Anyone use Thorton Performance Chips?

[FINFAN3DP]

Noticing some tunes are $500, but this one is $89.95.  Wondering if anyone has used them?

[akirby]

You get what you pay for.  Don’t bother with anything other than a tuner.

[FINFAN3DP]

Could you explain?

[akirby]

2 hours ago, FINFAN3DP said:

Could you explain?

All a plug in chip can do is fool some sensors and sometimes trick the engine into performing better.   It can only change one or two things.

 

A tuner changes the software and can adjust hundreds of things including fuel ratio, timing, transmission shifts, etc.  

[FINFAN3DP]

10 hours ago, akirby said:

All a plug in chip can do is fool some sensors and sometimes trick the engine into performing better.   It can only change one or two things.

 

A tuner changes the software and can adjust hundreds of things including fuel ratio, timing, transmission shifts, etc.  

Aren't the tuner's things you just plug in as well?  Or do you need to take it somewhere?  New to this, just looking for that extra 60 ponies that they are all talking about.

[2FAST4U]

The main difference between a chip and a tuner is that the chip has a "fixed" program in it. There are good ones and some others not as good. You plug the chip in and you have to live with the parameters that are built in it without any possibility to do changes to the program. By comparison, a tuner (depending on which one you have) can have several already made tunes stored in it and you can choose which tune you want to download.  And last, some more advanced programmers will let you to change the parameters yourself but you better have more knowledge, some basic tuning skills and know what you're doing so you won't do something bad (like going too lean) that could hurt the engine.

I myself bought a Livernois Motorsports tuner for my '19 (for which Livernois sends you some tunes which you download yourself in it, and then transfer them to your vehicle's computer) and although it's not too bad, I have mixed feelings about it. It does a little improvement but far from what I was expecting for the price I paid. 

 

Claude.

 

P.S:  ... and like "akirby" said, "you get what you pay for" . 

Edited August 2, 2020 by 2FAST4U

[onyxbfly]

52 minutes ago, FINFAN3DP said:

Aren't the tuner's things you just plug in as well?  Or do you need to take it somewhere?  New to this, just looking for that extra 60 ponies that they are all talking about.

 

No tuners are the people who provide a calibration AKA tune for your ride. All tuners use an interface to connect to your car and deliver the tune.  You do not need tobring your car anywhere, unless you want to eek out th elast bit of perfomance and have your ride dyno tuned. Other tuners such as unleashed, BCB and ZFG will tune your care remotely via the logs you send back to them.

[Ford2EddieL]

You hit the nail on the head. This article seems to suggest it is even worse, not even a tuner at all, but just a fancy blinking light box

https://www.performancechipguide.com/thorton-top-speed-obdii-cat-performance-chip-tuner-review-teardown/

[Edgeyowner2014]

I ought a plug and play “Chip”  it made some improvements as far as low end performance and rev limiter but it hurt my mileage per gallon drastically. That may be my fault though. What i wanted was a speed limiter removed with lower end performance that I’m getting now.