Unichip question looking for real answers

I have probably read close to 200 threads on unichip and I can't find one with any real answers. I bought a unichip on sale from autoanything for about $430 shipped. It's tuned for my TRD exhaust and CAI. I went the unichip route because its a plug in device that can come back out easily. I have a 4.0 2011 tacoma. It seems most reasons for not buying the unichip are it's cost. Most people go with URD. However, URD does not make a harness for the 2011 tacoma. It would have to be soldered in and I'm not going to cut apart my harness to do so. I run premium fuel (93 octane) already so I'm not worried about the fuel cost. My main reason for getting a chip is that I have not noticed any difference in my trucks performance after upgrading the exhaust and intake. Again most threads go on forever about how much the TRD stuff costs and there are cheaper/ better options. I went TRD because it is from my dealer. From more research it seems without some sort of chip, you will not gain performance from bolt on parts. Now for my question. Does anyone have experience with the unichip and what are your experiences?

 

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Perhaps you should ask yourself, "what do I want out of my truck?"
If your answer is more performance, then how much more.

Bottom line is you're not going to buy some magic chip that will significantly boost your power, this is just not realistic. Don't waste your money on this crap and put your money elsewhere. Even if the chip did improve things a bit (yeah right), will this honestly satisfy you?

 

Unichip has provided performance gains for a lot of folks. The 25 dollar eBay chips are the crap ones.
Proper tuning can successfully unlock a few more horse power...but only a few. Real performance = forced induction.

 

well youre not going to gain anything from the TRD intake.. the stock intakes are already "CAI's", as its been proven that the only intake that takes in colder air than the stock, is the URD T-CAI. that being said, many go with URD's MAF Calibrator, not a URD chip.... the exhaust also doesnt give any gains either. sorry to be the bearer of bad news

EDIT: im sure thats not what you want to hear after dumping 800 bucks into your truck, for "performance"... on the plus side, i have the exhaust, and i love the sound over stock!

 

Yeah I hear you, but most are looking for significant and noticable gains. I would go another route before paying for a spendy chip thats all I was saying.

 

I realize the upgrades don't do as much as they claim. The TRD intake seems like it allows more air into the engine with less restriction. The exhaust gives me a little rumble without being obnoxious. My understanding of the unichip is that it will allow these add on parts to do more of what they are supposed to do. As long as I don't run lean and don't throw error codes then ill be happy if my throttle smooths out and I have a little more power. I received the unichip today and was surprised by how big the whole unit is. It looks well made. I hear about unichip making some big differences on other vehicles. I plan on putting it in tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes using my butt dyno. I also got a hellwig rear sway bar for Christmas that I plan on bolting in.

 

Rather than using your "butt dyno", unichips' website says the chip is tuneable. Why not find a reputeable tuner and put the truck on a dyno and have it tuned so you can see what you get for real. Sorry, but I'm not familier with how the unichip installs and if it can be easily unplugged or bypassed once installed (my SCT plugs in to my obd port and I can tune on the fly) but here's a great scenerio for you - put the truck on a dyno without the chip and get a baseline hp/torque number with your CAI and exhaust, plug it in/enable it and see what you get with it's generic preloaded tune for those mods, then tweek from there and see if it was money well spent or not.

 

I installed the unichip today. It's not hard to do but it is quite bulky and there is not a lot of room for it to be installed. I selected map number 1 and started the truck. No problems starting. I let it idle for a while until the rpms came down. I took it for a spin and didn't notice anything different other than the rpms stayed high. They were about 1000- 1200 and wouldn't come down. Now on the other hand, my rpms are higher after I installed the TRD intake and exhaust. It drives me nuts because they take a while to lower to the 800 range upon start up and when coming to a stop during driving. I noticed with the unichip this problem was heightened in map setting 1. So I pulled over, turned off the engine and switched to map 2. I started the truck and the rpms quickly lowered to 800. I took off down the road and drive for a little bit and the rpms were a lot more under control, especially when coming to a stop. I did a few wide open throttle take offs from 0-60 and the truck does seem more responsive. I only drove about 6 miles so I can't really give much more of an opinion yet. I do like that my rpms are a lot more tame. It was explained to me that a wet air filter is restrictive and may be giving the stock ECU less air at idle and this is why the rpms are higher. With the unichip installed and on map 2 I don't see this issue. I realize my research is all through driving alone and no hard data but my first impression is that the unichip helps my truck run with the TRD CAI and exhaust better than without it. I will update you guys after the weekend when I get more drive time on the truck.

 

Sould take video or get actual dyno results.

 

+1

 

So..... $400 for lower rpms?

 

So lets' see where we're at; $400 for trd cai + $400 for trd exhaust = $800 for no noticable hp gain and rpms now to high. Now another $400 for the chip which gave the op, in his own words, a truck that merely "seems more responsive", but at least corrected the high rpm issue. So for only $1200 bucks our trucks could seem slightly better. Does'nt seem like a great investment. Maybe a throttle body spacer would finally make it all work.

 

If I had known that the TRD exhaust and intake would basically do nothing except make some noise I probably would have never bought them. Now in my defense, it seems no cat back exhaust or CAI does much of anything from what I have read in this forum. The only thing that seems to work is the URD MAF calibrator and that would require me cutting apart my harness. So after about $1200 I have a truck that sounds nice and has more felt power. I took it out for another spin to get a refreshed opinion about how it drives and the truck pulls harder in the upper rpms and has a slight power increase in the lower rpms. The idle is much better than without it. I still want to get more miles on it to see what I think. If I was looking to get the most bang for buck I would do a supercharger but that's around $5000. Even if I got the URD with the harness (which they don't make for 2011 models) it would have cost just as much or more. I wonder if it would have done any better. They also require custom tuning for a perfect match. So there's no easy solution it seems. In the end I went with unichip because it plugs in and I wanted to get out of what I originally purchased the exhaust and intake for and that's a little more power.

 

http://www.unichip.us/265-faq-ecu-learning this is worth reading and explains my story.

 

I hope you did'nt take offense at my comments, it's not what I intended. These are common mods everyone does on every type of car or truck out there, myself included. While there is no blow you away performance increase it's running correctly now, sounds cool, and your happy. $1200 bucks is'nt a ton of money, and you still have the option of looking into dyno tuning/custom mapping. Optimaly, I'd want to find a tuner who's done other tacos and can show proof of gains and see what they are and what it costs before you spend more money. Finally, if you ever do a supercharger or head work, the exhaust will let those mods work better.

 

No offense taken. I learned a lot through my little project here and I hope it helps others. The only thing I want to check out is how rich or lean my truck might be now. Another important thing to add is that after I installed the intake and exhaust and before I installed the chip I noticed that I had a lot of carbon deposits on my exhaust tip. This would lead me to think I was running rich because I lacked air. I want to look at getting rid of the wet air filter and going with a dry one. I think the wet air filter causes nothing but problems. I wonder if I should get an intake cleaning performed. I could have a lot of carbon on my valves etc. Oh and there are no unichip a tuners in New York according to their website.

 

Do you pay attention too your mpg? Does this thinger make a difference in that regaurds?

 

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/product-reviews/180119-write-up-unichip-programmer.html

My unichip experience.

 

So... I haven't done a dyno... but with my afe si2 and wet proguard, trd catback, and dtlt my truck screams. I've driven a trd supercharged truck (all stock otherwise) and even another guy on the ride along felt my truck was nearly as quick in the low end. Makes no sense but it really did feel that way.... and well you can see the armor/tires I run too.

One thing I can say... it took awhile for the ecu to auto retune itself each time I changed something. The unichip should be yielding good results I'd think... but anyway just something I thought I'd share.