Perfomance Chip myth

[Makdaddymac]

i was thinking of a chip for my 3.8l i always was skeptical about them....
Eveyone says there just a timing bump etc there worthless.. And for the price i guess i agree.I was considering it if i can find one cheap...
But im fed up with the debate, do these things do anything??

 

[Adverse2Change]

I, personally, would go with a flash tuner over a chip. You can get about 10hp on the v6 with a higher octane gas; so you have to ask yourself if $400 is worth that type of gain. But the ease of use of switching back to default with the handheld tuner would sell it for me. There are knobs (i.e. for SCT's chip) that let you change on the fly.

 

[pony ride]

I got the SCT x-cal V2 tuner from Justin at VMPTuning.com and I'm very happy with the results. I haven't had it dynoed since the mod, but it feels like more than just 10 hp/tq to me. I've also read many places that this mod will add 15-18 hp/tq to the V6 using the 93 octane tune. I know that for me, it was well worth it because it also adjusts the shifting of the automatic to get more out of it, and it recalibrated my speedo after the gear/t-lok install.

 

[Give Me TP]

I have heard good reports on other V6 forums about SCT tunes from Justin at VMPTuning. As pony ride stated, a flash tuner will really wake up an automatic, and gives a noticeable performance boost with a 93 octane tune.

Makdaddymac, if your car is the '94 3.8L 5-spd in your sig line, a flash tuner (or chip) will give somewhat less noticeable results since it's a manual. Also, speedometer/odometer correction for a rear gear change has to be done the old-fashioned way, using a different speedo gear in the transmission, in a '94 model.