[200q20v] ECU upgrade question

[Brett Dikeman]

At 3:15 PM -0400 10/23/01, DanMurphy1 at aol.com wrote:

>I just sent my ECU to tap for chip and spring upgrade.

TAP's chip is inferior and the spring is NOT necessary on the 3B 
engine(and the spring should NOT be installed, it raises the 
limp-home mode maximum boost which is a VERY bad idea.)

I had the chip, but not the spring(which I believe they say is 
optional) and I had problems with 3 surges/spikes in acceleration at 
highway speeds; performance was rather lackluster, etc.

I sent my ECU to Ned at Intended Acceleration; the TAP chips were 
pulled, Ned put his Stage III+.

ECU came back and it's a totally different car, the difference is 
astounding.  Before, full boost was difficult to get even in upper 
gears.  Now, in 4th gear, I get 1.8bar within 4 seconds; I also get 
1.8 bar rather quickly in 2nd gear.  Power delivery is quick, smooth 
and strong.

Now, I would -never- recommend TAP's ecu to anyone and I'm sorry it 
took me 2-3 years to act on my hunch that the chip was the source of 
my problems.  TAP's products have a reputation for being inferior 
with both the Audifans and Audiworld crowds, customer service 
reputation is quite nasty...and I've experienced it firsthand.  I 
called them up once to see if they had any suggestions as to why I'd 
get the odd surging at highway speeds, etc...the guy on the other end 
of the phone basically said "no idea"(those were the only words he 
said after each question then a rather quick "goodbye", like I was 
wasting his time.)  A second time, when I called asking for specs(ie, 
rated HP and torque, or a dyno printout, etc) I was given the 
runaround, and someone finally promised they would fax or mail 
something to me.  Weeks went by, and a TAP catalog appeared in the 
mail.  Cute...

I strongly urge you to call up TAP and instruct them to simply slap a 
label on the box with the address of Intended Acceleration or Hoppen 
Motorsports, and have one of -them- do the mod.  You'll be far more 
pleased with the results, I guarantee.

Here's a few sample messages to check out and read through.  These 
were found with a search of "Ivor TAP" via the main page.

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1996/09/msg00467.html

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1998/10/msg00933.html

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1996/11/msg00959.html

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1997/03/msg00107.html
(to be fair, an email from R. Lagemann, saying he's always had good 
luck with them)

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1995/07/msg00376.html

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1995/04/msg00640.html

http://www.audifans.com/archives/1998/07/msg03713.html


 From a standpoint of the owner+operator of TAP, Ivor(who was 
arrested+jailed in England, I believe, for copying another tuner's 
chip, and who also has sent people rather nasty emails which are in 
the archives thanks to listers forwarded them to the qlist), the 
products(TAP has a history of substandard mods, including cheap diode 
mods to earlier ECUs), and customer service(as above), I advise list 
members to not conduct business with them.

This is of course my personal opinion, based in part on what I've 
experienced, and in part what I have heard from multiple sources over 
the years as a member of the list.  Your Mileage May Vary...

Brett
-- 
----
Brett Dikeman
brett at cloud9.[nospam]net
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
(vm/fax)212-894-3749x5271