I was wondering if anyone has heard of this chip and how well it works or if it is a scam or not. The link is http://www.gfchips.com/minicooper.aspx If someone could give me a little more info and if they have used this or even heard of this chip.

 

this is something that just won't die. Why would anyone think that just adding some little, cheap piece of whatever will make the car instantly more powerfull and/or efficient when pretty much every car manufacturer is under the gun for increased efficiency is beyond me....

But anyway, the way this works is by putting a fixed resistor in place of your manifold tempurature sensor. It trickes the ECU into thinking that the air temp is different than it really is, and then the ECU changes the fuel mixture a bit. So effectively your ECU is flying blind to what's going on in it's intake.

In some cases this will increase power a little bit. In some cases it will lower power a little bit. But either way, it will blind your car to very high intake temps that can cause knock and detonation.

If you want to do this yourself, save your money, buy a 1.5k ohm resistor, and wire that in place of the temp sensor. You'll do the same thing for about a buck.

Matt

 

Thank you for your imput Matt (Dr Obnxs). I do want want to "Fly my ECU blind" at all. What kind of mods would you recommend for my R50? I'm thinking of an intake and exhaust. Anything else I should be looking in to?

 

put on some front camber plates and some sticky tires. They will transform the cars handling. Tunes work on the R50, but they don't get tons of power. Cat back systems cost a lot for the power you get, as you still have the stock header. There are a lot who have modded the R50 over on MiniTorque and Mini2, as with the higher cost to insure the S, there are a lot who have lots more experience on getting power out of the Cooper engine. Take a look over there and you'll get lots of info.

But in general, anything that says $60 = 60 HP is just modern snake oil.

Matt