Hey everyone!
Recently, I've been testing the RaceChip GTS Black. Full disclosure, I was sent this chip by [MENTION=444]RaceChip[/MENTION] for the purpose of reviewing and testing the product.
Although the box they sent me wasn't "new" condition (they even warned me of this), on account of the fact that it was only meant to hold it so I could test it out, it was still packaged very well! Ample protection for shipping. Definitely more than I was expecting given the warning they gave me
.
Contents include the cable, zip ties, the RaceChip, and ziptie holders that snap into the RaceChip. The setup they show in the manual does not use the zip ties or the zip tie holders, so we can forgo those.
I found the instructions to be quite clear; and although the I'm pretty sure the instruction of leaving the car out of range of the keys after locking it isn't strictly necessary (I found that the car essentially turns off the electronics in the engine bay as soon as you open the door after turning off the engine), it's nice that they added that to make sure there's no chance of *bad stuff* happening to the car.
Unlike the LAP3, the RaceChip connects the boost pressure sensor, the intake pressure sensor as well as the cam position sensor. There's a warning to not connect the cables backwards, but I found that to be near impossible as there's a tab on the connector that prevents that from happening. What is very possible, however, is connecting the cables to the wrong sensors. These cables are all labelled with A, B, or C, and it's labelled in the instructions which letter goes to which sensor, so it should be pretty easy.
This is the boost pressure sensor connection.
Intake Pressure sensor connection.
Cam Position Sensor connection. This is by far the hardest sensor to actually connect to, given that it's nestled between several tubes. Still, installation was relatively easy.
I used several zipties to bundle cables together so they weren't jostling around, but not too tight. I routed the RaceChip connections as shown in the document - inbetween a gap leading to the left side of the engine bay near the passenger. The RaceChip connection seems better than the LAP3 connector - much easier to attach and remove, and watertight, whereas I wasn't sure the connection to the LAP3 was watertight.
To attach the RaceChip to the fusebox, I used some 3M Dual Lock (withstands up to around 200F, so it should be fine... could somebody tell me if that compartment gets above that temperature?). This is so that if I need to remove it, I can easily do so. Unfortunately, the Dual Lock doesn't stick to the fuse box super well - I'm going to be trying to put some VHB on the back of the dual lock to see if I can get it to adhere better. Does anybody have a better way to attach this to the top of the fuse box short of just gluing it on there?
Moving on to the app, it is clear that there is some work to be done here - initial connection is very straightforward and easy, but there seems to be a bug at least with my setup (Galaxy S9) that makes it so every time I fully close the app (as in kill it away in task manager or just exit out of the app for an extended period of time), I have to make sure to unpair the device from the RaceChip before opening the app. The app will then reprompt me to pair, and everything will work. Otherwise, the app seems to just not be able to connect regardless of whether the phone sees the RaceChip or not. I also found the bug that if I go into demo mode, my car's serial and settings are gone after exiting demo mode. This isn't a big issue but it is a bit jarring. I applaud the RaceChip folks for a very nice user interface, but functionality could be improved.
Now on to the actual meat and potatoes: performance!
It would be an understatement to say I'm impressed with the performance unlocked by the chip. I previously owned a LAP3 chip - and although this chip is built nice and seems like it might do something, I was never sure that it was actually increasing performance. My 0-60 times stayed almost the same: 4.85ish seconds stock -> 4.75ish seconds with the LAP3 on 91 setting. As I am in California, I did not attempt to use the 93 setting on 91 octane fuel, keeping it in the 91 setting. I have a video of a 0-60 run with the LAP3 here:
[video=youtube;PiYOnTEgxU0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiYOnTEgxU0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Timing it from frames, it seems about 4.75ish seconds.
On the RaceChip in Race setting, i could absolutely feel the difference in many different ways. Just pulling from 1st, second, and third gear felt way more powerful than it did stock or on LAP3. I usually couldn't feel too much of the "oomph" that you get at 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in 4th gear, but with the RaceChip it was much more noticeable. In fact, usually when I use launch control I don't hold the brake pedal all the way down, just enough to stop the wheels from spinning. With the RaceChip, I applied the same amount of pressure, and the car started to do a burnout![[burnout]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_burnout.gif "Burnout [burnout]")
. Here's a *not so great* 0-60 run on the RaceChip - counting by frames gives me around 4.25 seconds, but I leave that to your judgement.
[video=youtube;cNvgeOLF7i0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNvgeOLF7i0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Not only that, but you can even hear it in the video - with the RaceChip on, you can hear a sort of whine from the turbo, sort of like an electric motor. Honestly, that was kind of cool. Then again, it might mean the turbo's being damaged... anybody want to chime in?
I actually just got some 100 Octane as well from my local 76 - feels even faster, and doing a *really* crappy 0-60 seems to give me a 4.17 second 0-60, but I'll be sure to take a better video of a 0-60 run on 100 octane later (hopefully by next week, since it's just started raining again in Norcal).
The RaceChip guys are checking if we can add even more power to the car, so I'll update this post as I think of more information to add/get more information to post. I'll answer any questions as well.
Eli
Recently, I've been testing the RaceChip GTS Black. Full disclosure, I was sent this chip by [MENTION=444]RaceChip[/MENTION] for the purpose of reviewing and testing the product.
Although the box they sent me wasn't "new" condition (they even warned me of this), on account of the fact that it was only meant to hold it so I could test it out, it was still packaged very well! Ample protection for shipping. Definitely more than I was expecting given the warning they gave me
.Contents include the cable, zip ties, the RaceChip, and ziptie holders that snap into the RaceChip. The setup they show in the manual does not use the zip ties or the zip tie holders, so we can forgo those.
I found the instructions to be quite clear; and although the I'm pretty sure the instruction of leaving the car out of range of the keys after locking it isn't strictly necessary (I found that the car essentially turns off the electronics in the engine bay as soon as you open the door after turning off the engine), it's nice that they added that to make sure there's no chance of *bad stuff* happening to the car.
Unlike the LAP3, the RaceChip connects the boost pressure sensor, the intake pressure sensor as well as the cam position sensor. There's a warning to not connect the cables backwards, but I found that to be near impossible as there's a tab on the connector that prevents that from happening. What is very possible, however, is connecting the cables to the wrong sensors. These cables are all labelled with A, B, or C, and it's labelled in the instructions which letter goes to which sensor, so it should be pretty easy.
This is the boost pressure sensor connection.
Intake Pressure sensor connection.
Cam Position Sensor connection. This is by far the hardest sensor to actually connect to, given that it's nestled between several tubes. Still, installation was relatively easy.
I used several zipties to bundle cables together so they weren't jostling around, but not too tight. I routed the RaceChip connections as shown in the document - inbetween a gap leading to the left side of the engine bay near the passenger. The RaceChip connection seems better than the LAP3 connector - much easier to attach and remove, and watertight, whereas I wasn't sure the connection to the LAP3 was watertight.
To attach the RaceChip to the fusebox, I used some 3M Dual Lock (withstands up to around 200F, so it should be fine... could somebody tell me if that compartment gets above that temperature?). This is so that if I need to remove it, I can easily do so. Unfortunately, the Dual Lock doesn't stick to the fuse box super well - I'm going to be trying to put some VHB on the back of the dual lock to see if I can get it to adhere better. Does anybody have a better way to attach this to the top of the fuse box short of just gluing it on there?
Moving on to the app, it is clear that there is some work to be done here - initial connection is very straightforward and easy, but there seems to be a bug at least with my setup (Galaxy S9) that makes it so every time I fully close the app (as in kill it away in task manager or just exit out of the app for an extended period of time), I have to make sure to unpair the device from the RaceChip before opening the app. The app will then reprompt me to pair, and everything will work. Otherwise, the app seems to just not be able to connect regardless of whether the phone sees the RaceChip or not. I also found the bug that if I go into demo mode, my car's serial and settings are gone after exiting demo mode. This isn't a big issue but it is a bit jarring. I applaud the RaceChip folks for a very nice user interface, but functionality could be improved.
Now on to the actual meat and potatoes: performance!
It would be an understatement to say I'm impressed with the performance unlocked by the chip. I previously owned a LAP3 chip - and although this chip is built nice and seems like it might do something, I was never sure that it was actually increasing performance. My 0-60 times stayed almost the same: 4.85ish seconds stock -> 4.75ish seconds with the LAP3 on 91 setting. As I am in California, I did not attempt to use the 93 setting on 91 octane fuel, keeping it in the 91 setting. I have a video of a 0-60 run with the LAP3 here:
[video=youtube;PiYOnTEgxU0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiYOnTEgxU0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Timing it from frames, it seems about 4.75ish seconds.
On the RaceChip in Race setting, i could absolutely feel the difference in many different ways. Just pulling from 1st, second, and third gear felt way more powerful than it did stock or on LAP3. I usually couldn't feel too much of the "oomph" that you get at 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in 4th gear, but with the RaceChip it was much more noticeable. In fact, usually when I use launch control I don't hold the brake pedal all the way down, just enough to stop the wheels from spinning. With the RaceChip, I applied the same amount of pressure, and the car started to do a burnout
. Here's a *not so great* 0-60 run on the RaceChip - counting by frames gives me around 4.25 seconds, but I leave that to your judgement.[video=youtube;cNvgeOLF7i0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNvgeOLF7i0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Not only that, but you can even hear it in the video - with the RaceChip on, you can hear a sort of whine from the turbo, sort of like an electric motor. Honestly, that was kind of cool. Then again, it might mean the turbo's being damaged... anybody want to chime in?
I actually just got some 100 Octane as well from my local 76 - feels even faster, and doing a *really* crappy 0-60 seems to give me a 4.17 second 0-60, but I'll be sure to take a better video of a 0-60 run on 100 octane later (hopefully by next week, since it's just started raining again in Norcal).
The RaceChip guys are checking if we can add even more power to the car, so I'll update this post as I think of more information to add/get more information to post. I'll answer any questions as well.
Eli
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