Chip V ECU Remap. A real test, back to back on the Dyno.
We compared the most popular chip on the market today, the “Steinbauer power module”, on the most popular 4 wheel drive, the Land Cruiser 200 series, and do back to back testing against our Custom ECU Remap with our towing & touring tune.
We see a lot of 4 wheel drives come through our workshop with “power modules” or “chips” on them, from all manufacturers. Steinbauer, DP, Tunit, Taipan, Roo and many more. In every single case when we have done our custom ECU remap on these vehicles and put them back to back, we have out performed them.
So, I thought we would do this post showing the results and explaining the differences.
Here is the test vehicle, a 2015 Toyota Land Cruiser 200 series.
The customer was reasonably happy with the power, but did mention it was blowing a considerable amount of black smoke, particularly on acceleration.
This is a very common problem with most chips, as the way they put extra fuel in to make the power is not efficient. Some chips will only increase fuel pressure to add the extra fuel, others will open the injectors longer to get the extra fuel, but neither way will produce the outcome of an ECU remap and that’s because they are limited to what they can do.
An ECU Remap has the ability to put fuel in, in several ways, we can add a little fuel pressure, open the injectors longer, change the timing of the injection, add a little boost and so much more. Custom tuning each and every vehicle individually.
Chip V ECU Remap: Power and Torque
As you can see here on the Dyno graph, we have completed our Custom ECU Remap and put all the results against each other.
The Land Cruiser in stock standard form produced 124.3 Kw of power and 387 Nm of torque at all 4 wheels.
The Land Cruiser with the Steinbauer chip installed made a reasonable improvement over stock, and produced 145.3 Kw of power and 443 Nm of torque at all 4 wheels.
With our Custom ECU Remap, the Land Cruiser produced 159.2 Kw of power and 481 Nm of torque at all 4 wheels.
As you can see, our ECU Remap produced 30% more power and torque than standard, and produced 18% more power and torque than the Steinbauer chip.
But that’s not the whole story… yet.
Chip V ECU Remap: Air fuel ratio
This Dyno graph shows the three results with the power readings up top and the air fuel ratio down the bottom.
The air fuel ratio tells another story. The numbers on the right show the air fuel ratio, using this we can compare each run.
The lower the number means the more fuel it is using.
As you can see the purple line shows the Land Cruiser in standard form is running around 20-21:1
The red line shows the Land Cruiser tuned is running down to 18:1 which is optimum for this vehicle to make good power and still be good on fuel.
The green line shows the Steinbauer chip is using heaps of fuel and is down, under 15:1. That is getting to the danger level, using too much fuel can create too much combustion temperature. This is also why this vehicle was blowing excessive smoke on acceleration.
So the test has been completed and as you can see, the Steinbauer chip is no match for our Custom Tune. The ECU remap out preformed in power and torque, used less fuel and will drive much better as the remap delivers the power much smoother, without the excessive black smoke…..
