JohnEd

iTrader: (1)

A guy that read one of my posts once said he went to get a Dew and pop a bag of popcorn before settling in. Brevity has never been my long suit. This saga took place over twelve hours and needed a round trip from Eugene, Or. to Portland, Or. 150 miles or so as the freeway flies.

Usually these stories start with “It was a dark and stormy night...”. This one started with a bright and beautiful Wed morning. I had just received a Unichip from a guy on E Bay. Various aspects of that deal rang uncertain and I laid in some preconditions. Namely, That I wouldn’t pay until I received the package and verified that the chip was inclosed and operational. I used to administer Dept of Defense procurement contracts and ‘verify” and “chip” have special meanings for me. I received the package on a Tuesday and promptly made arrangements to have the chip “verified” at the Unichip plant in Hillsboro, Or. on the following day. Hillsboro being a suburb of Portland.

My call to Unichip HQ was answered by Jack Friedman, the General Manager of Unichip USA. On the phone, Jack was very helpful and agreed to fully test the chip and verify its proper operation. In person he was even more helpful. When I showed up he interrupted his morning to install my chip in a test bed and have the computer test the chip. All systems were “go” but Jack said that that test was a great confidence builder but not 100%. He then proceeded to personally install my chip in a borrowed auto that was a close fit to my 93 SC400 in operating parameters. All staff had been given the day off for training or whatever and he and the receptionist were alone that day so he did it himself. Jack is a retired fighter pilot from the USAF and the GM of a small corporation and he took the time to crawl around in a friends car and install a chip to verify its operation and I bought the thing from a third party. Had I known I would have been treated this well by a stranger I would have brought presents and packed my camera. Since that day I have talked to a lot of people that have had dealings with Jack and I learned he was acting in full character with me. This guy is a piece of work in every possible positive regard. Before leaving Unichip I asked what would be involved in getting the chip “tuned” to my engine. Jack said my car should need about 30 minutes to actually connect the chip and then no more than 2 hours of dyno time to properly program as my engine is bone stock. Armed with my “good chip”, I proceeded to find a chassis dynamometer shop in the Portland vicinity.

Unichip has an almost fanatical concern with it’s corporate image and the satisfaction of it’s customers. To that end, they require that any installer/tuner receive 2 days of training at their facility in Hillsboro for people in this area. All of those individuals trained must have credential as experienced “tuners” prior to training. Without this training and authorization, you will not be given proprietary information needed to successfully install the chip and accomplish the tuning. Unichip takes pains to keep a tight grip and trys to insure customers are serviced by competent individuals. This is nothing like the strict requirements for becoming a Marine in WWII...the physical was that you had to be able to hear thunder and see lightning and the mental was that you had to be able to distinguish between those events. Now, a marine told me that, honest. I love those guys.

One of the qualified tuners, Unnatural Inc.(as in aspirate), was less than a mile from the Unichip plant so I rang them first. Ben took my call and said it would be unlikely that I could be fit in that Wed. but that later in the week looked good. “Later” and “good” were not defined but he took my number and promised to get back to me on my cell if he could do it that day. That was at 10 am. At that point I thought “any chance” of saving me the 4 hour drive up there and back was worth a shot. At three, after a long lunch and a matinee, I called him back to see “how things looked”. Ben seemed confused but mellow. He said that there was “no way I could get on the dyno that day” and that was different from his first comment of “unlikely that I could be fit in”. (FIRST CLUE) I told him I never held out any real hope for that and I wasn’t pressing for anything but was repeating my call about an appointment. Ben again said “later in the week looks good” and this time suggested early Friday morning. He added that the shop had done a few SC400s and that they had “come in real good”. Great, they have experience with Unichip AND my model car...good hands.

I told Ben that I would be driving up from Eugene and that, with traffic, it would be difficult for me to be there before 9 am. Ben said that would be fine. In that phone con, Ben confirmed, after consulting the tuner, that 1 hour would be needed to install the chip and two hours of dyno time would be needed to finish the mapping. Sounded fair and was exactly what Jack had suggested was typical and two other Club Lexus members said they had experienced in Georgia. At a hundred an hour I agreed to be there with $300 in hand. I felt pretty secure at this point and wouldn’t you have also?

I arrived at the chassis dynamometer facility of Unnatural at the crack of 9 am. I was looking forward to my first Unnatural experience and the excitement of an honest-to-goodness dyno run as I have never had one of those. Unnatural was locked up tighter than a cheddar cheese binge aftermath. No sign of life nor a operating hours sign. I read the paper twice and paced a while. I walked over to the muffler shop and those nice folks told me “that crew” doesn’t open till around 10 am. Hmmmm. AROUND? This didn’t bode well for The Kid. and wasn’t a good sign in general. Or corporal, even. (SECOND CLUE)

I was greeted a little after 10 by Ben, the office manager and resident advocate for legalization of marijuana in Oregon. Benright off, gave me a card for an organization that distributed medical pot. I wear a conspicuous leg brace that is pimped out proper but my distinct limp still shines through. To Ben’s credit he was trying to do me a good turn. I assured him that while I didn’t use pot personally for “pain”, I did contribute money annually to a fund that worked to decriminalize the stuff. If nothing else I would like to see the prisons emptied. Some of the confusion I experienced with my initial call came into sharper focus and made a little more sense. At least to me. (THIRD CLUE)

Ben invited me to have a seat and wait the arrival of the tuner known as “Richie”. Was that a play on words for a tuner? When he arrived at 10:30 he looked to be 30 and a tad mature for a “ie” suffix on his name. We broke the ice talking about the terrible time he had had replacing timing belts on the Lexus V8 and the impossibility of doing a starter change out. I have done one of each on my car and he swears he will never do another. I didn’t think it was wrist slashing bad. Difficult, yes!

The data for my chip hook-up was not there from Unichip, supposedly, so we were in a holding pattern till it arrived. I assumed that the request to Unichip for data peculiar to my car had been made on the Wed. that I made the appointment. That is how I would have done it. You don’t have to have been a Boy Scout to know that “prepared” is a serious part of “succeed”. I also wondered why they didn’t have the info on hand if they had done a 93 SC before. (FOURTH CLUE)



After about an hour of waiting, supposedly for Unichip, I went out to get my chip out of the trunk and show Richie the interface/adapter harness. Thought maybe he could do something with it. My thought was that if I had an appointment for Friday morning he was falling behind and anything we could do to prep was time well spent. I seemed the only one concerned for his schedule. (FIFTH CLUE)

My Unichip and my G Tech meter were missing from my trunk.. I had been “hit” that morning as I prepared to leave Eugene for Portland. After loading my chip and G Tech I had returned to the house for bags not associated with this trip and had left the trunk open while I retreived them from the house. Placing the bag in the trunk I obscured my view of the trunk interior and didn’t notice that everything I carefully loaded only a minute before was GONE. After the appropriate kicking of the curb and exclamation of “gosh darn. Isn’t this a sad turn of events”, I had the good sense to call Unichip and try to salvage the trip. I told Jack my oh so sad story. He sympathized and told me he would sell me a used chip for cheap. I leapt at that offer and, I swear to God this is true, Jack then said “I am sorry I can’t drop it off. You will have to come and pick it up because we are short staffed today.” I haven’t even heard of a guy like this for a long time. The GM and a retired officer? Lucky me.

I returned to Unnatural and gave the new(to me) chip to Wes the owner and was asked to wait. Richie came out and said he was still waiting for “Josh”, the Unichip in-house tuner, to get back to him with the needed info. I told him I had just seen Josh at Unichip. Richie seemed to infer that Josh was a flake even though he seemed to me to be professional and competent. I also asked if it might not be helpful to just drive over to Unichip central and pick up the info as it was less that ten minutes away. Richie thought that would be unnecessary and that Josh would call back any minute. This after a two hour wait for the call till that point. (SIXTH CLUE)

A short while later, Richie came into the waiting room and announced I had a check engine light on. I told him I knew that and had called Lex about it and they said that code 13 was a fault in the “back-up” cam zero signal. They said they had never seen the code in real life and suggested I live with it as it did not affect normal operation and might cost a few hundred dollars to fix. Wes, overhearing this conversation, interrupted to say that a calibration of the chip was precluded by a trouble code. I said it was probably the connector on the front of the left timing belt cover and if they lent me an ohm meter I could verify the fault as I knew the check was for one K-ohm to verify the coil pick-up. Richie left and returned to say that the wire harness was rubbing on the ac belt and that a piece of black tape had solved the problem. Wes asked why I hadn’t corrected that before I went in for a tune and I answered that I had asked about any required conditions and was told there were NONE. Thought it odd that he would make a comment about MY NOT BEING PREPARED. Back to waiting. (SEVENTH CLUE)

At one pm I started to get the shakes. I am a diabetic and had anticipated being home in Eugene by two pm. Being told I was in for a three hour event, I took my shots at 7 am and expected to be home at 2 pm, including travel. I estimated having a light lunch at noon on the drive home and took enough insulin for that schedule. I miscalculated and needed food at 1 pm or I was going to be one sick puppy. My car wasn’t started at 1 pm, 3 hours late, so I got it out of the shop and drove to the nearest Mexican food and got take out. When I got back, Richie told me that Unichip still hadn’t called with the needed data. He added that the Unichip product wouldn’t do much and he suggested I opt for a complete replacement of my ECU and the planned Unichip upgrade. He told me that would only cost me $2,400 and he could have the job done in a couple of hours. I told him that was out of my league and I was doing the Unichip only because I had gotten such a sweet deal on E Bay. He said he would call Unichip again and see if he could get Josh to fax over the data. I didn’t want to get involved between these guys and possibly get things completely off the hook so I decided to let them sort it out. I later learned that Unichip hadn’t logged any calls from Unnatural that day that they could find in the records. Josh hadn’t heard from them for weeks. Lets see now...bad mouthed a competant tuner for no reason and then trashed the product he was supposed to be selling. How do you spell UNETHICAL. And Unichip had recommended them and Richie knew that. (EIGHTH CLUE)

At 5 pm Richie told me that there was a problem with the data that Unichip finally sent over and he had learned that Unichip did not have the Lexus schematics he needed to do the install. He went on to say that Unnatural’s contact at the local Lexus dealer had left for the day and he wouldn’t be able to get the data till the following Tuesday. “Sorry! You will have to come back”.. Does it seem odd to you that Unichip would supply Lexus data? It did to me, also. (NINETH CLUE) They don’t! The tuner gets the auto schematic from the internet service. Richie assured me he wanted to do the job and make his three hundred dollars and that he would call me the following week with an appointment.

Not having heard from the pros’ at Unnatural by the following Friday, I called and spoke with Wes. He seemed confused but perked up when I mentioned I had been in his shop the previous Friday and didn’t get the tune. He went to talk to Richie. When he got back he sounded amused (TENTH CLUE)and told me to wait for Richie’s call the following week.

Now these guys had three days to prepare for a brand new customer and they had done zip by the time I got there. I only spoke with “gentle”, laid back, Ben and he was not capable of being offended by anyone and I had been polite anyway. I know how to be a complete prxxk and I wasn’t. I doubt Ben remembered me, anyway. I showed up on time, an hour early as it were, and they still hadn’t pulled my car into their shop two later. My discovery of my being ripped off did not seem to set them back as it took 20 minutes for me to resolve. The wait for Unichip to provide data seems bogus as they apparently didn’t ask for data that day. The deal with the local Lex dealer is odd seeing as they get the info off of the internet like any other shop. They lost three hundred dollars of labor money(read profit) that they undoubtedly do not record for tax purposes. They asked me to come back and I only guess that that was for comic relief. They call themselves “UNNATURAL”, as in aspirate.. I think “UNNATURAL” as in “ACT” is far far more appropriate. So if you were planning on coming to Portland for a DYNO run, you have been warned to cover your six if you drop by UNNATURAL. You have been “CLUED”.

Had my chip installed and tuned with great results. Took Josh a couple hours. I have horsepower gain across the graph and Josh said he had set it for a leaner mix than stock for this open circuit portion of the map. The piggyback chip does not affect the operation of the closed loop operation. My horse power gains are there when I am into the throttle more than 75%. Unichip usually doesn’t do retail dyno as they would interfere with the dyno shops they authorize as sales and installation agents. I think they felt sorry for me for my having been so shafted unnaturally, unnecessarily and unwarrantedly. I am a good guy...ask my Mom. I will try to post the graph of my runs in a few days or so. 243 HP at 5400 at the crank. I know it is supposed to be the RWHP but there is a story about that. With 18% loss in the auto I guess I have 199rwhp with the Unichip in charge. I think the chip gave me a 20hp bump at 5400 and 10 or 12 throughout the rest of the band from 3K rpm to 6,500. Let me get the graph posted. I understand the price should be @ $500 for the chip purchased from the dyno shop and another $300 for the tune and programing. I don't think I can get this much bang for the buck with any other mod to a stock auto. They do turbo and supercharger and Nox.

Unichip has three dyno shops in the Portland area that are qualified.. “Torque Freaks” went out of bus. last week. Unnatural, you know by now. GT DYNO I spoke with and they seemed professional. They quoted me three hours and $300 for install and tune. The guy there is Shawn (I think) and he sounds like Unichip would want one of their shops to sound.

I wish all of you good luck. If you go with Unichip, and I think they have a cost effective and worthwhile product, try GT DYNO. Wish I had done that to begin with. Chinese curse...”May you live in interesting times.” Lets hear it for boring.

John

MJHSC400

This is the worst story I've ever heard --- I've never seen anybody go through so much trouble just to get something simple done--

My hat is off to you for sticking it out and being persistent-- Nobody deserves to have their schit jacked like that--

That shop should be burned down yesterday-- They're absolutely pathetic bro-- totally freakin stupid people--

I'm only concerned about the actual readings-- as the crank hp are only estimates, where the rwhp is actual data--

It looks like you got a 25hp bump at the rear wheels from what most older sc's dyno at-- not bad for no other mods really--

SCV8

Do you believe that they would have successfully tuned the car even if they had the chance?
Not likely.
Sounds like the wait and hassle were almost worth it (as opposed to getting a bad tune).
I had a loose pin in my ECU plug that would intermittently cut the iginition; took a good while to figure out.
Glad to hear it finally worked out.

jefferino

iTrader: (1)

Can someone provide me the cliff notes for this thread

sc250tt

wow that was long but i read it .you got alot of time and patients .but now we know that the"CHIP" actually does something

tavarish

iTrader: (2)

got a chip, went to a crappy shop, went to a good shop, installed, everyones happy.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

I hear the paperback release for this is due in September and should be on Oprah's book club of the month sometime in spring '08

MJHSC400

You guys should pick up a copy of his first book--


"How words can kill; A personal guide"

JohnEd

iTrader: (1)

First of all, Thank you all for sharing. I didn't make the post for me in any way and only one missed that. Really, thank you all.

SCV8....Thanks for your good wishes. My GTech would have ferreted them out and then I would have been adding their incompetance to the list of their deficiencies. Small claims would have settled that and I suspect Josh would have put in an appearance for the case against. They didn't seem to have any reservations about trying to kill his rep without justification. Payback!

Jeff...Cliff notes: Don't be unatural. Share the good news along with the bad. Both newses were in there.

SC250...I took the time because I think they earned my best effort and mostly because I want to spare any unsuspecting CL'er my dismal outcome. Actually, there is more to this story and other chickens will come home to roost in good time.

Tav..You got it, mostly. "crappy shop was..." FYI

OLT...Rapier like whit.

MJ...Not true! My first book was titled "How to kill a mocking bird".

My work on this is finished. Four guys got it and said thanks...in their own way. I suspect a lot more are better informed and that was my objective. Four out of six is 66% and thats a home run. And you can call my book anything you want on the Oprah show.

John

LexAnt

iTrader: (2)

yea I had a similar experience with a supposed tuner for unichip here in norcal. I honestly don't think he even remotely knew how to tune the chip for my car as he couldn't even get it to operate normally in closed loop. The car was running pig rich at idle and it caused a check engine light. But thankfully, the tuner was nice enough to give me the option to take the chip as is or to just leave, with no payment given for all the time to get the chip and the tuning. I just left and opted for a SAFC2/Wideband setup. I had posted up the graphs earlier but the Unichip did give more power than a simple SAFC2 setup as the timing maps were tuned. Even though they use a dyanmometer, compare it from baseline to after tune numbers. That's more important than to just compare numbers from dyno to dyno. In my situation, I actually gained around 30hp, whether crank or rear wheel, either way, it was a measurable gain. Now with the SAFC2 setup, tuned on a dynojet, I gained 22rwhp. So the unichip does have better gains but not ease of tunability as only an authorized tuner with the unichip software can tune it. That was another reason why I opted to back out on the unichip.

JohnEd

iTrader: (1)

LexAnt,

Thanks for the words. You are correct about the tuner needing propriatary software to tune the Unichip. Without it you are sunk and your experience seems to point that out. With all the time I spent at Unichip over the past couple weeks I learned a lot. That isn't the challange for me as it would be for some of the other CLers as I am starting with a smaller deck. Still, somthing is good. Unichip takes calls all day from their authorized tuners on tech questions. A lot of these chips are going into radically modified and asperated engine control units and there are no manuals. The men get seperated from the boys in that situation and these guys seem to not quit till it is right. You sound like you got hooked up with a counterfeit Unichip tuner. Where did you buy your chip? The shops that are qualified to tune are also the factory retailers. The shop where you bought it should have sombody there that went through the training or perhaps they used to employ somebody that did. I wish you would drop Unichip, and Jack Freidman a line and share the name of the shop and tuner. Not to cause trouble as it seems that the guy was finally staright-up with you, but to make things better in the world for all of us.

What were the charges for the Ubichip and SCXXX that you finally went with respectively? Part and tune.

Sorry you missed that extra 8 ponies and glad it finally worked out for you.

Your comment about RWHP and CRANKHP not being the main point is well received by me, at least. My gains were noted between stock ECU and Unichiped with bothe tests being done within the same hour(or so) of each other. One thing I picked up was that the numbers change from day to day and even between 3 or 4 hours. Temp, atmos pressure and rel humidity affect the hp numbers. They, Unichip pers, did discuss with me why they quote "crank" hp instead of rwhp. It has to do with their set up and a software glitch. Anybody that has anything to do with computers has sympathy for this situation. Their dyno is a four wheel drive capable affair. That adds a level of complexity. Don't quote me but I think the computer garbles the crank number and graphs but gets the "corrected" crank numbers and pictures correct. I know that the rwhp data must be collected first and then the crank data "figured" so you would think.... Then we go back to COMPUTERS(!). As long as it is accurate I don't care and these guys are looking for comparison data.

Don't forget to give Jack a call about the shops trouble and the rest of your story. I wouldn't be surprised if he helped you get settled into a new Unichip and pick up those lost 8 hp. WWW.unichip.us 1-866-643-7400

My very best wishes to you.

John

Thank you for sharing with us all.

chanh55

That's gotta be the longest post on CL written by someone...

Words: 3,142
Characters (No Spaces): 13,172
Characters (w/ Spaces): 16,337

Back on topic... glad it worked out in the end...

LexAnt

iTrader: (2)

The shop i went to was an authorized tuner that i had found on unichip's website. I had gone through them to get the proper chip for me but it was a nightmare as they were sent first the Q box version then A box version, and then finally the C box version. The Q box version looked promising but it did not contain the base map for a 95 SC4 and the tuner was not willing to start from scratch so we ended up in a 2 week ordeal just to get the right box. When the C box finally came in, and it was installed, timing was waaayyy off ... to the point where the car literally sounded like a muscle car with a hot cam. Had the tuner been able to get it to run properly in closed loop and do the tuning to 13:1 under WOT and open loop, then I would have taken it the chip and tune for the 700 we had discussed. The running rich at idle and check engine light is not somethin i could live with so i declined to keep the unichip.

JohnEd

iTrader: (1)

LexAnt,

Understand, please, that I am not competant to discuss this. I am aware of a couple of things only because I listened to a lot of conversations and talked to guys that had the chip.

1. I think the Q series of chip supercedes all others. It replaced the C that I started out with and the C ran my car fine. I now have a Q in my 93 SC400. The C will also work just fine.

2. The new chip out of the box will not run the car even close to properly. It is blank inside and it needs to be clued in a little even to start the tuning process. C or Q or A....all of them. Mine ran a test car because the guy that sold it to me took it out of a Tundra with a supercharger and it was programed. That one was stolen. The Q he put in mine had to be , I guess initialized is a good word, started up.

3. The unichip has no affect on the idle or first 75% of the throttle. It BEGINS to function when the gas is pushed to near WOT. The early throttle stuff is goverened by the smog program and that is not touched fro legal reasons. You can get full mapping but I think you need a completely different chip than they advertise. I guess it has to be told to stay "OFF" at the early throttle but I don't know.

4. Maybe the Q is needed for the 98 and up V8???? Unichip could answer that question.

5. I know you got the shop of of the Unichip site but you might not have gotten the shops qualified tuner. When these guys run into trouble they call Inichip right off. Their staff is spring loaded to the "we will help position". Your tuner should have been wearing the factory boys to a frazel and if he wasn't that is suspecious. At least from my severly disadvantaged viewpoint.

6. $700 is cheap for the chip and tune. The installation should cost you $100. Tuning should take 2 hours and cost $200. The chip will cost @$500. Buy the chip from the shop that does you tune as they get a mark-up and that is part of their profit profile for an installation.

I really hope you call Jack and get his take on your experience. Really, I do. Then please share the outcome.

Thank you for your good wishes

John

LexAnt

iTrader: (2)

yea the Q box is the latest version. he was a unichip custom tuner so i had opted to go to him. and even now, on their website, they do not list for a 95 SC4. I'm in no way bashing unichip as the gains are evident. However, i chose to go another route after that ordeal. I chose not to buy the chip, all i lost was my time. As of now, I am using the SAFC2/wideband setup and it is fine for me at the moment. Eventually I will be goin over to a MAP2 after some other modifications are done.