[s-cars] Chip - best choice

[FvAMI at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/20/04 8:56:29 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
pizzoman at yahoo.com writes:


> Hey, Feicky, don't you make a couple bucks on every
> VMAP they sell?
> 
> I sense a little tuner war in the making here....
> 
> Joe, emotionally neutral on this one, Pizzo
> 
> 
I have developed code for the ECU but have it for personal use only ... so 
not starting a tuner war.

I am one of the key designers, firmware developers and oversee the 
manufacturing and calibration of each VMAP unit ... 

It fulfilled my need which was torque limiting in first gear (not available 
for sale yet - QA cycles are 6 months normally), being able to switch back to 
stock for California emissions testing and reducing the boost threshold when 
necessary due to the 91 octane gas and being able to get the full potential when 
filling up with 100 octane. As an added benefit to the rest of the UrS4, RS2 
owners the VMAP is available to all.

Considering the IP (Intellectual property), the R&D time and manufacturing 
costs it is far from being a huge revenue generator. It is more complex and 10 
times less profitable than doing ECU chips ... so really the end users are 
getting the real benefit from it.

There are many future firmware releases available which I want to use for 
myself ... and to keep costs reasonable will be released according to the units 
sold. Each one is upgradable in the future.

It's here now and here to stay. There are now plenty of decent chip solutions 
out there. I am of course partial to the integrators that are doing the 
upgrade with a VMAP and others are welcome to become qualified ... considering what 
you get anything less than an upgrade with a VMAP is simply not a real 
upgrade in my book.

The pricing, workmanship and support of the upgrade from our integration 
group is the best in the business! Not to say others are not as good. IMO (from an 
engineering perspective) the chips that are available today are hard to beat. 
If you have access to enough electrical and mechanical engineering knowledge 
you may be able to squeeze a little more but without it you could start 
exceeding the edge of the envelope.

So for very custom ECU work ... If the company doesn't have the type of 
access such as MTM has with the Audi development team - I personally will remain a 
little skeptical unless there was numerous years of real technical experience 
and/or years of testing with certain proposed modifications.

Best regards,
Feico van der Laan