Performance Chip question
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 24,129
Likes: 1,038
From: The Beautiful Pacific Northwest
St. Jude Donor '05-'06-'07-'08-'09, '14-'15-'16-'17-'18
Performance Chip question
Was chatting with a tech at my Chevy dealer and he indicated that for the money, a "chip" was the most bang for the buck. Said it cost about $500.
Anybody have experience with this mod? Would you kindly expound on the effect it has on performance? What does it do?
TIA
Anybody have experience with this mod? Would you kindly expound on the effect it has on performance? What does it do?
TIA
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 24,129
Likes: 1,038
From: The Beautiful Pacific Northwest
St. Jude Donor '05-'06-'07-'08-'09, '14-'15-'16-'17-'18
Originally Posted by raidersfan
oh boy 
someone else please?
someone else please?
Safety Car
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 4,979
Likes: 5
From: San Diego, CA "leaf" "tee" "e"
What raidersfan said can be explained with this simple definition:
Chevy dealer tech - 1. Typically a member of the dumbest class of mechanics in the world. 2. Box of rocks. Example: Have you heard about the latest Corvette that was dropped off a lift at the Chevy dealership?
Now to the point.... No one swaps a chip anymore, people tune their chips thru the OBDII port that's above and between your shins when you're in the drivers seat. Tuners usually charge $500 to tune, although you can get it for as little as $100 with a mail-order tune. There are a lot of bad tuners, and some of them will only make primitive changes to 2-3 tables. I can do as much in 1 1/2 minutes, to include the time to download the program from your chip, modify it, and upload it back to your car.
You can also buy a full-featured tuning software package for $500. You'll need to have a laptop. The next version of HPTuners is rumored to be virtually self-tuning. Add another ~$150 if you want HPTuners to work with a wide-band o2 sensor, and another $250-500 for a wide-band o2 sensor. If you know someone locally that has the same year Corvette as you, you can both use the same copy of HPTuners. With these components, you can do two types of tunes: MAF or Speed Density. That's too deep of a topic for this thread, so that's all for now.
Chevy dealer tech - 1. Typically a member of the dumbest class of mechanics in the world. 2. Box of rocks. Example: Have you heard about the latest Corvette that was dropped off a lift at the Chevy dealership?
Now to the point.... No one swaps a chip anymore, people tune their chips thru the OBDII port that's above and between your shins when you're in the drivers seat. Tuners usually charge $500 to tune, although you can get it for as little as $100 with a mail-order tune. There are a lot of bad tuners, and some of them will only make primitive changes to 2-3 tables. I can do as much in 1 1/2 minutes, to include the time to download the program from your chip, modify it, and upload it back to your car.
You can also buy a full-featured tuning software package for $500. You'll need to have a laptop. The next version of HPTuners is rumored to be virtually self-tuning. Add another ~$150 if you want HPTuners to work with a wide-band o2 sensor, and another $250-500 for a wide-band o2 sensor. If you know someone locally that has the same year Corvette as you, you can both use the same copy of HPTuners. With these components, you can do two types of tunes: MAF or Speed Density. That's too deep of a topic for this thread, so that's all for now.
Thread Starter
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 24,129
Likes: 1,038
From: The Beautiful Pacific Northwest
St. Jude Donor '05-'06-'07-'08-'09, '14-'15-'16-'17-'18
Originally Posted by leaftye
What raidersfan said can be explained with this simple definition:
Chevy dealer tech - 1. Typically a member of the dumbest class of mechanics in the world. 2. Box of rocks. Example: Have you heard about the latest Corvette that was dropped off a lift at the Chevy dealership?
Now to the point.... No one swaps a chip anymore, people tune their chips thru the OBDII port that's above and between your shins when you're in the drivers seat. Tuners usually charge $500 to tune, although you can get it for as little as $100 with a mail-order tune. There are a lot of bad tuners, and some of them will only make primitive changes to 2-3 tables. I can do as much in 1 1/2 minutes, to include the time to download the program from your chip, modify it, and upload it back to your car.
You can also buy a full-featured tuning software package for $500. You'll need to have a laptop. The next version of HPTuners is rumored to be virtually self-tuning. Add another ~$150 if you want HPTuners to work with a wide-band o2 sensor, and another $250-500 for a wide-band o2 sensor. If you know someone locally that has the same year Corvette as you, you can both use the same copy of HPTuners. With these components, you can do two types of tunes: MAF or Speed Density. That's too deep of a topic for this thread, so that's all for now.
Chevy dealer tech - 1. Typically a member of the dumbest class of mechanics in the world. 2. Box of rocks. Example: Have you heard about the latest Corvette that was dropped off a lift at the Chevy dealership?
Now to the point.... No one swaps a chip anymore, people tune their chips thru the OBDII port that's above and between your shins when you're in the drivers seat. Tuners usually charge $500 to tune, although you can get it for as little as $100 with a mail-order tune. There are a lot of bad tuners, and some of them will only make primitive changes to 2-3 tables. I can do as much in 1 1/2 minutes, to include the time to download the program from your chip, modify it, and upload it back to your car.
You can also buy a full-featured tuning software package for $500. You'll need to have a laptop. The next version of HPTuners is rumored to be virtually self-tuning. Add another ~$150 if you want HPTuners to work with a wide-band o2 sensor, and another $250-500 for a wide-band o2 sensor. If you know someone locally that has the same year Corvette as you, you can both use the same copy of HPTuners. With these components, you can do two types of tunes: MAF or Speed Density. That's too deep of a topic for this thread, so that's all for now.
I'll be asking some of the members of my Corvette club if they have done this mod.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 3,439
Likes: 6
From: Newark, DE
St. Jude Donor '06
I would skip the chip if I were you:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=895298
For the same or less money, you can get a dyno-tune or one of the many good hand-held programmers (e.g., Predator, Vinci, Hypertech).
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=895298
For the same or less money, you can get a dyno-tune or one of the many good hand-held programmers (e.g., Predator, Vinci, Hypertech).
