F.A.Q.
Q1. I have a big exhaust, will I get overboost?A1: If you get boost creep with a standard PROM a mountain chip probably won't fix it. You might get lucky if your boost peaks between the standard chip limit (0.92bar) and the mountain chip limit (usually 0.98bar) but the odds aren't in your favour. If you don't get appreciable boost creep (maybe you're lucky or you've ported your wastegate or whatever) then the chips shouldn't cause problems. Remember all large exhausts seem to behave differently and I can't test the chips on a car with a large bore exhaust myself - my car's have stock exhaust systems - so I can't make guarantees. I will do my best to ensure that any overboost problem caused by the chip is eliminated.Q2: How do I know if I have a 9929 or a 9930?A2: Look here for some ways to tell.
Q3: I have a catalyst equipped car, will I get 0.9bar, if not should I get a Kili or how can improve my maximum boost? A3: If you have a stock exhaust system complete with catalysts then you probably won't achieve 0.9bar for much, or sometimes any, of the rev range. If you want to achieve the full boost you can replace the exhaust system with a larger bore item (catalyst equipped ones won't creep either) or some people knock out either the pre-cat or main cat (naturally I can't condone such behaviour). If you stick with a standard system then a Kili wouldn't deliver much less power than the Everest but having the latter won't do any harm and would maximise what you have available.
Q4: What if doesn't work for me or I don't like it:
A4: I will refund on return of any undamaged item returned within 4 weeks. I'll consider sympathetically any request for a refund after this period too.
Q5: Why not do the V5 or Elysium on a single program chip?
A5: The chips gain power by trimming margins. The boost of the everest is on the limit of the fuel delivery system's capability at high revs (the Elysium is at the limit across much of the rev range), the safety boost limit is pushed up and above all, with the V5, the mixture at high boost is optimised for power not engine protection. All this is fine is everything is working well, however, if an injector is sticky or the fuel pressure gets low or the timing goes out or there's a CAS problem then the consequences are that much more likely to be serious without the extra fuel to keep the mixture from running lean and to cool the intake charge. If the engine isn't running well its easy to run a richer map with a switcher. If a one program chip is installed then the only way is to uninstall the chip which, while not complicated, does require the removal of the ECU. If someone installs a V5 in a car with an FCD present then it would almost certainly damage the engine. Frankly I have reservations about selling it to people of unknown technical competence at all...
Q6: I've e.mailed & PM'd you 4536 times in the last week and you haven't replied.... or I ordered a chip three days ago and haven't heard anything etc
A6: This isn't a company its a hobby - I don't do this to earn a living. If you want 100% next day dispatch you'll have to look elsewhere. Sometimes my job gets demanding or I'm on holiday or something and I don't reply/dispatch as quickly as I would like. This came to a head with the interfaces which required a fair amount of time to make and caused problems because it took around 4 weeks from ordering to sending and some people had acquired a head of steam by this point (although I did mention the probability of long waits on my interface web page). I don't do interfaces any more! I lost money on them anyway. The chips are much less demanding to assemble but it still might take a few days for me to get one into the post, although its usually less than a week. I will refund at any time before I ship with no quibbles.
I get a lot of mails asking stuff I've been asked 100,000 times before and which are answered on LEC or on my site and if I'm busy I can get impatient with these. Since the ElanChips e.mail address is public I also have to filter spam and you can get unlucky and hit my spam bin - I can't check it thoroughly, it gets hundreds of e.mails a day.
Q7: Why not use a cheap MBC (with optional FCD) or an Expensive BBR kit (which is an MBC+FCD)?
A7: An MBC puts a fixed leak in the air line to the wastegate this increases the pressure required to open the wastegate and gives higher boost as a result. Its primitive but it works with a few caveats:
- With an MBC the leak is always on so the engine will be exposed to high boost even when the engine is cold or faults are detected.
- An MBC cannot react to changes in atmospheric pressure - maximum absolute pressure will vary by 0.1bar depending on the weather. This can mean overboost fuel cut some days but not others.
- With an MBC the knock control strategy in the ECU functions only partially, spark retardation remains but boost reduction (via the BCFV) is disabled.
- The boost attained varies with RPM (due to changes in turbo & wastegate efficiency with RPM) so the boost will vary over the rev range, the peak boost will occur at around 4500RPM.
- An FCD removes all the protection against uncontrolled boost caused by a stuck wastegate.
- An FCD fools ECU into believing the boost is lower than it actually is and all table lookups that use manifold pressure (mixture & spark advance included) are compromised as a result - for example the engine will run progressively leaner and more advanced than programmed in the ECU above the clipping threshold (generally around 0.75-0.8bar). This is possibly good for power but potentially bad for engine life. Its a good thing the ECU also includes knock control by timing retardation!
