New Guy

[waditz]

Hi All...

New guy in town. Bought my wife a new BWM X1 last September so I wanted to keep track of fuel mileage and service cost....

Found the APP Fuel Cubby, at the Apple App Store, which has lead me to this Forum. Looking forward to see what "all you others" have to say about your vehicles...

----wd

[Jay2TheRescue]

Welcome to our forums!

[conrad37]

New to Fuelly and so far I like it very much. Does anybody know if chip programmers work? I have a 2013 Kia Soul and have put a K&N Air intake system on the car and have seen empovements of 3 miles per gallon.

[trollbait]

If the company knows what they are doing, the tune will perform as advertized. It's just most tunes for sale are performance oriented. Any economy improvement ones likely aren't worth it factoring in payback. Plus, they might increase emissions.

The cheap chips seen on ebay aren't worth it, and most likely reduce fuel economy. The majority seem to just trick the ECM into staying in open loop. Power can increase, but that's because the car is just dumping more fuel into the cylinder.

Any gains from the K&N and other intake systems is from going from the stock CAI to a WAI. Warm air is less dense and thus will give a virtual engine displacement reduction by letting less oxygen in per revolution in theory. I believe in most cases the gains are from allowing the engine to warm up quick. Though it can have more effect beyond that with some models like the Saturns.

You can just remove the tube going from the stock air box to the fender or grill to get a WAI without buying an aftermarket air intake.

[conrad37]

Do you know of any performance chips that are worth it? Thanks.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by trollbait

If the company knows what they are doing, the tune will perform as advertized. It's just most tunes for sale are performance oriented. Any economy improvement ones likely aren't worth it factoring in payback. Plus, they might increase emissions.

The cheap chips seen on ebay aren't worth it, and most likely reduce fuel economy. The majority seem to just trick the ECM into staying in open loop. Power can increase, but that's because the car is just dumping more fuel into the cylinder.

Any gains from the K&N and other intake systems is from going from the stock CAI to a WAI. Warm air is less dense and thus will give a virtual engine displacement reduction by letting less oxygen in per revolution in theory. I believe in most cases the gains are from allowing the engine to warm up quick. Though it can have more effect beyond that with some models like the Saturns.

You can just remove the tube going from the stock air box to the fender or grill to get a WAI without buying an aftermarket air intake.

That's what I did on my K1500 and Escape Hybrid.

[hypermarquis]

welcome!! I'm new also. Congrats on the BWM X1.....awesome on the 3 mpg drop in conrad. From all the research I have done on tuners ( and it has been tons) I have decided to keep my money in my pocket. If you decide to get one I hope it helps.

Bought a 2004 Grand marquis (Dec 26, my Christmas gift) with less than 65k all stock. Went to 40 psi in tires (44 max) and yielded 22.2 mpg (50/50 city/hwy) with what I thought was my best hypermiling shot. Installed H-pipe and flow-masters...23.9 mpg. A few days ago installed an Ultra-gauge ...real time mpgs show where I was not being as efficient as I could be ....UG now showing 25.2 avg mpg....hope it is true when i fill it.

Just dropped in a Spectre air filter today( half $ of K&N)...hope that helps too. Will fill up tomorrow.

Good skill to all and love the site