Here we go...so their claim

GForce Chips.com
http://www.gforcechips.com/pontiacfiero.aspx

"The GForce Performance Chip reprograms your air/fuel ratio, ignition timing, and other aspects of your vehicle's engine to SAFELY increase the power, while increasing fuel economy significantly. Your car will run smoother, run cooler and more efficiently at the same time. The gains we advertise are real, and are guaranteed with a money back promise."

Per Performance Chips.com
http://www.performancechips...ce-chip-reviews.html

"Average HP and Torque Gain: 1/5 (For each vehicle tested we noticed a loss of 8-15 HP)
Average MPG Gain: 1/5 (We notice huge losses in MPG. These varied from 3-10 MPG.)
Cost of product: $69.00
NOTE: We did notice an engine knock after using this chip. We do not recommend this chip."

So, looks that there is no magic that would work in a...wait what was that?

RS4 Performance Chip (Rated #1 Performance Chip)

"Average HP and Torque Gain: 5/5 (Average gain was 38 WHP and 31 WTQ)
Average MPG Gain: 5/5 (Average MPG Gain was 4-7 MPG)
Cost of product: $69.99"

Hrmmmm...

Then I decided to read more on this and found this on eHow

http://www.ehow.com/how-doe...mance-chip-work.html

"The factory chip in an automobile contains something referred to a lookup table. The lookup table contains data that tell the engine how to respond under various circumstances. For instance, if you are driving down the highway going 50 miles per hour and you quickly press the gas petal all the way to the floor, the computer will detect this and ask the chip what to do. The chip will refer to its lookup table and tell the computer how much gas to send to your engine, how and when to shift your car into a lower gear (in the case of an automatic), how to adjust the timing and how much turbo boost to provide, if your car is equipped with a turbo charger. In a factory chip, all of these parameters are dictated by the car manufacturer for its own purposes. When you put a performance chip in, this changes the lookup table and adjusts the parameters to give you the most performance without regard to fuel economy, emissions and other performance-reducing constraints."

So....has anyone ever tried a performance chip? I remain skeptical and think it would do more harm than good. I am always cautious with such "miracle drugs" specially on my lil girl. I know I need to do my engine mounts and such so I am still compiling a punch-list. Should this be an item to grace my list?

It's been covered ad-nauseum: Performance chips do nothing for stock and fairly stock engines. They just cause the engine to run rich, and decrease gas mileage. Those lookup tables they refer to, are the fuel tables. All the 'performance' chips do is increase the values in those tables, adding more fuel.

That is what I was figuring actually. After reading more on it, it appeared to do nothing but tweak the engine in a dangerous manner for the Fiero. This would seem to be a nightmare for cooling and wear and tear on the engine. I don't think it will be on my list.

This would raise another question, what are some of the tried and true methods beyond an engine swap to gain some HP? I am happy that my car is running so I am hesitant to tweak it too much. Being it is a 87 - 4 cyl, it needs sooooo much boost.

I confirm you that this kind of Chip tuning does nothing.
I tried the hypertec chip from the Fiero Store a couple of years ago and it strictly does nothing except increase your fuel consumption.

Don't beleive in miracle

------------------
Bernard
Fiero V6 GT 1987 (Manual)

Plus the 2.5L Iron Duke (called TECH 4 in 1987) was never meant to be a high performance engine. It's an economy engine. Mine would knock like crazy using regular unleaded in the summer. I always ran premium because of it.

Here is a pic of the duke crank (bottom) compared to a mercruiser crank.

Well, I would LOVE to yank my Tech4 and rebuild it with performance parts. Apartment complexes frown on that for some reason annnnnd I dunno enough about rebuilding yet. Which brings me to my original question of what I can do sans yanking the engine and replacing the innards (crank and such)

Since it's an 87, all you can do to 'increase' power is give it a good tuneup. 84-86 engines had aftermarket intakes and a holley TBI unit available, but they don't work on the 87-88 setup, and replacing the camshaft would require pulling the engine.

I'm looking for a new Fiero right now and refuse to buy a 4 cylinder car, SO sick of having NO power at all.

Chips have their uses. If you do a CAI and a cat-back, plus a cooler thermostat, then a chip can help, with no danger. My '95 Z28 got a Hypertech tune, as one of my first round of mods, and I was happy with it. It did improve my dragstrip times by 3 tenths, beyond just the 4 tenths I got from the cat back and K&N FIPK, and 15,000 miles later, no issues.
If you're gonna get serious, like ported heads, headers, and a good cam ( stock cams are never good ) then a chip isn't adequate, you'll need a full-on custom dyno tune.
For my Z28, it was a tuner, not a chip, but same idea. Chips died after '93, so '94-up takes a tuner instead. Some tuners can do much more than a chip, but basic tuners are just an updated format.

quote Originally posted by BL3200: I confirm you that this kind of Chip tuning does nothing. I tried the hypertec chip from the Fiero Store a couple of years ago and it strictly does nothing except increase your fuel consumption. Don't beleive in miracle

I agree, basicalley snake oil,I paid $80,sometime back for one for my Camaro and it seems to basicalley Idle faster.I realley didnt notice much of any performace gains.You would have greater performace, porting your exhaust manifolds and a new air filter or doing an engine swap...

If it was so easy, why didn't the manufacturers install them as stock items?

The stock tune on pretty much all automobiles is a compromise between power, octane requirements, fuel efficiency, emissions, noise, drivability and longterm reliablity. Over the production model life, even GM tweaks their factory tunes to address improvements in power/fuel efficiency and emissions from year to year or to lessen drivability/stalling issues.

The latest stock GM tune for your application is the best compromise on a bone stock or very near stock application, but if you want to maximize peak HP at the expence of drivability, durability, longevity, emissions, mileage, etc then you can slap your car on a dyno and make more power than the GM tune... all you have done is bias the compromise list to the factors most important to you at the expense of the other less important ones. Likewise, if you want to improve fuel efficiency you can increase the threshold parameters that initiate power enrichment so the car sees this mode much less often.

Once you start swapping in camshafts, headers, intakes and other major engine modifications, or start doing hybrid swaps where you are mixing and matching various parts from various years, the available stock chips will not longer work as seemlessly as you are used to. If you read the dyno comparison thread with 2.8, 2.9, 3.1, and 3.4 engine swaps in the range from stock to highly modified with headers, cam and intake upgrades being ran on the same dyno, all but the stock engine were running rich in the upper rpms and is a perfect example of when a custom chip is needed.

The problem for all these generic chips is best case they were calibrated around a specific combination of parts and if you have the exact calibration then you will will probably see some benefit. Installing them on engine w/o this same exact list of parts will more often than not result in poor improvment if any. If the calibrations were made on the same engine, but different application (like using a cavalier based calibration on a fiero) then you have an even greater chance of poor results.

On custom modified engine, you are best with a custom tune based on your exact combination.... anything else is likely to dissappoint.