Astra Turbo power up

[davidoff]

Hi.I`ve got an opel astra coupe turbo an I would like to modify it so I can win some horses.Some friends have told me that if u change the chip you win power but the problem is that you loose the warranty but I could also change the parameters but i`m not sure this is very efficient.What shall I do??

[davidoff]

They connect the car`s cpu with a computer and change the parameters. for example the Esp,abs, inyection...They`ve told me that you can choose between more torque or hp.I would hp because it has got plenty of torque(it`s turbo) and in theory in opel they wouldn`t notice...but it´s very expensive

The Warranty is my biggest problem because it has still has 1 year left

[davidoff]

more than torque and hp is power at high or power at low.you can choose btween them no??


thanks for the advise I`ll keep that in mid and you`ll know if a I make any mod

[greg.little]

I seem to remember that the engine maps have a checksum which will change if it modified. Therefore the first time they plug their diagnostics into your car they will laugh and tear up the warranty.

[adamk24]

As a Merc. tech. they teach us to easily identify when people have re-tuned ECU's, so I wouldnt plan on keeping your warnentee, but to the tuning.
Here is the thing about computer controlled turbo cars. Chipping them, like for an example a VW 1.8T engine, you are basically turning up the boost and switching to a richer fuel map. You can see big gains from this because, unlike a NA car you can crank boost and fuel to make more power, where as NA cars need to be carefully tuned for each HP you can get.
The downsides to chipping a turbo car is that it uses alot more fuel during hard driving, and it also is alot less resistant to detonation and other major reliability problems that afflict turbo vehicles that run more boost than was planned from the factory.
You will gain both HP and Torque from turing up the boost, but what you really need to be carefull about is the chipset that you choose, because some hack job tuners will not leave you the safety net that is needed with lots of boost (incase you get a bad tank of gas, or you accidentally get the wrong octain, you want some safety margin to prevent blowing your engine apart.
My suggestion? Im not an ecu guy... I prefer good old mechanical solutions. A manual boost controller and Adjustable fuel pressure regulator should be just as good if not better, because you can adjust them for the track and turn them back to stock settings when driving around town, thus keeping your gas milage up and your risk of damage down. :mrgreen:
Also because you can take them off in a few minutes and put the stock units back on, with no ECU changes, the dealer wont Void your warrentee, which is a good thing :mrgreen:
Sorry for rambling, but let me know if you need any more info :wink:

[stracing]

get a piggy back ecu. that way when you're done, you just remove it. the stock ecu is always there unaltered.

[adamk24]

The problem with piggy back ECU's is that the stock unit will sometimes get confused (mainly on newer model vehicles) because it sees that what is going on in the engine and what it is telling it to do are two different things. My instructor once showed us on a CLK that when he used an AFC to change the injector pulse width the car did a few checks and went into limp mode.
Im not saying this will happen for your car, but what you will need to be more carefull about its that some ECU will log data that comes of the car. So say you get more power or whatever from a piggy back ECU and the information going through the stock unit goes into the PB then to the car and back to the stock one, the Stock ECU might set off a code that something isnt right and a dealer could pick up on that later.
Well both of these are really not very likely on non-top end vehicles, so a PB would most likely work good...... man it took me that long to say that? :roll: