7thvet

My friend just bought an 03 zo6, it's had many owners.
The guy he bought it from says he thinks it has a 450hp chip.
How can one tell if this is true?
Do they literally put a chip in somewhere?
Do they just reprogram the existing system?
Thanks

jamieo

No chip to replace in these.ECM has to be reprogrammed.

7thvet

Thanks Jamieo,
Can we tell if it's been reprogrammed?
Surely if it was, they would have kept paper work stating what they did.
Thanks again

Supercharged111

If dude thinks it has a "450 HP chip" it's probably bone stock.

7thvet

I think it would have paper work if it was tuned.
We know it has Corsa exhaust and short throw shifter.

Supercharged111

If he'd had it tuned, I would expect him to use different verbiage. The way he phrased it is a red flag to me. But I could be wrong.

heggsc5

There's no "paperwork" needed or commonly retained when getting a tune. Some people keep a copy of the dyno sheet, but other than maybe a shop invoice, that's it. If someone has HP Tuners, they can tweak the tune to their heart's content any day of the week.

Hints that it could have been tuned are 1) cooling fans come on early (typically around 195-205 after a tune), or 2) there's no skip shift that forces you to shift from 1st-4th under low throttle shifts out of 1st (this could also be accomplished with hardware that doesn't affect the software, so it's not telling by itself). Those are the most common "tweaks" during tuning.

He could always get the car dyno'd and see if it makes "what it should", but a tune on a basically stock car won't really gain much to prove it has been tuned either. One thing is for certain, there's no way it's pushing 450hp with just a tune either way.

tblu92

Any tune can compare your tune to a STOCK tune of the same year and model car--
( No such thing as a 450 chip) If the car has no cam or LT headers just maybe a CAI and mufflers then the max amount of added HP by tuning is only about 15-18 HP on a stock C5

7thvet

Thanks guys, heggs, we were just observing that the fan was not coming on till 220ish.
Thanks for that telltale sign.

grinder11

I think I gained far more than 15-18hp when my car (2000 A4 vert) was tuned. Sure, other things, like boltons, no cats, LS6 intake, UD pulley, Blackwing, etc, helped. But I started at 13.60s@102mph 1/4 mile, and in the end, with the stock manifolds, no cats, stock H-pipe, and Flowmaster mufflers, I ran a best of 12.89@110mph. It always ran 12.90s from then on. I eventually got it down to 12.50@114mph with 1-3/4" shorties. That run got me banned from Lapeer dragway back in 2004. Just sayin'......