Why are people continually selling unichips for this car? I have one and i am loving it so much. Sure they have their problems like every part but you can easily modify the harness not to break. This is the only real tunable solution for our cars right now and people want to almost give them away. What are people switching to?(please dont say jan) or do people just want to return their cars to stock. I know jan has had alot of success with his tuning but their is still no way for the average bear with a little tuning know how to effectively tune his car and return it to stock before he takes it back to the dealer. Flashes are over rated and once jan gets his tool out im sure many will be happy, and it will be a great leap forward, but most of us will be hunting for more, so why not keep your unichip for the time being as it has more potential that jans tunes? I dont get it enlighten me please!

 

After a year of P115D I had enough.

 

Wait, so the Uni-chip is better than a live dyno custom tune? This outta be good.....

 

cuz it blows

 

Heres my experience...

70 mph, fast lane, rush hour, going to work. Car dies and i roll to the Median. I have to get out, dressed up, and pull this thing off of my car so i can keep going.

They have a problem with the pins that attach to the ECU which causes problems like not starting, and car dying, ect.

They said that it can happen if it is uninstalled a lot...they loosten up.

I talked with them about mine and they let me send it back in for them to look at the pins and probably re-crimp them...which is awesome. They have shown me top-notch customer service, and Im not the original owner...got mine from the classifieds on here.


I want to put it back on, as it was great great fun! I should also note that my car died one other time about 6 months prior to this most recent one...I had it off the car ever since, but decided "to give it one more try"

Here hoping for a better fix.


Also, one of Jans tunes (since you brought it up) would be 100X better than some outta the box unichip tune, taking full advantage of what the car has to offer.... yeah the unichip gave me 5 lbs of boost, but I bet im running pretty lean, and well, that is just not the most desireable...

I almost went down to Kentucky when Jan was there for a tune, but ended up not. Now if there was this magical Flash tool i would have been all over it, as many would be. I recently saw a post like "dealer reflashed my car, now what Jan?"... not the way i wanna blow hundreds of dollars, and while im sure Jan would make it right again, its probably kind of a pain....

/rant lol

 

okay why was it throwing this code? a harness that is very easy to repair?


yes i believe this is much better than flashing the computer, not the factory BS tune unichip sends you, you actually put your car on the dyno and tune it with the unichip software/cable/laptop. its actually pretty simple and its a tune i made for my car, the same thing jan is doing but im not flashing the ecu, i have similar parameters but i can remove the unichip and the dealer never knows.


explain please this post doesnt help at all......

 

i wash my car i agree and disagree, the unichip is tunable its just no mini owners have wanted to do it. as you see the highest HP r56's are unichip cars because they actually went out of their way to tune the unichip. they didnt use the terrible alta maps or the stock ones for that matter.

btw they car doesnt run lean if you tune it

 

well thats good to know. mine was tuned for my car, but not on my particular car...

this will soon be a 10 page 'this vs. that' thread FYI lol

Maybe more will enlighten us on why they were selling thiers.... I am curious, but maybe they has situations like mine, but actually would consider selling potentially dangerous things to someone else...who knows

 

i do not want this to turn into a this or that thread, although it would be cool to have a 10pg thread thats not what i want to know.....i want to know why a custom flash is better than a custom unichip tune....and why people are selling these for so cheap when there is nothing better....IMHO

 

lol wow...no way! I'm having Jan flash me back to stock and I'm buying a UniCrap!

Are you serious right now? How do u possibly think that a piggyback is better than a full dyno tune? Jan has access to the entire ECU, explain how that has less tuning potential than a UniChip? Just for example, can you adjust cam timing with a UniChip? Nope

If you like your unichip then that's great...you're certainly in the minority. Just know that it's a pretty half *** solution to tuning.

 

P115D AN EASY TO REPAIR HARNESS .

i had five harnesses, sent it back five times, to both ALTA and Unichip.

No one ever figured out what the code was or meant. I had multiple people and companys look at it.

Not so easy to fix my friend.

and talk to the people who have this in their cars, everyone I have talked to gets the p115d code and clears it everyday just like I did for more than a year. I just got tired of it. I miss my chip but I hated that code.

 

the 115d code comes up because its going over the limit of the maf sensor,thats why it comes up,its an easy fix accualy ,

 

Please give me instructions on how to fix it.

 

the unichip hits at 21 22 psi,it should be no more than 19 psi limit of the maf sensor calibration with the stock turbo,put a manual boost controler and dont go more than 19psi,and dont worry you wont get any code ,just leave the factory soleinoide pluged in and plug the hose to the wasgate

 

So you are telling me you don't get this code anymore? I remember you used to, right?

Plus that doesn't sound easy, by the time I am done it would have cost just as much to go see Jan. He's only an hour or so from me. But I tell you my car used to be fast as he'll with that chip. It's fast now but feels like a dog to me. I'm disliking it more and more. I better get that tune soon

 

verry easy and cost you 40$ for a good boost controler

 

couldn't u just swap in a JCW MAF sensor... those things can hit 22psi stock i've heard... i know they at least go up to 20 psi... i'd have to look at boost maps to double check that but if it's just the sensor saying i cant read this then that could be a solution... it also seems like a viable safe way to have a MINI product that's made to read higher flow...


i could be completely wrong on that mind you tho... it's all speculation on my part. I personally am going to be going with a GIAC flash with highboost map and 93 octane map... slight changes to the tune will help optimize it for my car's setup... yeah it's basically a modified out of the box tune but Jan's not coming to my area anytime soon and i've been itching for a tune since i got the car

hope everyone's tuning solution works out for them tho. after all in the end it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of your car but you. MINIpulate the car to your liking, that's why we have MINIs

do have to say tho that typically, in the aftermarket scene there are three ways to usually go, Piggyback (minipulate the signal after the ECU), Flash (change ECU's signals themselves), or Stand Alone (make your own signals from scratch)... unfortunately for MINIs, our ECU controls more than just the engine performance, it's basically the whole car so a Stand Alone is out of the question unless you want to lose some interior fuctions. a Flash can only be done by people who know exactly what their doing or they'll kill your car (which is why Jan is in such high demand), and the UNIchip was great and the first thing to give MINI owners their own tuning possibility. it's just if people heard about how unichip works and how it can (i stress can) cause long term problems from excessive boost and no supporting mods (proven yet? i don't think so but owners can worry... not to mention the heat under the bonnet is annoying for the unit, most likely causing the multiple harness failures we hear so much about). i think the reason most people (going back to the original question) get rid of the UNIchip is because yes it makes power but most people don't want the hassle of potential failures and waiting to have their power back... a flash is one and done, technically easier and fewer potential headaches.

 

At least someone around here gets it

 

Uni-chip was a stop-gap tuning method from the pre-flash days. It is now "old-school" as there are better options.

 

OP is a funny guy.

I'm one who went through 5 or 6 harnesses to finally get a good one.

I now have a dimsport tune and I like it much more. No codes, never just dies while driving down the road, starts right up every time, doesn't run dangerously lean.

Best of all - no worries. It's dependable and reliable.

 

It would be nice to have a Unichip-Like solution for custom tunes (like Jan's). That way, if you take your car to the dealer, you can just pop off the addon and don't have to worry about the ecu being messed with...

I'm all for custom tunes though, I only wish there was someone closer to where I'm at that can do them...