dynos are for Supras:P

 

It is my opinion, and correct me if I am wrong, Upsolute sells many more chips and has a much bigger sales spectrum than the GIAC chip, which can only be used in a Turbo. Therefore GIAC needs to make more profit than Upsolute does per chip. I heard that Porsche makes 1500 turbos a year, if that’s true, than there’s about 4500 turbos, and maybe less than 10% will upgrade there car (more like 5% probably). And of those 10% (or 5%), maybe 30% have GIAC chips in them, that works out to be less than 150 cars, and they have to charge a lot to make a profit because research and development costs are expensive. An Upsolute chip, however, can be fitted to hundreds upon hundreds of cars, and for the price, it does an excellent job. Therefore, Upsolute does not need to make nearly as much per chip as GIAC does. Although both chips are different, I feel that a lot of the price difference has to do with profit.

 

Atually a few pals of mine use GIAC chips (their X-chip) on GTIs and Audi S4s. Not sure what other cars they cater to but I can't imagine why they wouldn't cater to any other bosch motronics...

 

You are right, I went to the GIAC website, and they do sell chips for VW's and Audi's. However, each chip is different, and each chip needs to be reaserced and devoloped. Upsolute chips can be put on more cars than GIAC chips can, and Upsolute is a one chip fits all company, or as far as i know.

 

Can you explain that further? I don't understand how full on acceleration runs would tell me anything about drivability.

It seems to me like you'd have to do a number of "represenatative" dyno runs... rather than full on accerlation speed runs. The trouble is, the permutations are almost endless. So, that's what motivated my earlier question. For example, when I say drivability, I mean things like the following:

1. What if I'm lugging around at 2K rpm in 4th and nail it... How does the car respond?

2. What if I'm diving slowly through a neighborhood... How easy is it to modulate the throttle and drive smoothly.

3. What if I'm driving slowly next to another car in second, and nail it.

4. What if I'm driving through a series of corners on a track (or back road) that require partial throttle, where full throttle cannot be applied... How easy is it to control the throttle precisely.

I could probably think of another 100+ scenarios. But I think those are enough to give the general idea.

In any event, this is the type of thing that I know that I can answer for myself by actually driving the end product - as I did by driving the stage 4gt before buying it. Although, perhaps there is some reasonable and representative number of dyno runs that could be devised to communicate the same end result? As an empiricist, I'd like to have both available... although maybe I'm asking for too much?

 

racer63,

Actually, the dyno usually does give information at wot in 4th or 5th starting at about 2000 or 2300 rpm's.

My opinion is yes, you are asking a bit much. Then again, you are entitled to ask for whatever you want because you are buying the car for yourself. We simply have different ideas about what we want the car to do for ourselves.

 

Chad, I think what Racer63 is talking about is part throttle drive-ability in respect to part throttle tip in and overall performance of the car NOT at WOT. The transition of the car from part throttle to 1/2 throttle and so on. These are things that the dyno typically does not measure since most all dyno pulls are to show power at WOT.