hi,  i'm seeing a lot of the "performance chips" for sale on ebay.  do they really work?  the price seems awfully cheap compared to the ones for the popular diesel truck engines in the 4wd mags.  thanks.

Hey Strvger,

I'm not sure which in particular you've been looking at on Ebay, but I know alot of those "performance chips" are nothing more than a resistor that you install into the MAF sensor on the air inlet tube.  The resistor is supposed to trick the ECU (via the resistance) into thinking the air is colder than it really is, thus getting the ECU to advance the timing, and increasing fuel to compensate...

I've tried a few of them, and honestly can't say there was any difference.   

Perhaps others have had different experience with these?!

-Zukisidekick

yea i bought one and to my surprise it was just  resistor. i didnt noticed any difference and after a while it made my check engine light come on.  not worth the money.

x2 on these things, pure snakeoil salesmanship at it's worst in my opinion. Anything that will net gains in HP or gas mileage aren't going to come from "tricking" the computer on a modern engine. The only way to gain real HP is serious and well thought out modifications to the intake, heads, valves etc... and also adjusting the pcm to allow for increased output. Fuel injectors to allow for increased fuel and air. Superchargers offer good torque and hp improvements if installed/tuned properly.

If there was an "easy" fix to more HP don't you think the manufacturer would have done it already? if not then perhaps it causes problems with emissions etc..? There are good reasons for the choices made |removethispart|@ the manufacturing/engineering level of most automakers.

hi and thanks for the replies.   i'll just stick with the aftermarket air tube intake and headers with cat-back exhaust system then.  i knew those things were too good to be true, but wasn't sure what exactly they were selling.

this guy left this on my cardomain page regarding those resistors:

Posted by Brock_Palmer
04/05/2006, 06:06pmI just attached a 10,000 Ohm resistor to both the wires that go from the throttle body to the IAT sensor. I guess it works by creating an alternate path for the current to flow so the IAT gets a colder reading and aloows more gas in (since cold air is more dense).

has anyone tried re-maping the current chips in the ecu? my friend has a comp program that will let him re-map a honda's ecu chip for better timing/fuel. etc. but not sure if this is something that can be done with stock sammy/tracker ecu

Your money is much better spent on an intake upgrade.

There is a notiecable increase in power, and it make the engine sound more angrey....

Don't you want an angrey sounding 1.6 engine with 4 pistons of terror going down the road?

But seriously, be careful with alot of the "upgrades" on ebay, if they were so great wouldn't one of the mfrs be selling them and making money on them to.

If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

has anyone tried re-maping the current chips in the ecu? my friend has a comp program that will let him re-map a honda's ecu chip for better timing/fuel. etc. but not sure if this is something that can be done with stock sammy/tracker ecu

I looked into it. Some of the Zuk ECUs have an external EEPROM that could be chipped but others don't. There isn't any information publicly available on the processors, they custom made in-house for Mitsubishi. Superchips used to advertise a chip for a 16v, but it works out a bit pricy, there are also piggy-back converters available (not the eBay rubbish!). AFAIK there isn't any software or alternative maps available for the Zuks.