Jonesi

Driving impressions ?

cody02

it's really hard to feel the gains. hey, i did chirp second once and haven't done that since honda/acura stole my original ECU with that last tranny replacement. i've taken the unichip out of the car for right now. i need to get a better understanding of running so lean during wot and how denotation if any occurs is going to effect the engine. i don’t know if it is as simple as unichip reflashing with a MAP the allows my car to run with an open loop A/F ratio closer to stock or around 13 or if that will yield lower gains like Steve found or if i’ll accept what i have and be comfortable running so lean, 14.5 to 15 A/F. i need to get some more info before i will put it back in. Either way it kinda sucks that i’ll have to dyno it after each change cause i just can’t trust the ole butt-dyno anymore.

Jonesi

I already sent your charts to Jack at UniChip so you need to call him and get his impressions/ thoughts on what to do from here.. I wouldn't run your car that lean or accept it as is.. Although your stock ECU will correct it and there won't be any damage to the engine, it does need corrected..
Here's his info so you can contact him:
Jack Friedman, General Manager
Unichip of North America
www.unichip.us
Toll Free 866.643.7400; 503.640.7465

cody02

Much appreciated!!!
Thanks for forwarding on my charts to him
I'm going to try to talk to him today

blader

So obviously Steves car isnt the exception? More than just him is having a lean condition in VTEC .. very high lean condition at that. Almost 15 on cody's.

Steve when they made adjustments to your map, did they touch the midrange, or was that fine? were all the adjustments made in the VTEC band?

phipark

The odds don't seem to be good on this. Anybody else going to dyno theirs?

hinrgdj

I emailed Jack to see if there's a local shop here in the metro area. Waiting to see...

Jonesi

No, he may not be the exception.. I was trying to keep everyone calm by saying so, I didn't want everyone flipping out and screaming. I know Jack wants to help us out with this so don't jump the gun. Even 2 dynos isn't exactly full blown proof.. Just sit tight and hopefully we'll get some more dynos, I'll be dynoing mine not this weekend but next and I know darrin is also working on it..

Louie11

mine will be dyno'd on tuesday with the chip. I drove it at lunch and like it My but dyno definitly feels a diference. It sure pulls through the rpm range. I too feel that half throttle is stronger than wot. I have too much wheel hop all the time so I can never do a wot right off the line. So I have to start at half and then roll into wot. That might be why I don't feel much of a difference because the power is already on by the time I go to wot. other wise pleased, no cel lights and now cruising at speed I just have to apply alittle more gas to get around somebody. When before I would give it alittle more gas the car would down shift a gear to give the power, but now it seems the car knows the powers there and doesn't have to down shift. Of course the dyno on tuesday will show the true results. Tonight I have to go to orland park so I'll see how it is on the highway. I'll keep you posted.

blader

I have no problem sitting tight, I just dont want to let things go too long and then have jack not willing to help us out anymore. I don't think this will be the case with what yourself, brian, and steve are stating about how willing he is to help, but I'm just being cautious with my investment I guess you could say .. What did you say the return was .. 90 days?

If we can get enough data and proof, would jack be willing to let us send our chips back to get reflashed with a revised map that will take care of our lean condition?

Jonesi

We have one free upgrade with the chips we purchased.. So I would say he would take them back for a flash.. We just need to get UniChip as much data as possible so they can start analyzing the problems that are occuring and hopefully improve on what they are seeing.

blader

I understand. If I didnt just buy a subwoofer I'd have enough money for a dyno .. let me see what cash I can scrape together for a dyno run and I'll email\call jack to find a local unichip dealer.

cody02

you know this A/F ratio is so directly related to air intake temp that ECU sensor sees that there's a pretty good chance that when the car is out on the real road and sucking up air that it will yield a much lower ratio. When i dynoed it we had nice fans blowing but it was so hot yesterday that I can't be certain the intake air temp was what it really will be when I’m flying down the road. If i have unichip bring down the ratio too much just based on the results of this hot day dyno where then intake air might not represent the temp when I’m out on the road then I’m giving up gains unnecessary. I when ahead and had the folks at unichip remap another chip for me reducing the A/F ratio 0.5 above 5300rpms to help flatten out the line and then drop the whole line down another 0.5. I just want to be conservative enough to not hurt the engine but at the same time not give up gains cause of non-real world intake temps during that dyno.

Jonesi

Well stated and please share any info you can with Jack.. And maybe Steve will report with the temps during his dyno..

Scrib

Shouldn't Cody be dynoing more than 210hp with headers an an icebox? Forget the chip...

Or does the 90 degree day really affect things THAT much???

Jonesi

Yea, he should be upwards near 220 but there are too many factors to try and narrow that down...

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Adjustments were made from about 3500 on up.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Yes the fans are blowing a nice cool breeze into the engine while on the dyno, but think about it like this... that fan is only blowing 15 mph MAX. They really aren't that powerful. They are big, but don't really blow enough to knock you over. Now when you are in 3rd gear and on the dyno you top out around 110 mph; but your car isn't getting fed 110 mph winds, or anything remotely close. Sure the air on the dyno might be cooler, but it is no where near the force the air, regardless of temperature, that your car will be "ingesting" while you are out on the road.

My dyno was done at about 82 degrees according to the car.

Louie11

The heat affects alot. When I went on Tuesday for my baseline. The temperature out side was 89 I had to drive 30min to get to the place. They right away strapped it to the dyno which gave it only 10min to rest and then did the first pull. The first registered 214.?hp then he did a second one immediatly which gave 209.?hp A loss of 5hp due to how hot the car was getting. So he stopped put a fan right on top of my engine and let it sit for 30min then pulled the 3rd run. This time 215.?hp and the intake was still schorching hot. He said I would probably get another 5hp if it sat for along time and totally cooled down. The temp at the dyno was 86.3 f and 21.5% hum.

My mods are Comp. headers, Flowmaster mufflers, ur crank pulley, self made ram air and ngk iridium plugs.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

I'm headed to the track tonight. Unfortunately it isn't my "home" track. This is the only track open during the week. My track is open Friday Night but I already have plans and they are calling for thunderstorms. Tonight is supposed to be a low of 65 degrees and the humidity right now is 41%.

The track I'm going to is 300 ft above sea level, the exact same as my "home" track. I've never been to this track although people say it is usually prepped pretty well.

Oh an FYI. My best run of 14.2 @98.5 was done at 68 degrees with 50% humidity.

mattg

good luck steve.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Leaving for the track now....

juice

That is all that I can ask for. If we do, get enough data that suggest that an ajustment was overlooked, I would be very happy sending it back for a FREE re-map.

Other than that, I may install the chip tonight. I will probably not go for a ride. But, I will crack it to see what happens. I have to clean the other side of my garage out first. I have an old mustang, 1964 1/2, that I need to put in there tomorrow. Maybe if I see it on a daily basis, I will get off my lazy ass and start to fix it up.

Good luck to everyone. I think that UniChip will work with us. Like it has been said before, true data means a lot. The more we get to them the better we are.

Ant7701

Man this thread is filling up fast...anyways. i've been speaking w/ tony at uni-chip over the past few days and after a couple of misfire codes and a crank positioning sensor code tony wants me to go to a uni-chip dyno tuner and get my map adjusted. So he gave me the info on a shop in Connecticut which is like 2 hours away but he said they do excellent work. I'm prolly gonna be going there on July 10th but I dn't expect to be paying a dime. when I spoke w/ the dyno shop they said they have to get paid the day I'm there and the entire process costs approx $210. Soo then I tried to call up Jack but noone picked up. I sent him an e-mail explaining the whole situation and how my car is actually having problems. i told him that I don't expect to be paying anything and why so we'll see where this goes from hear. I'll let u guys know as soon as I find out. The one thing that pisses me off is there's no uni-chip shops in NY...how can that be???

BC

I'm forty miles from Unichip NA. I'll call them tomorrow.



we need a i'm kickin' myself smilie

LiQiCE

Jack responded to my email and he seemed to think that he'd be able to fix the problems a lot of us are seeing and send us out a new flash to fix the problem. Not sure how that will work at this point, but I'm hopeful that the Unichip guys will take care of us.

One thing that I just thought of is that when your transmission dies, one of the "fixes" that Acura does to our cars is replace the ECU with a new one. That means that there is a new revision ECU out there that some of us may not have. Now if mattg's car has the newest ECU and some of us don't have it ... then is it possible thats the source of the problems? Different ECUs reacting differently and the Unichip being tuned for the wrong ECU revision? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was a problem.

I know my car was manufactured in June of 2002 and has the first major tranny fix which does NOT include an ECU update. I have not *knock on wood* had any transmission problems yet, so I still have the original ECU for my car and transmission.

juice

I hope that this is not the problem. I was the first to post this question in the official GB thread. I think I got one response saying that the new ECU will not hurt anything.

EricL

I don't see why there would be a problem.

The basic changes were: shift points and some timing changed during shifts. IMO, this isn't going to impact the dyno or static operation in a single gear.

Jonesi

I specifically asked Jack and he said he wasn't aware of the specifics but said more then likely this would not affect the UniChip.. I also asked Scalbert his thoughts and he thought the same.. So I've never really got a definent answer..

juice

I agree that it should not change the functions of the chip. But, we need to know exactly what was altered. Either way, we need to keep giving UniChip as much info as possible. We may just need a simple A/F adjustment up top.

blader

I would be more than happy if he could correct the problem and reflash our chips for free, and save me a dyno tune. I really dont have the time nor the money to go get tuned.....

darrinb

blader, i am not gonna soned no $$$ to have the chip re tuned or maped, if i do need to get it fixed i would expect the unichip dealer in my area to deal directly with unichip and have them work out the $$$

i got the chip in today, gonna go in tommorw after work!!!!!

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Just got home from the track. It was almost an hour away to begin with, and then I got stuck in construction traffic on the way home.

Unfortunately there were close to 200 cars there tonight so I only got to make 3 runs in the time I was there (6:30-10:00)

I had never been to this track so I was having trouble with the launch. At first I wasn't giving it enough gas because I totally hooked up with no spin. Then I gave it too much, etc etc. My times were 14.3 all 3 runs. This isn't bad considering it was 81 degrees when I made the runs. It really didn't cool down until 930ish. I did have a 8lb bag of ice too cool things down between runs though.

All of my 60's were in the 2.2 range. The best being 2.200 worst being 2.22x. I usually pull of consistant 2.1s.

Despite my times, I did have the highest trap speed I've ever recorded, 99.10. This is about 0.6 MPH faster than I've ever run and was on my slowest ET and slowest 60'.

Hopefully I'll be back at my "home" track to get some real numbers to compare.

mattg

those are good times considering the conditions. and it's great you ran your best trap speed.


how is the car feeling now? can you notice any improvement?

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

I can feel a slight improvement. Nothing major though. The easiest way for me to feel the gain is to go WOT in 3rd gear at around 45 mph instead of downshifting into 2nd. I feel like the car accelerates much faster to the Vtec range than it did before.

Oddly enough, my fastest 1/4 mile trap speed came from my slowest 1/8 mile trap speed. And by slowest I mean more than 1.5 MPH.

I was also using SS mode instead of gate shifting on my final and fastest run. In SS mode 1st gear is taken all the way to 7100 and I shifted 2 -> 3 at 7300 which is right before where my engine decides to cut fuel.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

I forgot the slips in my car, i'll post them tomorrow, it's bed time.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Anyone else make it to the dyno or the track yet?

blader

this is GOOD to hear .. so its working!

I was supposed to make it to the track on Tuesday but things didnt work out .. I will most likely be going next week when my bud gets his lighter wheels for his wrx and my friend breaks in his prelude .. thats why I didnt go tuesday it wasnt worth the ride down by myself.

OTOH I just got a new credit card in the mail so maybe I can charge a dyno run .. I will see about finding a unichip dealer in the area to get some more data for Jack. if in fact I'm running lean like the rest of you, maybe this will be enough proof to get jack to provide a reflash and fix our A\F ratios.

Jonesi

Cody 02, did you speak with Jack about your dyno?

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Scott do you want to contact AAM about your possible dyno/tune? I could give you their number or you could just email them to set it up.