just chipped my p38 dse!

well as the title says have just fitted a new performance chip into the ecu of my 1998 dse.
wanted a bit more grunt for towing so had a look around and found a company on ebay called ves sport in scotland selling the chip for only £120 plus post searched around couldnt find any forum members who has one fitted but emailed previous buyers of the chip through ebay and had nothing but positive replys so though i would give it a go.
it is a solder in job but does come with a socket which allows the chip to be removed and another fitted in its place very fiddly job!
first run out and about seems impressive pulls stronger from lower down the rev range all the way up through the gears and is a huge improvement on hills feels much more lively!
guess this will be a more of a long term test before i can recommend anyone else trying it but have a good run out at the weekend and towing duties so will have more of an idea what it will be like in the long term.

Hello torque, goodbye gearbox.

no worse than a tuning box! well aware that the box life will be shortened but it is a price most of us are willing to pay for better performance!

any dyno charts to show bhp/torque improvements?

Please also do a brim-brim mpg test for us, see what that throws up


Cheers,

Jerry

just becuase you have extra torque it doesnt mean you have to use it.

i fitted mine just for MPG improvement - the car drives much smoother with the chip on then before.

I have that chip in mine for about six months now.
Its much better than the psi powerbox that i used to have.
mpg is more or less the same that i had when it wasn't chipped in any way.

bhp is upped to 166 bhp cant find the torque figure, but i will have to speak to the guy to pay for it, what else i liked about the company was that i didnt have to pay up front for it they sent the chip and told me to fit it and try it and then pay for it when i was happy!
i used to have a psi powerbox on my old dse and i think this is more of an improvement than that was but it was an older type of powerbox.
i havent chipped it to thrash it just make it more driveable it is also a 2nd car which doesnt do massive miles a year so the gearbox should last and if it dont then a call will be made to ashcroft transmissions.
next radius arm bushes on the front, recalibrate suspension heights and decat pipe then it will be getting near where i want it to be!

It's a shame your not nearer, I'd like to have a go to see how different it is compared to my power box.
Is the power delivery smoother or does it surge?

As a matter of interest when you plugged the chipped ECU back in did you have to sync the immobiliser again with the BECM?

nope didnt have to resync just plugged back in and started up. power is quite a smooth delivery no big bang of power in one go just more all the way up through the revs, obviously does pull harder as the boost comes in but as i said first impressions are good will know more on saturday as i have a mercedes c180 to go and collect and a frame back to my house quite a good weight to try out behind it.

well as some were asking for mpg figures, it appears that they are around the sames as before 26-28mpg. a lot nicer to drive doesnt kickdown so much on hills even towing was much better really impressed.
only real downside is the gear change which was super smooth with mine can be a little more obvious when it changes i would guess that the chip has not got the torque reduction built into it when changing gears like the standard map so may reduce the life of the autobox but anyone running a tuning box or chip i guess has to accept that this will happen anyway.
i accept this as a downside but for the increase in driveability and enjoyment it is a risk that iam prepared to take!

Thanks for providing the mpg info. Sounds like it would be a good choice of chip esp for manual gearbox cars (like mine!)

Cheers

Jerry

and cheap too at only £119.99p plus post!!!
just fiddly to fit, worse part was getting the old chip outsome of the old solder really did not want to budge!

jerrytlr said:

Thanks for providing the mpg info. Sounds like it would be a good choice of chip esp for manual gearbox cars (like mine!)

Cheers

Jerry

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If you don't have the right soldering kit and take anti static measures when handling the board there is a 50/50 chance you will destroy the ECU, that's why a plug in power box is a better option