Midnight89

According to the manual for a Hypertech Thermo Master chip, you are REQUIRED to run premium gas.

While the benefits of both the Hypertech chip and Premium gasoline are debatable, do you think I would run into driveability or performance problems if I used regular or mid-grade?

If I were to have a custom chip made, would I also have to use premium for that to operate properly? or does it vary on an application-by-application basis?

clemsonvette

the reason hypertech chips require you to run higher octane is that they bump the timing up. if you wanted to really save money on gas and can deal with a little powerloss you could just run the stock chip or get a custom chip burned with lower timing.

Midnight89

Thanks for the reply.

This question was more to satisfy my own curiosity.

Had a friend who took the car out for a spin, needed to stop for gas, and luckily enough, she put premium in the car. Just wondering if she would've made it home had she opted for regular!!

CFI-EFI

The ONLY advantage to premium (higher octane) gas is it's anti knock properties. Try lower octane and see if it knocks. There was a lengthy thread on here a couple of weeks ago. You might want to search it out and read it.

As far as the chip is concerned, you'll have to do your own tests. With a Hypertech Thermomaster chip, all I got was altered lock up converter, lock up points and SLOWER ETs at the strip. I sent it back for a refund.

RACE ON!!!

vader86

The computer will retard the timing, to an extent, if you put in regular when it detects knock.

The chip just tries to force the timing up and the only way to prevent knock is to go up in octane.

TA

I would do testing at the track with the chip. As CFI-EFI said, I would suspect your car slowed down a bit with the chip. Back to back trips at the drag strip showed that a Jet stage II chip was slower than my stock chip by nearly .2 seconds in the 1/4 :eek:

88scryer88

I took my car to a dyno last night after a forum member told me about possible horsepower loss with hypertech. He was right. 5 hp loss and 3 ft/lbs of torque loss between stock chip and hypertech chip. just thought you might want to know.

VR'92

:eek: Ouch!