To chip or not to chip that is the question

SCaddict

Registered User
I talked to a guy at a local speed shop today and he said that I should chip my 90 SC AOD with a custom program that he can do and that I would see 40HP and 45 foot pounds of torque. Is this true or not? What have some of you guys seen from doing a chip? Also, I told him that I wanted to go with 3:73 gears and he thought that they would be to steep and that I would be revving at like 3500-4000 rpms at 70mph. What I need to know is can the chip do this for me or not and will the gears give me that many rpms. If the chip and gears are so great for Mustangs why would they not work in our cars?
 
I see you are in Alberta, where are you exactly?
Considering Alberta is dry when it comes to experience I am going to call ********. If you are going to get a chip, get it done right to begin with! Check out 'Apten Performance' site. Apten has a lot of experience when it comes to tuning SC's so you do not have to second guess if your car is going to run properly or not! I have delt with him before and will deal with him again! :D
 
I am in Calgary. I know about the Apten site, I just wanted to see if I could get it in Calgary and have the same results.
 
Can I grab your email addy please? Theres going to be a bunch of us SC guys meeting up this weekend. I'd be happy to go into more detail as to why you should not get a chip locally done :D
 
If you dont do a lot of higiway driving the 3.73s are the way to go. I can not remember what it revved at but I had them in my 97 before the engine went south. I absolutely would recomend them for an automatic car. I am going to put them in one of my buddies cars soon as well. I would definately go with a chip.

Chris
 
The truth about chips & Gears on your SC.....
3.73s are the proven best choice for gears on AOD cars.
PROS...
Increased acceleration
Potentialy More top speed on a modified motor if the OD band will hold

CONS...
you will be running about 3000rpm @70mph,
sacrifice about 2-5 mpg (dependant on individual car)
Car will not downshift to low at speeds above 20mph

The truth about chips on the SC...
Not a good choice unless they are flashed on a dyno to get the best safe power for a modified engine.
The stock PCM will do just fine, even with bolt-ons & up to 38 lb injectors,with a 190 or 255 lpi fuel pump.
Save your money unless you have done extensive mods like....
S-model SC or Magna port, & induction mods, FMIC
exhaust, headers
larger MAF, TB, 42lb or larger Injectors, 255lpi fuel pump.
The truth is you can get an SC with just bolt ons 3.73 gears and a stock PCM to run high 13 to low 14 sec 1/4 mile times.
And I do reccomend APTEN when the time comes for a tune. there are others out there who can FLASH CHIPS correctly or even the EEC tuner (MN12 Performance)which I run, but few no how to properly tune with it.
Off the shelf chips (those without being flashed according to a dyno run) while they work great on some cars do little or nothing for the SC

In your specific case I'd definately address the fuel system before looking into a chip. & then maybe give the guy a shot as long as your tuning on a dyno with an o2 sniffer to get proper A/F ratio readings. With an improved fuel system you should easily get 20-40 rwhp from a good tune..
You may want to get a base line pull now so you know where you stand.
 
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CONS...you will be running about 3000rpm @70mph,

Todd,

Even with my loosey goosey 2700 stall non-locking converter, I'm only turning about 2700-2800 rpms @ 70 and with 4.10s I turned about 3100. Then again, neither my speedometer or the tach are very accurate so who knows.

David
 
Do you have a chip or an EEC tuner Dave? If you have a chip, where did you have it done? You are close to StL.

Chris
 
Chris,

I had an EEC tuner and replaced it with an Apten chip, then after adding nitrous I changed to an Apten dual program (flip) chip. Stegimeier is only 10 minutes away from my house. Apten was at the same location, but isn't now.

David
 
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