G-Force claims their computer chips improve performance and fuel economy. I have a '98 ford Contour 2 liter 4 cyl with low mileage that gets 30-32mpg at 65mph on cruise control. Has anyone tried a G-force chip on a similar sized car/engine, and what was the improvement in fuel economy?
Don’t waste your money. If your getting 30-32 MPG @ 65MPH and let’s say it improves your mileage to 33 MPG. How long would it take to see the return on the purchase of the chip?
Tester
Scam. If makers could do that this simply they would.
Their “computer chips” are generally nothing more than a simple resistor that you put in series (or possibly parallel, depending on the design) with your coolant temperature sensor to ‘fool’ your computer into getting a reading that’s false, which makes the computer think the engine is cold all the time and richens up the mixture. This would tend to decrease fuel economy, but might slightly increase performance.
It also might cause driveability problems, turn your check engine light on, void your warranty, and cause carbon deposits in the engine or possibly damage your catalytic converter if run this way long-term. If your in-dash temp gauge relies on this sensor, it would probably make your temperature gauge read inaccurately too.
Your engine is getting good mileage. If it’s running well, why tamper with it?
On any given engine that’s running properly, there is no way to improve both performance and mileage at the same time.
The is a way to improve mileage.with a chip. Put a Ripple potatoe chip under the gas pedal and drive such that you avoid breaking it. Other than that, you can be proud to be getting 30+ mpg from a 14 year old Contour with a 4-banger in it.
The chip you mention is a scam. Save your money.
+1 to the previous comments.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, so if you want to spend money on modifications, you should choose either more power or (theoretically) better fuel economy. You can’t get both from a single modification, and in all likelihood, you won’t be able to improve the fuel economy anyway.
In reality, car manufacturers have far more resources–both monetary and technological–than an aftermarket company has. If it was so easy to wring better performance and better fuel economy from your engine, Ford would have been able to do it in the first place.
Just as an experiment I bought the Gforce “chip” kit. Yes, there’s a chip in the package: a totally useless CMOS octal latch that is there only for looks. Turn the board over and you find a connection to 4 resistors from input to output. It’s just a 34K ohm resistor. Fortunately I got my money back from these deceptive scammers.
But, I also found that when I called them out on what they were doing and described the guts of their product to them, their response was that the octal latch device that does not even have power or ground connected is there for “aesthetic” reasons. Wow. Talk about trying to hide behind the thinnest of legal arguments… Their righteous indignation at this being called a “scam” was amusing in the extreme…
The resistor just shunts the MAS/IAT with a resulting richer mix. More horsepower? Probably some since burning more fuel should do something. But better gas mileage? Doubtful, and with the additional problem of emissions and possibly fouled plugs.
In contrast, the SuperChip and similar products actually do give more horsepower or better mileage depending on how you drive. But, they do this by eating into the operating guardband of both the engine and transmission. This means more wear and tear on the powertrain, sometimes beyond manufacturer specs, but you do get the power. G-force and similar chips are NOT this…
I thought I’d just pass this along since it was such a weird discovery. Caveat Emptor.
A 1998 Contour will be am OBD-II compliant and any legitimate ECU tuning will be accomplished with either a hand held tuner ($300-$600) or a laptop with the proper software and connection cables.
Generally speaking if you see a “chip” advertised for a 1996 or newer vehicle, it’s a scam.
Total Scam.
If there was a chip that could increase performance and improve gas mileage…then every single car manufacturer would have them installed in every vehicle they sold.
Yeah, these guys claim to have a ‘chip’ - there are MILLIONS of transistors etc. already in the car, in dozens of chips - it would be SIMPLE for the makers to tweak them (program them, actually) to do exactly what these scammers claim.
It’s a SCAM.