OM606 Unleashed: My 1998 E300 Chip Tuning Experience
 

For any who might be interested, I thought I would share the results of the chip tuning I just had done on my 98 E300. I'd been researching the matter off and on for the last six months or so. Seemed like I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. I decided to go with Rocketchip in Red Lion, PA, in part because of the consistently stellar reviews Jeff Roberston gets and in part because I could drive the car to him to get it chipped (Red Lion is not too far from my parents).

I decided to go with a Stage 2 tuning. According to everything I could read, that's (a) well within the operating envelope of the engine and (b) the most you can get out of the car without also making other upgrades (exhaust, etc...) which I have no interest in doing. Jeff's claim for a Stage 2 tuning on my car is an increase of 40 hp, 68 ft-lbs. of torque, 6.5 psi of boost, and 3-4 mpg of increased fuel economy (and he claims that his estimates tend to be fairly conservative).

One of the benefits of taking the car to Jeff was being being able to watch him work! Very thorough and professional and precise. But I must admit to being a bit nervous watching him modify a board that would cost $2000 for the part alone for MB to replace!

He put two new sockets on the board, programmed two new chips, and installed them; he gave me back the old chips in case, for any reason, I ever wanted to switch the car back to OEM specs (no chance of that).

Then, the moment of truth. Took it for a test drive and...WOW! I was impressed with the car before, but by comparison everything was smoother, more powerful, and more effortless...especially on the top end.

From PA back to RI I drove it about 400 miles or so and it drove like a dream the whole way. Couldn't be happier with the tuning. Mind you, I could very easily live with an UNtuned E300....but this is a very clear improvement and well worth the effort and expense.

On Friday, I will put it on a dyno for the "after" test (put it on a dyno two weeks ago to get a baseline). Then I will know for certain the actual hp and torque gains and will let you guys know.

Fuel economy wise, I had been getting about 27 mpg mixed, 30 straight highway. It will be a few months before I have reliable numbers.

Anyway, really, really pleased with my chip tuning (obviously).

Will definitely be interested to learn about your follow up dyno results. Looking forward to the future post.

;) :)

Jeff has tuned several of our cars. I've never been anything less than extremely pleased.

Can the OE chips be reworked so they fit in the new sockets?

Sixto
MB-less

Apparently. It sounded like a simple matter but I didn't pursue the specifics. I suppose what he may have done is put the the info from the OE chips on two new chips.

As I mention in another thread, the dyno test this morning didn't work. So, no hard numbers yet....but still thrilled with the performance of the car.

Just curious Shertex, what did that cost you pls?

$385.

^ good price as far as chip tuning goes. Have you done anything with the transmission? I know in earlier cars (like the w124) that was always. Weak point. I feel like bumping power and torque is not going to help it.


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Just got the second set of dyno pulls done. The measured results are a little on the disappointing side: +21 HP, +30 ft. lbs. (as compared to the +40 HP, +68 ft. lbs. that Rocketchip advertised). However, I will say that Jeff at Rocketchip impresses me as being more competent at what he does than the dyno operator does at what he does. So, though the numbers are what they are, my inclination is to give Jeff the benefit of the doubt. Again, in terms of my subjective impressions of the car's performance, the gains seem to be substantial.

Regarding fuel economy, it's probably still too early to tell (since so many variables come into play). But, thus far, I continue to stay in the 27-30 mpg range and thus haven't noted any improvement.

You went up 6.5psi in boost?

That's the claim, at least....but boost was not measured.

Before and after graphs added.

Respectable for a chip. I can't tell you how many hours I worked on my 617 for similar increase. HOURS. DAYS.

On the after pdf, why the dips at 15 and 30 seconds? Did he fall asleep at the wheels?

Winmutt, have you tried to extract any extra power from your 91? I'm happy with mine as is...but would be glad to pursue gains if any are to be had.

At the wheels vs at the crank/adjusted hp is probably the difference


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That makes sense.

The 91 is staying stock. The only mod might be P2 flap replacement.

Those are the most confusing dyno graphs I have ever seen. I think it is due a software setup issue by the dyno shop. Crazy. RPM should be on the bottom (X-axis), power/torque should be the Y-axis.

Anyway, it went from 126 to 147, +21hp at the wheels.

At the crank, this should be roughly 168 to 196, or about +28 at the crank, estimating 25% loss from the funky Mustang dyno (with DynoJets, it's usually around an 18% loss).

The gain is definitely less than claimed, but still respectable. Remember, chip tuner advertised gains are ALWAYS crank numbers, because they are higher. Sure beats having to take an IP apart and twiddle screws inside!

:zorro:

It's been a couple of months and I now have a bit of fuel economy data. I'm not sure I see much improvement. I did recently have a highway run of 31.5 mpg, which is the best I've seen....but I doubt that's statistically significant. Last leg of journey (85-90% highway) was 532 miles and I got 29 mpg.

Part of my problem is that I didn't own the car long enough prior to the chip tune to have solid mpg data. But, as I mentioned before, I think I was getting 27 mixed, 30 highway.

My hope was that I would see 33-34 mpg highway, but I doubt I'll see that.

I will say, though, that I'm thrilled with the performance of the car irrespective of any fuel economy gains. I would do it again in a New York minute even without any mpg improvement. I now have the stock 99 to compare the 98 to and there's a very noticeable difference in smoothness, responsiveness, and power.

Contrary to their claims, I did not expect any increase in economy... your MPG absolutely would remain the same. You may get an economy increase with larger pump elements but that is a TOTALLY different scenario. I get annoyed with chip mfr's making claims that are pure BS, it's all marketing, no substance.

Overall, it sounds like the power gain was worth the expense, and it was painless compared to the OM603 procedure!!

:stuart:

It would be interesting to see if any others who've gotten chip tunes have seen improved fuel economy or not.

FWIW here is the explanation from Evolution Chips in the UK as to why there is/should be an increase:

Q. What about my fuel consumption?
A. With same driving style, improvements in fuel consumption of up to 20% are possible, especially in turbo diesel powered engines. Take a look at our fuel savings calculator to see how fast a remap could pay for itself.

Q. How is extra fuel economy achieved on Turbo Diesels?
A. Normally, when the same driving style is adopted after remapping, the mere fact that you now have more torque output at the flywheel for any given throttle angle will mean that you can make the same physical progress as before whilst using less throttle to do so. You will normally find you can also shift up a gear that little bit earlier, again due to the extra torque, so you are also limiting the overall engine speed that is being used on every journey. For those overtaking manouvers we all occasionally have to make, you will now be more relaxed and confident so again will tend not to be flat to the floor and panicking during such manouvers, thus, using less fuel due to more available power.

When these factors are then allied to the various tweaks we make to pump timing, boost pressure and injection calibration fuel tables you end up with an overall improvement in fuel consumption of up to 20%. Take a look at our fuel savings calculator to see how fast a remap could pay for itself.

Dont forget, we guarantee you will make savings... or your money back.

Another explanation: Chip Tuning advantages for gas mileage and power | MpgEnhance.com

Did he use a hot air gun to unsolder the chip and mount the socket?

From Rocketchip FAQ:

Also to note we use professional hot air soldering, and not messy flux-soaked clamps like our competition. It’s difficult to determine if the chip has been disturbed after we are done soldering. There are also no cold solder joints. It’s very clean and neat. If you’re getting re-chipped and the last chip tuner added gobs of solder, I’ll clean up the board and install a brand new chip. (Note: we only use industrial grade 70ns quality chips, not commercial 120’s.)

More torque or power on a diesel comes from more fuel, not less. Cruising down the road you are using the same amount of power as previously. It's marketing malarky.

:shutup:

Back in 2001 I had a Wettenauer (sp?) chip installed in my 2000 Beetle TDI. They installed a socket into which their chip and the stock chip could be inserted (plug and play). So, you could switch back to stock if you wanted. I never wanted to, but it was comforting to swap back to stock if a trip to the Stealership was required.

I kept and drove that car until earlier this year when I got my 77 300D NA. :D

x2. That reasoning makes sense for gassers and maybe DI but not IDI. It sounds like the chip delivers more fuel for less pedal travel. 20% improvement in mpg has to come from ~20% leaner fuel mixture. How do you achieve that with a chip when the business end of the pump is purely mechanical? Does that chip affect transmission programming? Even so it wouldn't improve highway mpg.

Sixto
MB-less

I cannot fathom how any chip can affect a mechanically injected engine's HP or torque... Above idle...
The 98/99 still uses a mechanically injected engine...

Did the guy do anything to the injectors or pump timing?

It must be playing with the response curve of the IP rack actuator, inhibiting the operation of the EGR, and delaying opening the waste gate.

These are the only points that can influence the operation of this engine. The 606 turbo engine vacuum system is very simple, with two vacuum transducers, one for the EGR and one for the waste gate. No vacuum shutoff (it's electrical), and no transmission vacuum control (this is done by CAN bus to the electronic transmission controller).

No...all he did was replace two chips.

that makes sense.
so likely he shifted around the HP and Torque numbers by changing the defuel map and turbo wastegate dump... I can see that affecting the seat of pants meter...

I don't doubt HP gains which are relatively easily achieved by overriding the conservative boost management. The ECU must be able to influence the full load stop because otherwise swapping a pressure wastegate actuator for the devil's own vacuum actuator is half the battle.

Until there's better information, I'll assume the mpg projections are for their chips in general, not specific to this application.

Sixto
MB-less

Yes - that is basically correct. Also, the ECU can override the "full load stop" on the electronically-governed mechanical pumps. The chip simply maxes out the fuel delivery available from the 6mm elements on the 98-99 E300 / 606.962 IP. And it probably increases boost as well... this would have been easy to measure before/after, bummer I didn't think to ask David to check, oops. Photos of the 606.962 pump internals are here... skip down to photo numbers 15-20, notice the back half is pretty empty.



Now THAT would make sense. Chips on newer gasser cars can modify fuel delivery and ignition timing (amongst other things), and I could understand a potential for a small gain in economy for certain models/engines. But not on an MB diesel with M-type inline pump. I think you nailed it, Sixto, those are boilerplate claims made for all their chips, even including chips that can't do what they claim. Lousy, misleading, inaccurate marketing. At least there's a good power gain.

:chinese2:

EXCEPT that I was given the 3-4 mpg increase in an email responding to an inquiry I made about MY PARTICULAR CAR. So the guy at Rocketchip was not holding that out to me as a generic figure.

I am going to continue to monitor mileage for a couple of months, filling up at the same station. Then I will give him a call to ask some questions.

He was giving a sales pitch with the intent to make a sale, not necessarily provide accurate information about realistic gains. I'd be willing to bet they never actually put a 210.025 on a dyno to measure the actual change, or at best they took info provided by an early customer and used that info.

I went through this discussion with a different chip maker (or two) years ago when they were claiming steep power gains on a 500E. I eventually got a guy who admitted their charts are based on "average gains for that type of motor" and that it was not accurate for the 500E specifically. I was shocked at the honesty, but also don't think they removed their listing/info for the 500E chip (can't remember - they may have).



I'd expect a tap dance about how you are using the power more and that is affecting the MPG numbers, varying fuel quality, AC usage in summer, winter blend fuel with lower BTU, etc, etc. Hope I'm wrong. It will be interesting to see what they response is after you have more data to share.


:stuart:

There's undoubtedly a lot of plausible deniability baked into the whole arrangement. But, if it every occurs to me to be disappointed about no gains in fuel economy, I'll simply stomp the accelerator, feel that smooooooth power, and keep driving. :D

BTW if a customer is dissatisfied for any reason they'll do the next stage up for free.

Ooooo. Is there another stage you can move up to?

:w00t:

Why yes, in fact. There are Stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5! But, in order to benefit from higher stages, there would have to be hardware modifications (e.g. exhaust). So, I don't think I could realize any benefit from a Stage 3 tune. Rocketchip did make the point that Stage 2 is what most people typically do and what they would recommend if I didn't plan on other mods (which I don't).

Eh.... do you have a link to their Stage 3/4/5 claims? All I could find on their website was Stage 2 at +30ps.

That is about the limit of what the stock 6mm elements can deliver. Exhaust, intercooler, and other mods will not increase power unless you have the IP modified at considerable expense (like, $2k plus the 5-6 hours labor to R&R the pump). If they are claiming bigger gains with just a chip and the stock pump, that is definitely out of line.

:blink:

No, I don't. And it may be that, on certain cars, you can only do so many stages. While Rocketchip has apparently done quite a few MB's, their main stock 'n' trade is VW. Do a search and you'll find all sorts of VW owners ranting and raving (and being purely objective, of course ;)).

BTW, those folks on VW boards are FANATICS....not normal folks like us MB owners. haha

FYI here's a thread that claims a fuel economy improvement:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/269087-99-e300-chipped-yee-hah.html

How many data points could he have collected in a month?

Sixto
MB-less

1.5mpg change over a total of 1 month (good catch, Sixto)... in the middle of winter with winter-blend fuel.. is not valid data to me. Also, 27mpg up to 29mpg on a 75mph freeway cruise over 500 miles? Seems terrible to me, that car should be mid-30's under those conditions. I can get 28-30 from my old OM603 without the benefit of overdrive tranny!!

:shutup: :shutup: :shutup:

I don't know that mid 30's mpg is realistic for these cars....although I know several claim to get that. I think the EPA figure of 32 for the 99, 31 for the 98 (why the difference, I don't know) is pretty realistic.

Anyone have a link to official EPA data?

The 210.025 should easily do mid-30's under long-range cruise conditions, at least on non-enviro-friendly low-BTU fuel. The 606 is more efficient than the 603, and the overdrive tranny helps, and the 6mm elements help. I've gotten 32mpg peak from my 124.133 with "good" fuel (generally peaks at 28 with the crap fuel we get now) and there is no way MB would have 15 years of development to get worse economy.

Besides engine/vehicle condition, fuel variability is one of the biggest factors for MPG differences on MB diesels. IMNSHO, anyway. It's also about the most difficult item to isolate... took me years to figure it out on my cars. Seems to vary between various regions in the nor'west. Not sure what it's like where you live. I have gotten the good stuff in Utah and certain areas of Nevada and Oregon, but we can't get it in Boise anymore, and California hasn't had the good stuff for over a decade now.

:balloon2:

We've had a 1998 and a 1999 W210 diesel. Neither car ever showed in excess of 31.5mpg on the road.


(Wasn't the 1999 car EPA-rated at some nonsense like 37mpg?)

Fuel Economy of the 1998 Mercedes-Benz E300 Turbodiesel

Fuel Economy of the 1999 Mercedes-Benz E300 Turbodiesel