Temperature Sensor Chips Opinions

[jfrabat]

Hey, guys, after looking around eBay for a while, I have found quite a few of these chips that plug into the system and allegedly increase HP to the engine. Anyone ever use one of these?

Check out all the hits I got from searching "Jeep+Wrangler+modelu+chip":

http://search.ebay.com/jeep-wrangler-chip-module_W0QQfromZR40

I even found one with a chart from a Dyno (Race3Cube Power, http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Jeep...012QQitemZ220057178433QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW) that seems to support it. I personally always thought that these were just a load of crap, but I am not so sure when looking at the dyno chart...

Anyone with any experience with these kind of chips? I am looking to get all the HP I can out ouf my 4 banger, but I just dont know if these are worth the $35 or so they run for (with shipping). Any comments?

Felipe

 

[quicksand97]

Hey i have several mods on my 97 2.5l like cold air, catback, accel coil and wires, dynomax muffler, the coil and wires where from acmejeepparts.com. My best mod is a throttle body spacer from gsppowerspacers.com, this thing works great. I tossed my old airaid.

 

[buells2t]

Here is my $.02
Input sensor manipulation is a common and old EFI practice. While it can be effective it is not the most ideal way to tune an EFI vehicle.

If you are like me and running an older Jeep it is about your only option. Even products like the Jet cartage manipulate input sensors. I use HP Tuners to reprogram the PCM (ECM) on my Suburban and it is great. I have not seen anything like it for Non Hemi Jeeps.

That said let me share this with you.
Peak horsepower is typically at a high RPM (near red line) at wide open throttle.
If you are running a stock engine with stock exhaust and intake then your fuel curve is probably correct at peak HP so richening the mixture most likely will not help peak HP.

More importantly is the question of what is your Jeeps mission, how do you drive it.
If you are drag racing it or running it at 5000 RPM all the time then go for peak HP.

My Jeep gets driven around town and off road, it runs at low to mid RPMs and throttle openings mostly so even if I did something to increase peak HP say at 5000-6000 RPM I may never use or feel it.

Next; the things you might do to an engine to increase peak HP may hurt bottom end torque so in my case my Jeep may actually have less power in the range it runs in. I see this all the time on Street vehicles. Your average person thinks that If he makes 190 horsepower at 6000 RPM at 100% throttle that when he is driving down the road at 2500 RPM at 10% throttle he has 190 horsepower. Even if you opened the throttle to 100% you will not make the same power at 2500 RPM as you would at 6000 RPM.

Ok so I spend most of my time in the low RPM low throttle range, the cruise area. For emissions and economy even a stock Jeep runs on the lean side here and would make more power if the mixture was richer (at the price of less MPG) so you might think that manipulating the temperature sensor (I’m guessing intake air temp) to make it richer providing more power at the cost of more fuel is the way to go. Well maybe not. You see in the cruise area (low throttle/Low RPM) your Jeeps ECM monitors the mixture via an O2 sensor. If you richen your mixture most likely the ECM will just lean it back out anyway.

Bottom line in my opinion save your money, you most likely won’t get the results you want from it.

Your engine is an air pump. To make more power you need to pump more air and match it with the correct amount of fuel ignited at the optimum time.
To pump more air you must increase the volumetric efficiency of your engine. Ideally at the RPM, and Throttle position you want the power at.

Sorry for the lecture, I have just been doing this too long and sometimes I can’t help myself.

Mike

 

[Hemi 08]

My response to the throttle body spacer question

A TBS reminds me of when those resistors came out to trick the MAS (mass air sensor) into thinking it was a constant 32 degrees outside thus the computer would dump more fuel into the system. I didn't see any HP improvements but I did see a decrease in gas mileage. The vehicle wasn't a jeep though.