ty1548
Member
Haven't been on the board much but thought I'd mention a few things about the Ultimate chip as it seems Brian has been left to hold the fort on his own concerning recent issues. There's been some misinformation in recent posts that I wanted to clear up.
First a little backround of the chip. Basically it was a collaboration between myself and Brian merging his 3 bar fueling programs with my 2 bar programs and hardware. Due to recent questions concerning boost control, I will ellaborate on that. I developed the boost control code using my truck, and eventually was able to obtain near perfect control, with boost fluctuations of no more than +/- 0.5 psi thougout a 1/4 mile run. This was in part due to my upgraded turbo (TE-62) with properly matched wastegate. I envisioned most Ultimate owners having or getting upgraded turbos, as I as well as others had such good success with them. There is no better mechanical bang for the buck upgrade, whether it's a simple Mitsu or larger Garrett turbo. We had several trucks beta testing the chip ranging from stock to what I considered to have fairly significant power adding bolt-ons, namely my Ty running 12.1's at 112 mph (TE-62, Conley air/water IC, 2800 stall, cold air intake, stock exhaust minus cat w/ Ultra Flo). The only requirement was the use of stock injectors and cam. To say that the chip was designed for a stock truck is not correct, many months of development were done on my truck. Anyway, all the other beta testers had stock turbos and with some wg adjustment where necessary all were able to get decent boost control, that being approx. +/- 1 psi max fluctuations, especially considering all the variables between trucks, e.g. exhaust, intake etc. Also, the boost code was biased on the under-boost side for safety sake, it's a lot easier to adjust a wastegate rod than replace a piston because of an unexpected 5 psi boost spike the first time you got on it. Up until recently, I was not aware of any significant boost control issues, my only hypothesis is that the 12 year old wg springs may be weakening in some trucks. I just heard from a new Ultimate user, named Wade Segrest, who posted in this thread:
http//syty.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17518&postdays=0&postorder=asc&st
His experience is the norm, and what I am accustomed to hearing. Keep in mind that boost control is one of *many* features that the chip offers, making it more than worth the price in my opinion even if another method of boost control is preferred. There are inexpensive alternatives such as the Ram Air or ANS controller which I used with my 2 bar chips. I would hope that no one would want to return a chip just because they didn't have perfect boost control, you're missing the whole point of the chip if this is the case. That would be like returning a plasma screen tv because the sleep timer was not accurate.
Speaking of these 2 bar chips, someone had mentioned offering them as an alternative. Well, they are and always have been available through me using the same Ultimate hardware, only with 10 settings as opposed to 16. They were shown on the old syty.org site under "modifications" but haven't been added to the new one yet. Although this chip does offer limited boost control (15, 16, 17.5 psi), most have used some sort of additional boost control in order to get to higher levels. This may be a better and cheaper alternative for those who don't need all the inherent benefits of the 3 bar chip, and would rather control boost in another manner. I would say this chip is more for those with less interest in fine tuning for perfection, and may not have the means or interest in doing this. It's more of a plug and play type deal, yet you still have some more aggressive settings available if you decide to run some race gas. I would estimate a 0.1 to 0.15 second penalty over the Ultimate in the 1/4 for running this chip due to the richer WOT fueling, some of which can be eliminated with fuel pressure adjustments.
There has been conjecture that maybe some of you have "bad" chips. It is possible, but in the last 3 years only about 1-2% sold have had hardware related problems. Out of ~200, 2 have had faulty soldering, and one had a faulty EPROM. The others that I have fixed have been damaged, usually in the cable, and are typically second hand and definitely well used. If you want to know what a bad chip runs like, remove the MEMCAL and replace the chip carrier on the ecm. You'll get black smoke out the tailpipe and a very rough idle.
As far as a list of acceptable mods to work with the chip, as long as you have the stock injectors, heads, and cam, there shouldn't be a problem. There are exceptions to this, some mild cams work fine, as well as some head work/replacement heads. This should be discussed with the vendor before making the purchase. The only caveat is that it is possible to surpass the fueling capacity of the stock injectors on a heavily modifed truck. A scan tool will tell you when you've reached this point. I never did in my Ty, nor did my friend Gary Srnka who ran 11.70's at 113 in his Sy back in '98. As a point of interest, he had a KB "Jimmy" turbo, ATR headers, stock IC, 3000 stall converter, my 4-1 chip, and cold air kit. The point being that you don't need to spend a lot of money, neither of us spent much more than 3k, to go fast. Stick with what works and keep it as simple as possible.
Finally, I'm hoping that we (Brian) can get an open loop boost control chip out in the near future. This has always been my goal from the start in '97 when I first came out with the 2 bar chips. A family and the burden of making the chip hardware took me away from developing the code, and Brian was more into than me anyway. This type of control would eliminate most of the variables and should result in near perfect boost control for all mechanically sound turbo systems.
Anyway, hope this novel was of interest and cleared up some issues.
Todd
First a little backround of the chip. Basically it was a collaboration between myself and Brian merging his 3 bar fueling programs with my 2 bar programs and hardware. Due to recent questions concerning boost control, I will ellaborate on that. I developed the boost control code using my truck, and eventually was able to obtain near perfect control, with boost fluctuations of no more than +/- 0.5 psi thougout a 1/4 mile run. This was in part due to my upgraded turbo (TE-62) with properly matched wastegate. I envisioned most Ultimate owners having or getting upgraded turbos, as I as well as others had such good success with them. There is no better mechanical bang for the buck upgrade, whether it's a simple Mitsu or larger Garrett turbo. We had several trucks beta testing the chip ranging from stock to what I considered to have fairly significant power adding bolt-ons, namely my Ty running 12.1's at 112 mph (TE-62, Conley air/water IC, 2800 stall, cold air intake, stock exhaust minus cat w/ Ultra Flo). The only requirement was the use of stock injectors and cam. To say that the chip was designed for a stock truck is not correct, many months of development were done on my truck. Anyway, all the other beta testers had stock turbos and with some wg adjustment where necessary all were able to get decent boost control, that being approx. +/- 1 psi max fluctuations, especially considering all the variables between trucks, e.g. exhaust, intake etc. Also, the boost code was biased on the under-boost side for safety sake, it's a lot easier to adjust a wastegate rod than replace a piston because of an unexpected 5 psi boost spike the first time you got on it. Up until recently, I was not aware of any significant boost control issues, my only hypothesis is that the 12 year old wg springs may be weakening in some trucks. I just heard from a new Ultimate user, named Wade Segrest, who posted in this thread:
http//syty.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17518&postdays=0&postorder=asc&st
His experience is the norm, and what I am accustomed to hearing. Keep in mind that boost control is one of *many* features that the chip offers, making it more than worth the price in my opinion even if another method of boost control is preferred. There are inexpensive alternatives such as the Ram Air or ANS controller which I used with my 2 bar chips. I would hope that no one would want to return a chip just because they didn't have perfect boost control, you're missing the whole point of the chip if this is the case. That would be like returning a plasma screen tv because the sleep timer was not accurate.
Speaking of these 2 bar chips, someone had mentioned offering them as an alternative. Well, they are and always have been available through me using the same Ultimate hardware, only with 10 settings as opposed to 16. They were shown on the old syty.org site under "modifications" but haven't been added to the new one yet. Although this chip does offer limited boost control (15, 16, 17.5 psi), most have used some sort of additional boost control in order to get to higher levels. This may be a better and cheaper alternative for those who don't need all the inherent benefits of the 3 bar chip, and would rather control boost in another manner. I would say this chip is more for those with less interest in fine tuning for perfection, and may not have the means or interest in doing this. It's more of a plug and play type deal, yet you still have some more aggressive settings available if you decide to run some race gas. I would estimate a 0.1 to 0.15 second penalty over the Ultimate in the 1/4 for running this chip due to the richer WOT fueling, some of which can be eliminated with fuel pressure adjustments.
There has been conjecture that maybe some of you have "bad" chips. It is possible, but in the last 3 years only about 1-2% sold have had hardware related problems. Out of ~200, 2 have had faulty soldering, and one had a faulty EPROM. The others that I have fixed have been damaged, usually in the cable, and are typically second hand and definitely well used. If you want to know what a bad chip runs like, remove the MEMCAL and replace the chip carrier on the ecm. You'll get black smoke out the tailpipe and a very rough idle.
As far as a list of acceptable mods to work with the chip, as long as you have the stock injectors, heads, and cam, there shouldn't be a problem. There are exceptions to this, some mild cams work fine, as well as some head work/replacement heads. This should be discussed with the vendor before making the purchase. The only caveat is that it is possible to surpass the fueling capacity of the stock injectors on a heavily modifed truck. A scan tool will tell you when you've reached this point. I never did in my Ty, nor did my friend Gary Srnka who ran 11.70's at 113 in his Sy back in '98. As a point of interest, he had a KB "Jimmy" turbo, ATR headers, stock IC, 3000 stall converter, my 4-1 chip, and cold air kit. The point being that you don't need to spend a lot of money, neither of us spent much more than 3k, to go fast. Stick with what works and keep it as simple as possible.
Finally, I'm hoping that we (Brian) can get an open loop boost control chip out in the near future. This has always been my goal from the start in '97 when I first came out with the 2 bar chips. A family and the burden of making the chip hardware took me away from developing the code, and Brian was more into than me anyway. This type of control would eliminate most of the variables and should result in near perfect boost control for all mechanically sound turbo systems.
Anyway, hope this novel was of interest and cleared up some issues.
Todd
