Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good?

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Mon 11 Jan 2010 11:42
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - Freewheel
I'm considering one of these chips' from Ebay, as a cheap non invasive tuning fix. They all offer an item which seems to clip in line with your diesel HDi common rail injector, and claim to take most Peugeot Citroen (and BMW, and Ford HDi's) 110hp HDi up to 130hp, for somewhere in the region of £85-£100.

Anyone got any experience of these? Here is a link to several on Ebay now, under search term 'HDI tuning Citroen'.

BTW: Ive got the Citroen Synergie 2.0 HDi 2000 W reg, with 135k on the clock, which you can see here: citroensynergie.wordpress.com/

bit.ly/4XOoy0 (item no:
bit.ly/6V0Cgr (item no: 120441943597)
bit.ly/8LwioA (item no: 120442949918)

Thanks!

Edited by Pugugly on 11/01/2010 at 12:00

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Mon 11 Jan 2010 11:58
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - bristol01
I'd avoid, but that's me being cautious and suspicious of such modifications. How would it impact upon your insurance premium, for example?
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 12:14
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - Freewheel
Well, between you and me, I don't think I'd tell my insurance company unless I was sure I was going to leave it on the car. For that kind of money it's worth buying and trying in my opinion, but probably like you I'm cautious, and wanted to see if anyone had tried these HDI tuning thingies. Let's see if anyone else has got experience? Or maybe no-one has ever been brave enough to try one??
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 12:57
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - bristol01
I've got a Verso 2.2D and you can get a chip to boost the power from 134 to about 168bhp, IIRC. These were discussed on the Toyota Owners' Club site a while back so there may be similar discussions on a Citroen equivalent, if one exists.

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Mon 11 Jan 2010 12:03
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - maz64
FWIW the seller in your 1st link appears to have a 'proper' website
www.tdi-tuning.co.uk/
whereas I couldn't spot one for kbtv with a quick search.
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 12:21
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - Freewheel
Good call. Always feel a bit safer with a real website and a normal UK dialling code.

They have 2 testimonials on the website, one mentions which car this chip was fitted to:

bit.ly/8iEt0l

I quote:

"Great Product!
Just fitted to my 2002 Ford Mondeo TDCI with over 200,000 miles on it with great results, Found the lost power from a high mileage engine TOP PRODUCT!!!
Richard from Derby

Wow!
This product really works! I was very optimistic about the product but I decided to give it a go and now the torque and bhp is up and I'm finding myself changing gears earlier. Also mpg has vastly improve. I fully recomend it to anyone wanting improved performance and save money.
Romulo Golez, Cornwall"

So it's a safer bet than the website-less other products which are probably shipped out from under someones bed. I'd still love some real-life Honest John opinion from anyone using a similiar product on their own HDI vehicle.
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 12:56
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - maz64
They have 2 testimonials on the website one mentions which car this chip was fitted
to:


And for all we know they might have had 2000 letters of complaint.

I've made the mistake of trusting good reviews on an electronics website. When I bought the allegedly good product, and it wasn't, I posted a not-so-good (but fair) review. It never appeared.
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 13:00
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - maz64
BTW chipping info/links on this site:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=17
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 13:26
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - Mick Snutz
Google 'Diesel Bob'. Very useful info for all things dieselly
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Mon 11 Jan 2010 14:09
Ebay-Cheap HDI tuning chips, avoid or good? - craig-pd130

Not an HDI tuning module, but I bought a similar cheap plug-in tuning box for my old Passat 130 TDI.

The box exploited the well-documented "resistor in the fuel temperature sensor" trick that's common to the VAG 1.9 PD motors, which fools the ECU into thinking the fuel is hot, therefore less dense, so it injects a greater volume of fuel per cycle.

It was £18 from an eBay vendor, if I remember correctly. It did give a useful boost in torque (for example, the 40-60mph interval in 4th gear was nearly 10% quicker) and had no noticeable impact on economy.

I ran it for about 8,000 miles but eventually removed it, because it made the throttle hypersensitive at low rpm / small 'openings', which made town traffic tiresome.

But it was fun and well worth the money, in my view. My insurance premium didn't increase, I told them it was a plug-in economy module.

I'd suggest it's worth knowing exactly how the module you plan to fit actually works .... some plug into the fuel pressure sensor on the fuel rail and increase the output of the high-pressure pump, further loading an already highly stressed component.
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