesn't make any more power on a stock turbo and our fuel pumps can only handle e55 max anyway, requires more to be pumped. e50 tunes are offered but mainly for hybrid turbos or at most on a stock turbo is just for even simpler mixing.

 

[Spork1569]

Nooo, you never do both as it WILL stack and blow your engine or turbo. The boost module tricks the car into thinking it's making 4 less psi than it really is and an AP tune already has all the boost your engine can take.

Guess it makes sense if it basically tricks the system to read the boost as less than it truly is.

Although if you do it you can say you ran 30PSI on the stock snail

Sure you can only do it once, but you'll go down in forum history Lol.

 

[danbfree]

Guess it makes sense if it basically tricks the system to read the boost as less than it truly is.

Although if you do it you can say you ran 30PSI on the stock snail

Sure you can only do it once, but you'll go down in forum history Lol.

Yeah, while doing revisions for my custom e50 tune I was spiking over 28psi and while that felt great it definitely is not good long term at all and the tuner dialed that down quickly. I only have an upgraded DV, not wastegate but he thought I had an upgraded wastegate too and the stock one let it boost that much! LOL

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

Nooo, you never do both as it WILL stack and blow your engine or turbo. The boost module tricks the car into thinking it's making 4 less psi than it really is and an AP tune already has all the boost your engine can take.

Which tune pushes stock turbo boost to the max? This is kinda the crux of the stacking idea (for me) and im trying to place these in my head. If a stage 1 OTS AP tune already maxes out the turbo, how do they get so much more HP with the stage 2? Or another comparison, if any stage OTS tune maxes the boost, how does a custom tune make such a big improvement?

One thing i'd like to find out is exactly how much boost the RaceChip is adding. You said the booster you mentioned adds up to 4psi and is good for about 20hp, surely the RaceChip is pushing it further.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

Guess it makes sense if it basically tricks the system to read the boost as less than it truly is.

Although if you do it you can say you ran 30PSI on the stock snail

Sure you can only do it once, but you'll go down in forum history Lol.

I was kinda asking this in another thread recently, does anybody know what the max boost the stock turbo can handle? Is there a specific number?

 

[Spork1569]

Which tune pushes stock turbo boost to the max? This is kinda the crux of the stacking idea (for me) and im trying to place these in my head. If a stage 1 OTS AP tune already maxes out the turbo, how do they get so much more HP with the stage 2? Or another comparison, if any stage OTS tune maxes the boost, how does a custom tune make such a big improvement?

One thing i'd like to find out is exactly how much boost the RaceChip is adding. You said the booster you mentioned adds up to 4psi and is good for about 20hp, surely the RaceChip is pushing it further.

Most flash/custom tunes usually aim for around 25 PSI as that's usually a good balance between power and longetivity for our stock turbo.

The thing about our car is that while boost is a pretty big factor in power, there are also torque targets that the car aims for aside from a boost target. This means if your car reaches the torque target set before reaching full boost, it won't spool to that number no matter how hard its pushed.

So while peak boost is important this is why timing and other changes that tuners account for in flash/custom tunes allow them to push the bean to its limits. Boost is only one part of the equation.

Basically what an upgraded IC allows you to do is repeat your runs and not hestsoak as quickly. If you run your car hard in a canyon or the track and your stock IC gets heatsoaked, it'll go into limp mode which is basically anti-fun mode lol. The charged air can't be cooled quickly enough and the car basically loses all power until charge temps drop again. A byproduct of increasing power and performance is producing more heat, so you want a better IC and maybe even radiator to keep the car in more normal temperatures.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

Most flash/custom tunes usually aim for around 25 PSI as that's usually a good balance between power and longetivity for our stock turbo.

The thing about our car is that while boost is a pretty big factor in power, there are also torque targets that the car aims for aside from a boost target. This means if your car reaches the torque target set before reaching full boost, it won't spool to that number no matter how hard its pushed.

So while peak boost is important this is why timing and other changes that tuners account for in flash/custom tunes allow them to push the bean to its limits. Boost is only one part of the equation.

Basically what an upgraded IC allows you to do is repeat your runs and not hestsoak as quickly. If you run your car hard in a canyon or the track and your stock IC gets heatsoaked, it'll go into limp mode which is basically anti-fun mode lol. The charged air can't be cooled quickly enough and the car basically loses all power until charge temps drop again. A byproduct of increasing power and performance is producing more heat, so you want a better IC and maybe even radiator to keep the car in more normal temperatures.

Ok makes sense. So whether the boost is from an AP or a chip, the IC upgrade seems a good precaution no? One other thing, i looked up that flowmaster module and it's exactly the same as a couple other booster chips i found, one being the Sawyer ST9 Pro Max. If you saw my link to a discussion that was had here a couple years ago, a forum member named MaestroMaestro explained one issue with them.

So these chips piggy back on the turbo boost pressure sensor and alter the reading sent to the ECU, but it's not the only sensor that the engine uses to select boost numbers. The manifold pressure sensor is another, which Maestro pointed out. Most of the chips i found (all but 1) used a single sensor interception, the RaceChip uses at least 2, the Turbo and the Manifold sensors.

Im no engineer and im new to all this but it makes sense that's why theirs seems to work better than the others by the numbers.

 

[danbfree]

Which tune pushes stock turbo boost to the max? This is kinda the crux of the stacking idea (for me) and im trying to place these in my head. If a stage 1 OTS AP tune already maxes out the turbo, how do they get so much more HP with the stage 2? Or another comparison, if any stage OTS tune maxes the boost, how does a custom tune make such a big improvement?

One thing i'd like to find out is exactly how much boost the RaceChip is adding. You said the booster you mentioned adds up to 4psi and is good for about 20hp, surely the RaceChip is pushing it further.

It's actually pretty simple, like with any car, timing also adds power but heat will cause knock if it's there so then timing can't be added. When you have an upgraded intercooler, timing and fuel can be pushed more, and it's only like 8-10hp on a pump tune, not a whole lot. Also, there are no stages with e30, it maxes the turbo out by itself. Some people will spend $3000 on bolt ons and run a 93 tune and a car with no mods will crush it with an e30 tune alone, since e30 runs so much cooler, no upgrades are necessary at all. And I really don't know anything about other than the Delta Boost Module, it's the ONE that is known around here to work properly, no other ones have been discussed so I can't tell you any more. I just know that is the one I trust as our trusted vendor carries it, I simply have no personal interest in experimenting with others and whatever they claim as it hasn't been vetted by anyone in the know in the FiST community.

 

[danbfree]

Most flash/custom tunes usually aim for around 25 PSI as that's usually a good balance between power and longetivity for our stock turbo.

The thing about our car is that while boost is a pretty big factor in power, there are also torque targets that the car aims for aside from a boost target. This means if your car reaches the torque target set before reaching full boost, it won't spool to that number no matter how hard its pushed.

So while peak boost is important this is why timing and other changes that tuners account for in flash/custom tunes allow them to push the bean to its limits. Boost is only one part of the equation.

Basically what an upgraded IC allows you to do is repeat your runs and not hestsoak as quickly. If you run your car hard in a canyon or the track and your stock IC gets heatsoaked, it'll go into limp mode which is basically anti-fun mode lol. The charged air can't be cooled quickly enough and the car basically loses all power until charge temps drop again. A byproduct of increasing power and performance is producing more heat, so you want a better IC and maybe even radiator to keep the car in more normal temperatures.

Not sure about "limp mode" from charge temps, I just know it starts cutting timing and power once charge temps hit 140 and will continue to do so, while limp mode is from coolant hitting 245.

I have a stock IC and it took 3 full pulls in a row in 105 degree heat to hit 140+ charge temps and it simply started cutting power. It's a power thing for multiple pulls nothing to do with longevity really.

 

[jeffreylyon]

You're walking down a very well traveled path in the company of people that have been down it many times. The stock I/C is marginal with a base tune. *Any* performance based tunes are going to increase boost which will increase charge temps which will require a larger I/C or the ECU will start to adjust power downward (not sure if it's by reducing boost or timing or both).

It doesn't matter how the tune is loaded, from the AP that is used by practically all of the people on this forum and in North America or by another OBD-II device that is relatively unknown, they all modify the same parameters. RaceChip hasn't found any magic that Cobb or any of the tuners on this forum haven't, they've just packaged and priced it differently. A tune from another tuner *will not* "stack" on a RaceChip installed tune; it will completely wipe it out.

You're new to this platform. The best advice you'll find regarding it is here; nobody has any skin in the game and everything on the market has been vetted. In this case I know that the collective opinion will be that you've gone the wrong way and should return the RaceChip and spend another $100 for the AP's that come up for sale on this forum weekly.

BTW: their aren't any "chips" for the FiST. They all plug into the OBD-II port and modify the code in the ECU. They're called chips because, back in the day, we'd have to replace the ROM (the chip) on the ECU. Call it an OBD-II re-programmer, a chip, a super-duper charger, etc., but they are all the same thing, The devices that devices that modify incoming signal to the ECU to manipulate it aren't "chips" either, and they are a terrible idea for anything other than a stock tune.

In short, get an AP like everyone else.

 

[Phishy]

Not sure about "limp mode" from charge temps, I just know it starts cutting timing and power once charge temps hit 140 and will continue to do so, while limp mode is from coolant hitting 245.

I have a stock IC and it took 3 full pulls in a row in 105 degree heat to hit 140+ charge temps and it simply started cutting power. It's a power thing for multiple pulls nothing to do with longevity really.

Ramming hot IAT's into the engine and relying on the ECU to save itself just isnt a good idea though. That's what the beefier IC's are doing for us, providing more safety, comfort and longevity for the engine, flexibility for the ECU to make more power.

 

[danbfree]

You're walking down a very well traveled path in the company of people that have been down it many times. The stock I/C is marginal with a base tune. *Any* performance based tunes are going to increase boost which will increase charge temps which will require a larger I/C or the ECU will start to adjust power downward (not sure if it's by reducing boost or timing or both).

It doesn't matter how the tune is loaded, from the AP that is used by practically all of the people on this forum and in North America or by another OBD-II device that is relatively unknown, they all modify the same parameters. RaceChip hasn't found any magic that Cobb or any of the tuners on this forum haven't, they've just packaged and priced it differently. A tune from another tuner *will not* "stack" on a RaceChip installed tune; it will completely wipe it out.

You're new to this platform. The best advice you'll find regarding it is here; nobody has any skin in the game and everything on the market has been vetted. In this case I know that the collective opinion will be that you've gone the wrong way and should return the RaceChip and spend another $100 for the AP's that come up for sale on this forum weekly.

BTW: their aren't any "chips" for the FiST. They all plug into the OBD-II port and modify the code in the ECU. They're called chips because, back in the day, we'd have to replace the ROM (the chip) on the ECU. Call it an OBD-II re-programmer, a chip, a super-duper charger, etc., but they are all the same thing, The devices that devices that modify incoming signal to the ECU to manipulate it aren't "chips" either, and they are a terrible idea for anything other than a stock tune.

In short, get an AP like everyone else.

I can tell you for a fact if you use an OBD dongle based device like the Delta boost module that only temporarily modifies the parameters, it will do so in top of whatever tune is flashed, including a tune that is already pushing all the boost the car can handle. Not sure why you are saying otherwise, but can be dangerous to give wrong advice there. But yes, am AP is the way to go, but for those super concerned about warranty and don't want to flash anything, those boost modules are not a bad way to go but otherwise an AP is the far, far superior option in every other way.

 

[danbfree]

Ramming hot IAT's into the engine and relying on the ECU to save itself just isnt a good idea though. That's what the beefier IC's are doing for us, providing more safety, comfort and longevity for the engine, flexibility for the ECU to make more power.

Well, of course, but for those who aren't racing and or only want a little acceleration here or there then you will never really see that high of charge temps even with the stock intercooler. I monitor mine constantly and it's just not as bad as what many try to claim.

 

[HBEcoBeaST]

There's a reason everyone used the AP. Realize that those 'chips' are for European FiSTs and they rate the stock power output without overboost which is ~20hp less and they rate it at the crank. So the Chip's +37hp is really more like +10hp at the wheels. And that's assuming it works on our cars because the US model as a different intake air sensor.

I don't recommend stacking a chip with an AP unless you are running just the Cobb tunes. Most tuners are running very specific tunes and messing with their tried and true tunes could put your motor in danger. Those chips also don't have ways to monitor your motor to make sure everything is working. With an AP you can monitor temps, timing corrections, boost, etc.

You don't NEED an intercooler with a stage 1 AP tune. You will just start making less power after back to back pulls or being hard on the car for a decent amount of time.

There's no better bang for buck power upgrade than an AP tune for E30.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

Well, of course, but for those who aren't racing and or only want a little acceleration here or there then you will never really see that high of charge temps even with the stock intercooler. I monitor mine constantly and it's just not as bad as what many try to claim.

This is the sentiment im getting too, and i think it's lost on many here. Of course i listen to all info and i definitely would be following all advice to the T if i were also following the footsteps. But i don't drag, i don't even know how far im going to push the mods. I don't own a socket wrench or have my own garage.

This is my daily driver, it has 2 car seats in the back and i just want some more power to play around with from time to time. It's the same as the E30 thing, i have no doubt it helps with a tune but i only have so much time, energy and money to put into this. Im married, have 3 children and have budgeted a certain amount to my car.

So while many here have dedicated all their free time to modding their cars, im just not at that point. Maybe someday but i can't do it now even if i wanted to. I'd love to hit 300bhp but even that, if possible, was years out in my head. My oldest will be out of the house in 2 years n change, that frees up more cash ect.

Im just trying to get a few cheap mods that give me some power while biding my time before i can get further into this hobby. But i do appreciate all advice here and im still gonna stick around and learn as i go, i just may not follow all the advice right away.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

There's a reason everyone used the AP. Realize that those 'chips' are for European FiSTs and they rate the stock power output without overboost which is ~20hp less and they rate it at the crank. So the Chip's +37hp is really more like +10hp at the wheels. And that's assuming it works on our cars because the US model as a different intake air sensor.

I don't recommend stacking a chip with an AP unless you are running just the Cobb tunes. Most tuners are running very specific tunes and messing with their tried and true tunes could put your motor in danger. Those chips also don't have ways to monitor your motor to make sure everything is working. With an AP you can monitor temps, timing corrections, boost, etc.

You don't NEED an intercooler with a stage 1 AP tune. You will just start making less power after back to back pulls or being hard on the car for a decent amount of time.

There's no better bang for buck power upgrade than an AP tune for E30.

I don't think this is correct about the chip. On the website when you select your car, they even have it in the menus listed as "1.6 ST Ecoboost (195HP), so they clearly base it on the overboost figures. It just seems like people are making assumptions about this "chip" without even looking at any info.

Similar to a conversation from yesterday comparing it to the Flowmaster Delta module. The RaceChip kit is very different and ties into multiple pressure sensors which bypasses a lot of issues the other boost chips have. So why is the new guy the one pointing out the differences and pointing out they list the fiesta ST at 195hp when anybody can go and look for themselves? I think sometimes it's easy to think we know about things without even looking, which i think is happening here.

And im not saying it's the best option for a full stage 2/3/4 upgrade, i absolutely believe all here who say it's not. But for a simple and fast bump in power that won't do any long term damage, it looks like it will work. And i will follow your and others advice and if/when i get to stage 2, i'd remove the RaceChip and just use the tunes alone.

 

[TalkToTheFiST]

I can tell you for a fact if you use an OBD dongle based device like the Delta boost module that only temporarily modifies the parameters, it will do so in top of whatever tune is flashed, including a tune that is already pushing all the boost the car can handle. Not sure why you are saying otherwise, but can be dangerous to give wrong advice there. But yes, am AP is the way to go, but for those super concerned about warranty and don't want to flash anything, those boost modules are not a bad way to go but otherwise an AP is the far, far superior option in every other way.

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.