What chip do you guys think would be better, the ADS Superchip or a Fastchip? I like the Superchip because its a lot cheaper but cheap things usually don't turn out to be so good. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike

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1986 Firebird
2.8l V6 MPFI
Cold Air Intake
K&N Filters

 

I have had Hypertech and Fastchip. I bought the Hypertech put it in and noticed nada.. It was and felt no different. Years went buy and I finally said let me try this FastChip after hearing so much about Ed Wright and his programing for GM stuff.. I called, service was great, the gaurantee was great, so I go what the heck. I bought it and for the first time noticed a different car. I would recommed their stage 2 with a 160 thermostat and redline watter wetter. That should be worth 2/10ths. I have tried many mods and this was one of the better ones. Now I have a buddy with a JET chip and I think they are better than Hypertech, but I am not sure how they compare with Fastchip...
http://geocities.com/overlift

 

The only reason I have the ADS "street" chip is because of price... it was the cheapest aftermarket chip available. I'll tell you I did notice a difference over the GM chip, tho.


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards

 

To be totally honest, the newer chips do almost NOTHING at all. They are a total waste of money. A chip (eprom) is basically a bunch of stored information. What your actually replacing is a bunch of Access tables if you will.. they aren't actually Access.. duh.. but similar. The computer uses the information it gets from it's sensors and it compares this information to the tables in the chip. This is how it knows how much fuel to give during certain situations.

GM has optimized this about as good as it can get.. reliably. The Hypertech and ADS super chip do VERY little on an otherwise stock car. The ONLY part of the chip's tables that are ANY different at all than the OEM chips are those reflecting the WIDE OPEN THROTTLE fuel curves. So unless your at absolute wide open throttle.. you will not see any gain in power. Any gain you do see is not actually there.. your fooling yourself into THINKING that your getting more power when your really not. A lot of people say their car is more responsive.... the reason for this is because when changing the chip, you TOTALLY reset any stored information the computer originall had (information regarding the way your car reacts to the tables in the ROM).

So your car is running a little rich and slightly higher rpms than normal.. thats why you suddenly feel like your car has increased power through the whole rpm range.. when the reality is, you truely won't see ANY performance gains unless your at WOT.

The only thing that IS good about those chips is if you have done any modifications to the motor.... modifications such as headers, or a camshaft, or rocker arms. Anything else.. and you won't really benefit from the chip.

A lot of these places charge almost $200 dollars for a chip. IMHO, the ADS is the only way to go because it's the cheapest. But in my mind, there are quite a few other things you can buy for the $70-80 dollars that ADS charges for their chip. You can get an Accel Super Coil for $59 dollars for our cars. This chip WILL improve your emissions, and it WILL greatly improve performance in the upper RPMs of our motors. A coil as it stands.. alone.. will not actually give you more horsepower.. you see.. the STOCK coil can not optimally provide the necessary voltage to the motor at the high rate of RPMs that our engines run at.... the Accel coil fixes this... providing nearly 40 thousand more volts.. the coil has more than enough voltage to pulse at that high rate of speed. It will help correct that "out of breath" feeling our engines have around 4,500 rpms and up.

Todd

 

I guess Fastchip false advertises with teh claim you will it works at partial throttle? I know the stock GM chip is good, but even at WOT when some like Hypertech only work is still better than stock. 1/10 a second is 1/10 a second faster. I wouldn't toss out 200, but I droped 130 and think it was worth it. I don't think it is a waste, but unless you have a thermo, K&N's and pulleys first I wouldn't do it either, but for a simple simple simple bolt on why not.

 

I'm just disgruntled because I was dumb enough to blow $174 dollars on a Hypertech ThermoMaster chip. It said I would get a 7% increase in power, on a 140hp engine and 180lbs of torque that would be 9.8 horsepower and 12.6 pounds of torque.. BULL CRAP!!!! Man I was soo mad,... it was soo unnoticable.. I didn't notice any difference. 9.8 horsepower is bascially 10 horsepower.. that would be TWICE the amount of power you would gain by running your car withOUT Air Conditioning as aposed to running with it on....


And that 160 degree thermostat garbage.. that was lame.. thats only if your care is a drag racing car only.. my car was never able to warm up to optimum operating temperature... my heads never fully warmed up enough to give me full compression.. and I lost fuel economy. As soon as I popped in a 180 degree thermostat and a low temperature fan switch to keep it at 180.. the fuel economy came back up, and my car ran as smooth as can be...

Todd

 

Wow, I never paid that much for my Hypertech Thermomaster chip, heck I gave it away.. Yes, Hypertech stinks.. I also think 180 is a better way for most to go. I got a 160 and I run a fan that is rigged to come on with the ignition so I run real cool, but that is good for 16.1 on my car.... Now if I were going to do it all over I would:

1. K&N's
2. power Pulley's
3. MSD Coil
4. MSD Ignition
5. MSD Wires
6. FastChip
Somewhere in their do the FREE mods
7. Rockers
8. Cam/Timming Chain
9. NOS
10. REBUILD
11. 4.10's and a locker

 

I like My stage 2 fastchip i did notice a difference it idled better and no govener hehehe i personaly like it and hey for 40 bucks im not gonna complain thanks 3.1Firebird

 

What a lot of it comes down to is over inflated claims of what he parts will do. I was looking through a magazine and they had these parts packages claiming this K&N Cold air setup is good for up to 26HP and this chip and puley combo was good for 17HP not up to, but 17HP, exhaust claims for 22HP are not uncommon... Heck add all that up and going by their claims our V6's should have 300HP after their mods.. I look at it like this they claim 10 I might get 1-2 if lucky 3-4. Expect little and if it is more than you hoped then great, but if it is not you weren't expecting much anyway... If you are looking for MODS the only one I ever was really happy with was my Dynomax catback and catco high flow converter setup. That made my car sound nice and looked impressive on.. Was it worth it, YES I am even looking into buying another kit for when this one rusts our in 5 years just to have around...

 

82 T/A,

Sorry to hear about the Hypertech experience...especially with the price. I paid only $100 for mine.

As for a difference? Well, on the same day, same temp, same road, etc, I floored my car from a dead stop, and with the Firehawk GTAs I got, they wouldn't even break traction. I got under the dash, popped in the chip, got back in, and did the same test, and I spun the right rear nicely. To me, thats proof they work. I'm very happy with mine.

As for JET being any better than Hypertech, I don't see how anyone can prove that. I mean, they make the same claims, and do the same thing. As I've said before, go to their FAQ's on their sites. They answer the FAQs in the same order, with the same words!! Go check them out...its a good laugh

I'm not saying Hypertech is the best...some people like them, some don't. At some point I will buy a FastChip because of the great reviews they've gotten on here. I'm going to do some ignition mods and get a cat-back before I spend more $$ on a chip. For me, I'd rather try to optimize what this chip can do for me before buying another.

[This message has been edited by Jason E (edited October 01, 2000).]

 

Todd I argree about the chips being a rip off. My fastchip only knocked off a tenth,after NHRA correction tables were used in my time. That damn thing costed 175 bucks!

Brian, you see where they fool you at dont you?When the manufaturers claimsa 17 hp increase they actually mean .17 off you et if your lucky. I notice alot of chip manufacturers claim about 10-12 hp increase when in reality they mean a tenth off your1/4 mile time. If you actually added 17 hp that would more than likely knock off nearly half a second or more when your talking about a car making 135-140 hp.

 

I know manfacuters over inflate their claims, as I said above.. I paid 135 for my chip, with my mods it seemed to work. Now my chip came after I already had an exhaust, pulleys, coil, wires, and K&N's.

Would I recommend a chip, YES, but after and exhaust and a few other things. Why, cause it does offer a gain even if at times slight and is simple to do.

You know fastchip gives you a money back guarantee if you don't like it or notice an improvement.

 

As to engine temp, maybe it's a Fiero issue, but in the summer, my car's always made it to 160 (and past). I put the 195 'stat back in around December, mainly because I hate freezing.


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards