Comments on Trg's Unichip

HI there and good day to all. I'm planning to have the Unichip done at TRG at Sear's Point tomorrow. My car already has the Fabspeed exhaust and air intake minus headers and I welcome any comments on others who had it done. Other then Mark(fellow rennlister) who gave glowing remarks be nice to here from others. Thanks in advance. Mike

If you're getting it tomorrow you won't have time, but if increased horsepower is what you're after, I would highly recommend going to a local Dyno shop and doing some base runs. I think this is the only way to measure any gains. It's funny how a great sound can fool you into thinking you have more power. Somewhat how a great wash or detail seems to make your car drive better. My car is always faster after I have it cleaned. I just put my '01 C2 on a Dyno on Tuesday for the first time. I've installed Milla Miglia exhaust, K&N air filter, I had Steve at Renn Sport Systems do the computer work ($750) and finally I added the Fab Speed Air Box mod for more than $200. With these particular mods I expected to hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 25HP increase at the crank over stock. No such luck. I consider my car to be quick. Faster than a few other 996's I've driven, but the numbers told an interesting story. My peak HP, at the wheels, was 266.4. The calculation I used to figure out the HP at the crank was to add 15%. That figure is 306. If the stock HP is supposed to be 300, I'd say I over-paid for the chip and the Fab Speed part (had that not been a gift). The exhaust is a different story as I just love the sound. Anyway, I do wish I had done a base run on the Dyno before doing any mods and then additional runs after each mod. I didn't and now I'm left to guess. Get to a Dyno if you can. $75 provided a lot of knowledge and it was really fun too. They drove my car at 175 MPH on the machine, very cool altogether. I had so many questions answered and got to talk fast cars for an hour with guys who knew all about them. They also knew all about the smoke someone will blow up your *** to sell you something for your Porsche. Do the test where your wheels push the drums and the computer tells you what's what...not the salesman. Hope that helps. Best, Josh

Hi Josh the 15% mutiplier that you used can be perhaps much too low. Fabspeed uses a Mustang Chassis DYNO with dual rear rollers and 996s routinely exhibit between 215-240HP at the rear wheel. We use 30-35% multiplier to try to estimate flywheel power. Even then tuners arent really concerned about multipliers and trying to equate power back to "factory advertised power". Why as they are only concerend with making true additional power with modifications that are safe and effective. In addition, any dynoshop knows approximately what each type of vehicle like a 993, 996, or new Corvette should generate on "his" dyno based on numerous past results and car modifications. So therefore if lets say a 993 should show 220hp stock on the Mustang Dyno at Fabspeed and a new customer brings his car in and "the new 993 customers car" shows 200HP we or any dyno shop tries to make sure the cars engine/transmission/tuneup/maintenance is good and perhaps findout why the car is starting out weaker that comparable 993s. Sometimes you have to correct things 1st to get the car running" normally" prior to evaluating performance modifications or enhancements Consequently, one cant assume that mutipliers are consistant to take rear wheel horsepower and to mutiply and convert the rear wheel power to flywheel horsepower. All dynos are different and will show slightly different figures even when there are the same brand of dyno. The "real deal test" that anyone should care about, as you mentioned, is true before and after dyno tests on the same dyno with the same conditions. When any customer or tuner sees a performance NET sum gain then all are pleased by the results. REsults that you can feel. The Racers Group has a ton of Dyno results on Porsche enhancements. I am still waiting for the dyno tests on my Fabspeed cold air hiperformance kit with BMC F1 airfilter for the 996 from Tony. The Daytona 24 race has all their attention right now.

Joe ran before and after tests on the Mustang dyno when he did my car two years ago. I don't have the sheets with me but if I remember correctly I got about 8-9 HP increase from adding the Fabspeed exhaust and headers and another 8-10 HP from adding the Unichip. The total increase was 18 HP, which was under 10% improvement from base. Torque was also increased but not as much. Also peak torque and peak HP points were moved up a couple hundred RPM. So that's what the dyno said. However, my track experience is that I don't see any difference between my car and other stock engined 996's out there. There are a couple cars in my club that I run with a on regular basis and I don't pull them at all on the straights. Of course, weight, aerodynamics (I have the aero kit), tires, and base engine output variances can all impact acceleration times but the point is, even if you can had 15-20 HP, it is such as small increase on a percentage basis that it is unlikely that you'll experience much actual difference in performance. Karl

I have mentioned this in an earlier thread, but here it is again. My first dyno run at the Racer Group showed a max HP of ~244. I had already installed Fabspeed exhaust, Fabspeed intake, and Autothority chip. After the Program chip was piggy-backed onto the Autothority chip, the final dyno max HP number was between 266-270. Happy with the results. I only have one problem, currently the check engine light comes on some times while crawling along in commute traffic. RG did not touch this part of the map with the Program chip, I go back next week for some more tweeking.

Hi there all and good day!! Just had the Unichip installed and the results are its cranking out at the wheel at 253.8 hp after install of unichip and 231.9 before install. Like Josh had stated wished I could have dyno'd before any mods were done on the car because TRG couldn't state what the power figures were before with a stock 996 nor they couldn't give me a formula for calculating what hp from the flywheel as I here 15% to 35% which seems such a big margin. All they could say there are many variables to varying power increases/decreases in every car. If I actually used Josh's 15% figure for translating flywheel I actually lost hp but if what Fabspeed stated (30-35%) I gained power. I wonder who is correct. As far as whether the car feels any different before the mods I say better sound and better throttle response and I posted one time I did notice a loss in torque going up steep hills if I had a passenger along with the ride and after the unichip was done it's back to the way it was. Maybe I can say I got the sound I wanted but my dyno numbers didn't really show much power gains after the mods. Can someone tell me what the formula is for translating wheel hp to flywheel hp? Thanks for your time. Mike

for most rear wheel drive cars , dividing rear wheel hp ( rwhp) by .82-.85 should put you in the ball park for flywheel hp ( factory rating) . I would expect a 300 hp OEM 996 motor to dyno at 245- 255 rwhp.

So let's just say with what MKW had stated with dividing rear wheel hp by .82-.85 to get flywheel hp. With the mods Fabspeed exhaust plus cold air intake/ bmc filter, TRG dyno'd at 231.9 rear wheel hp and after Unichip mod it was 253.8. Calculating without unichip it netted between 272-283hp flywheel hp and with Unichip it netted between 299-310 flywheel hp. With a '99 996 hp was at 296 hp(no e-gas). So looking from these figures it didn't do well with the mods. I did get the sound I wanted but darn woulda been better if they only told me if that's what is expected only. Regards. Mike

Thanks MKW for your response. I have yet to close the hot air duct from the air box because darn hate unscrewing the darn thing : ). Regards. Mike

Really hate to throw my two cents in here but everyone is talking about peak HP which to me is not a very good indicator of usability. Making a change to anything that increased peak horsepower over a 500 RPM range is NOT better than making a change which increased HP throughout the powerband but never makes a meaningful impact to the "peak" number. Unfortunately, I consider the true test of modifications in the resulting track times. Too bad Porsches are not common place at the 1/4mile drag strip either. You can make lots of changes without increasing peak power signifigantly but if the power band is more usable, the RPMS spool up quicker and the car is more responsive, it IS faster. I have a 2001 996, Gemballa header, hiflow cats, exhaust, fabspeed intake, BMC-1 Filter. Is it faster than stock? I do not think by too much, but feels a lot stronger from 4500 rpms up and definitely feels like it pulls harder over 100mph. My guess though is that 1-2 seconds on a track like Watkins Glenn would be an easy bet.

Dennis - you hit the nail on the head! The one thing I liked about the Program set-up was the ability to maximize HP and torque over the powerband through timing adv/ret and air/fuel ratio adjustment. I think and increase of performance in the power band is THE biggest benefit of this mod. BTW - have you ever thought of swapping out the current ring and pinion to bring the final ratio up? TRG is recommending going from stock to a 8:32 ratio set-up which will shorten 1,2, and 3 and only drop top-end speed slightly. I think final ratio goes from 3.44 to 3.9X This should be a big bang for the buck and bring RPM's up faster into the powerband.