For Xmas I am going to give myself a chip upgrade for my E39 6 spd. I have been looking at the various offerings online and am overwhelmed by the number of options available.
I would greatly respect any first hand information that forum users may have to share. I am interested in performance enhancement only. The car has a CAI and will soon have a custom exhaust.

Regards RSR

Not sure what motor you have in you 6 speed?


If you have the 540, there are several options, most of which require the car to be out of service for a few days/weeks while the DME is sent out for programming


GAIC, AutoThority are some of them

Powerchipgroup, however, has a solution that they will mail you a laptop and you install the software and send back (there is an e-mail here and there with the data, but easy)

I will be dyno'ng next week to see the effects of the powerchip... I did a dyno in the late summer and got 262 to teh rear wheels... stock. Now, with the colder weather, I expect that I should read higher (even SAE corrected) than that by 5-7 HP... If I have not significantly gained more than that (like 15 or so) I will return the software (14 day return policy)

I dyno'd at autothority a month ago for a lark... and now have a baseline. I would suggest, if putting anything performance on you car... get a baseline done CLOSE to your home (autoT is a bit far , but that is my baseline) and monitor the increase of performance

Thanks for the response marinakorp.
I see that you are not far from my area (Reading). There is a shop nearby with a dyno and I will take your advice to get a baseline. I have a 4.4 litre motor.
My concerns are that there are a number of chip suppliers with similar performance claims but pricing ranges from $350 to $700 . What is with that?

The link below will take you to a place near Dulles Airport in Virginia. They are reps for Superchip from England. They claim a 20 hp gain at the wheels on a 540i with a 7 day return guarantee...you can have your baseline dyno done, install the software and dyno again...if you don't get your expected results, you don't pay...cost of the chip is around $1000...from what Ive seen out there that about the cheapest cost per HP around...

good luck

al



http://www.currysauto.com/

I would go with Conforti and I dont know anyone whos has seen a gain for 20 from just a chip. I chose GIAC for more advanced tuning but used to run the Conforti chip

Mad bad, I was talking strictly 95-99 M3's regarding hp from chip

Originally posted by RSR
Thanks for the response marinakorp.
I see that you are not far from my area (Reading). There is a shop nearby with a dyno and I will take your advice to get a baseline. I have a 4.4 litre motor.
My concerns are that there are a number of chip suppliers with similar performance claims but pricing ranges from $350 to $700 . What is with that?


Great!

It is definately worth the piece of mind knowing that the performance mods have ACTUALLY worked... as opposed to made more noise and sounds like more HP....

As far as the dyno is concerned... just find that is close to your home that you can go to frequently. If possible, do a morning run, update the software... drive for a day (60 miles or so) and re-dyno at the end of the day/next day ,etc... the closer the better, but some software needs to adapt to your car... so keep that in mind