W210 Rocketchip tune
 

I send my DME off today to be chipped by Jeff at Rocketchip. Very excited! The only downside is that he doesn't seem to respond to emails, I always have to call and he seems very busy. As long as the product is good, which from research on many other forums it seems to be, then I'll be very happy. Going with his Stage 2 with full emissions delete.

Cool, will be interested to hear how it goes.

Sorry to hear about your experience with Rocketchip. I kind of understand the situation with small business owners. You can be a genius in one area but have no social or customer service skills. I friend of mine owns a performance tuning shop locally and if I call or drop by, he won't give me the time of day but at least he responds fairly quickly to emails.

Away from work though, he's a different man.

Ya, I own an automotive repair shop as well, so I definitely know how that goes. I don't think it's anything to be sorry about though. I've been open 2 years now and am desperately looking for another tech. It's been, for the most part, just me for the last ~6 months or so and I have more work than I can do.

Yep, if you want to get a hold of Jeff you have to call him.

Which tune did you get? Stage 2?

Yessir!

What does he charge? There's a guy in Ireland tuning these now and his prices are pretty reasonable. He's a member on one of the other mb diesel forums. Trying to decide what route I want to go with mine. Eventually will have a built IP and bigger turbo but that's a little bit down the road ;)

For the stage 2 tune with return shipping was $400.


On another note - tracking confirms it was delivered to his porch Saturday (USPS Priority). Curious to see what the turnaround time is and when I see it back.

Takes him maybe an hour and a half of actual work...I watched him do mine.

Oh, I know what it takes to socket am ECU. I just meant from the time he gets my ECU in the mail, until the time I get it back.

Once you get it back, and have a chance to drive around and feel the difference, please do follow up here and let us know your thoughts. I've been thinking of doing the RC2 on my E300 as well.

I've dealt with Jeff probably 12 years ago now, in the VW TDI tuning world. Had several of my TDI's tuned by him. He's a stand-up guy and is highly skilled at his craft, both in the physical ECU modifications (soldering and such) and in developing performance maps for turbo diesel cars. He spends a lot of time travelling to various car club get-togethers and meet-ups, where he does ECU modifications and chip tuning on the spot, and has always been tough to get ahold of because his schedule is so busy.

In the meantime, here's my experience:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/355106-om606-unleashed-my-1998-e300-chip-tuning-experience.html

Looking at your dyno charts (as convoluted as they are), it looks like they both start north of 3k rpm - which is already past peak torque. I bet the off-idle performance is spectacular compared to stock.

Not really. Noticeable, but not a dramatic difference. Before I got my CDI, I owned a 99 E300. So I could compare the 98 and 99.

Ya. My biggest complaint thus far is the off-idle performance and 'lag', which I know is purely emissions based.

You will definitely notice a significant reduction of the lag.

It's Wednesday 11:39AM and the mail man just walked in the front door and handed me my ECU box :D If it's not pouring down rain, I'll be getting this thing plugged back in tonight.

I installed the ECU tonight and went for a drive. Not a noticeable difference in top-end power, but off-idle and throttle control are spectacularly better. Worth every penny. Still won't do a burnout though :(

ASR nanny disabled?

Don't see why it cant burnout. Even the old 300sdl can burnout

VOLUME WARNING

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdRCJjRCKqA

Interestingly, Jeff claims that the tuning is most noticeable on the top end. But I'm with you… I most notice the difference on the low-end.

How do you completely disable it? Pushing the ASR button light sup the light on the dash and 'semi' disables it, but not completely.

Well, hold the brake and even with the ASR button pressed it just returns to idle :(

It can also do power slides :D

You mean ESP, right? You have to jump a couple of pins at the 38-pin port to disable it completely. I believe it's 1 and 6.

Touching brake pedal kills the throttle on these, and the ASR (automatic slip reduction) does not completely disable when its switched off as you have found.
I think if you remove the ABS fuse it should not be able to apply the brakes when the spin is detected, but search the net for more info on this before trying it out.

I have autocrossed my car and I distinctly remember being able to load up the engine with the brake applied prior to launching onto the course.

I think there's a procedure to it, something along the lines of:

Selector in park.
Press ASR button.
Pull selector into another gear than D.

Or some variation on that. Sorry, this was a few years ago, memory fades... :)

Well that would certainly be nice. It's probably a terrible autox car, but I love to autox - running my 328ti next weekend actually.

The top end probably didn't change much because the stock turbo's exhaust housing is tiny and meant for quick spool. So at this point it is probably being held back by backpressure.

Maybe so. For now though, I'm happy. Curious what it gets for fuel mileage once I get some fresh fuel in it, finish the maintenance etc.

However - I'd say overall, this is a positive review of Rocketchip. The price is fair, it did what I wanted, and the turnaround time was extremely quick.

Got the car tagged Monday finally. Was able to confirm yesterday - she definitely rolls coal on throttle, just like I'd asked :D

kendogg.... you stated you went with the Stage 2 and full emissions delete... what exactly gets accomplished with the full emissions delete.... EGR disabled?

As far as I know, yes. I'm not sure what else may be involved or deleted, but EGR was my main concern. She's faster than hell now, rolls coal like I'd asked for and I've developed a boost leak to fix now :)

Nice :) #rollcoal