Hi,
I looking for help in getting a decent chip burned for my 383 TPI MAF car. I'm tired of messing around with mail order chips which don't even come close and don't want to burn my own or go to the expense of DFI. I'm willing to pay to just get it done and over with.

Any recomendations on Dynoshops/tunners in the California bay area who can do a decent job?

Thanks,
Jim

 

Not too sure if they burn chips for people, but you can try www.autotrenddiagnostics.com over in the south bay. They're east of San Jose. You might also want to try www.speedmerchant.com also located in the San Jose area. These two places are the only two Accel DFI EMIC's in the Bay Area recommended by the guys from Accel/DFI. Like I said, I don't really know if they burn chips, but they might be able to help point you to someone that can. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the info Fast Life.

Judging by your ET you have got your car tuned pretty well. Out of curiosity, were you able to dial in your DFI on your own and how much trouble was it?

Did you go with the wide band O2 option?

I haven't completely ruled out the DFI approach, everything about it sounds really cool. I'm just having trouble justifing the price.

 

Glad to help out. I’m actually running the old 6.0 DFI box for my setup. I haven’t had a 6.0 fail on me yet and they’re still going strong.
Getting everything just right with Calmap took some time, about a couple months, but pretty easy to pick up. Off idle and steady state cruising and highway driving was pretty much done in a little over a weekend. I had someone drive the car while I sat in the passenger seat and tuned the maps. For WOT, I data-logged with Calmap at the track, made a run, tuned accordingly and made more runs until everything was working the way I wanted. That’s what pretty much took a while to do. Would have been faster if i had done it on a dyno with wide band O2 though. It also helps that I have a few friends that have been tuning them for some time already and the guys at Accel/DFI have been great help.
As far as price, I’ve been buying the 6.0 DFI boxes used from $150-$400. That’s pretty much around what it costs for the chip burning equipment. Don’t expect to just plug in a DFI though and have everything working fine.

 

Fast Life,

I hadnt considered a used 6.0 DFI system. Sounds like a good idea as opposed to buying chip burning equipment or paying to have a chip burned. I was looking at the price of a new gen 7 system.

I see you are using a TPIS mini ram. Did you have any difficulty getting smogged with the mini ram? That would have been my induction system of choice but I went with a ported super ram since it has an CARB number.

 

Considering how cheap used DFI 6.0 boxes are going for these days, they're a good buy and there are plenty of people around that can tune them. You just need to find one. If you go this route, make sure the part number will work with your application. The DFI 6.0 boxes for the GN's and LT-1's won't work because of the ignition systems in those cars and Accel will no longer do the conversion to make them run with HEI.
Passing the Miniram with the sniffer isn't so much a problem. It's the visual that will get you. Be prepared to swap out intakes when smog time comes if you go the Miniram route in Cali.
Honestly, and this is just my opinion...but, the Miniram to me just isn't all that. Don't get me wrong because it's a great intake for making major power numbers and a breeze to put on. I just feel it's behind the times. It's got an air distribution problem that TPIS could resolve with a larger plenum much like the Stealth Ram or adding EGR and making it CARB legal but I really don't see TPIS having the initiative or forward thinking to do that. Sorry...the whole smog revamp thing here in Cali this year has made me a lil bitter and Myron from TPIS is an @ss to talk to. LOL. But...I'm stilling running it since I already have it and I did pick up the Accel VIC to help equalize fuel from cylinder to cylinder.
The Superram, as cumbersome as it could to put on, I really did like as an "all around" intake. We've had the Superram go high 10's and have ran it past 6000 rpm, so it's a capable intake and it's smog legal. I never had the problem of the rear plugs fouling out faster than the rest like the Miniram. Alot of the guys in corvetteforum.com have gone deep into the 11's with small cams with their Superrams, so you should do well with it.
Hope all this helps.

 

Thanks Fast Life, youve been a big help. I think I will start looking for a used DFI unit.