FW: upgrading to a "performance chip", beware of your purchase

[Dave Lawson <dlawson@ball.com>]

An interesting response to the SUPERCHIP posting last week as posted to the 
porschephiles mail list.
 -
Dave Lawson
 ----------
From: porschephiles-request
To: Carl DeSousa
Cc: porschephiles; dan; desousa
Subject: Re: upgrading to a "performance chip", beware of your purchase
Date: Tue, Aug 30, 1994 8:46AM



On Mon, 29 Aug 1994, Carl DeSousa wrote:

> Sure enough, there was now a SuperChips sticker over the EPROM, and some
> of the conformal coating around it was removed, but it did not look like
> the EPROM had been de-soldered.  Cool, we thought, SuperChips has been in
> this business so long, they've figured out how to program EPROMs in-situ.
> But, since we hadn't, I desoldered it and put it in the EPROM reader.
>
> Well, I think you can guess the rest.  The chip had never been removed
> because it had never been re-programmed.  It was a completely stock
> computer.

GUILTY!

When we first came to the US we had never seen a Talon because they don't
have them in England. When we first opened the box there was no EPROM. It
is only the early cars which had the EPROM, the later ones had the
program in the CPU and it was not possible to read it or reprogram it
without a lot more information than we had. So we played with the car and
found we could get about at 15-20% increase in performance by increasing
the boost pressure. So we made up a kit and sold it on our try it and see
basis. None were returned as unsatisfactory.

One thing we did find was that the boost limit was dynamic. ie
you could run as much boost as you wanted providing the injectors could
supply enough fuel. So we started on the design of our boost graphic
which was a device which would allow boost pressure to be controlled at
500 RPM increments. This way we could have 25 PSI boost on a Talon with
the stock computer. As soon as we had it perfected we withdrew the Talon
and Stealth conversions and just sold the boost graphic for Mitsubishi's.

We sold about 20 Talon and 5 Stealth conversions ands all of the
customers seem to be contented. We have sold 400 Boost Graphics! If you have 

the early Talon computer
with the EPROM, hang on to it because it is the only way you can actually
reprogram it to use larger injectors but you only need
to do this if 25
PSI boost is not enough. In other words, don't waste your time trying to
reprogram the Talon computer, if you want to do it yourself, make a boost
graphic.

The Audi computers are different in that they are 90% ignition and 10 %
fuel control as the fuel system is mechanical. The easy and cheap way to
reproram them is with a resistor and a zener to clamp the map sensor
voltage and that gives fixed timing over a certain boost level. This is
fine for most applications working within the limits of the fuel system.
Once you go over that limit, the map sensor does not have enough range
to read the boost correctly. Then you need to replace it and then you
are in fore some heavy reprogramming.

Don't tar us all with the same brush. The company in Florida is Total
Audi Performance and they are selling copies of chips created by us and
our competitors in England. If you don't buy an Audi chip from us buy it
from Intended Acceleration but do not buy a pirated copy from TAP. And
just in case there is any confusion Superchips Inc has nothing at all to
do with ADS SuperChips

Peter Wales
President Superchips Inc