back when I first bought my 1985 corvette all my friends that owned the 1984-91 corvettes (at that time in 1992 there was nothing newer) all spoke of adding a performance chip to the cars as if it was some magical cure for lack of power, and while at that time there was several magazine articles promoting their use and even a few dyno tests showing 18-26 hp gains after installs , I was rather UN-impressed, reading these articles promoting their use simply because by that time, I had enough experience, building engines and racing cars, to fully understand that magazines get paid big bucks to promote the sale of products and advertizing cash flow seemed to sway their objectivity, plus by that time I had learned that magazine article's in performance magazines were frequently designed MOSTLY to promote product sales. regardless of what the legitimate dyno testing might show.
well in any case , almost every one of these guys had by this time ordered and installed CHIPS and most of them said they had noticed an improvement, so I was rather curious.
I asked questions and not a single guy had done a before and after dyno test because the chips cost far less than dyno test time.
I asked how difficult the chips were to install , and one of my friends decided to show me , how easy it was by pulling the chip out of his 1985 corvette and installing it temporarily in my car so I could see the difference for my self.
he started by showing me where the chip was located, up under the dash on the pass side foot well.
but when he opened the aluminum box containing the CHIP I found I already had one installed from the previous owner, and he showed me how they just clip in place, this was later to prove very useful, several months later, when I was tracking down an issue with my car not holding a steady idle speed which eventually proved to be cure by removing the "PERFORMANCE CHIP" and after it was REMOVED my car ran much better.
this was not a rare failure from what I've seen, and of those guys I still know of and talk to a great many guys have since removed the chips as they seem to be prone to intermittent electrical glitches.
now I'm surely not saying that none of the upgrade chips do what they are designed to do, because obviously I have not tested all brands or can i be sure they were all installed correctly, but the early chips had an appallingly high failure rate, and many of them seemed to cause intermittent electrical glitches, in my friends corvettes, mostly related to idle speed control issues or over heated engines, or fuel/air ratio distribution, and removing the chips has frequently resulted in cars running better in my experience.
Id also point out that many of the chips simply push on, and contacts corrode with age and especially in moist environments
https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~davis/z28/ecm_swap/
youll find many guys claiming that aftermarket CPU chip upgrades help a great deal
Ive found some help marginally but many actually hurt performance
http://www.iroc-z.com/articles/articlepages/1990-3Chips Article by Cliff Gromer, Super Stock, 1991.htm
THERES A GREAT DEAL OF RELATED INFO< IN THESE THREADS AND SUB LINKS
http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/hypertec ... chips.html
http://www.ws6.com/mycar.htm
www.gmpartsgiant.com
www.fs1inc.com
http://garage.grumpysperformance.co...chevy-cams-and-a-few-similar-aftermarket.133/
well in any case , almost every one of these guys had by this time ordered and installed CHIPS and most of them said they had noticed an improvement, so I was rather curious.
I asked questions and not a single guy had done a before and after dyno test because the chips cost far less than dyno test time.
I asked how difficult the chips were to install , and one of my friends decided to show me , how easy it was by pulling the chip out of his 1985 corvette and installing it temporarily in my car so I could see the difference for my self.
he started by showing me where the chip was located, up under the dash on the pass side foot well.
but when he opened the aluminum box containing the CHIP I found I already had one installed from the previous owner, and he showed me how they just clip in place, this was later to prove very useful, several months later, when I was tracking down an issue with my car not holding a steady idle speed which eventually proved to be cure by removing the "PERFORMANCE CHIP" and after it was REMOVED my car ran much better.
this was not a rare failure from what I've seen, and of those guys I still know of and talk to a great many guys have since removed the chips as they seem to be prone to intermittent electrical glitches.
now I'm surely not saying that none of the upgrade chips do what they are designed to do, because obviously I have not tested all brands or can i be sure they were all installed correctly, but the early chips had an appallingly high failure rate, and many of them seemed to cause intermittent electrical glitches, in my friends corvettes, mostly related to idle speed control issues or over heated engines, or fuel/air ratio distribution, and removing the chips has frequently resulted in cars running better in my experience.
Id also point out that many of the chips simply push on, and contacts corrode with age and especially in moist environments
https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~davis/z28/ecm_swap/
youll find many guys claiming that aftermarket CPU chip upgrades help a great deal
Ive found some help marginally but many actually hurt performance
http://www.iroc-z.com/articles/articlepages/1990-3Chips Article by Cliff Gromer, Super Stock, 1991.htm
THERES A GREAT DEAL OF RELATED INFO< IN THESE THREADS AND SUB LINKS
http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/hypertec ... chips.html
http://www.ws6.com/mycar.htm
bytor said:
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but you need a few skills, persistence and deep pockets or at least a long term plan and do the work in steps (what most of us are forced to do) personally Id build a 383-400 and use a mild roller cam, brodix heads and a renegade intake, on that engine then swap it out!(so your not doing things piecemeal, with potentially very limited results as each change is effected by the total combo, so minor changes tend to result in far lower gains that the parts full potential when properly matched with all the correct parts.
