Hi fellow Motorers,

This will not be a glowing advertisement review of the RaceChip Ultimate but a critical one.

First of all I am a relatively new member on NAM with few posts but please note that I registered on this website long before the RaceChip came out. Please look at my other posts, mosts are complains about my stupid mini which although excelled to drive also makes me a little crazy due to the symphony of squeaks, rattles and road noise. Please let us try not to repeat on this thread what happened on the OFFICIAL RACE CHIP ULTIMATE TUNE thread.

I purchased the RaceChip from MiniDynamics in April 2013 which was honestly a great experience from a customer service perspective. I was waiting for someone to post results but no one was so I bit the bullet and had it sent up to Canada. I initially thought it worked based on "butt dyno" (this is a ridiculously unreliable measure, the other day I drove a Cayman and my butt dyno wasn't that impressed). But with day to day driving over the summer I took the RaceChip on and off the vehicle swapping in the supplied dummy plug and didn't really notice a difference. Since learning about the JB+ tune I have been super angry at myself and considered selling the RaceChip on ebay at a loss as long as the money would cover a JB+. I don't have access to a dyno nor will I go spend money for dyno time to make forum members happy, but I did have an iTunes gift card and could spend $15 on an app.

Testing: Dynolicious Fusion on iPhone 5s using Gyroscope and Accelerometer data.

Vehicle: 2012 Manual Mini Cooper S, Koni FSD, 19 mm H-Sport RSB, RaceChip Ultimate

I did 10 runs on the same 1 km/0.66 mile stretch of road which was not the flattest and had several rough patches making driving fast challenging. I posted my best and worst run with and without the race chip. I noted more wheelspin with traction control on and more turbo/exhaust noise with the Racechip. It was also snowing and I was on 16" stock rims with Pirelli Sottozero II tires with 9 mm tread, and traction and DSC were left on due to the weather. Variability in runs was a tad high and I realize my driving/shifting skills are probably lacking as I normally drive in a more police friendly manner. All runs with and without the race chip were within separate 0-100 km/h ranges with no overlap in times between groups. There was at least a 1 second difference in 0-100kph times between the worst RaceChip run and the best Stock run. The 0-100kph time is the only reading i trust from the iPhone accelerometer.

Without Racechip:



With Racechip:



Gains? Look like they may be there, I may have just not noticed it because I drive too much like a grandma day to day or my expectations were too high.

Was this worth the $699 that I paid for it, hell no. I think I may have been happy with the results if it cost 299 like the jb+. I will do further testing when the weather is clear and with my phone mounted to the windshield for better data collection. I'll post more "graphs" soon. All this may prove is that I am a crappy driver but I am trying to do more than just wax poetically about a product here and give somewhat objective measures.

Thanks for reading,
-Sid

 

Somebody on the countryman forum already did a dyno and found 0 hp gain from the race chip. The company themselves never produced any claimed HP numbers (probably because they knew there weren't any gains to be had). Even after the countryman guy confirmed our suspicion that the race chip was worthless, he still claimed a "butt dyno" improvement. People have a tendency to justify their poor purchases.

I would return the race chip asap and see if you can get your money back.

Edit: Their website claims min. 20hp gains, which is categorically false.

 

I installed a Race Chip Ultimate in my R60 last weekend... First off as an early disclaimer - I didn't buy it, but won it in a raffle at MINIs Take the Beltway. The other disclaimer is that I have not dynoed the car - ever.

In the first few days - seat of the pants, it did feel like there was a bit more pull and a bit more responsiveness. I noticed that my shift points had changed as I was getting more speed at lower RPMs than I was pre-Race Chip...

However, since mid-week the shift points have moved back, and RPM vs speed is back where it was pre-install. It feels like the ECU may have adapted to the presence of the Race Chip.

The other promise that Race Chip makes is fuel economy... I was very interested to see how that would work out. In the first week of daily driving - no noticeable change, still right around 25MPG. I also did a long drive (350ish miles) where I have in the past gotten 30MPG... Again, no significant change - 29.5MPG - but definitely not the gain advertised. I'm making the drive again in a week, but I'm not expecting to see different results...

At this point I'm thinking of pulling the chip after New Years...

 

I would like to see if someone with an engineering background can open one of these things up and figure out what it is at least trying to do. It's apparent that it doesn't actually work at all, but maybe we could figure out what they originally tried to accomplish.

 

I did dyno with the racechip and without on my 09 JCW R56
I gained 25hp; verified.