Has anyone else had a problem with the Gtech chip?

It cooked my last engine, piston rings or head gasket gone. Does it need fuel graphing then? Dont really want to put it in the coop again once the new engine goes in.

Any advise on getting more power out of the coop without blowing it up?

Cheers

They usually cause problems if your fuelling is not up to scatch, or if you uses a PRV and run too high boost.

Fuel pump upgrades, colder plugs, boost gauge and a rolling road session to check fuelling after fitting are recommended.

What sort of condition was your old engine in before fitting the chip?

Not trying to be preachy, but you should always get the fueling checked when you modify your car. Some people have had problems with the gtec, many of them because there was another underlying cause. Most people are ok.

What boost did you run?

Before fitting chip do a compression test to make the sure the engine is in good health to start with, make sure your turbo and clutch arent on their last legs, make sure you have good oil pressure, do any other jobs that need doing to get the car mechanically perfect. Then fit the chip and drive like an old lady until you can get it on a rolling road. Check all the graphs to make sure everything is how it should be and post them up here or ask the RR operator if you dont know what youre looking at.

If you do all that then you should be fine.

If you just plug the chip in and blast off without getting it checked then anything could happen.

I see, fair enough. Better get it set up on a rolling road then next time and get it all checked out when putting the chip in. The old engine was running great until about a month after i put the chip in when it blew up and oil went everywhere! Nevermind lesson learnt from that one.
The engine was standard so would only have been running a standard boost level

Advise taken on board cheers. Did check it was all running great first, all five were spot on and turbo was fine, had new clutch fitted 6 months before but didnt get it rolling road after fitting it. Will defo do it next time, cant afford to keep replacing the engine!

The chip increases the boost from 1 bar to 1.2 bar, if you leave it to the ECU to control it.

iv had a gtec2 in for a year n abit with no rolling road, boosting to 1.5.

From reading what the guys above have said i'd get it rolling roaded to set it up mate before u end up in the same boat as me with a new engine

want a le anyway mate.. its the ecu doing it to 1.5.. al get it to a rolling rd soon, if i can find one.

Go clean your EBV, and check all the pipes that connect to it!

1.5 bar is not good unless it's been heavily modified, and you'll probably be making less power and more heat than at a lower boost setting unless your turbo is massive?

its bran new perrin, might settle down in acouple of days. its already blown the tubo seals but getting a new turbo in. it boost upto 1.5 n then goes down to 1.2, got a new dump valve in aswell. didnt explain it proberly before.

' Ka Boom! '

Ben

wey it must b able to handle it if the ecu is putting it there

Well, what do i know then Johna

Ben

if it blows al just buy an le but why is ecu doing it for when its all fitted up right?

Upto 1.5 bar overboost for a second or so is normal on some 20vt's (even on completely unmodified ones, remember the standard Fiat chip will allow overboost upto 1.5 bar) and while it will put extra stress on the clutch it shouldn't cause major fuelling problems so long as boost quickly settles back down to 1.2 bar or less.

This is one advantage of using a PRV or EBC, rather than the standard EBV, as overboost can be almost totally eliminated to give more consistent boost and much less stress on the clutch.

As for the OP, I'd fit a boost gauge and air/fuel ratio meter along with the new engine (or have it rolling road checked for boost and fuelling before and after any further mods, as suggested above), you may find you were running higher than normal boost as standard, or borderline lean as standard and therefore the chip pushed the boost or fuelling beyond safe limits.

cheers, graham.. yeah, it only boost there for as sec n then goes down to 1.2. blown the turbo seals thou.

I have been having a basic setup wt GTEC 1, KN and cat back exhaust for almost 8 months now. I have never checked fuelling and beleive it not needed. Before installing it i changed my sparks, KN panel, lambda and cleaned my injectors and EBV. I get ocassional or rare boost spikes of 1.5. We run our cars on 35-45 degrees climate and annual milage of 25K. With GTEC the car runs smooth, awesome boost and no problems. No Turbo smoke or fueling issues. The only downside i see with GTEC is strain on the clutch if you blast a lot.

But if it was needed, then you would have found out too late!

iv got an uprated clutch so shouldnt have a prob there

Just starters check your spark plug condition. it would tell if your running rich or lean

To all the people using Gtecs.
No engine off the production line were exacty the same. Because the chip worked ok on Graham's engine on development, does not mean it will work on yours correctly. The chip was set up for his engine and nobody else's!!!
Please please have the chip set up on a RR to make sure all is optimised. Too many engines have gone bang using replacement chips. Ask Carlt,who made a good living from upgrade chips blowing engines!!

Andy.

Are you having a laugh? That's hardly a precise way of doing things now is it? Let's just have a look at my plugs then....I think that my car is running 12:1 AFR...just as well I can tell that it is not 13:1....now is the engine detonating at that fuelling relative to the boost I am running?....maybe if I open the window I might be able to tell.....

Also.. The only way you could check the plugs accurately would be to switch off the engine as it was boosting. If the car is left to idle afterwards, they would come out a different colour as well..

This is not true. While most of the early R&D was done on my own coupe, as part of the development process the chip was tested and tweaked on many different coupes, from standard to varying degrees of mods, before it was made available to other forum users. This included multiple rolling road checks on different cars.

It had already been established even before this point that 1.2 bar (0.2 bar over standard) was considered to be the maximum "safe" level of boost for a standard or lightly modified coupe and the vast majority of them will run quite happily at that level of tune with little or no impact on engine reliabilty. Depending on how exactly it's driven the life of the clutch and turbo may well be shortened, but that's hardly unexpected.

Of all the completely standard or lightly modified coupes that I'm aware have been chipped (with any chip, be it Gtec, Novitec, Digitec or whatever), I'd say no more than 1-2% have had serious engine problems, which considering the coupe isn't exactly the world's most reliable car even in standard form, is not too bad a result. eg. my own coupe needed an engine replacement long before this forum even existed, while the only mod it had at the time was an air filter.

Having said all that, I do agree that for peace of mind a proper fuelling check on a rolling road (whether the car is chipped or not) is advisable, along with fitting a boost gauge and maybe even an air/fuel ratio meter, just to keep an eye on things and identify any changes as possible problems before they develop into anything more serious.

Oh and checking the plugs is a valid way to identify serious fuelling problems on 1 or all cylinders, even if the engine is switched off at idle.

Utter crap!!! The GTEC is 110% proven and is the best chip other than a live map, even the unichip uses a GTEC as the base map. Yes all engine are different however the Motronic system has self learning and is very adaptive to change the map (very slightly) itself to suit your car. The only reason people go bang is because they heavily mod the car without getting the fuelling checked which everyone recommends doing. If it does run lean there are HF versions of the GTEC, so stop trying to scare people with you bullsh** statements. Go back to WDR and play with the same 1242 engine you’ve had for the last like ten years.

Next thing he will suggest everyone use shitty DTA.

All i said is get it RR. Not saying the chip is dangerous. Only problematic if not set up correctly. This is a must if other mods are done.

Well it didn’t come across that way. Your statement reads very mixed and to beginners’ sounds like the GTEC chip is dangerous. Especially this part "Too many engines have gone bang using replacement chips. Ask Carlt,who made a good living from upgrade chips blowing engines!!"

Ok, handbags away ladies

Any chip change no matter what the brand should be followed up with a rolling road session to check all is ok.