will this chip really do anything??
 

The price is so cheap, it makes me wonder...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2IN1-...item4a9dde1a63

from everything I can find on-line, it's a fly-by-night operation (lifetime warranty for the 3 months before they change their name again) and it doesn't work. It may trick the computer for a few days, but the computer will compensate for the false data and it may even cause problems. You're much better stumping the coin for a proper programmer.

yeah, I actually took the time to read EVERY single review of the seller on Ebay (too much time on my hands, lol) While damn near everybody praised the super quick shipping, I only saw about 10 reviews saying that it worked. Everything else was not installed yet, or when commenting on how they got no gain, the seller ALWAYS said that they hadn't installed it correctly. Everyone who said the product was a fail, was called a liar. I tried to email seller at the address provided, and Yahoo responded saying that the address wasn't a real address. How they sold so many is unbelievable. Thanx for your input SLYMER.. BTW, do you know of a good quality chip for a 94?

94 what?

94 Grand Marquis. I currently have 2 Flowmaster 40 series in turndowns under the middle of the car, and a K&N air filter. Sounds pretty good considering that everyone says it's a "grandma car". It's white with 5% tint all around so some people think it looks like a cop car. I'm not trying to make it super fast by any means, but a little more would be cool. Cheapest "legit" chip I found was like $240 or so from Surf City Speed. I couldn't find the link to post though, sorry

That sounds about right for the "code-in-a-box" chip. If you like to tweak settings yourself, give www.tweecer.com a try (it costs more, but does more too). Hypertech makes some for the crown vic of the same year (not sure if they used the same computer, but they usually do). Superchips has one for offer too (saw here: http://www.eautoworks.com/product-Su...nd_Marquis.htm).

You won't spend less than $240-250 on a performance chip from an established company unless you can find some place that stocked up on the part you need and is having a fire-sale.

The link you provided shows that I can expect about: HP Increase +19 hp; Torque Increase +31ft/lb
Do you think I'd really feel much increase with 19 hrspwr? I want my car to be faster under 75 mph, as I rarely drive even that fast. Thanks for your continued help

not really... but that's with a pure stock setup... with the pipes and intake, you may realize more. It still won't be much. For real power, you'd have to go with a more aggressive cam, port the heads, get better headers and do some real work on the engine. There is no single "this thing will give you more power" fix unless you're willing to fork the bill for NOS... but then it only works when you press the button.

yeah, I'm not gonna do all that. I'm MUCH MUCH MORE of an AUDIO Guy. Those $3-$400 on any of those mods, could be a new sub, amp, or radio, insulation, etc.etc.

In that case, the chips are your best bet for getting anything else out of it, but like you've already found out, you're not going to get out for less than $240.

yeah...Thanks again for the continued input

quick question... When I had my exhaust installed, they took out 2 of the cats (I think there are 4). I was told that removing the resonator would give me more sound, and maybe make the car run "smoother" (at least exhaust-wise). Is this true? I had the install done at smalltime shop, do you think they would've taken off the resonator already, without me asking? Also, I can get the other 2 cats removed, what difference could I expect in sound/performance? Let me know what you think plz.

the cats form a small restriction... check the current cats out. If they just cut off the rear 2 cats and welded to the pipes between the cats, then you won't actually solve much. The front cats were the same as the rear cats. If they put on aftermarket cats (like I did to my 88) then there's just one larger section on the level pipe which makes it easier to get at the bolts on the down-pipe from the headers. You can only remove the cats if you are in an area that does not do emission checks (or the engine runs clean enough to pass inspection without the cats) and it's not illegal to remove the cats in your area. No matter what you do, the less restriction you have on the exhaust, the better performance will be. This is why I have straight through mufflers (no baffles like flowmasters tend to have) to reduce back pressure as much as I could, but I'm still using an H pipe because I need to keep the torque envelope in the lower range of RPMs. If you have an engine that will rev high, full length headers and high flow pipes with straight through mufflers is pretty much the best performance you can get. However, to really get the performance out of anything larger than a stock set of dual exhaust, you really need to port the heads and get a more aggressive cam and high flow intake. The easier it is to move air in and out of an engine, the more efficient it will run. The more air you can get into the engine (with proper fuel mix mind you) the more powerful it will be (hence turbos and superchargers). And they're right about the resonator. It's just a larger section of pipe in the middle somewhere that creates a little disturbance in the flow of exhaust if I remember correctly. It may also help regulate back-pressure (keep it more balanced), but it really isn't needed.

a friend of mine at work told me that without the last cats on, that my car could run different, and not necessarily in a good way. He also told me that taking off he resonator would probably give it a more "throaty" (lol) sound..maybe like cherry bombs. I don't want it to sound like Cherry Bombs, that's why I bought Flowmaster's. What you think Slymer? Directed at you cuz you're the only one that seems to know about this on this whole forum

nah... I'm just the one that seems to answer the soonest (bored at home the most?).

If you have an H pipe or X pipe, there shouldn't be an issue as long as all the appropriate steps are taken to keep the EGR system intact. It's a 94 and shouldn't have the oxygen sensors after the cats. If it did have oxygen sensors after the cats, then it would cause issues with running. as far as sound goes, I don't have any clue what anything would sound like. I just know I want mine louder (as soon as it's a classic, the cats are coming off).

I can get the last 2 cats taken off for about $30 at a small-time place. I'm understanding that this would make it NOTICEABLY louder with my H-pipe config?.. And not make performance worse in your opinion? (wasting a lot more gas would be worse of course (if that would happen)) let me know what you think plz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h5RQp7tQSg

This sounds almost as deep as mine, out the back, while mine is turndown. Could my dual Flowmaster setup out the back sound like this 2000 MGM?? or do you think there's other upgrades on this?

I like this

Only take the cats off if you don't have to worry about emissions in your area. Otherwise getting the car inspected will be a hassle. It should help performance a tiny bit for regular driving, but will show a little (maybe a tenth or 2 in a quarter mile) under full throttle. The wasting of gas is directly related to the amount of lead in your foot. If you drive like a bat out of hell, you will pay more for gas.

as for the sound, like I said before... I don't know anything about tweaking the tone, just the loudness. Basically if you remove all obstruction, it will be really loud (cats, baffled mufflers, etc) Tone is dictated by the size of tuning (if any) of the pipes and mufflers and the timing of the engine. I've known some guys to purposely turn their cars bad so the exhaust sounds better. I think this is royally stupid. Considering you have a 94, it's probably got coil packs and tunes itself. So it would be really hard to de-tune your car (good thing). This is about all I know on the subject though.

adding bigger (wider) turndowns shouldn't make a diff. in sound, as the outlet from my exhausts is only so wide, right?
as for emissions, no prob. I take my car to this dude that only wants to see insurance before he gives you the sticker

wider tails only make the sound louder (works like a megaphone) as far as I know.

This is why I have straight through mufflers (no baffles like flowmasters tend to have) to reduce back pressure as much as I could, but I'm still using an H pipe because I need to keep the torque envelope in the lower range of RPMs. where did you find mufflers like that??

how could I make a 3.5" "turndown-pipe" connect with a 2.5" muffler outlet?

Options that I can think of off the top of my head.
1. get a 2.5" pipe and flare one end until it's 3.5" and then weld.

2. Find a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter/flange and then weld.

C. get a 3.5" pipe and mark one line straight along the side. Mark one end with 2 marks that are 7.85" (Diameter * pi) around the pipe from each other and equally distant from the line. Draw a line from the two marks to the end of the line at the other end of the pipe. Cut the wedge out. Weld the edges together to form your adapter. Weld to the pipes.

Where can I find option #2 online?

google?

it's one of those you just gotta look for it. I've personally never actually seen one.

i was told that putting welding a piece from the 2.5" outlet and that piece turning into 3.5" wouldn't change the sound. This dude at work is telling me to just have the last 2 cats taken off, and I should be satisfied.. So far everything this dude has told me was pretty on-point as far as meeting my expectations. I'm seriously thinking this is my only "cheap option" left. BTW, I thought "quality" mufflers would reduce back pressure more than straight pipes.. How did it affect your performance?, and how is the sound diff. than if you had mufflers on it instead?

I have free-flow mufflers (no baffles), not straight pipes. worked wonders on the mid-range RPMs. Still bogs at the top end due to the weenie heads on the old 302 that's in my car. The 3.5" wouldn't change the sound, but may amplify it a bit (more volume). Quality mufflers usually do reduce backpressure, but free flow mufflers help the most with that. Baffled mufflers (no matter how open they are) will still provide some back pressure due to the odd path the exhaust has to take. As for the sound on my car, it's pretty smooth. No thump to it at all (Flowmasters tend to create a little thump because of the baffle setup they use). It's definitely noisier than the stock setup with the extremely baffled stock muffler. You couldn't hear the exhaust on that until it was at least about 2500-3000 rpm. Now you can hear it purr faintly at idle, but it will do a mild roar when I put my foot in it. Can't really expect much noise with the cats still on it and 2 inch pipes.

so this Bootleg tire shop wanted to charge me $80 to remove the last 2 cats on my car. If I go Monday, he said $70 (wtf?) He's saying it will be much louder. What do you think about this price Sly?

I think it's a pretty good price, considering I payed twice that for the same thing on my car.

Not much of a volume difference tho, but deff-nutly a change in tone.

I have Fail Master 44'z and no rear cats on my car, check out my youtube vids...

http://www.youtube.com/user/DerWahns.../7/qqzUpS4ExS4

Sorry,new guy here
Reading this,there is alot of misinformation and misunderstood concepts.
First,for the original OP-the entire ebay ad is a joke. I wouldn't buy from the guy just for GP. The ad pic says +100hp +25mpg.
He's preying on stupidity.
The "CHIP" is a resistor in a box,slymer's sig says he is an electrical engineer so I imagine he can explain how there is no way that little box holds a "CHIP"(EEPROM it looks in pics),associated circuits and wiring,yet only has two wires coming out of it.
It is a resistor that is placed across a sensor,usually a thermistor ( intake or coolant/cylinder head temp) that will alter the return signal to the PCM making it think the air/engine is cooler than it actually is.
Cooler means denser ,denser means more-more is generally fuel. Or in some cases this is reversed to get leaner.
It's a gimmick,a gag etc...
Never trick the computer,just throw a carb on it if you can't do it right.

As for the Cat argument,it's really a moot point.
A shop can charge you $500 to remove it and it's still not an unfair price.
It is against federal law to remove,with a minimum 10k fine and possible 5yrs jailtime IIRC. Our local shops won't just cut off anyone's cats,they have to be referred by a trusted local.
It's not a legal service,so they just throw out a number whenever they are asked. The person will pay it or not,they don't really care.

As for cutting them off,there is no freaking point.
Unless your cammed,turbo/supercharged or have otherwise significantly changed the CFM/RPM limits of your engine than they aren't limiting you.
Taking it off MIGHT gain you LESS than a single hp at some obscure point in the rpm graph.
You are more than likely losing hp due to a negative change in velocity,maybe.
Backpressure isn't good,but necessary in a small amount for the existence of velocity at lower rpm's for torque.
Big as you can get it on the intake and exhaust side is the most ignorant statement i've ever heard for an N/A equipped engine.
The air is a pump,but the idea is more air in,more air out,more efficiently.
It's not more air in,more air out makes it more efficient.
Fluid dynamics tell us alot about pressure drops,velocity,scavenging etc..
On an FI engine,the dynamics are different-but when the engine has to work for it's air,it matters in determining how much the engine is getting for that work.

And of course all decisions made in any of these area's will affect the powerband. Who cares if you gain the ability to flow 50 more cfm and gain 20hp if it's at the edge of your redline or out of where you normally drive.
I'm not an expert in anything but my opinion,but there are alot of good reads on the internet explaining combustion,intake,exhaust and air density theory.


(oh yeah,and cutting off the cats will generally trigger p0430/p0420 codes. The computer will go constantly go through routines trying test and/or save the cat from damage. This usually involves adding a metered amount of extra fuel to the mix. So cutting your cat without properly removing it from the pcm will be simply killing your gas mileage and running rich anyway*generally.

Sorry for the long post,hope I didn't come off as a dik-I suck at the written word.

The only reason to remove the rear cats is to change the tone/volume of the exhaust note, it's not gonna hurt performance that much at all.

And yes it is illegal to remove emissions equipment without replacing them, a federal law covers that, so if you have emission testing in your state don't bother touching the cats.

Another option is installing high flow cats, there are many manufactures that make them for many different cars but they are a little expensive.

On most cars made in the past 10 years there are 4 cats, and 4 o2 sensors. The sensors are before and after the first cat, the rear ones aren't even monitered, so the computer won't even know that they are there in the first place.


As far as that stupid little flebay "performance chip"... I'm surprised they sell any at all, are people really that stupid to think that they will get that much power and mileage increase from such a cheap little thing?

if the 94 doesn't have the rear oxygen sensors, the cats are only there for emission out and the engine doesn't care. If there are oxygen sensors after the cats, the engine will very much care about removing them. I think al already state this, but just to make sure... here it is again.

Eddie is right about the chip (resistor) as I stated early on in this thread. It doesn't work. Even if it is a chip generating a one-wire PWM signal, it will be overcome by the engine computer one way or another. Most likely it will simply ignore the bad sensor data and run less efficiently.

For pipe size, we were talking more about post muffler tail pipe flare (for looks I think) that may add some volume by working like a megaphone (re: pep squads?) or this may just seem that way since it allows the sound to spread out more. I've stated that I don't know much about this and it's mostly speculation on my part about tone and volume.

If you want to hear what my car sounds like... check my vid on youtube. It was recorded with the y pipe and single exhaust, but the only difference in sound between that and the current dual setup is the volume (it's about time and a half as loud now). I have gotten better gas mileage out of it though. I originally got the car and was getting about 11.5mpg in town. I now get around 14mpg in town. Highway was about 17 when I got the car. Now it's about 21.5. I have to add that I did change the gearing in my transmission to a wide range gear set and added a redneck intake with a K&N Apollo as the filter. You can check out the intake in this post. My car gets off the line better than the 93 vic we have (stll pure stock), but the vic will pull harder in the mid and upper RPM range due to that 4.6 engine that's in it. The old 302 will lift the nose and go much harder than the 93 (I think this is mainly due to the differences between speed density and MAF systems - MAF has a slight lag due to the flow sensor waiting for air to move and the computer taking a few more cycles to computer the fuel mix while the speed density just checks a table and doesn't really calculate anything.)

If I had the means and time needed to put a 351 cam in and swap out for a mark 7 ECC, get heads and upper intake plenum from an HO engine, and all that like some folks have done, then I'd probably have even better gas mileage... when I drive normal instead of like a bat outta hell that is. I've still managed a few 11.5 mpg tanks but that was due to driving like a bonehead.

I actually didn't know about the federal law (since I know quite a few folks that have their vehicles registered in non-emission controlled areas and no emission equipment on their cars the thought never crossed my mind).

[quote=merky_marquis;12947]On most cars made in the past 10 years there are 4 cats, and 4 o2 sensors. The sensors are before and after the first cat, the rear ones aren't even monitered, so the computer won't even know that they are there in the first place.
quote]


Yes,those are monitored by the pcm. Ironically the 02 sensors in the rear (behind cats) are called cat monitors. (don't ask my parts guy for a rear 02 sensor!).
They are actually the same physical sensor as the front,just does a different job and has a different plug (GM's use interchangeable plugs generally).

The job of the rear 02 sensor is to judge whether the cats are still efficiently cleaning the exhaust.
The rear 02 sensors have the same codes as the front,the only difference being they are referred to as sensor 2 (HO2S12 and HO2S22).
They also have two extra codes,one for each bank cat-P0420 and P0430.
These are cat efficiency codes,and basically mean your cats are no longer cleaning the exhaust enough.

The four cats aren't needed though honestly.
Cats at the dealer are expensive,and some people I send to the local muffler shop owned by a buddy.
He cuts off the rear cat,guts the front (light off cat) and installs a new one in the rear.
Works everytime,the front light off cat is only needed for cold start up I believe to take the place of the old secondary air system that injected cold air on startup into the exhaust till the cats get hot enough.

Here is a link to a writeup I did,it is direct from the Ford driveability training class.
Hope it helps someone out.

Bottom of page
http://www.monodax.com/forums/off-to...operation.html

Here's a quote from another writeup I did on OBDII monitors
10. Catalyst Monitor:The catalyst monitor reads the upstream (A) and downstream (B) HO2S switches and compares them to each other to determine catalyst efficiency.
For this example, an upstream reading of 125 and a downstream reading of 7 gives a catalyst efficiency of 7/125 = 0.056.

( http://www.monodax.com/forums/off-to...tors-info.html )

You won't spend less than $240-250 on a performance chip from an established company unless you can find some place that stocked up on the part you need and is having a fire-sale.

if you want to get into serious money and get a bit more power try rpmoutlet.com and look up 99-04 mustang parts and lookup the PI (power improvement) heads.

You want chips !?? Get a bag of FRITOS !!

Those 70-dollar so-called "chips" are a total and complete fraud !!
I bought one that had a money-back guarantee -- and gave it a thorough testing by driving about 2,000 miles with an Actron Code Scanner attached to the OBD II port.
Recording the fuel mileage to two (2) decimal places, and the time-to-distance by the nearest 15 minutes and one-tength of a mile.
There was absolutely NO improvement of any kind over the "stock" ignition (OEM coils, Bosch 9605 Iridium plugs, Bosch Mag-Core Ignition wires).
Not satisfied with the test results, I pried the housing open, only to find a cheap resistor inside.
NO CHIP or circuitry of any kind !!
I sent it back and got a full refund.

Let's face it -- a Grand Marquis never was and never will be a hot rod or a sports car.
The most bang-for-the-buck will come from installing a 2" dual exhaust.
I used a Walker H-Pipe, with 2" MagnaFlow (part #18134) Glasspacks and Walker tailpipes.
The Walker-MagnaFlow combo yielded 22 hp on my '95 resto, tested with a G-Tech Pro.

Forget those "chips" -- if you're hungry, get a bag of Cheetos !!
You're not gonna get a 2-ton car to be very fast off the line or in the quarter-mile.
Here's what I did to make my '95 Merc restoration go faster:
1.- Dual exhausts : Walker H-Pipe; Magnaflow 2" glasspacs, Walker tailpipes.
2.- K&N air filter using STOCK air box with snorkel removed- air is ducted from forward of the engine compartment through flexible aluminum clothes dryer pipe.
3.- Mallory adjustable fuel pressure regulator - 35 psi @ warm idle, with vacuum hoses connected and all accessories OFF.
4.- Bosch Double Iridium plugs @ .052
5.- B&M Shift Improver Kit.
Quarter-mile = 16.2 @ 87 mph
I got the parts at Amazon.com and did all the work myself, with the exhaust welded up by "MufflerMasters", Avondale, AZ.
I'm 78 years old, and STILL can't believe that young people believe that you can stuff 10 pounds of poop into a 5-lb bag !!