Spoon Chips

[jspec civic]

does anyone know if those spoon chips from ebay works?

[TODA AU]

SPOON sells complete ECU's, not chips.
http://www.spoon.jp/product/pdfs/p8_p23.pdf

The chips on ebay are likley fakes.
Save your money.

[aaronng]

What it does is make the engine run rich by injecting more fuel.

Don't get ripped off. Buy the real deal.

[jspec civic]

thanks guys...

[Zilli]

my question is, does getting the real deal make any noteable difference if you havent upgraded your hardware?

[kyle]

Don't get ripped off. Buy the real deal.

Personally I think you would be getting ripped off if you did buy the real thing. $500+ on a stock ECU with a burnt rom. BAH!!!! :thumbdwn: Or $10 for a copy of the rom which you can install yourself. The only problem is that you cant be sure if it is an actual copy or just some random bullshit.

But at the end of the day, buying a pre-tuned ecu for your car is pointless. Unless your not modding for power, but modding for mythical spoon rep points.

[aaronng]

Personally I think you would be getting ripped off if you did buy the real thing. $500+ on a stock ECU with a burnt rom. BAH!!!! :thumbdwn: Or $10 for a copy of the rom which you can install yourself. The only problem is that you cant be sure if it is an actual copy or just some random bullshit.

But at the end of the day, buying a pre-tuned ecu for your car is pointless. Unless your not modding for power, but modding for mythical spoon rep points.

Are you 100% sure that the burnt rom from ebay is a spoon rom? :)
Also, roms are specific to particular ecus. You dare risk running a rom from USA or HK on an Aus-spec ECU?

[dsp26]

i installed one of those roms (a skunk2 variant)... still running it and regret it. i now get ~300Km per ~40L of petrol compared to ~480Km per ~40L stock.... i may as well have gotten a cheap BA XR8 Falcon....

Copy or not, the program is SOOOOOOOO rich as aaronng said, even my AFPR set at ~28psi isn't fixing it + the O2 sensor is disabled..ruins cruise mileage as well. You would need the matching modifications the program was designed for for it to be of any use

mine puts my vtec crossover at 5200rpm coz according to a lot of people in the US, it's the sweet spot for stock yada yada... however this 'sweet spot' is quite subjective and now i have it i'm pretty sure it ain't for performance.

Because it is no longer at Honda's optimum it makes the actual crossover louder (intake pressures, cam lobe angle, rpm no longer matching for optimum performance) giving the impression of much better performance because the low/hi cam is so staggered you noticably feel & hear the hi cam switch.

DO NOT GET THESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got it for the wank factor and the fact i had no projects for my car at the time.. and my fingers were getting twitchy for something to do.

The only real benefit these roms (whatever variant you get) is the raised rev limit some offer if your on a tight arse build with cams/springs and want to just fine tune with a VAFC. For me, it just makes my ecu crome ready coz of the chip mount etc...


***EDIT***
now my dilemma is, the seller i bought it off also has the 'stock rom', maybe i should pay another $30 or so to return my car to stock?? you have to ask yourself... "hhmmm... with the amount of mileage i'm already loosing, i'll make that $30 back within 1 month regaining from my losses in the first place... so really i'm not gaining anything... but lost maybe $200 over 3months in accumulated losses from severely poor mileage and having to buy the stock program?"

[aaronng]

Can't you just replace your stock ROM chip back into the ECU?

[dsp26]

Can't you just replace your stock ROM chip back into the ECU?

unfortunately the stock chip never leaves the board as it seems Honda designed the ecu to be upgrade-able... i thought about it and only realised again after a while that i didn't recall removing any components from the ecu unit.

using the following image (provided by phearable.net) it outlines where a zif socket is added to an unoccupied area of the ecu

http://www.phearable.net/images/ecusocketingins.gif



for anyone who would actually bother with these and is willing to fine tune with VAFC or just purchase the mounting kit for later use with crome, i bought my chip and chipping kit from this fellow:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/OBD-1-VTEC-Honda-Racing-Eproms_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33597QQihZ010QQi temZ8020848757

in all honesty i think he has little to no tuning experience and only has stockpiles of ripped roms... serves it's purpose enough.

***EDIT***
it seems 1 or more of the 4 other components consisting of IC/resistors/capacitors and wire serve to activate the ecu bypass, the ecu does not run without a chip in that socket once you install everything

[aaronng]

Get a blank compatible EPROM, and get it written by someone with a programmer with a stock map. Not sure who carries stock maps though as most tuners use base maps to fall back on to and those are not exactly the same as your stock map.

[AKmotorworks]

If u need a stock rom, we can do it for u (melb) or u can speak to edgeauto and ecuman (sa).

[dsp26]

If u need a stock rom, we can do it for u (melb) or u can speak to edgeauto and ecuman (sa).

do you mean just the actual file or the chip? how much shipped to syd if the latter? or do you by any chance have a slightly tweaked one for I/H/E??

if you don't reply within the week i'll PM you.

[aaronng]

do you mean just the actual file or the chip? how much shipped to syd if the latter? or do you by any chance have a slightly tweaked one for I/H/E??

if you don't reply within the week i'll PM you.

If you want a tweaked chip, get your car on the dyno and get it tuned. Burn the tuned map onto a chip and use that.

[dsp26]

If you want a tweaked chip, get your car on the dyno and get it tuned. Burn the tuned map onto a chip and use that.

lol that was the plan... just being lazy, been waiting for an OH dyno day but it seems rare. I'd prefer an OH day as opposed to going by myself so i have a benchmark... i never got around to doing a base dyno before feeding my car my wallet

[dsp26]

to the OP, i hope all this answers your question... not worth the effort/time/money/mileage... you can argue that "an enthusiast worried about fuel economy shouldn't worry about performance" however i can almost guarantee this adds no performance value without the mods they were tweaked for.

[aaronng]

lol that was the plan... just being lazy, been waiting for an OH dyno day but it seems rare. I'd prefer an OH day as opposed to going by myself so i have a benchmark... i never got around to doing a base dyno before feeding my car my wallet

You don't tune your ECU on a dyno day. You will take about 1-3 hours (depending on your tuner) plus quite a few dyno runs to get the tune right. On a dyno day, it's fast in and fast out to cram in as many cars as you can and they DON'T want you tuning your ECU on your turn. :)

[dsp26]

You don't tune your ECU on a dyno day. You will take about 1-3 hours (depending on your tuner) plus quite a few dyno runs to get the tune right. On a dyno day, it's fast in and fast out to cram in as many cars as you can and they DON'T want you tuning your ECU on your turn. :)

yeah sorry thats what i meant, my baseline run would preferably be done on the day with fellow OH members... get my power and A/F and HOPEFULLY play with crome later... not after topend... want some mid range... but then again i'd be willing to put the whole thing off till late next year when i complete my head.

[aaronng]

Ahh, I see. Yeah, if it was me, I'd also complete the head first and then tune after. I would get that stock map as soon as possible though. No point wasting any more petrol for almost no gain.

[hui]

What it does is make the engine run rich by injecting more fuel.

if your engine is running rich means your loosing power? the purpose of the chip is to help you gain power right?

[dsp26]

if your engine is running rich means your loosing power? the purpose of the chip is to help you gain power right?

1)YES
2)Only if you have the mods the chip was tuned for