Does anyone have any concrete evidence that G Force performance chips actually work when installed?
As to the specific brand, no. But the effectiveness of “chip tuning” or remapping is pretty well settled. It won’t turn your Honda into a Bugatti and your fuel efficiency will drop, but it will increase power and torque.
It just depends on how detuned the engine is from the factory. In the Mustang, the 2V 4.6 cars didn’t see much of a gain at all. The 3V 4.6 cars got a pretty good bump though.
Turbocharged vehicles, diesels in particular, can see a huge gain from a tune.
Took a quick glance at their website, I’m gonna go ahead and say that it’s bogus.
Let’s put chips into three categories:
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Generic chips that “improve power and gas mileage” by leaning out the mixture somehow.
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Performance chips that work in concert with the company’s other mods, like a new exhaust system.
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Chips for cars with turbochargers + electronically controlled wastegates.
The first category is bunk, especially on anything made in the last 15 years. There’s just not a lot of power to be made by leaning out a mixture that’s already as lean as possible in the name of fuel efficiency numbers. Plus it can be dangerous. Most of the chips do nothing. The G Force chips appear to be in this category.
The second category isn’t bunk, but if you’re buying one you’re probably buying a package deal from a single company, and it’s not going to be chip.
The third category works like gangbusters.
There are a couple different things people mean when they the refer to a “chip”.
One is an actual module (chip) that you plug in between the harness that goes into the ECU or PCM or whatever term you use to describe the computer that runs your engine, and the ECU itself. These are generally regarded as crap and a waste of money. They will change the shift points for your automatic transmission, raise the red line rpm point, and a few other things to make your car feel peppier.
The other way that **Really Not All That Bright **refers to as “chip tuning”, and that the linked article talks about, is a reprograming of the ECU software, generally referred to as just a “tune”. There are mail-order tunes that you can get but they are just a small step up from the chip module tune.
The best way to improve the performance and power output of your particular car is to take it to a shop that specializes in this. They will put it on a dynamometer and run the car through its paces and tune it.
Unless you have modified the car by putting in headers or a cam, for example, you probably do not need or want a tune. If you* have *modified the engine then you almost certainly do need a tune to get the bang for your buck. And to tune out any OBD II codes that will arise from your mods.
Ok, I just looked into the G Force chip. That isn’t even as good as the chip modules that I reported as being crap above. This thing isn’t even plugging into the ECU/PCM, it is plugging into the MAF sensor (mass air flow).
Probably telling the MAF that it is receiving cold air when it is hot out, or the other way around, and fooling the ECU into sending either more or less fuel to the engine.
If you install one of these things I would not recommend showing it to anyone in the car culture. They will eventually stop laughing at you… eventually.
Factory spec engines aren’t necessarily tuned for maximum power and best fuel economy as there are other factors such as emissions legislation and reliability to be considered, so yes - a decent remap tune on a rolling road could deliver more power, torque and economy, at the risk of putting more stress on the transmission.
Careful now: Remapping the ECU without informing your insurance company will probably invalidate your insurance.
Assuming they find out -